₦airaland Forum

hoopLA:
Please I believe you are more sensible than that thing pretending to be a human being.
If you say Zabaletta and co couldn't cut it, that is fine. But I don't agree that their ages alone were responsible for City's decline. The same back line had 29 year old Otamendi and a 31 year old Kompany. So why weren't they replaced? Especially Kompany who had been showing signs of being physically unreliable for years before Pep arrived.
And why was Pep basically wanking over a34 year old Alves and has had a failed bid for a 29 year old Evans in the same summer?

Just asking

Otamendi and Kompany are centrebacks not fullbacks that have to act as auxiliary wingers.

Zabaleta in his prime was a beast and arguably one of the best full backs in the league. See what happened when martial and rashford caught him in a dark alleyway last weekend. Do you expect Pep to go far with 4(Zaba, Sagna, Kolarov, Clichy) of those players in his first team?

hoopLA:
What you have said is a fact. Arguing against it means one is either stupid or tone deaf.

But my gripe is that proponents of this over 30 thing don't want to accept that those who are that age can actually contribute meaningfully.

For the record, I brought those sports just to show that it is not restricted to just football alone. And as start and stop a game as basketball is, it is almost as intense physically, if not as intense, as football. You might want to disagree.But that is another argument for another day.

For what it's worth, I don't think Dayo ever said players over 30 can't contribute meaningfully. His team last season still relied heavily on a small group of pensioners to deliver the goods. What he was pointing out is that on the balance of things, the performance hit associated with old players in football can have a significant effect on a team's title chances. It's a fact. Even at Chelsea, the official policy is that players over 30 years old only get offered 1 year contracts.

And with all due respect, the physical exertion involved in basketball comes nowhere close to what you get in football.

Take Romelu Lukaku for example, who is widely regardely to be a lazy runner off the ball, a somewhat earned reputation in fact, as he registered the least average distance covered for strikers last season with 5.4 miles

Conversely the NBA player that covered the most distance per game last season was Zach Lavine with 2.69 miles


When the laziest striker in EPL is running double the distance of the Hardest Working Runner in NBA, there's definitely a huge toll on the body.

If people like Oliver Kahn can drag their sides to World Cup finals single handedly and win Golden Balls, or Zidane and Cannavaro can be both gold and silver ball winners in the same World Cup, with the latter even winning WPOTY, or people like Zlatan can hit nearly 30 goals in a season then I'm not sure what dayo's point is when he blames City's fortunes on an ageing defense last season

Goal keepers and centrebacks don't run as much. Plus these are outliers anyway. The cold hard fact is that once you turn 26 as a footballer, you're already fighting a losing battle with your body. Once you turn 30 and have to play in a physically demanding team like a Pep side, you have very little chance of success.

Look at Zabaleta on Sunday for another example of what we're talking about.

diggz:
I do agree with certain aspects of your post however I will need to address the areas of your post I don't agree with later today.

Kindly say yes or no to this qxn pls.....

Do you think Pep failed to win a single trophy last season solely due to the age of his players? YES or NO please...

Man City's weakest unit was their defence. Kompany was injured most of the season, and Pep was often forced to play Kolarov, Sagna and Clichy in a 4 man defence.

Of course, there are several reasons why Pep failed, but age of the players he had was definitely a key reason.

diggz:
Good points raised however what age brackets are you referring to as youths here?

There's a reason why your peak in football is widely regarded as being between 26-28 as an outfield player.

Once you hit 29, you're old. Once you hit 30 as a winger or speedy striker, you're already on your way to the scrap heap. Target men strikers, Defensive Midfielders and Centrebacks who don't have to run as much can last till 33-34 max. Then you have the consummate professionals with good genetics like Lahm, Ororo, Giggs, Lampard, and Ibra who can eke out a decent level of performance before finding their way to America.

Football at coal tar level is brutal on the body let alone football , let alone top level. Ask Batistuta why he once asked a doctor to amputate his legs, or Crespo that has almost no cartilage left in his knee. Just look at Rooney or Zabaleta with white hairs in their beard and nothing left naturally on their chrome domes - them never even reach 35 sef.

hoopLA:
I am not discounting the age thing.
But when someone irresponsibly uses it as basis for poor performance then that is just wrong.
I gave examples of not one but two title winning sides [Man united 2011 and 2013] that had three of its regular starting four at age 30 or over. And my point is that there are several existing and previous scenarios where players over 30 have given above average performances. Not just in football but sport in general.

In basketball, the Chicago Bulls from 95-98 were near the oldest side in the NBA. Michael Jordan at age 35 in 98 not only won an NBA title that year, he was MVP both in the regular season and the finals.
LeBron JAMES is 32,and he averaged a triple double in this years finals. If you are a basketball aficionado you will know what this means statistically. Up till 2017 it had never been done until LeBron.

