[ITA] Serie A 2015/2016 (58 Viewers)
- Thread starter Dostoevsky
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Hasn't conceded in 7 straight matches... So 630 minutes plus added time... and the time from the match 2-1 match against Sampdoria. 656 minutes. Rossi's record is 929 minutes.
Adding our 2 Coppa matches with Neto, we haven't conceded a goal in 9 matches.
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@DAiDEViL
You weenie. At least Morata scored 5 CL knockout goals last year in 1 season, that more than doubles Higuain's career total.
Adding our 2 Coppa matches with Neto, we haven't conceded a goal in 9 matches.
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@DAiDEViL
You weenie. At least Morata scored 5 CL knockout goals last year in 1 season, that more than doubles Higuain's career total.
Think about it for a minute man. For a team competing for the first spot, almost every match is a big game because you need the 3 points to stay ahead. If Napoli scored today you'd have thought its business as usual and its nothing special, but then next week if he fails then you think he choked. This is inconsistent.
Every single match that he does not score is a big game because it would determine which team is ahead in the race. If he had not scored at earlier matches in the season, Napoli would not be relevant now. The games would lose importance only if there is a giant gap between them and their competitors. But since there is no giant gap, every match is absolutely important. The difference between me and you is that I am consistent. I regard every game as big. If he scores then well done to him, if he does not then he choked. You take no notice when he scores but as soon as he does not, you say he is a choker. This is utterly inconsistent. If you were someone's boss, your employees would hate you.
Every single match that he does not score is a big game because it would determine which team is ahead in the race. If he had not scored at earlier matches in the season, Napoli would not be relevant now. The games would lose importance only if there is a giant gap between them and their competitors. But since there is no giant gap, every match is absolutely important. The difference between me and you is that I am consistent. I regard every game as big. If he scores then well done to him, if he does not then he choked. You take no notice when he scores but as soon as he does not, you say he is a choker. This is utterly inconsistent. If you were someone's boss, your employees would hate you.
This is bullshit and you know it. You're just being an apologist for the guy.
I am the boss of quite a few guys at work, and even your analogy is crap. There are jobs I give my guys that I could care less what they do, and there are jobs where they better not fucking screw up or I'll tear them a new one. Same deal with days. Some days in the shop I'm not going to be bothered by some standing around chatting, lazier work ethic, etc. but when we're raising a timber frame and I have a crane there at $200/hr if I see them on their phones, standing around, working like a dog, I'm going to lose it, and if it continues I'll fire them. I mean, consistency is great, but you can't put your employees under that much stress by treating every little job as crazy important, every single day as an intense go-go-go day. You burn them out, and they quit. Same deal with sport. You can't up the stress levels too insane degrees by treating games against Frosinone et al the same as games against Juve... by treating a game against a basement team in Serie A the same as a knockout CL game. You eventually burn yourself out.
Higuain is great early every season and when the games don't matter as much. You can repeat this tired cliché of all games are big games, but it's simply something coaches repeat by rote and just isn't true. It's bullshit. Yes, you must win early in the season, but it's the teams and players that don't fade down the stretch that win. And Higuain consistently fades down the stretch. Scoring 6 goals in the last 17 games last year is choking massively, especially with Napoli fighting Roma and Lazio for those 2nd and 3rd CL spots. Higuain not scoring consistently down the stretch is a massive reason they didn't qualify for this year's CL. Same deal with his 2 goals in 20 CL knockout games. That's fucking terrible and those are huge games. Or the Europa SFs last year. He was absolute crap, missed a whole bunch of chances and Napoli lost to Dnipro, a team that was absolutely massive underdogs.
You really don't have a leg to stand on. He has a very big tendency to go missing when it gets down to crunch time. IE. Big late season games, and CL knockout games.
