They were awful matches
Brilliant block from Rudiger.
Hard to believe it might be a Milan derby in semi final. 2 bang average sides. Piss poor competition this year.
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Lampard will be buoyant after this.
Serie a on the rise.
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I donāt think it has ever been as bad. Real lack of previous quality. Might be over saturation of football games or something along with a world cup before Christmas. Not as good as it was anyway.
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Maldini looks fresh enough he must be 50 plus
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The death of the front man is not helping the game. Holland, Spain and Italy all dont have a decent striker. Wout Wieghorst starting for Man United sums it up.
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Saelemakers with a dive there. Nice bit of niggle in the aftermath. Napoli will be happy enough to only lose by 1 after the Anguissa red card.
Youāll be considered a dinosaur living in the past for criticising the modern game if you arenāt careful.
I heard from a good source that heās been given a 1 million quid wage for the rest of the season. A specialist in failure.
Some loss for Chelsea
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There is a massive lack of good strikers around. Haaland obviously, Alvarez i rate, shame he is a sub at City, Kane, Benzama, Osimhen, not much beyond that.
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Hopefully Napoli beat the tar out of Milan in the second leg.
A Milan derby semi-final would be a snoozefest like it was in 2003.
This is probably the most boring Champions League since 2003.
City will walk this
City or Madrid could the final 3/4 nil
I think the real gap is in the second tier of very good strikers. There was always only a handful of top, top strikers but in the tier below that, there isnāt that many. Thereās an obsession with wide forwards at the moment and obviously these players look very skilful, but you have to have balance in your team. But the role of a lone forward in the modern game is ridiculously hard; to play for the very best clubs, you need to have the pace and game to run in behind, the strength & touch to hold the ball up aswell as good general link-up play.
So if you canāt do all that, teams will either play a more traditional number 9 with limitations to his game (a Lukaku or someone like that) or will sacrifice a frontman and play a false 9.
For me, Benzema is out on his own at the very top as having the all-round game. Then you have the ridiculous goalscorers like Haaland & Lewandowski. Kane, obviously.
I donāt know if Iād have Osimhen in the top tier yet; having a great season but looks particularly suited to counter-attacking football.
Of course, the likes of Mbappe used to be a number 9. Salah has played through the middle a good bit for Liverpool, Man Utd used Rashford up front.
I really like Kolo Muani at Frankfurt, I think he could be very good in time. Alvarez, Jesus, Martinez, Lukaku, maybe David at Lille are all in that second tier. Goncalo Ramos at Benfica looks to be a proper striker and is courting a lot of interest.
This made me think of marginally above average strikers like Klaas Jan Huntelaar, Jon Dahl Tomasson and Pauleta.
I was maybe thinking of a slightly higher class of striker; your Crespos, Inzaghis, Morientes, etc.
They existed at the same time that Shevchenko, Henry, Etoāo, Van Nistlerooy were the elite strikers.
Itās probably as simple as; back then, everyone played 2 up top so those players had to be developed from underage. Whereas now, everyone plays 1 up front, even in academies, so these strikers are not being developed at the same rate. And then when they do break into the team, theyāre probably being played out wide as a sub anyway.