In tennis, where is Roger Federer getting the strength to win two of the three grand slams already contested for this year?

You mentioned Usain bolt, but he lost the 100m final to a35 year oldJustin Gatlin. And I'm pretty confident that athletics is the place you don't want to go if you're looking for how to prove that older athletes can't cope with competition. Same for boxing where people like Bernard Hopkins were winning world titles into their forties.Ditto for Floyd mayweather who won world titles in his 30s

You have a solid point about their performances as they age but when someone says that is the primary reason for a teams failure, I won't buy it. It's just lazy.

I have tried to make the point about Pep signing rubbish players last season as well as his early treatment of City stalwarts prior to his arrival as reasons for his disappointing season last term.
But no, Clichy Sagna and Zabaletta being over 30 is why Pep went trophiless.
Yet the same City has a 29 year old Otamendi, a 32 year old Kompany still on their books, and reportedly made a bid for a 29 year old Jonny Evans.
How do you marry that with his argument that "football is for young people"?

You can't compare basketball or athletics to football sorry.

The impact on the body is not the same. Not even close.

Basketball is a start and stop game by default , and that's not even factoring in 4 breaks in play, and numerous time outs. And they only play for 48 minutes.

100m athletic race is done in 10 seconds.

Don't compare people who run 10km per game to someone that rims 4km per game.

By default footballers in the EPL do at least double the work of Basketballers and almost 10000% of what 100m sprinters do, with far fewer breaks.

Keep your comparison to football only.

And for the record, i agree 100% football is a young man's game. Especially in this day and age. Some players with great genetics and a strict diet and physical regimen can delay the process - but to compete at the top level where city is, ultimately youth is a key factor.

"It is great," Conte joked, when asked about the[Costa's] interview. "I can tell you that everyone who works in Chelsea knows very well what happened with him last season. It's funny, this interview.




"I'm not interested to continue this issue. He is the past."

Cant see how Costa is not the loser here. Surely by now he must realise that he has no leverage on the club

"A meeting of horned animals was called, the snail showed up"

Man came swinging with bars straight from the council of tribal elders

Mentions:
Do wild animals get married? That brain dead dunce runs around this forum looking for girls that have a lower self worth than his mother, same poor taste his father has, he inherited.

Cobhams please see to it that this package is delivered to it's rightful owner.

diggz:
Emaprince na wickedt person

As in too bad.

Oboi see casting.

Cockblocking level 99

What does World Class mean?

And how is Pogba world class? Because he won the league with the one team in a one team league? Or because he won a Europa league trophy that Manyoo manager is on record stating is not a high calibre competition?

Even his haircuts gaan are not even world class sef. So what's world class about Pogba?

diggz:
Fvcking Costa

www.express.co.uk/sport/football/842204/Chelsea-Transfer-News-Juventus-Alex-Sandro-Virgil-van-Dijk-Diego-Costa-Everton/amp

That guy is in Spain lighting his cigar from the flames of the bridges burning behind him.

Dude has been reportedly fined 300k and didn't even flinch.

He's not coming back.

pamcode:
Nice write up especially coming on a day youths are receiving their A - level results. Do young footballers still go to normal schools or they attend special schools?

Depends.

I think clubs like United and City have classrooms within the training complex where their youth players get educated.

Other clubs help their kids get into college ( like ss3/pre-degree equivalent).

I don't know what the setup is like at Chelsea though.

Interesting Article on Youth Football.

Following his lovely free-kick on his Champions League debut, Trent Alexander-Arnold is not only the best footballer you can name with a surname for a first name and two first names for a surname, but has also announced himself definitely as One To Watch, a Prospect For The Future.

Only…what does that mean?

This is changing a little, but it has long been the pattern that following England’s latest (inevitably humbling) exit from a major tournament, we start hypothesising about what the national team might look like in two, four or eight years, and invariably we decide that there aren’t enough talented youngsters coming through. Oh what a terrible crisis we’re in, how did we get here, there’s too many foreigners, yes we demanded our clubs sign the foreigners but shut up.

Here’s the thing, though. Let’s say for the sake of argument there is an absolutely wonderful generation of players currently ploughing away in the big club academies. This is a group of players who will take England to back-to-back World Cup victories in 2024 and 2028. They lose in the final of Euro 2026 only on penalties, to Germany, because even in utopian visions of the future there are some facts of life you simply cannot change. They go down as one of the greatest international sides of all time. After decades of knowing nothing but how to tear down the national team, the tabloids are stunned into silent confusion, their back pages blank.

Here’s the question: at what point over the next seven to ten years do you think we would become aware that we have a really sodding wonderful team on our hands? Would we know it when we saw it?

My suspicion is we’d probably only realise a few months before at best, possibly only once the tournament itself reaches the knock-out stages.