I am the boss of quite a few guys at work, and even your analogy is crap. There are jobs I give my guys that I could care less what they do, and there are jobs where they better not fucking screw up or I'll tear them a new one. Same deal with days. Some days in the shop I'm not going to be bothered by some standing around chatting, lazier work ethic, etc. but when we're raising a timber frame and I have a crane there at $200/hr if I see them on their phones, standing around, working like a dog, I'm going to lose it, and if it continues I'll fire them. I mean, consistency is great, but you can't put your employees under that much stress by treating every little job as crazy important, every single day as an intense go-go-go day. You burn them out, and they quit. Same deal with sport. You can't up the stress levels too insane degrees by treating games against Frosinone et al the same as games against Juve... by treating a game against a basement team in Serie A the same as a knockout CL game. You eventually burn yourself out.
Higuain is great early every season and when the games don't matter as much. You can repeat this tired cliché of all games are big games, but it's simply something coaches repeat by rote and just isn't true. It's bullshit. Yes, you must win early in the season, but it's the teams and players that don't fade down the stretch that win. And Higuain consistently fades down the stretch. Scoring 6 goals in the last 17 games last year is choking massively, especially with Napoli fighting Roma and Lazio for those 2nd and 3rd CL spots. Higuain not scoring consistently down the stretch is a massive reason they didn't qualify for this year's CL. Same deal with his 2 goals in 20 CL knockout games. That's fucking terrible and those are huge games. Or the Europa SFs last year. He was absolute crap, missed a whole bunch of chances and Napoli lost to Dnipro, a team that was absolutely massive underdogs.
You really don't have a leg to stand on. He has a very big tendency to go missing when it gets down to crunch time. IE. Big late season games, and CL knockout games.
If any analogy is broken it is yours. If one of your subordinates has been the main driving force behind your sales team being considered one of the best because of his consistently high performance levels in the past (breaking records mind you), you would not consider the past as unimportant if he could not keep it up and your sales team finished second best in the company.
Higuain's performances are the primary reason for why Napoli is challenging us now. If Higuain was not as good as he is this season where would Napoli be? If he was not at this high level, Napoli would be next to Inter and co. You would have been regarding the past big matches (including against us and Inter and lazio etc..) as important games and you'd have said he choked back then. But since he did not choke in those games, today you say they were not big or important matches and are not a test of his mettle. The past games are either important or they are not. You cannot be rationally consistent while thinking back then that they were big games and then today saying that they are not. They were important games back then and they are important games right now. Or neither are important.
When you expect him to keep it up by having to score in every game against every team especially the big ones from the start of the season to the finish then you are expecting him to be Messi which he is not and no one is. He is a world class striker but he is not on the level of Suarez or Messi or Ronaldo. Very few players will count as non-chokers by this standard. Ofcourse he gets burnt out over the season no one ever claimed the guy was a phenomenon. I'd still take MSN, BBC and Lewandowski if not also aguero above him. If he keeps his goal/minute ratio till the end(which seems to be your requirement) then He'd be Suarez's equal.
Lets suppose you are right. The early games somehow are not important but the future ones are. So by the same standard if Dybala doesnt score or assist against Bayern in either leg or in any of our future matches we can say that he choked were it mattered and ignore all what he did for us, basically treating all his past successes as unimportant games and the future ones as the high intensity important ones. You know why you wouldn't say the same about Dybala? It is because the actual difference between Dybala and Higuain is that Juve wins in the end while Napoli do not.
So in hindsight you say if only higuain has scored in this and that match they'd have won the league while with Juve it doesnt matter because we won anyway. Dybala is expected to contribute a lot throughout the season more than anyone else in the squad but when he do not score/assist someone else steps up and gets the win. If Higuain was our player, scoring the crazy amount of goals that he has scored so far you'd have seen him as a superstar.
Let me ask you these two questions.
(1) Is Napoli's next game a big game or not?
I will ask you two before every match whether its a big game or not and you'll have to make up your mind prior to the game i.e. prior to knowing whether he scored or not.
