Your July 26 Lesser Footy Open Thread: It’s Decision Day!

Welcome to Decision Day!

With the exception of one game, every match has positional repercussions. Most importantly, the Top 4 and relegation are all on the line today! What sucks is that the league should have tried and flexed the games around so that not all games are playing at once. C’mon Boris Johnson! If you’re going to copy all the shitty stuff America does, at least copy one good thing that they do. TV and EPL schedulers could do something like: relegation battles are the first batch of games, midtable/Europa implications at the middle and top 4 as the late night games. That’d be way better than what they have now. Keep your viewers watching your sport all day, as opposed to 90+ minutes. That’s a lot of ad money they’re missing out on.

To the games!

Game 1A: The “Please don’t choke Please don’t choke Please don’t choke Please don’t choke Please don’t choke Please don’t choke Please don’t choke Please don’t choke Please don’t choke FOR THE LOVE OF TRIGON PLEASE DON’T CHOKE GAME”

This is the biggest game of the day!

For United, all they have to do is not lose, which is easier said than done because their core players are incredibly gassed due to the short turnaround time of the past handful of games. (I will never forgive Ole if United miss the top 4 because he decided to ignore form and have Bruno, Maguire and AWB start and play large minutes in that Chelski FA Semifinals match). Meanwhile, Leicester have played the minimum amount of games since the return and have had more time to rest since their last game.

Why Trigon’s favoUrite team will win:

– Leicester have taken 20 points from their last 49. I haven’t seen someone choke on something that large since Kagney Linn

– Ricardo Pereira, Ben Chilwell, Soyuncu and James Maddison are not playing. That’s a lot of missing key players

– The Foxes are going to be weak down the flanks and will have no creativity. This is problematic because they have to win the match to make top 4 (unless Chelski shits the bed and Leicester draws United)

-3 out of 4 of the Foxes’ starting back 4 aren’t playing

– Brendan Rogers has a reputation of choking

Why United will struggle:

– Days of rest before games: Crystal Palace: 2 days. Chelski: 2 days. West Ham: 2 days. Leicester: 3 days. That’s a grueling schedule.

– Leicester have nothing to lose and United have been choke artists over the past 6 years. Worst of all, Ole is developing a reputation of making his team play conservative when the game’s importance is massive. There is a fear that Ole might start the match with a fucking back 5. If this is the case, I want his ass fired because that is cowardly, chicken shit lesser footy and that is never how Manchester United should ever play in such an important match.

– United have a 58% win rate with Luke Shaw in the league, which drops to 46% without. United have conceded at least one goal in 77% of the games without Shaw in the lineupl. Shaw is not expected to play on Sunday, which fucking sucks because the left side has been abysmal since he went down against Southampton.

Prediction:

United should straight up win this match. However, given their mentality, I’d expect a 1-1 draw. But fuck it. I’m calling a United 3-1 win. The monkey will be off their back, baby!

Match 1B: The “Je Suis Wolves” match

Having no confidence in United, I’m hoping Wolves, who are currently playing well and want to clinch a Europa spot, will have one more great game in them and beat Chelski. It also helps rooting for them because they are inexplicably Toddlerzilla’s favoUrite team.

Why Chelski will lose:

– Billy Gimour is out and N’Golo Kante is unlikely to be back from a hamstring problem. Ross Barkley is expected to make an appearance but will be playing hurt.

– Chelski is very inconsistent and are relying on key young players to win.

– Chelski’s defense is not very good while Wolves have decent defence and a formidable offence. Also, Wolves have players playing for big money contracts, whether that is with Wolves or another big league club.

– Chelski just needs 1 point. That’s tricky because mentality wise, a team can be playing to not lose as oppose to their style of play.

Why Chelski will win:

– Pulisic and Abraham are playing really good lesser footy.

– Chelski have a lot of fire power and will want to avenge their 5-2 loss to Wolves from earlier in the season.

– If the club’s mentality is relaxed about getting 1 point and scoreboard watch throughout the game, they’ll be much looser as Wolves must win.

In other news, fans of the Sousers celebrated the way you’d expect Scousers to celebrate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_xBRHyngGI