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2008-09 Football Thread

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swiftaw said:
Glen Johnson, no comment :)

I thought we established last game that a Rooney / Defoe strike partnership doesn't work.
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I quite like Glenn Johnson, England do rather have a right-back shortage though.

I think Rooney/Defoe has a great chance of working, with Rooney dropping deep etc. However, I'd like to think any starting 11 that England put out of that squad could beat Andorra. Maybe I'm expecting too much, but I'm looking for a lot of goals this evening.
 
Markleshark said:
I quite like Glenn Johnson, England do rather have a right-back shortage though.

I think Rooney/Defoe has a great chance of working, with Rooney dropping deep etc. However, I'd like to think any starting 11 that England put out of that squad could beat Andorra. Maybe I'm expecting too much, but I'm looking for a lot of goals this evening.
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If any 11 could beat them, why risk the best players when the Croatia game is only 4 days away.
 
swiftaw said:
If any 11 could beat them, why risk the best players when the Croatia game is only 4 days away.
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Whist I see your point, and to be fair to me I said I'd like to think any starting 11 [could beat them], I don't think Fabio is going to risk a 1-0 with squad players in his first competitive game. It's a win, but he'd still get slaughtered by the papers.
 
Markleshark said:
Whist I see your point, and to be fair to me I said I'd like to think any starting 11 [could beat them], I don't think Fabio is going to risk a 1-0 with squad players in his first competitive game. It's a win, but he'd still get slaughtered by the papers.
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Yeah, but the danger is that the players think the win is a formality and thus feel they wont have to try to hard (plus they don't want to risk getting hurt). If you play the 'reserves' then they are going to want to impress the manager in the hope of forcing themselves into the 'first team' discussion and thus will play hard.
 
swiftaw said:
Yeah, but the danger is that the players think the win is a formality and thus feel they wont have to try to hard (plus they don't want to risk getting hurt). If you play the 'reserves' then they are going to want to impress the manager in the hope of forcing themselves into the 'first team' discussion and thus will play hard.
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Normally, yes, I'd agree. But again, with it being Fabio Capello's first competitive game I can't see him letting them be too laxadazical. He'll be using the fact that there is a lot of other players in that squad that could easily fill the positions to his advantage I should think.
 
Markleshark said:
Normally, yes, I'd agree. But again, with it being Fabio Capello's first competitive game I can't see him letting them be too laxadazical. He'll be using the fact that there is a lot of other players in that squad that could easily fill the positions to his advantage I should think.
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Yeah, I would hope he tells everyone that they are playing for their places in the Croatia game. But more than that, I hope he actually means it. For example, if Rooney has an absolutely awful game I hope he would have the b***s to drop him for the Croatia game.
 
swiftaw said:
Yeah, I would hope he tells everyone that they are playing for their places in the Croatia game. But more than that, I hope he actually means it. For example, if Rooney has an absolutely awful game I hope he would have the b***s to drop him for the Croatia game.
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I think he does. Infact, I think he's the first England manager in a long time that actually has the nads to mean it. However, if Rooney and or Defoe don't score I don't think thats enough just for them to be dropped, we ain't really got that many more strikers... Heskey? No thanks.
 
Markleshark said:
Told you Stuart Downing is ****.
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I love this comment from the BBC live text commentary:

"Stewart Downing is in the team to cross the football. So how come he can't cross a ball? Left foot, right foot - they are all too high, or too low, or just too rubbish. Actually, they're all rubbish. He's been hopeless."
 
I'm listening to the commentary on the radio and one of the presenters has just read out a text message that went something like this:

"To be fair, one team is a small clueless country with rubbish players and no tactics. And the other is Andorra."

Harsh but fair?
 
BoyBach said:
Harsh but fair?
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I don't think we've got rubbish players, I think it's more the case we've got some pretty decent ones but we don't seem to know how to use them to their best.

It was one of those hiding to nothing games, where anything less than a comprehensive win is seen as a failure but if we do record a cricket score the retort is 'well, it's only Andorra'.

At the end of the day, the aim was three points and in so far as that it's a case of job done, I suppose. But it generally wasn't pretty. A positive from the match was Walcott who I thought put in a good performance and I thought Johnson looked useful at times too. And Joe Cole was a great substitution, the only question there in my mind was why Downing was selected ahead of him. But we'll need much, much better from our players against Croatia in midweek.
 
Jaffa Cake said:
I don't think we've got rubbish players, I think it's more the case we've got some pretty decent ones but we don't seem to know how to use them to their best.

It was one of those hiding to nothing games, where anything less than a comprehensive win is seen as a failure but if we do record a cricket score the retort is 'well, it's only Andorra'.

