Ronald Koeman

JohnN said:

If we are going to discuss anfield, we should remember that he started with the lineup of the first leg's first half in anfield. That lineup got heavily outplayed until the subs came on.
And he did it again. It's not about him being a coward. It's about him being stubborn, just like koeman.

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True. To me the biggest mistake was not to play Arthur. He played excellent Vs Tottenham earlier that season I think. He would have been good Vs high press.

This guy is worse than Setien dawgs



Imagine being hyped about this guy for whatever reason to end up having only 1 win in La Liga in last 5 games.



SMH dawgs.

catalinutzR80 said:

This guy is worse than Setien dawgs



Imagine being hyped about this guy for whatever reason to end up having only 1 win in La Liga in last 5 games.



SMH dawgs.

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PAIN

Koeman doesnt seem to understand what he is doing.

Fati_Future_BallonDor said:

Koeman doesnt seem to understand what he is doing.

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And this is exactly why he go the job.

Zidane is saving his career. Come on, win tomorrow Ronald.

te amo barca said:

Zidane is saving his career. Come on, win tomorrow Ronald.

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We will win. Tbh, we played better football than the points show so far, even though we weren't very good.

The predictive model that Between The Posts runs has Barca winning LaLiga slightly ahead of ATleti, with RM 4th behind Real Sociedad.

The model predicts xPTS (expected points) by the end of season, and is adaptive (discerns patterns and change of patterns based on performances every week).

PS: Last season for example, they had RM winning LaLiga since early in the season and it practically never changed.

Birdy said:

The predictive model that Between The Posts runs has Barca winning LaLiga slightly ahead of ATleti, with RM 4th behind Real Sociedad.

The model predicts xPTS (expected points) by the end of season, and is adaptive (discerns patterns and change of patterns based on performances every week).

PS: Last season for example, they had RM winning LaLiga since early in the season and it practically never changed.

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That predictive model predicts Dortmund as the Buli winner...so you know it's flawed.

KingLeo10 said:

That predictive model predicts Dortmund as the Buli winner...so you know it's flawed.

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They forgot to include "choking" parameters

It's not a fortune-teller. It's a predictive model. It's adaptive.
Dortmund has played marginally better than Bayern so far, that's why..

I didn't post it to imply that we will walk La Liga, but maybe we have played better so far than most people here think

Birdy said:

It's not a fortune-teller. It's a predictive model. It's adaptive.
Dortmund has played marginally better than Bayern so far, that's why..

I didn't post it to imply that we will walk La Liga, but maybe we have played better so far than most people here think

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True and it does create some hope for the rest of the season.

So small summary. Barca injuries:
Umtiti = fuck knows
Roberto = 3 weeks? back by Xmas?
Pique = back in Feb at best
Araujo = back coming week?
Ansu = back April?
Lenglet = possibly 2-3 weeks if it's just a twist/sprain, so back for Sociedad at best

In next 2 months Barca got:

1) Ferencvaros (already qualified in group so could play Barca B)
2) Cadiz (who scored 6 goals total this season and haven't won a game in 2 months, barely even drew)
3) Juventus (again, doesn't really matter, especially when likely beating Ferencvaros)
4) Levante (who barely played a tough game yet and they're miles down the table)
5) Sociedad (league leaders, best offense this season)
6) Valencia (absolute wasters who barely win, and never win away from home?)
7) Valladolid (2nd worst team in the league?)
8) Eibar (worst team in the league?)
9) Huesca (3rd worst team in the league?)
10) Bilbao (San Mames so could be tough?)
11) Elche (4th worst team in the league?)
** Copa games **
12) Bilbao (home vs a side that don't really score away from home? 3 in 4 at the moment)

If Koeman doesn't fuck it up by overplaying Busquets, rotates wisely, you don't get to unlucky with injuries, Barca would really be shit to not win everything here. Winter is notoriously easier to build streaks in recent 2 years for Barca & Madrid vs Liga teams. Doesn't bode well for CL as it'll lead to false sense of security, but come end January I think Barca will be league leaders by 3-6 points at least. A lot can happen between now and then, but that's where I think we'll be.

Weird how close the Bilbao games are to each other... don’t think I’ve ever seen home and away games that close.

Wolfe said:

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I certainly think that our position should normalize until January (meaning top4), but leading the table is a bit of a stretch. Depends on Atletico I guess. Nice summary though.

Atletico has arguably the toughest or 2nd toughest run of all 3-4 contenders (if we include Sociedad). They have:

Valladolid, RM, Elche and then a run of Sociedad, Getafe, Alaves, Bilbao, Sevilla, Eibar, Valencia + Copa games

RM has:
Sevilla (A), Monchengladbach (potentially a do-or-die UCL game), Atleti, Bilbao and then schedule eases off for Jan - Eibar, Granada, Elche, Celta, Osasuna, Alaves, Levante, Huesca... Alaves away being arguably the toughest fixture of the lot + if we get Ramos and Fede back by 2021, we should be in the same boat as Barca in terms of form building.

Sociedad's fixtures are horrendous going forward:
Alaves, Eibar, Barca, Levante, Atleti, Bilbao, Osasuna, Sevilla, Betis, Villarreal. + Copa

Edit: correction
13-16th Jan is the Supercopa in Saudi Arabia contested between Real, Barca, Bilbao and Sociedad

Which may be another set of games that teams will 'care about' and feel obliged to prepare for.