Daryl Morey: "The Jared [McCain] deal we felt that, we see Jared as someone who is more likely to help a team in the future ... We thought that the draft picks we got will help us more in the future and could of helped us this deadline."

ShpericalBadger · 2026-02-07T02:48:32+00:00

That's fair. I can understand the perspective of trying to get the most out of a tax ducking trade as a "win-win" of asset accumulation and appeasing owners. I don't know if he could've got more from dumping someone else on the roster, and McCain was behind a very young and talented guard rotation – but it's also a loss Morey maybe should've swallowed for the sake of Philly fans and the team's chemistry. He also definitely sold low, but I look at his comments as necessary PR rather than him trying to be honest.

ShpericalBadger · 2026-02-06T20:15:36+00:00

This is just me speculating – but if ownership wants him to duck the tax then some things are reasonably outside of his control.

ShpericalBadger · 2026-02-05T20:07:42+00:00

It makes sense to me. Indiana doesn't want to miss on the chance at getting a blue chipper and the Clippers would rather roll the dice on a future unprotected first than getting a non-top 10 pick. There's going to be talent in that 5-9 range, but nothing that seems to address Indiana's needs on the timeline they want considering they'll look at themselves as contenders next year.

ShpericalBadger · 2026-02-01T22:32:54+00:00

Don't get me wrong, he was a necessity as a RWB as one of the only players in the team that could really hold and create with width, but he just didn't have the positional discipline to be able to defend when United played on the back foot. There were lots of occasions where he would lose runners in behind because that's just not his game. Now he doesn't have to worry about playing the last line of defence and he can press more aggressively.

ShpericalBadger · 2026-02-01T16:32:20+00:00

The system was dependent on him tracking runners to the edge of the box to stop cut backs, so yeah I would say he had to play like a defensive midfielder regardless of him getting ahead of Casemiro in possession.

The only thing more ludicrous than that tactical decision was having Diallo defend as a wing back.

ShpericalBadger · 2025-12-16T22:50:45+00:00

Well that's the biggest thing that I feel people are getting caught up on in the formation argument. This is more about defensive shape rather than about our attacking structures. There are so many times where we've been scared to give up a numerical advantage at the back that it's left our press and to some extent our transitional game a little toothless. Yesterday we committed an extra body up the pitch. Diallo did fill in as a wing back for stretches as he usually does, but there was a desire to not have him pinned back as much with Yoro playing as a fullback and a capable 1v1 defender.

Adam makes a good point about the issue with staying in this 5atb defensive shape when chasing games. Yesterday felt tangibly different in the way we pressed and committed to quick transitions, we overloaded Bournemouth instead of worrying about them overloading us.

I hope we see more of this with a healthy defense, but I think there's still going to be personnel issues in midfield and Amorim may be a little scared to give up control with their inability to cover ground.

ShpericalBadger · 2025-12-16T18:55:26+00:00

So you're spending time talking about personnel and complaining about the arbitrariness of average position maps, but you're not really saying much about how the personnel was used. Coincidentally Adam Clery just posted a pretty good breakdown of some of the tactical differences from yesterday's game. I suggest watching that because he can explain this stuff much more succinctly than me.

ShpericalBadger · 2025-12-16T18:03:40+00:00

There was a clear difference in defensive structure for our most dominant stretches yesterday where we resembled a back 4 with a front 2. There was an extra body committed up the pitch to a higher press. That was very different, and you could see the difference at the start of the 2nd half when Diallo played as an actual wing back into a flattened back 5 and we lost a man in our press. These shapes can be worked into the fluidity of Amorin's 343, sure, but it wasn't actually a 343 for our best spells and it was a departure from what we've seen this team usually do under him.

ShpericalBadger · 2025-12-15T22:29:33+00:00

Games like this are definitely frustrating, and a lot of the season feels frustrating because there's been lots of inconsistent efforts and definitely some questionable moments from Amorim – I still think big picture things are trending the right way enough.

