₦airaland Forum

Neuer is a BEAST. See save brah

Thiago to Xabi. 2-0

Thiago omo oro

chic2pimp:
Lool... The league is a whole. If you can survive the rigorous demands of the Premier league, you can pretty much cope in any league in the world.

Again there is a marked difference between a player's lack of ability and the demands of the league.

If Bolasie plays even 10 games a season will he match Robben? Abeg let's leave story for Puff daddy

chic2pimp:
100%. Not seen a Serie A or a Bundesliga game live so I can say for certain regarding those leagues however as someone who has watched games at both the Bernabeu and the Nou Camp, I totally agree with this statement. The pace of the game in spain is sedate. It's more of a thinking man's game in that part of the world.

Who intensity don epp?

Nihilist:
Heavier loads where? How?

Portuguese league where there were only 16 teams in the league. Or German league where there are only 18 teams and still get a 1 month winter break? Or Italian league that is so slow that Old footballers go there to shine?

In terms of intensity, England is the most physically demanding country to play in. And we haven't even mentioned the domestic cups. Add European duties to it and you will realise that those guys you mentioned were relatively protected from the physical abuse their colleagues in EPL get.

Aaron Lennon was never the subject of significant hype even when he was at leeds. Bar Ledley King, not a single one of those players has/had played enough to say they lacked ability. Infact they are\were all still in the 'promising stages' of their careers when Injuries started wracking their bodies.

Rodwell for example was only 18 or 19 when he had the first of his deadly injuries and has been suffering ever since. Only Last year he suffered 9 separate injuries. At one point, he was a client of your Bayern Doctor and recieved 50 injections in 5 days! EPL rigours no be beans bro.

All the players I listed combined European duties with their league games so I am not just talking of local matches/champions here. When I say heavier loads I know what I am talking about. The expectation from the players I listed above is far different from the sankwa players like Rodwell, Wilshere, Chamberlain, Welbeck e.t.c

I'm sure if we were to peruse their appearances you would see that rigor is not even a valid excuse as most of them did not even make the required appearances.

Rodwell is an average joe. Even when fit there is no evidence to suggest he possesses any sort of quality when compared to his continental contemporaries.

Draxler and Barkley are the same age. That says it all really

What I am trying to ascertain now is the connection between the EPL's intensity and a glaring lack of ability with these players

Nihilist:
Relatively few English players play 1st team football in EPL. Outside of the Top 6, the English footballers in the EPL tend to be one-dimensional, kick and follow stamina types, who due to their relative lack of talent were not thrust into EPL football straight away, but had to go and learn their work in the lower leagues and then slowly work their way up. That lack of talent meant that they weren't heavily relied on and expected to play every game too early in their careers which allowed their bodies to slowly acclimatise to the rigours of professional football over time.

The truly talented kids get rushed into the first team very early, and get played a lot - too much sef, and their bodies begin to suffer. Rooney is one good example, he's only 31 but looks and plays like he's 40, no surprise when he's been playing EPL ball since the age of 16. Owens Michael and Hargreaves, Ledley King, Kieron Dyer and Jermaine Jenas, Danny Welbeck, Jack Rodwell, Jack Wilshere and even Oxlade-Chamberlain are examples of this.

Obviously the likes of Lampard and Gerrard are examples of English players who were able to maintain their athleticsm, inteligence and technique into old age, but these guys are exceptions.

Almost every young England player that generates significant hype is guaranteed to break from overuse. Just look at Harry Kane, the injury he just came back from gave him his first real break from Football in almost 3 years!

Lol wetin Hargreaves dey do for your list? That's a Bayern product

The likes of Jenas, Rodwell, Dyer, Lennon, Chamberlain, King and Wilshere have primarily their lack of ability to blame before we start to consider injuries.

The likes of Ronaldo, Müller, Kroos, Götze, Neymar, Pogba, Alaba, Varane, Draxler e.t.c were not Barkley, Rodwell or Wilshere's age and were carrying significantly heavier loads when they started running things

Nihilist:
At all.

The vast majority of the English talents we've seen recently, never truly get to reach their potential because their bodies can't cope with the demands of EPL football. They don't even get far enough to develop their brains to world class level because their bodies break down partly due to the intensity of the league and partly due to the way the clubs throw them into the deep end way too soon.

Barkley and Sterling are the only young English talents in recent years who seem to have the required athleticism and technique to go far in the game. Sterling at least seems to be learning under Pep. Barkley is just a typical golugo from Liverpool, and then dey dull gaan for that zone.

Are you sure about this? From what I have seen thus far a lot of them cope pretty well with the speed and intense kick and follow pattern that is rife in the league. The problem lies with the skill position players who lack the basic technique and necessary vision to interpret their roles. See what you highlighted about Barkley for instance. A Toni Kroos on crutches would never complete less than 50% of his passes, even Julian Draxler or his mates in Spain

Infact it is only in England that players like Barkley and Sterling can be described as technical.

