Since the day Unai Emery came to manage Aston Villa a lot of things changed about this team. They were in a really risky zone before him but now they completed the season at the 7th position and they are going to compete in the Europa Conference League. They even had a potential for the 5th or 6th position as well. However the most recent results were poor unfortunately. The board must be really happy with the work Emery has done so far. Emery is already a very special manager. Because wherever he goes it is like he touches that team with a magic wand. I wonder if we can see Aston Villa becoming a title contender in the Europa Conference League.  |
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Who is actually going to stop Verstappen in the future? Last season was of little use, and this season has never been exciting, has it? Maybe we should hope for a resurrection of Mercedes who might open the box of tricks somewhere and make the battle for the championship exciting again? In terms of technique it is of course nice to watch Verstappen, he gives it his all every race, but the best battle was the last race in the championship 2 seasons ago. Then the championship was decided in the last race.
I'm still saying Hamilton as an answer to that question. Because the only reason why there is no competition between these drivers from now on is the huge gap between the cars. Red Bull have got far ahead of Mercedes and Mercedes are newly trying to close this gap slowly. The same thing happened to Verstappen in the past seasons as well. That season with a legendary competition between Verstappen and Hamilton was amazing. Mercedes need to develop their car to that level and it should be enough for a fair competition. Hamilton and Verstappen are the most skilled drivers on the grid right now so I don't see any other driver who can compete with Verstappen as much as Hamilton. |
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Sadio Mane couldn't give quite the expected performance when he played as a centre-forward. And it is totally normal as well. Because he isn't naturally a centre-forward. Besides he has much more different characteristics than Lewandowski. The thing Bayern Munich need now is to sign a complete forward like Lewandowski. This can help them seriously about pulling themselves together.
Choupo-Moting tried to do some good things there but it wasn't enough unfortunately. Bayern Munich need a more reliable striker immediately. If Mane play as a left winger as well then their attacking line would be really strong.
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There is some new report that Al-Hilal are after Neymar right now and they are serious about signing a deal with him. Neymar has already been rumoured to leave the team this summer. But I wasn't expecting it from a top team in Europe because his cost would be really too much considering his age. His market value is still high, his salary demand would also be quite high and moreover he is injury-prone.
Therefore an offer from outside Europe was a thing that I expected. I think Neymar would think about this deal seriously as Al-Hilal wouldn't stand back from making an enormous offer. After Messi PSG are likely to lose Neymar as well. But as they are a rich team anyway I believe they can build a brand new attacking trio together with Mbappe.
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For Juventus this will hurt that they now have to play the COnference league. Of course they are a favorite there, but a big team like Juventus probably has very little desire to play it. But that's the way the rules are and they accepted the punishment. If they hadn't been given the 10 points deducted penalty they would just play Cl. So AC Milan is of course happy with this statement. Atalanta played a reasonable season, so not good and not bad. Fiorentina reached the final of the Conference league but are now missing out in the competition.
Yeah unfortunately there is no way to run away from that punishment. It is one of the main factors hindering them from joining back the Champions League. They can't even join the Europa League which is another bad news. Because if they were then at least they would increase their chance of going back to the Champions League by the end of next season. I agree that Juventus might not want to be very competitive in the Europa Conference League. It would actually depend on their situation with the titles in that time. If they are likely to finish that season without a title then they can get more ambitious about at least winning this one. By the way I hope Allegri leaves after this poor season just as I indicated before as well. |
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Manchester City have done the treble by completing the season with three titles. It was a really magnificent season for them. While doing this they won the Champions League title for the first time as well. This is the most special season for them and Guardiola of course. Guardiola has been waiting for this day to come as the Champions League title was the only missing piece left of the puzzle. From now on Manchester City will surely continue to be competitive for every title as usual. But at least Guardiola must have been relieved by this result after a hard-fought win against Inter. Would he leave Manchester City in the near future? It is a really difficult question to answer for now.  |
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It looks like Atletico Madrid are continuing with Diego Simeone for another season. It is going to be his last year on his contract at the same time of course. Maybe Atletico Madrid's big rise in the standings and being competitive for the second position helped Simeone get another chance next season. Because even in a not good-looking season it was important for them to qualify for the Champions League at least.
If it weren't for that amazing winning streak for a long time then they might not have been able to finish the season in top 4. But Atletico Madrid have been repeating themselves for two seasons. They need to be competitive for the league title otherwise I don't expect Simeone to be able to sign a contract extension.
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Twente finished the regular season better than Sparta Rotterdam in terms of the number of points collected and the number of goals scored/conceded. But when it comes to the Europa Conference League playoffs it was quite close between two sides. Twente were able to beat them anyway by 2-1 on aggregate. Congrats to them on this nice win!
Ajax were nearly joining this playoff area if there were more weeks to be played in the regular season. It was a pretty bad season in general for them for certain. This must be a sign to a big change to them but we will see. They have already taken a risk by selling some important players but this has affected them in a really bad way in not only the Eredivisie but also the Europa League.
