1/27 - 1/30: FA Cup Weekend

Time to Mo Vaughn

RIP Dernell
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Mar 24, 2008
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Full weekend of FA games this week with a major kick off of Arsenal and Man City today at 3pm ET.

Frustrating that this one is on ESPN+. You'd like ESPN might put it on ESPN or ABC to drive viewers especially after the success of Arsenal/ManU this last weekend. If you want to watch your EPL team's games you're stuck needing:

Peacock to actually see all the EPL Games
ESPN+ for FA Cup
Paramount+ for Champions League and Europa

This all on top of the fact that if you've already got cable with NBC Sports, ESPN and CBS Sports then you're essentially double paying for these services.
 

Time to Mo Vaughn

RIP Dernell
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Mar 24, 2008
7,202
Arsenal appears to be starting their B team on this and focusing on the EPL while City looks like they've got most of their regular starters.

Arsenal
Turner, Tomiyasu, Holding, Gabriel, Tierney, Xhaka, Partey, Vieira, Trossard, Saka, Nketiah.
Subs: Ramsdale, White, Zinchenko, Saliba, Kiwior, Lokonga, Odegaard, Marquinhos, Martinelli

City
Ortega Moreno, Lewis, Stones, Akanji, Ake, Rodrigo, De Bruyne, Gundogan (C), Mahrez, Grealish, Haaland
Subs: Ederson, Walker, Dias, Phillips, Cancelo, Laporte, Alvarez, Bernardo, Palmer
 

Morgan's Magic Snowplow

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Jul 2, 2006
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Its for the best if Arsenal go out of the FA Cup tonight but Holding v. Haaland has bloodbath potential.

Arteta rotated quite heavily and Pep hardly at all (although its hard to say exactly what City's best starting XI is right now).
 

cromulence

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Aug 25, 2009
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ESPN Plus is totally worth it if you're a soccer fan - Bundesliga, La Liga, Championship, and FA/Carabao Cups, among other smaller leagues.
 

Time to Mo Vaughn

RIP Dernell
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Mar 24, 2008
7,202
I enjoyed Haaland ripping Holding down and begging for a call while the foul was called on him. I'm pretty sure Haaland is gonna score 6 on Holding.
 

Dummy Hoy

Angry Pissbum
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Jul 22, 2006
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Its for the best if Arsenal go out of the FA Cup tonight but Holding v. Haaland has bloodbath potential.

Arteta rotated quite heavily and Pep hardly at all (although its hard to say exactly what City's best starting XI is right now).
That's probably 5 of the starting front 6, no? I bet Trossard pushes Martinelli all season. Odegaard to Viera is a drop off though.
 

Time to Mo Vaughn

RIP Dernell
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Mar 24, 2008
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That's probably 5 of the starting front 6, no? I bet Trossard pushes Martinelli all season. Odegaard to Viera is a drop off though.
Yes if that's your expectation of Martinelli. I think both will be starting >50% of EPL matches going forward with a bit of spelling Saka and mixing around Nketiah as well. It's 1 of the starting back 5 (including Keeper). With injuries to Jesus and another(???) to Smith Rowe, there's limited depth up front right now, so Trossard is looking like a pretty necessary pickup. Could really use a DM backup as well.
 

teddykgb

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Jul 16, 2005
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Don’t feel great after that win. Every team who sits off and man marks KDb basically shuts us down now but I didn’t expect Arsenal to play the tactic. City are outright boring right now and there’s no way we match any long run of wins by Arsenal if we can’t find a way to play through the midfield. Arsenal get a few matches fewer and would hardly have dented their confidence losing here
 

Time to Mo Vaughn

RIP Dernell
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Mar 24, 2008
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Arteta definitely went for the win more than I was expecting with the minutes played by guys normal starting XI, but I'm pretty happy to have bowed out.

Trossard looked amazing early. It wasn't just his dribbling, but his great crosses to players in the box not just to no one. He's going to fit into this team really well to spell Martinelli, Saka and maybe even Nketiah as a false 9.
 

lars10

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Jul 31, 2007
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Don’t feel great after that win. Every team who sits off and man marks KDb basically shuts us down now but I didn’t expect Arsenal to play the tactic. City are outright boring right now and there’s no way we match any long run of wins by Arsenal if we can’t find a way to play through the midfield. Arsenal get a few matches fewer and would hardly have dented their confidence losing here
Perhaps arsenal will play different with their starting 11.. but it is pretty apparent how much kdb is the engine for city.. especially this year.. the more you shut him down the less dangerous city is.
 

OCST

Sunny von Bulow
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Jan 10, 2004
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The 718
Leeds at Accrington Stanley. Always love the shots from these lower tier sides.
60552
 

OCST

Sunny von Bulow
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Jan 10, 2004
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The 718
Stanley has had the better of it but Harrison buried a screamer against the run of play and just now Sunisterra hit the crossbar

Bamford started
 

Jimy Hendrix

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I always enjoy seeing stadiums of teams I’ve been sacked from in Football Manager.
they tend to look like generic FM stadium models too, which helps with the ambiance. I always look for the burger trucks in the corners.
 

candylandriots

unkempt
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Mar 30, 2004
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5th straight derby win for Union Berlin over Hertha. This time 2-0. It was never in doubt. Union now even with points with Bayern, who play their game against Frankfurt in an hour.

It must be so fun to be playing on that team right now (and equally miserable for poor Hertha).
 

candylandriots

unkempt
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Never noticed this before, but Bayern has fans in their stadium all wearing white jackets to create the Deutsche Telekom logo.

0A9A356E-4995-4304-9A8F-82BB342B862E.jpeg
 

Kliq

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Mar 31, 2013
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Son with a long range goal, basically the only way Spurs looked like they were going to score against Preston.
 

Kliq

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A second now from Son. Against weak competition, but good for Son to get his confidence up seeing the ball go into the net a few times.
 

SocrManiac

Tommy Seebach’s mustache
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Apr 15, 2006
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“Not too much contact.”

The NBC guys deserve a lot of credit- they’ll correct themselves when watching a replay. Insisting Mo didn’t get mugged while watching him get mugged is bad form.
 

allstonite

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Oct 27, 2010
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LFC back line have made Mitoma look like prime Mbappe the past few times they’ve played
 

Catcher Block

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Mar 7, 2006
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St. Louis
Wrexham concede to Sheffield off a needless corner, just over a minute into the game. This may be a rough one.

Edit: They've also lost two of their back 3 in the first 10 minutes to injury and burned two substitution windows replacing them.
 
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