(2) What does Higuain have to do to dispel this image of a choker? And don't tell me he needs to do great in the CL since we are talking about Napoli here so stick to Serie A.
If my employee starts fucking up at work consistently/not performing... I would fire him. I honestly don't care about how great a job my employees did on previous houses we build. If they fuck up on the current ones. Gone. We had a foreman and his couple guys this year who cost us $15,000-$20,000 on $500,000 home (profit margin for our in the range of $50,000)... We fired him. He'd done very well for us in the past, but the mistakes he made on this job were disastrous and mostly due to carelessness. You don't base everything on an employees history. That's absurd. You take the past into account when making decisions, but overlooking the present just because an employee was a good employee in the past is just stupid.
And stop acting like Higuain has been setting the world on fire for years. He hasn't. This is his very first season where he's lit a league on fire like this... but if he slows down and finishes the season like last year on 1 goal per 200+ minute pace for the last 10-15 rounds, I'll say he choked down the stretch and was a major part of why Napoli couldn't sustain their title push.
I never once said he had to score in every game. Nor does he even have to score in 75% of his games... But as a world class striker, he can't finish off a season with 6 goals in 17 games, causing his team to fall out of CL places. He hasn't scored in 2 matches. Big matches. There are 12 rounds left in the Serie A season. If he doesn't score at least 7 goals (1 every other game for the 14 game stretch starting with Juventus), I'll consider him to have choked down the stretch. It's absurd to say anything else. He choked last season down the stretch run in Serie A, you can't even provide an argument otherwise.
And I'll absolutely hold Dybala to the same standard. But of course, more so in line with what Dybala has done over the first half of the season. I don't want to see more than a small variation. Dybala has 13 goals thus far... I expect 6-7 more goals in the last 12 rounds or I'll be disappointed and if we don't win the scudetto attribute part of that to him losing form at the worst time...
But Dybala has far more leeway because he's 22, he's not a 28 year old in his prime like Higuain. Same deal with the CL knockouts. Dybala is in his very first CL experience. I hope he scores, or I'll be disappointed, but I'll understand he's young and inexperienced. Higuain has played 20 CL knockout games and scored 2 goals. That's fucking terrible, to an absurd degree. Almost unheard of for a player you call a "World class" striker.
Your argument is absurd.
Point 1: Higuain is a CL choker. Obvious. Even you have to admit that. Only a blind man could argue against the incontrovertible fall-off of his goalscoring there.
Point 2: Higuain choked down the stretch when Napoli were locked in a battle with Lazio and Roma for the CL places last season. He scored 6 goals in his last 17 Serie A matches, which is an incredibly poor rate for a world class striker.
To dispel his image as a choker, he has to finish this season strong. As in scoring regularly to help Napoli. If he scores 8-10 goals down the stretch, I'll say he performed well this season when the pressure was highest. Even if Napoli have a poor finish as a team. If he scores only 4,5,6 goals in the last 14 matches I'll say he choked down the stretch and was a big part of Napoli's failing.
Obvious. I'd do the same for any player. Juventus player or not.
I've admitted many times this season already that Morata is having an absolute stinker of a season so far. But he was absolutely clutch in CL knockouts last season with 5 goals in 7 games. He scored 2.5X the CL knockout goals that Higuain has in 20 CL knockout game career.
The person who can't be objective about players is not me, it's you. And why you would be so obsessed with defending a Napoli (and former Madrid
) player is beyond me. I love watching players on both those teams fail, and choke when the lights shine brightest and the pressure is on. It's quite amusing.
And stop acting like Higuain has been setting the world on fire for years. He hasn't. This is his very first season where he's lit a league on fire like this... but if he slows down and finishes the season like last year on 1 goal per 200+ minute pace for the last 10-15 rounds, I'll say he choked down the stretch and was a major part of why Napoli couldn't sustain their title push.