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Manchester City had bigger struggles than I expected. Inter were just really comfortable about applying their usual strategies especially in the first half. The tight defense and pressure over their opponent was really beneficial in that half. Manchester City couldn't control the game as they hoped to and Inter players forced them to make more mistakes.
But the problem was that Inter couldn't maintain the same game plan in the second half exactly. This was a big opportunity for Manchester City to turn it into their advantage. Later on the space given in the box cost Inter a lot. We must be knowing how effective Rodri can be with his shots and this was one of its examples. Inter wasted huge opportunities and it was game over for them. But I still appreciate their good effort.
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According to a news source Newcastle are interested in a loan deal for Harry Maguire. But the source looks like The Sun so I don't think this rumour would be reliable at all.  Actually there was a more serious rumour linking Tottenham with Maguire on Transfermarkt website a few days ago. But the probability of a transfer is decreasing day by day. Honestly it would be really great for Manchester United if they get rid of him as soon as possible. On loan or permanent deal they wouldn't have to pay his salary or most of it at least. Because he is really no use for Manchester United. He will stay as a rotation player and he won't be a credible player when ten Hag has no choice other than putting him in the lineup. |
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Marseille should learn their lesson from this result. They couldn't compete with Lens for the second position until the end of the season. Lens even completed the season 11 points ahead of them which is really a horrible look for Marseille. The second position was important because it is the last slot for the Champions League group stage. Lens definitely deserved that.
Marseille will have to play qualification games and I don't know if they can even reach the group stage for now. They will need to realize where they were doing wrong to not repeat it. The new season will start earlier for them so they had better prepare themselves well.
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Yeah unfortunately Italian teams couldn't win any title in a European tournament despite qualifying for the finale in all of them. But I can say that Inter fought really well against Manchester City and didn't give up easily. The final score was also not a big one. Besides this is still a very successful season for Inter of course. They won 2 titles, qualified for the Champions League finale and got a ticket for the Champions League again.
I can nearly call them even more impressive than Napoli this season. Yeah maybe Napoli finished their longing for the Serie A title after 30+ years with a really big dominance throughout the season. But they weren't that much impressive when it comes to the other tournaments they competed in.
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Agreed about focusing only on Haaland would be a wrong action. Real Madrid tried to do this but they weren't able to prevent Manchester City from scoring a lot of goals in the second leg anyway. Even in times Haaland got nice goal opportunities he also wasted them. But Manchester City have created such a strong team play that they can still destroy their opponents without Haaland's help.
But here in this finale I still expect Haaland to be much more effective. This is a very special game for him as well because of its being his first ever Champions League finale. Considering all of these things Inter's job will be very difficult here. They need to focus on extending the game to extra time or even penalty shootouts to increase their chance.
Yeah, lately everyone is saying that Haaland will destroy a team with his ambition to score goals. But I will focus more on the other two Manchester City players. The first is Bernardo Silva. We know his role is a creative midfielder, but unexpectedly he is capable of doing other things, such as being a shadow striker or a hole player. When he manages to score a goal there will be a very extraordinary game change for Manchester city. The second is Ilkay Gundogan, we know lately when Haaland is having a hard time scoring goals, that's where Gundogan will become the Master Clutch for Manchester City and as a midfielder he is able to be the winner for Manchester City through his goals in the last few matches. Ilkay Gundogan is another serious threat indeed. He has been in a great shape recently. He scored 2 goals in the FA Cup finale most recently and played the biggest role in winning the trophy. He is fired up so Inter defenders had better watch out for his shots from outside the box or effective finishing touches inside the box. He can really be very effective in many areas in the attacking line. There are so many alternatives to score in this game for Manchester City in short. I expect a 2-0 win for them in regular time. I think Haaland will finally break his silence here and score at least one goal. If he scores only one then I expect the other one from Gundogan. |
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This might be a one time thing in a few years for Arsenal honestly. Because we aren't used to seeing them being in a title race in the Premier League you know. It is all up to Arteta and his players to maintain this performance but I still can't be sure. One thing started to seem really usual for them which is that they start to lose their full concentration while getting close to the end.
Arsenal need to work this out if they want to be a regular in top 4 and even to fight for the league title often. Maybe the way to solve this problem is to strengthen the team with a little more experienced players on one hand. Because they are a very young team and it isn't easy to stay focused on a big target like that throughout a season.
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This has really become a nightmare of big teams these days. Because they are continually losing important members of them. After Benzema's sudden departure it is normal to see people starting to talk about the probability of Lewandowski's doing the same as well this summer. However I don't feel like Barcelona will lose Lewandowski at least for now. Because I haven't seen even a single rumour about this. We are talking about Lewandowski in the end. If there was such intention by a team we would have learned about that already. But Barcelona had better create a Plan B in case of his departure. If they don't they might have big scoring problems depending on their not being able to sign a proper striker.