Nihilist:
That Barkley guy is super talented. He is fast, strong and blessed with great technique. Unfortunately he is restrained from achieving true greatness by the upper limit of his intellect.

Quite simply, that almost nigga is too dumb to be able to harness his considerable abilities for good. It doesn't matter if a computer has 100gig of RAM physically installed, if it has a 32 bit OS running on it, it will never be able to use more than 4gig of RAM.

Barkley is a 32 bit footballer.

You do know this applies to 90% of English players over the last 40-50 odd years

First vs 2nd. No better way to end the year. And boy who woulda thunk it

Time to know if RB are for real. As for me there are 3 guys we need to watch out for. Timo Werner (best u-21 player in Europe atm IMO) Naby Keita and Emil Forsberg.

Still think our big game experience and home advantage would see us through but you never know

Nihilist:
See below



I mean what do you wan't from Lukaku when the 'creative' midfielder can't pass a ball to save his life. What do you want the Striker to do?

Its like they have a conveyor belt that keeps streaming mediocre players in that England ad infinitum. Na this Barkley dey do shakara for Nigeria. ROTFLOL

Havilah93:
@Chelseahq

#Chelsea have an offer of £42million on
the table to tempt Bayern Munich
midfielder Arturo Vidal to move to
Stamford Bridge. [Express]
7:27 PM - 20 Dec 2016
132 162

Put extra £8m make e for be round figure. We go even chip in Alonso so he can reunite with his distant relative already at Chelsea

I hope the Süle rumors are true. He and Jeremy Toljan were the two guys I was hoping Bayern go for after watching them at the Rio Olympics.

I am still wondering why we gave Rafinha an extension. I'm sure Alonso is next. Smh

Boa-TANK had a successful pectoral operation. Most likely out for 6 weeks.

Debroslink:
Please is the full season 3 out?

Tey tey nau. Even our Alaba market brethren should have it by now

Who is the better GHOST? Like for Özil, Share for James St Patrick

Achikolo.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h01_dEXLqsk

Can't the Mavs go for Nerlens Noel? Injury prone but at least young and with a higher upside than Bogut

raumdeuter:
You know Ancelotti loves his geriatrics

This benching I don't even understand. Let's watch and observe
Anyways I am hearing Robben might be fit for RB Leipzig

Portlan. The D is silent

What does Kimmich have to do to get a start yo?

Opelope Costa

Roland17:
In your opinion as a Mavs fan, what direction should your Mavs be headed? Rebuilding with draft picks or Free agency?

Dirk does not want to be a part of a rebuild, however, he has missed 21 games this games and has not been healthy enough to contribute. The roaster lacks the depth in quality to compete in the West.

Rick Carlisle remains one of my favorite coaches in the league especially during the run to the championship. However, he is working with little or nothing at the moment.

I don't really know tbh. The Mavs aren't exactly a free agent destination but on the other hand the Front office's draft record has been atrocious. You have to go back to Josh Howard in 2003 for the last time the Mavs drafted a guy that made an all-star game.

What Dirk wants at this point is irrelevant if he is not even going to be healthy enough to contribute. I don't think any team would take him with his salary anyway.

A full blown rebuild might be the only way out. I don't know who in their right mind would expect the Mavs to compete with a plodding perma-crock like Bogut at Center for example

Revisionist I know but Iggy should be going for the jam there not a layup. JR or not

Na 21st we go know who is who. Bayern vs Leipzig

Robben likely out for tomorrow

afrodoc2:
Dembele is the truth. Can't think of any teenager in Europe at his level right now.

None. Dembouz is a problem

SmooshCHN:
Top memes this week..

Lmao. To be fair to Lebron he has racked a lot of miles the last 5 years

Roland17:
It is imperative to remind this generation of NBA players and some fans led by Queen James that after 2 years (second time away) of retirement 36-38, Jordan returned to the game aged 39 and joined the Wizards.

The most interesting part of this story is the fact that he played all 82 games for the Wizards in his 2 seasons with the Wizards.

During his first season with the Wizards Jordan averaged 22.9 PPG, 5.7 RPG, 5.2 APG, and 1.4 SPG.

Second season aged 40 he averaged 20.0 PPG, 6.1 RPG, 3.8 APG, and 1.5 SPG.

Can anyone imagine if he never took breaks from the game? his numbers would have been mythical.

Today, players take rest from games and tell fans "I HAVE PAYED MY DUES".

Kindly retire and spare your followers the anguish of chasing a ghost who keeps running even after being retired.

Its just a phucking insult to compare them both. Na Golden State I blame for this nonsense sha.

Jordan needed barely 12 years to go 6-0

nairamaniac:
well, personal opinion to say you would place kobe ahead of Shaq, magic and kareem. For the fact that kobe won 2 championships with mediocre players as compared to the rest that did with Hall of famers doesn't make kobe superior to the others.
You can use 2 years/2 seasons of accomplishments of one player to compare an entire careers of another.
I didn't have just the championships in mind when I compared them.

