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2008-09 Football Thread - The Second Half

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Sometimes I simply do not understand Rafa's tactical decisions (which makes sense, considering he is a premiership manager and I am not ;)). Taking off Gerrard the other day just before Everton scored was an odd one to me. 1-0 is by no means a comfortable scoreline against Everton, and yet Benitez seemed content to try and shut play down in the midfield, choke the life out of the game and take a 1-0 win...well, it didn't work. Maybe Stevie's hammy was a little tight or something, a prelude to his current, disastrous, injury.

I was happy when he put Babel on in the Chelsea match though, as again we were at 1-0 and needed to push for another goal. Benayoun was also a good sub that day, he really helped win the game.
 
Bet your chuffed Jaffa :)

Villa above Chelsea now :eek: I'm not sure they can stay there until the end of the season but it is looking worse for Arsenal.

I'll be off to the pub to watch a massively crippled Liverpool team take on a woeful Pomey defense. Perhaps even Kuyt can score.:D
 
xUKHCx said:
Bet your chuffed Jaffa :)

Villa above Chelsea now :eek: I'm not sure they can stay there until the end of the season but it is looking worse for Arsenal.

I'll be off to the pub to watch a massively crippled Liverpool team take on a woeful Pomey defense. Perhaps even Kuyt can score.:D
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Not from the bench he can't,
 
A fantastic, well earned point that was. I am indeed well chuffed, and it'll be a long but happy trip back to the East Riding tonight.

It has been suggested that it was the defeat against Chelsea at the KC last autumn crippled our confidence and helped set us up for a period of poor form. Hopefully this result will have the opposite effect and get the lads' chins up ahead of a sequence of vital but perfectly winnable fixtures.

And our view was ace too, even if I fumbled my iPhone getting it out of my pocket and let it take a tumble down the Shed End steps. Oops. :eek:
 
Congrats Jaffa on a good result for the Tigers. :)

xUKHCx said:
Villa above Chelsea now :eek: I'm not sure they can stay there until the end of the season but it is looking worse for Arsenal.
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During my short experience as a prem fan so far, Spurs have always been the team hyped to be on the cusp of top-four greatness, only to fail. But Aston Villa actually look like doing it this season. An added bonus is that Villa has a lot of English players, some of which are internationals or potential internationals. That should be good for the national team.

One of my friends is an Arsenal fan, and at the moment refuses to talk about the prem. :D

xUKHCx said:
I'll be off to the pub to watch a massively crippled Liverpool team take on a woeful Pomey defense. Perhaps even Kuyt can score.:D
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It's a pretty depleted lineup. N'Gog is preferred over Kuyt as well, but on current form I'd pick Benayoun as most likely to score. He looked sharp as a sub against Chelsea.
 
Heh - Oldham's keeper is off and in his place in goal is none other than perennial Football Thread favourite Dean Windass. :D

With the on-loan Tiger as stand in custodian, it's little surprise Leicester missed their penalty. Deano! :p
 
Poor Deano...once a Premier League striker, now a stand-in keeper for Oldham. :D

Is there any consensus on what kind of formation Rafa has deployed today?
 
On the contrary your Lordship, the bestest thing you can see at football is an outfield player in goal. :)

I've just heard on the radio in fact that that particular game has finished 0-0 -well done Deano.

Not quite so well done Liverpool though... in answer to your question regarding what type of formation has been deployed, I'd say a poor one.
 
Blimey - Torres might just have won it!

You know, England have a friendly with Spain coming up - Capello might want to look at some new players, and one position that needs to be looked at is goalkeeper.

Deano - England's number one! :D
 
<gasping sigh of relief> :eek:

I can't argue with the result, but could we leave it any later?

Windass must certainly cut a menacing figure in goal. Not the guy you want to challenge for a header, especially when he's allowed to use his fists! :eek::D
 
It was a good result for us too, there was a little cheer as Portsmouth lost.