I also think that there is no reason for Lewandowski to leave Barcelona in search of super-profits to Saudi Arabia, following such stars of European football as Cristiano Ronaldo and now Karim Benzema. Still, I think that Lewandowski has not yet said everything he wanted in La Liga and therefore he still has to stay at least a season, especially since he seems to have a great relationship with Xavi both personally and professionally. I was much more surprised that Luka Modric decided to stay at Real Madrid, and did not leave in search of big money to the Arab sheikhs. This is completely correct , I see no reason for Robert Lewandoski to leave FC Barcelona immediately after that he signed just this season. Well, I feel like he moved to the la liga to win a trophy not that alone alone but also the Ballon d'or. Money isn't everything, although it's good idea. Luka Modric is a Real Madrid legend he knows. Real Madrid right now seems happy, at least they cannot sign everyone. Of course not all players are after making a huge deal of money right away. For example Messi could have chosen an offer from a Saudi Arabian team instead just as he stated the same thing as well. However he didn't and wanted to go on a different path instead of doing that. At least he could have joined an MLS team whose ranking is better but anyway. Modric and Kroos would have also left for such team if they wanted I assume. But they wanted to extend with Real Madrid for one more season. |
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Allegri may leave Juventus after all.
The rumor of today is about an offer for him in Saudi Arabia for 30+ m/€
If the rumor will be confirmed I can't see how he will refuse it.
He should just take this offer and leave in my opinion. Because this season with Juventus wasn't good for him at all. The punishment they got made things even worse for Juventus. Otherwise they were at least going to be able to qualify for the Champions League. But with punishment or not it is still not the best season for Juventus that's for certain. Juventus need to be competitive for the league title in the Serie A. It doesn't seem like Allegri can do this for now. Juventus need some additions to the squad as well but they should start their attempts for new players with a new manager. |
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Leverkusen started a really good run with Xabi Alonso's arrival as we have talked about here before. Maybe they started to mess up a bit while we were getting close to the end of the season in the Bundesliga but the position they finished at is still impressive. Because we were talking about even the probability of their relegation before Xabi Alonso. Maybe it was still early to talk about that but their look was really bad.
Now Xabi Alonso has drawn the attention of even some big teams so I wonder how successful he can be next season. I believe the board will have an expectation like to qualify for the Champions League next time. Xabi Alonso's system has worked well in general and I think it will be enough to be in top 4 fight next time as well.
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Milan will really need to make a big improvement for next season. Because they didn't play as good as the last champion should have done. They couldn't even enter a title race with Napoli properly. They made so many unnecessary point losses and barely made it to top four. I'm saying "barely" because if it weren't for Juventus' punishment Milan were going to be out of top four.
Therefore Milan will need to learn their lesson from all of this. They did a good job in the Champions League though but they were very ineffective against Inter in the semi finals at the same time. I don't know what they can do there next time but their priority must be to remain in a title race throughout a season.
Milan season was undoubtedly disappointing falling short of what was expected of a defending champion. Their inability to challenge Napoli for the championship exposed a number of flaws that need to be fixed. There is a pressing need for improvement as evidenced by the numerous unnecessary points lost and the narrow escape to a top four finish. Although their performance in the Champions League was admirable their inefficiency versus Inter in the semi finals showed flaws that must be fixed. Milan needs to internalise the knowledge gained from these failures in order to move forward. Their main goal should be to remain in the title chase for the duration of the full season. To reclaim their preeminence in Italian football this will necessitate a thorough examination of their gameplay tactical modifications and probable squad reinforcements. About reinforcing their squad I think they should start with bringing a much more productive striker to the team and a younger one if possible. Because Zlatan has announced his retirement and Giroud hasn't been that much productive at all. He scored only 13 goals in 33 league games. I don't even want to talk about Origi because he scored only 2 goals in 24 league games. Maybe in many of them Origi didn't play for 90 minutes but still this can't be an excuse. He couldn't satisfy the expectations I'm afraid. Thinking all of these Milan definitely need a much better striker to make things better in the Serie A next season. |
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It was another amazing night for Nuggets. Butler was once again not himself exactly and this helped Nuggets win even much easier. We have been saying over and over again that Butler should improve his performance in offense and play like he was doing before the final series. But it looks like his mind is still not fully concentrated on this series.
As long as Butler doesn't take extra responsibility this team don't have much potential to win a game anymore in the series. It has already become 3-1 and Jokic is getting close to carrying the team to the first championship in their history.
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This the greatest opportunity for PSG to reform their squad since some big names will be leaving the club. They shouldn't make the mistake of buying more super stars, they should just buy good players and Mbappe wil Lord over. This will bring peace and stability in thr team. And if PSG is not able to solve this problem now, they will still go next season unrewarded in the Champions League.
One exceptional leader with other good players.
Yeah Messi has left for Inter Miami already and there are speculations about Neymar to leave this summer as well. For now there is no official for Neymar but if there is it looks like it would be from the English Premier League. So far I have heard of Manchester United and Chelsea's interest in him but let's see how things will go. His cost would be quite a lot for a player at this age and in addition to that he is injury-prone as well. Let's say he was signed anyway then PSG will need to build a new trio in the attacking line in Mbappe's lead. As they have nothing more than money they can do this successfully I assume. But they had better start with changing their manager first to take the right steps after that. |
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