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United States10252 Posts
On May 24 2025 05:39 Bacillus wrote:
How do you set up Wirtz if he goes to Liverpool? I saw somebody suggesting him as a Firmino-style false 9. Does that make sense or do you just set him up as central attacking midfield and use MacAllister, Szobo and co as central midfielders?
There are two options: you either go with Wirtz over Diaz as your false 9 and interchange Diaz/Gakpo on the LW. You would play a similar 4-2-4 press out of possession while in possession it becomes a 4-diamond-2 with your wingers out wide and try to overload the midfield with good passers like Macca and Wirtz acting as the central focal point of the build up.
The other option is simply sub out Szobo for Wirtz and keep Diaz as the false 9 and play similar style football to how we currently play.
My personal preference would be to play Wirtz as the false 9. I think Diaz is great and has shown he can play up there, but Wirtz is going to be so much more lethal in that role dropping back to fill out the midfield and linkup while having even more creativity than Diaz who's mostly just a spam dribbles then backpass or lose the ball type of player. Plus Wirtz's gravity centrally compared to Diaz who doesn't have that sort of gravity will open up more angles for the wingers to score goals or slip in behind the lines as well. If we could get Wirtz, it would be amazing and add so much depth to our squad, as Gakpo and Diaz would finally interchange rather than play together, in addition to having even more midfield options to utilize.
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Dropping Szobo and buying Wirtz would be financially such a big player move if Liverpool did it
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I like Szoboslai but Wirtz is def. an improvement. Would be cool if both would somehow fit.
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Same I love Szobo and McAllister but I dont think you can fit all 3 in a team
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Northern Ireland26221 Posts
Just play Wirtz as a 10 with a bit of license to roam and it works grand
He had a bit of a dip but it doesn’t really matter where you deploy Cole Palmer, he’s still gonna do Cole Palmer things, even if sometimes he’s notionally deployed off the flanks.
Szobozlai as much as he has attacking qualities, he’s not some Riquelme type, he absolutely works his arse off.
I think you can keep that midfield 3 together and still accommodate Wirtz in the same side.
And I think it’d be a super interesting signing. I can’t really think of the last time Liverpool signed a bona fide superstar.
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Arsenal women won the Champions League woohoooo
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51506 Posts
On May 25 2025 10:16 sharkie wrote:
Arsenal women won the Champions League woohoooo
incredible turnaround from slegers. eidvall proven a total fraud. never thought this arsenal side would make the finals let alone win it.
reminder that this barcelona side swept chelsea (wsl champions) 8-2 aggregate in the semi-finals as well and have won the past two uwcl's.
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Wow aston villa lose champions league because rules suck
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Northern Ireland26221 Posts
One for us Brits I guess but that was a quality send off for Gary Lineker
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Can someone explain why so many players have bandages on their hands? There's around 3-4 of them in Barcelona's starting 11. ;o
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Ten Hag seems to go to Leverkusen. Interesting how this is going to work out.
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If Ten Haag will stay in top4 with Leverkusen (which will be difficult with all the outgoings especially Wirtz) then ManUtd really is just a poisoned swamp
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ten hag could finish in the bottom 4 and it still wouldnt change the fact that united is a mess. we need divine intervention at this point
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On May 26 2025 03:23 sharkie wrote:
Wow aston villa lose champions league because rules suck
Idk I think Martinez taking out an opposition player, getting an inarguable red and leaving his team a man down for a full half was significantly more impactful than the goal being disallowed
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the hilarious part is hojlund wouldnt even have scored that goal if martinez stayed on his feet lol
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Northern Ireland26221 Posts
On May 26 2025 21:10 DropBear wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2025 03:23 sharkie wrote:
Wow aston villa lose champions league because rules suck Idk I think Martinez taking out an opposition player, getting an inarguable red and leaving his team a man down for a full half was significantly more impactful than the goal being disallowed
Sharkie’s takes are usually on the money so I dunno why he’s so off here.
Sucks for Villa to miss out, equally I think outside of the money and the big nights for the fans, on a football side it’s not too catastrophic.
It’s only the first season since CL teams didn’t drop into the Europa, maybe an aberrant season but if two teams as patchy as Man United and Spurs can contest the Europa final, surely Villa would fancy their chances of winning it?
Indeed, it was partly them doing so well in the CL that stopped them qualifying. They struggled to juggle, their record in the Prem games immediately before or after European fixtures wasn’t good. They only got close from a huge late surge in the league when they were out of Europe.
It’s too competitive a league to do both for most clubs. Really only Liverpool and Man City have had campaigns where they’re in the mix in both.
We were already getting there anyway, but with the extra games now it really feels unless you have a considerable quality gap to your opposition it’s getting too tough to do both
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On May 26 2025 21:10 DropBear wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2025 03:23 sharkie wrote:
Wow aston villa lose champions league because rules suck Idk I think Martinez taking out an opposition player, getting an inarguable red and leaving his team a man down for a full half was significantly more impactful than the goal being disallowed
I believe Astona Villa would have beaten ManUtd if the goal stood. Things like that always rattles teams. Obv. Martinez is an idiot but ManUtd isn't strong enough to beat Astona Villa even 11 vs 10 usually
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Northern Ireland26221 Posts
United are quite shit, but it’s a tough league and there’s relatively few easy games. And even relatively easy games on paper become tough if you’re a man down for half the game.
Villa were only in the picture because Newcastle lost at Everton, which, alongside Villa beating United I had as my ‘sure things’ in terms of the CL race in this last round. Felt Chelsea/Forest could go either way, and Fulham might give Man City issues.
It’s a bad call for sure, equally to fix it we need even more VAR, and it applied more than we already have. Not something I actually personally mind, but many fans complain about it incessantly
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Northern Ireland26221 Posts
www.bbc.co.uk
Fuck me that sucks. Thoughts to everyone affected
I’m sure there will be less outrage because it was a white bloke rather than a brown person, but quelle surprise
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On May 27 2025 07:33 sharkie wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2025 21:10 DropBear wrote:On May 26 2025 03:23 sharkie wrote:
Wow aston villa lose champions league because rules suck Idk I think Martinez taking out an opposition player, getting an inarguable red and leaving his team a man down for a full half was significantly more impactful than the goal being disallowed I believe Astona Villa would have beaten ManUtd if the goal stood. Things like that always rattles teams. Obv. Martinez is an idiot but ManUtd isn't strong enough to beat Astona Villa even 11 vs 10 usually
even before martinez got sent off villa was getting absolutely dominated by united. so much that i was thinking we had our best ever 45mins this season in the first half of the last game. 2nd half was a walk in the park obviously with a man up. villa absolutely didnt deserve to get anything from that game for making us look as good as we did
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EPT