This East to West competitive disparity is a bit too exaggerated at times.

LeBron knocked out pistons and nets enroute to finals 2007 with a very weak cavs. The nets had vince Carter and Jason kidd still in top-form. Pistons had Hamilton, chauncy billups and rasheed Wallace still playing great.
U making it sound like LeBron, cos he's in the East had an easy ride to the finals.

I version had same challenges leading phily to the finals. The whole world would remember all the 76ers series went to the wire. I think there all went to either game 5's or game 7's.

I don't think any individual player in the history of the game has pushed his team that far to the finals like Iverson did.

I would place the West to be much weaker than the east that particular season, because lakers if I remember well sweet all their opponents to the finals. At worst, they lost one game.

That shade/tease u dropped on LeBron "running to team up with all stars to win", has been taken kind of far.

There's hardly a way I would defend this without we falling back to the stale-issue of durant running from okc to team up with warriors.
We have both traded opinions about that. And we both still stay firmly by them.

Kareem stands out because of his pts and longevity but my goodness those Lakers were like the Harlem Globetrotters. This is why I lowkey respect Isiah Thomas though I can't stand the ninja. Abeg just bone that Shaq, Kobe showed he didn't need him by winning the last two rings while Shaq was a passenger with D.Wade's Heat.

It is not exaggerated. We can do a record and ring count post Jordan. How many times have we seen an #8 seed in the West beat a #1 seed? The Spurs that handed the Heat a gentleman's sweep in 14 needed 7 games to beat the #8 seed Mavs. The #8 seed Mavs were 49-33. They woulda been 3rd if they played in the East. 3rd!

Jason Kidd was in top form at 34? O ga oo! Beating the Pistons was a feat but the Heat had already knocked them off their perch. They were on their last legs and faded to irrelevance after the 08 season

The weaker what? Hahaha go and look up the Sacramento Kings, Utah Jazz, Blazers never mind the Spurs. The Western Conference was the real Finals. For 5 straight years after M.J's second retirement if you win for West they might as well hand you the Title. Nobody from the East even forced a Game 7

Abeg the guy ran to play with stars twice. No point bringing up Durant. He is not being compared to M.J neither did ESPN rank him number 3. This guy teamed up with Wade and Bosh in their prime and ran to pair up with younger guys the minute he detected their powers were waning

Donlittle:
Btw, Garbage points is the points you put up in the fourth quarter while the game is out of reach, @A40 i get am right?

You just might have raised a good point. I remember that Finals had the highest pts differential in Finals history

chic2pimp:
RIP CRAIG SAGER!

Just a terrible terrible year all round on pretty much everything. Bless his soul

Donlittle:
draymond green don't like it though, it seem

Lol I want to wring that díck snapping troglodyte's neck for costing me a cool $250 last night. He needs to STFU

birdman:
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/ex-nba-all-star-steve-francis-turned-himself-in-for-a-felony-burglary-charge-170323839.html

stevefranchise. words fail me

Loool bloody hell. Steve Francis? Omo situation ti critical

nairamaniac:
I had to go back memory lane to see if LeBron was really as bad as u insinuated against Kawhi. Yeah James was kawhi's primary marker considering they are both small forwards. But with the way spurs play, anyone would loose his primary marked-opponent more than half the time.

I also had to do a tiny research to compare the scoring stats if both James and leonard thru that series.

GAME 1: james 25points - Kawhi 9points

GAME 2: James 25points - Kawhi 9points

GAME 3: james 22points - Kawhi 29points

GAME 4: james 24 points - Kawhi 20points

GAME 5: james 31 points - kawhi 23points.

All these happened with James attracting more double - teams and tripple-teams than any player on both sides.

As you can see, Kawhi didn't exactly oppress James thru that series as most of you try to paint it. I want to believe because spurs won that series and the championship hence your wrong view of how they fared against themselves.
If by chance Miami had won that series with exactly the same stats head to head between LeBron and Kawhi, I swear with my life, most of you who rate and compare primarily by RINGS wouldn't have sed "how did Kawhi put up such an efficient whatever under jade's watch".

Braaah ball movement is not an excuse for your man to shoot 61.7% from the field

Kawhi was not a volume scorer at the time so I don't even understand the excuse you are cooking here. I didn't see the Spurs double teaming or triple teaming Lebron. It was mostly Kawhi and Green doing the guarding for the most part. With Rashard Lewis, Ray Allen and Chris Bosh on the team double teaming or triple teaming woulda been a deathwish.

Its not merely winning rings and no one expected Kawhi to dominate. He was in his 2nd or 3rd year in the league.

The koko here is a guy playing your position averaged 18pts on 61 percent shooting. That is a number even Centers would blush at. It means if he took shots at a higher clip he would most likely match Lebron's numbers. I'm sure that's one of what the voters saw and made him Finals MVP