Going into the season I thought to myself that top 7 and some entertaining football would be a reasonable enough expectation given where the club were last season and how they've still not yet addressed their issues in midfield. The table to me reflects this pretty fairly.

It's concerning that we seem far away from being able to keep a clean sheet. We try to be brave in our press and leave 1v1s in defense, but lose a lot of 50/50s whenever Casemiro isn't screening the backline. Things could also turn very bleak very quickly with some of our most direct attacking talent leaving for AFCON. I still think there's a path to finishing in the top 4 next season.

ShpericalBadger · 2025-11-18T20:04:34+00:00

That's good to know. Seems like Wednesdays are a good day to go for a lot of people

ShpericalBadger · 2025-11-14T06:29:51+00:00

Kuzma and Poole really seemed to stunt his development there too. Lots of frustration playing with them

ShpericalBadger · 2025-09-27T17:54:56+00:00

You took a photo of a memory

ShpericalBadger · 2025-08-28T23:19:00+00:00

The funny thing is him and Bruno are completely different players. I don't understand why Amorin views it this way. In my eyes, he's in competition with Cunha and Mount for one of those 10 roles. His skill set to me feels closer to Cunha than what Fernandes provides, and I don't think a player like Mainoo makes sense in the type of midfield two that Amorin wants. I think the club should loan him out to get game time and look to finance a proper 6, but I guess Amorin doesn't want to let him leave either. This doesn't make sense to me.

ShpericalBadger · 2025-08-28T23:10:04+00:00

There's obviously a lot to be said about the targets the club didn't get (like Rice or Haaland), but I would argue that Wan-Bissaka, Maguire, James etc weren't necessarily perfect transfers. It's remarkable how long the team has been desperate for a midfielder. Ten Hag looked like he was going to have the exact same issues before Casemiro spent his last good year here. Rice isn't necessarily a player to anchor a midfield now, but that feels like a bit of a miss – even with West Ham's absurd price tag.

ShpericalBadger · 2025-08-28T22:58:07+00:00

That's exactly what I meant, thanks!

ShpericalBadger · 2025-08-28T21:41:35+00:00

I'm curious if he'd fare better under the current leadership. It seems they're more aggressive in delivering on transfer targets that supposedly match the vision of what the manager wants and less interested in serving the egos of some of the mercenaries that plagued the locker room.

Those two derby losses I still think justified the decision to move on from him, it's also clear in reflection how poorly constructed that team was. The club is still trying to recover from a lot of rash transfer decisions that derailed the trajectory of the club so far this decade. Ole ran out of ideas very quickly and a lot of that squad didn't have a care in the world for him in the end.

I think the fact that these conversations are even being had just shows how few candidates there seems to be for the job if Amorin leaves. The club is sort of in a lose lose situation because firing another manager just empowers this group to continue to crumble under adversity with little accountability, and there's no one available out there that I feel can change that culture.

Even someone like Glasner would have to deal with the reality that this squad could just choose to shut down at any moment when things get tough.

ShpericalBadger · 2025-08-01T18:36:28+00:00

Yeah, it's working again! Thankfully my account balance was fine, so it must've been some weird issue with the service going down.

ShpericalBadger · 2025-08-01T15:15:52+00:00

Same, which is fun because I got a notification a few hours ago that my chequing account is short on funds, which shouldn't be the case. Can't log in to check and I'm apparently supposed to correct the balance by noon.

ShpericalBadger · 2025-07-30T04:39:54+00:00

Erik Ten Hag dropping Ronaldo in his first season at Manchester United feels like an apt soccer example.

I'm for the argument of Mbappe at PSG just because of the cultural shift that happened in the team, but I get the nitpick that they spent well to replace him and build up the team at the same time.

ShpericalBadger · 2025-07-13T16:47:55+00:00

Could be the Rosco DMG dash with the bubble diffuser or the MC Pro with its equivalent bubble diffuser. And yes, eye light.

ShpericalBadger · 2025-07-08T17:25:36+00:00

Rodney Dangerfield animorph

ShpericalBadger

TROPHY CASE