I never once said he had to score in every game. Nor does he even have to score in 75% of his games... But as a world class striker, he can't finish off a season with 6 goals in 17 games, causing his team to fall out of CL places. He hasn't scored in 2 matches. Big matches. There are 12 rounds left in the Serie A season. If he doesn't score at least 7 goals (1 every other game for the 14 game stretch starting with Juventus), I'll consider him to have choked down the stretch. It's absurd to say anything else. He choked last season down the stretch run in Serie A, you can't even provide an argument otherwise.
And I'll absolutely hold Dybala to the same standard. But of course, more so in line with what Dybala has done over the first half of the season. I don't want to see more than a small variation. Dybala has 13 goals thus far... I expect 6-7 more goals in the last 12 rounds or I'll be disappointed and if we don't win the scudetto attribute part of that to him losing form at the worst time...
But Dybala has far more leeway because he's 22, he's not a 28 year old in his prime like Higuain. Same deal with the CL knockouts. Dybala is in his very first CL experience. I hope he scores, or I'll be disappointed, but I'll understand he's young and inexperienced. Higuain has played 20 CL knockout games and scored 2 goals. That's fucking terrible, to an absurd degree. Almost unheard of for a player you call a "World class" striker.
Your argument is absurd.
Point 1: Higuain is a CL choker. Obvious. Even you have to admit that. Only a blind man could argue against the incontrovertible fall-off of his goalscoring there.
Point 2: Higuain choked down the stretch when Napoli were locked in a battle with Lazio and Roma for the CL places last season. He scored 6 goals in his last 17 Serie A matches, which is an incredibly poor rate for a world class striker.
To dispel his image as a choker, he has to finish this season strong. As in scoring regularly to help Napoli. If he scores 8-10 goals down the stretch, I'll say he performed well this season when the pressure was highest. Even if Napoli have a poor finish as a team. If he scores only 4,5,6 goals in the last 14 matches I'll say he choked down the stretch and was a big part of Napoli's failing.
Obvious. I'd do the same for any player. Juventus player or not.
I've admitted many times this season already that Morata is having an absolute stinker of a season so far. But he was absolutely clutch in CL knockouts last season with 5 goals in 7 games. He scored 2.5X the CL knockout goals that Higuain has in 20 CL knockout game career.
The person who can't be objective about players is not me, it's you. And why you would be so obsessed with defending a Napoli (and former Madrid
) player is beyond me. I love watching players on both those teams fail, and choke when the lights shine brightest and the pressure is on. It's quite amusing.
1 Sebastiano Rossi (Milan) 1993–94 929
2 Dino Zoff (Juventus) 1972–73 903
3 Mario Da Pozzo (Genoa) 1963–64 791
4 Ivan Pelizzoli (Roma) 2003–04 774
5 Davide Pinato (Atalanta) 1997–98 757
6 Gianluigi Buffon (Juventus) 2013–14 744
= Luca Marchegiani (Lazio) 1997–98 744
= Morgan De Sanctis (Roma) 2013–14 744
9 Adriano Reginato (Cagliari) 1966–67 712
10 Sebastiano Rossi (Milan) 1993–94 690
Buffon is currently on 683 Serie A minutes without conceding, by my calculations (30+92+94+92+94+94+94+93).
2 Dino Zoff (Juventus) 1972–73 903
3 Mario Da Pozzo (Genoa) 1963–64 791
4 Ivan Pelizzoli (Roma) 2003–04 774
5 Davide Pinato (Atalanta) 1997–98 757
6 Gianluigi Buffon (Juventus) 2013–14 744
= Luca Marchegiani (Lazio) 1997–98 744
= Morgan De Sanctis (Roma) 2013–14 744
9 Adriano Reginato (Cagliari) 1966–67 712
10 Sebastiano Rossi (Milan) 1993–94 690
Buffon is currently on 683 Serie A minutes without conceding, by my calculations (30+92+94+92+94+94+94+93).
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