At the end of the day, the aim was three points and in so far as that it's a case of job done, I suppose. But it generally wasn't pretty. A positive from the match was Walcott who I thought put in a good performance and I thought Johnson looked useful at times too. And Joe Cole was a great substitution, the only question there in my mind was why Downing was selected ahead of him. But we'll need much, much better from our players against Croatia in midweek.
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Well thats that. As a fervent Boro' fan ... I'd have to say Downing didn't have the greatest game ever.

BUT

There are questions to be raised...

Joe Cole for example...

He's still not a left winger in my book. Both of his goals were as an attacking midfield (as Champ Man would say, "free role"). I didn't see him cross anything from the left. His best work is still in the centre of the pitch IMHO.

Ashley Cole (its a good day to get mentioned if your name is Cole. Old King to get mentioned next :p)

A bit useless since his Arsenal days eh? One of my gripes against the namesayers against Downing is that the left side of the team hardly functions as a whole. Ashley Cole kept on over hitting it and then diving in the box, and even Barry over hit quite a few passes.

The selection seems to be off if we pick Downing (or someone else who crosses it eg Beckham). Not playing Crouch or Heskey means pumping crosses in is aimless. Defoe couldn't win a header if his life depended on it and Rooney constantly drops too deep (seem me previous posts on him). Having wingers who cross the ball is pointless if we're not gonna win it in the air.
 
swiftaw said:
Scotland got their World Cup qualifying off to a great start. (sarcasm)
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Yes, new manager, new tactics. Rather than go for the gallant snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, now we are just going to piss it away from the beginning. Saves all that false hope. :(

Lord Blackadder said:
:eek:

Well, USA are playing Cuba in Cuba for the first time since the Bay of Pigs. Let's hope that this invasion goes better than the last one.
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Are US citizens allowed to visit Cuba? I've got several passports (paid for by the work) so that I don't collect stamps from 'opposing' countries (Arab/Israeli, US/Cuba)
 
Jaffa Cake said:
I can only assume that Fuzzy is a spy or something, which would make sense as most people would agree that the best Bond was a Scot. ;)
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he he

38312.gif

that is a thing of beauty...
 
Jaffa Cake said:
To be fair though, I know for certain one member of the Newcastle faithful who will have thrown his shirt away and won't be sat in the crowd among the fans at the next game... :p ;)

View attachment 133372
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I think he'll have to sell. If he doesn't, the fans just won't turn up. Whatever his expertise in other lines of business, he clearly had no clue about football or Newcastle. Hiring Keegan was a poor choice for him (not for the club or the fans), since Keegan is essentially unfireable except at massive cost (as he's now seeing). Similarly, Shearer was undroppable.

I don't think Ashley realizes the esteem Keegan is held in. The club were a shambles and going nowhere in the early 80s when Keegan (who could have played for any decent first division club if he'd wanted) came to Newcastle completely out of the blue and helped the club to promotion. I remember the atmosphere at the ground was electric. He was easily the best player to wear the black and white since Milburn, and possibly since Gallacher (Hugh, not Kevin).

But the club ownership messed up again and allowed a squad that included the three finest players in England – Waddle, Gascoigne and Beardsley – to disintegrate and end up on the verge of being relegated to the third division in 1991-2.

So Keegan turns up again. People hoped he'd get the team into the Premier League and that was about it. Instead he challenged for the title and produced the most attractive football ever seen in the league. Again the owners tried to mess him around, so he left.

Ashley doesn't understand that there are likely some people on Tyneside who would give their lives to save Kevin Keegan's. The man is a deity up there.

The fans won't stand for this. If he tries to keep on with the Gnome as DOF and buying nobodies, not only will fans stop turning up, but the current squad will just mail in performances.

If he doesn't sell, I hope the club get relegated. This will hit Ashley in the wallet - his only vital organ.
 
Agathon said:
Whatever his expertise in other lines of business, he clearly had no clue about football or Newcastle.
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Mr Ashley is of course a long time Spurs fan – his purchase of Newcastle United was purely business and wasn't made out of any love for the club. I'm sure the majority of supporters easily saw through his shirt wearing, away end dwelling antics however.

As you allude to Agathon, a major issue Keegan had with Ashley's regime was the fact that he had little or no say in the club's transfer dealings. This past week, we've heard similar complaints from Alan Curbishley after he resigned from West Ham.

We're going more and more towards the 'Director of Football' situation favoured on many parts of the continent, where a chap in an office (i Newcastle's case, at the other end of the country) is in charge of pinpointing an signing transfers, who are then handed over to the 'Head Coach' to try and mould them into a team. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer the English system of having a manager solely in charge of first team affairs.

I wonder how much influence Mark Hughes will have when it comes to Manchester City's purchases in January and next summer – assuming he's still there of course? It seems that they're looking to collect players in the same way that a child would collect football stickers, cherry picking the biggest names with little regard to the structure of the team.
 
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D'oh! What happened he was in an English kit yesterday? I posted him at Owlsalive last night and this morning he is playing for hull again? :confused: :p
 
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