Bayer Leverkusen - Inter (10 Dec 24) [1-0]

[.h.]

We have literally the 3rd best result in the league right now with 2 easier games coming up. It's in our hands. I said coming into this our budget was we could lose both seed 1 games and still make it - we won one and drew one. We are ok but we do need to improve and deliver. No more taremi etc please, Lautaro and hope he improves.

 

[pupivn]

Remember, we almost got draw until questionable corner kick leading to the goal. I don’t like to lose but overall picture of whole season, we’re still on track in all competitions.

 

[wera]

I wouldn't say Monaco is easy, but otherwise I agree with what was written.

 

[Glass box]

Stop panicking. Look first at who plays who and you'll see that 17 could still be enough. All we need to do is win the next match and then we can strategize and calculate. Too many variables right now.

It's not panicking it's simple math. If we win vs Sparta Prague there still won't be more than 1-2 points between us and 9th place. It might turn out that 17 are enough but what I'm trying to say is that we won't know that before our game vs Monaco so we'll have to play for a win from the start.

 

[wera]

Again, check schedules for gamedays 7 and 8. I'm worried (because I always am), but I'm not THAT worried. Just win game 7 first.

 

[CafeCordoba]

I'm going to code a program to run simulations for different cases for the remaining match schedule. I tried ChatGPT to do it for me, but the fucker is just so bad, gave me too inconsistent results. I will present the percentage of us staying in top8 in cases:
- we win Sparta
- we win Sparta and draw with Monaco

Stay tuned.

 

[Glass box]

Again, check schedules for gamedays 7 and 8. I'm worried (because I always am), but I'm not THAT worried. Just win game 7 first.

Even those aren't enough to guarantee that we won't have to play for a win vs Monaco. As I can see all games on Matchday 8 are played the same day at the same time, there won't be any space for calculating.

Check out the table and tell me if it's possible that we're clear of 9th placed team (provided we beat sparta) with at least three points advantage. Only in that case we'd need only a draw vs monaco.

 

[wera]

Let's return to this conversation after the next gameday. Most teams still play for either top8 or top24, so there are going to be some bloodbath games.

 

[Kramerica Industries]

Let's return to this conversation after the next gameday. Most teams still play for either top8 or top24, so there are going to be some bloodbath games.

Yeah, this is just speculative talk right now. We'll deal with if we have to "go for it" on the last match day when we get there. Odds are we'll get to the last matchday sitting on a 5-1-1 record from a schedule that involved Man City away (before everything went to shit with them), Arsenal, Leipzig, and Leverkusen away...every single person here would've signed up for that record, we've done our part, we can't help what's happening elsewhere.

 

[CafeCordoba]

I'm going to code a program to run simulations for different cases for the remaining match schedule. I tried ChatGPT to do it for me, but the fucker is just so bad, gave me too inconsistent results. I will present the percentage of us staying in top8 in cases:
- we win Sparta
- we win Sparta and draw with Monaco

Stay tuned.

Aight, so here it goes:

Made a program which simulates results of each remaining match. For our rivals, I put certain odds for the 3 outcomes (home win, draw, away win), favouring their wins to make it more realistic, other mathces then had just 33%-34%-33% odds for each outcome of the match.

I ran 1M simulation rounds and here are the %:

chances to be top8 with 16p: 37%
chances to be top8 with 17p: 96%

Goal differences are not counted as it would be too hard to simulate different final goal differences for each team. So 16p means 8th team has 16p and and 9th doesn't have 16p, but less. Truth is we can go through with 16p + GD advantage aswell, but I didn't take that into account in this one (too laborous to do to make it meaningful to simulate).

 

[Rodani]

Well we need lautoilet to show up at some point

nice one.

 

[Puma]

ok, so you'd prefer we go 100% vs leverkusen and rest against lazio? or burn our players out?

just trying to be clear what the message is here.

There is a difference between playing to win (getting a goal and possibly sitting back with a lead) or playing for a draw. But in our case, we did neither

Zero effort with zero shots on goal. No matter how you look at it, that's embarrassing, especially given the opponent, who Inter are and Marrotta's unhelpful declarations before the game.

With all due respect to your post, zero shots on goal is taking the preservation of energy levels in anticipation of our next game a little bit too far. And it also shows why Inter will continue to come up short because there is absolutely no way the club can fight on multiple fronts with paper thin squad depth and the huge gulf in performance that comes when the reserves step in for our first team players.

 

[.h.]

Yes, no one expects us to win the champions league. We don't have the quality or depth to win it. Very few of our players are even at the level needed to be regulars in the CL semifinals. Id argue maybe Bastoni, Barella, Hakan, possibly Dimarco, that's about it.

We will make the CL knock outs, almost definitely as top 8, and compete to win the league. And that's ok.

We do need captain toilet to become at least a top 50 striker on the world though.

 

[wera]

If Lautaro, Pavard, Frattesi and Zielinski played at their full potential, we would be a scary team. Like you said, those four players you mentioned aren't enough and we have a few underperformers for whatever reason that need to wake up already.

 

[.h.]

But genuinely how many of our team make a Real Madrid, City, Liverpool or (say) Bayern line up?

 

[Kramerica Industries]

But genuinely how many of our team make a Real Madrid, City, Liverpool or (say) Bayern line up?

I'll answer the question by saying "not many", but I'll also just say we set up in a completely different way than those teams do so the comparison is difficult. Perhaps out of financial necessity, we're a lot more dependent on Inzaghi's structures to create opportunities with the player movements from one position to another, those other teams have more capability for individual brilliance. (I realize this is also answering your question through implication.) Dimarco wouldn't fit in any of those teams because his defensive frailties would be too much as a fullback, but that's no the same as denying his overall quality as a player. Hakan would actually probably be a fit right now in Madrid's holding role in the midfield post-Kroos, they're starting to figure some things out there of late but he would bring the long range passing back that they lost in Kroos' departure.

Bastoni of course would walk into any team's XI, he's supremely rated in world football. He's the most obvious "yes" on the team. Barella also would likely find a home in many places including at the top.

 

[Il Drago]

Pavard would still start for Bayern.

 

[ADRossi]

This is a silly thought exercise. Pavard, Bastoni, Barella, Dimarco, and Hakan are some of the best players in the world. Thuram regularly starts for a loaded French national team. Lautaro was good, once.

The difference between us and these other clubs is they're bringing elite players off the bench. We're bringing Arnautovic and Taremi.

 

[.h.]

I think it's easy to say that, but in reality, few of our players play at the very top level.

Pavard barely plays for France, our Italian core can't even make the world cup group stages, Lautaro is a bench player for Argentina.

Compared to players like Rodri, de Bruyne, Vini, etc, I think the reality is few of our players are at the same level. They have games at that level from time to time, but for me, it's only potentially Bastoni and Hakan who come close to that level.

 

[ADRossi]

I think it's easy to say that, but in reality, few of our players play at the very top level.

Pavard barely plays for France, our Italian core can't even make the world cup group stages, Lautaro is a bench player for Argentina.

Compared to players like Rodri, de Bruyne, Vini, etc, I think the reality is few of our players are at the same level. They have games at that level from time to time, but for me, it's only potentially Bastoni and Hakan who come close to that level.

They've (Barella, Acerbi, and Bastoni) also won a European championship. Was Dimarco even playing for Italy during the last world cup qualifying cycle? I'm pretty sure the answer is no, or at least not regularly.

Regardless, I'm willing to put our top end talent up against anyone's.