As it happens, we've just bumped into some Bradford City fans at the services - they hold Deano in similar high regard - and we all had a good laugh at his latest exploits. :D
 
The scrap at the bottom is so tight that it is very possible that all three promoted sides could stay up - a couple wins on the trot (or even a win and a draw) could see West Brom rise a few places out of the relegation zone.

xUKHCx said:
Perhaps even Kuyt can score.:D
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You, sir, are a prophet. :)
 
Jaffa Cake said:
A fantastic, well earned point that was. I am indeed well chuffed, and it'll be a long but happy trip back to the East Riding tonight.
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Briefly breaking my self-imposed radio silence to congratulate the Jaffas and The Mighty Tigers on a point gained... after all, it's not every day that Hull come down to my part of town and with the season for us sliding into horrible mediocrity, I'm happy to see my mates, the Jaffas, go home happy.

Based on the last few seasons, just 11 or so points to go for Hull to probably avoid the drop, I reckon.

The way things are going for us I'll be ecstatic for a Champions League semi-final place this year and a spot for next year. Given the flying start to the season, I'm happy for Scolari to stay if he can weed out the malcontents, reduce the injury list and get some new and hungry players on board for next season. Bits and pieces of backroom muttering are leaking out to the press about training sessions and discord... it's all a bit depressing except to at least take some slim comfort that we're still the highest placed London side at the mo. :eek:

Jaffa, I should have realised earlier that you were on my manor, so to speak, and arranged some Londoney twiggy pintage before your trip home as you guys were only 10 or so minutes away. It would have been my turn to find a local skull-splitting drop in a cozy Chelsea pub. Next time, perhaps... Give my love to Miss Jaffa. :)
 
Rafa took a big risk playing the side he did today in a misguided attempt to silence the critics but ended up doing just the opposite. The guy should be crucified for jeopardizing Liverpool's title chance and i have no idea how much longer the Liverpool faithfuls are going to take his naive miscalculations.
 
I don't know what the **** is going down at County, but from the revelations in the chairman's latest interview we're so deep in the **** there's a real possibility we may not last the season :(
 
Nieval said:
Rafa took a big risk playing the side he did today in a misguided attempt to silence the critics but ended up doing just the opposite. The guy should be crucified for jeopardizing Liverpool's title chance and i have no idea how much longer the Liverpool faithfuls are going to take his naive miscalculations.
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You are aware Liverpool won, right?
 
Nieval said:
Rafa took a big risk playing the side he did today in a misguided attempt to silence the critics but ended up doing just the opposite. The guy should be crucified for jeopardizing Liverpool's title chance and i have no idea how much longer the Liverpool faithfuls are going to take his naive miscalculations.
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You are aware that Gerrard is injured, Keane has been sold and Torres and Alonso were not fit to start, aren't you?
 
pknz said:
You are aware Liverpool won, right?
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Just barely, and against a struggling Portsmouth side that are having one of their worst forms in recent history. How much longer do you think they can keep winning games in the last minute?
Selling Robbie Keane and starting with Ngog, making 6 changes to the first team that only resulted in them going behind and surprise, surprise, they barely managed to salvage something when Torres, Xabi Alonso, and Kuyt came on. It doesn't matter what the final score is, those were all miscalculations, he's just lucky he got away with them this time.
 
Nieval said:
Just barely, and against a struggling Portsmouth side that are having one of their worst forms in recent history. How much longer do you think they can keep winning games in the last minute?
Selling Robbie Keane and starting with Ngog, making 6 changes to the first team that only resulted in them going behind and surprise, surprise, they barely managed to salvage something when Torres, Xabi Alonso, and Kuyt came on. It doesn't matter what the final score is, those were all miscalculations, he's just lucky he got away with them this time.
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Nonsense. Gerrard is testament to the fact that we need to look after our best player. The time to do this is against teams that are struggling. We made a couple of silly mistakes in defence and some horrible errors in front of goal, that's the reason why we 'struggled' to win the match. We should have won it comfortably with the team Rafa started.

It was just one of those games.
 
Nieval said:
Just barely, and against a struggling Portsmouth side that are having one of their worst forms in recent history. How much longer do you think they can keep winning games in the last minute?
Selling Robbie Keane and starting with Ngog, making 6 changes to the first team that only resulted in them going behind and surprise, surprise, they barely managed to salvage something when Torres, Xabi Alonso, and Kuyt came on. It doesn't matter what the final score is, those were all miscalculations, he's just lucky he got away with them this time.
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Because Man U never win games in the last minute? And selling Keane was the only sensible option under the circumstances.
 
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