Why? A host of reasons. Because youth football is a poor indicator of future success; because successful squads tend to span a whole range of ages (at least two members of that 2024 side must already be 25 years old); but mostly because with a few once-in-a-generation exceptions, it is nearly impossible to see really, really good individuals coming, let alone a whole squadsworth of them. That’s a valid unit of measurement, right?

Sometimes it seems like when some people say there are ‘no youngsters’ coming through, what they mean is that we’ve only had one Marcus Rashford in the last 18 months, rather than six. But players like the Manchester United forward are the exception, rather than the rule. A teenager absolutely exploding into superstardom in their teenage years happens so seldom that it still provokes a flurry of media coverage every time.

These are the kinds of player whose arrival is so impactful that you know, instantly, they are going to be huge stars, who even rival fans can’t wait to see turn out for the national team. Michael Owen, Wayne Rooney, Raheem Sterling and Rashford are the big British examples from the past 20 years.

By definition, you don’t see these teenage sensations coming: they’re like being smacked around the back of the head with a phone book.

At the other end of the spectrum are players who have worked their way up more slowly, possibly through the divisions, probably overcoming a period of multiple loan spells: Danny Rose, Harry Kane, Michael Keane, Jamie Vardy, Peter Crouch, Teddy Sheringham and Adam Lallana fall into this category. Once again, you don’t see this group coming because their rise is steady, boring and quiet, until you suddenly realise: “Oh yeah, they’re pretty good, aren’t they?”

Then there’s the middle group: those who were good enough as kids but there was always a cautious optimism that followed them into their 20s. This is the one group you do actually have on your radar; the only problem is that it’s so loud and varied, you can’t tell the signal from the noise.

Yes, sometimes it works out phenomenally well, but more often they live up to the potential their relatively muted emergence would suggest without really exceeding it, or are tragically underwhelming. There are so many examples of players that took all three paths that I’ll let you make your own lists, but I’d suggest Cristiano Ronaldo, James Milner and Francis Jeffers are good starting points. With results as varied, unreliable and unpredictable as that, do you really put much faith in your ability to divine the wheat from the chaff when weighing up our hopes for the future?

If England’s youth performances this summer are anything to go by, this season will see the emergence of plenty of fresh young faces, if you’ll pardon an expression that becomes so incredibly gross when imagined in a butcher’s window. Alexander-Arnold is merely the first.

But. But. Sitting on fences is unsexy, unfashionable and leaves you prone to splinters in some very nasty hard-to-reach places – but as far as teenagers are concerned, it’s the only sensible thing to do. Who knows? Perhaps that’s just the kind of encouraging, pressure-free attitude our kids need in order to flourish.

Future Barca President Gerard Pique: I feel inferior to Real Madrid

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha




Rip bykebyke and may the valkryies transport your body from the battlefield to the halls of Valhalla, into the bosom of the mighty allfather, Odin himself......


...So that Thor can use his magic hammer, Mjolnir, to drum hiphop beats on your skull, while Loki sings the praises of the one true football God - Lord Ororo of Madeira.

See you in the afterlife, or in your new account - which ever comes first.

BlueAngel444:
Chelsea in for Krychowiak?? 30m

Airmark

I'm hearing some dirty rumours about Liverpool selling Coutinho and buying Costa.

Just picked up the Norsca DLC for Total War Warhammer. Looking forward to trying it out tonight

Chelseafan1:
How person go still dey miss Matic when you have this kind Bakayoko already??

Honestly, just by his haircut alone, I can tell he is better than Matic.

2-0

BraniacX:
have it your way, i give up

You quoted a post that wasn't addressed to you and said I was lying.

I asked you what the lie was, and now you give up.

Bye

BraniacX:
Roasted her way? Now you know you're lying right? What's the need to equate Danny to cersei in terms of savagery?

What's the lie there?

raumdeuter:
Awoof means bonus

Pealties are bonus.

Players dont get bought by their abilities to shoot a penalty

I no argue my oga.

I just say make I remind you. Hoffenheim no dey like awoof goals

Great free-kick

raumdeuter:
garbage penalty attempt

Penalties are awoof - raumdeuter, 1674

Mignolet saves

Hoffenheim pen

BraniacX:
there was a trial irrespective of how short, a trial by combat which the tarly's lost, and a hearing to determine either punishment or absolution at a cost in which the defendants were allowed to make a choice, needless to say they made their choices as against cersei's hostile takeover so there's no comparison between the two scenarios

I'm sorry what?

bykebyke:
Messi to Neymar: "You want to be the Ballon d'Or? I'll make you Ballon d'Or"


http://www.sport-english.com/en/news/barca/messi-to-neymar-you-want-to-be-the-ballon-dor-ill-make-you-ballon-dor-6224903

Lol see Messi begging Neymar. I've always said it, if Messi does not have winners around him, he flops.

See his stint with Argentina.

If Man City comes in tommrow with a mega bid for Suarez, I'm sure Messi will offer Luis a night of passion with his wife to stay.