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2010-2011 Football Thread

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Fuzzy14 said:
Man City have loaned us Vladimir Weiss for a year, which would be great if I had heard of him before.
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We tried to get him in on loan last season, but Manchester City wanted us to pay a ridiculously large fee to acquire his temporary services.

He looked a decent enough player so it was unfortunate a deal couldn't be reached – it'll be interesting to see how he gets on at Rangers.
 
Kenny Huang has pulled his offer to buy Liverpool. He may or may not have been a good choice, but I can't help but feel that Liverpool's ownership are making a hash of this for purely selfish reasons. They have to go.

Fuzzy14 said:
Fizz, Paul's record is only intact when the teams involve Germany (I think he was just lucky for the WC final). It wouldn't surprise me if those crafty Germans put him up to this.:D
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I find it especially funny that the English media keep mentioning how Paul is English-born...just as the commentators in the final (at least in the UK) made excessive mention of Howard Webb during the WC final. :D
 
:D Yes, especially now that Beckham's England career seems over. I think the "fury" durected at Capello over the move was almost exclusively concocted by the press as a sort of stroppy reaction to losing a lucrative and long-running story (i.e. Becks the England midfielder).
 
Lord Blackadder said:
I think the "fury" durected at Capello over the move was almost exclusively concocted by the press as a sort of stroppy reaction to losing a lucrative and long-running story (i.e. Becks the England midfielder).
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Let's not forget either that the press that was so critical of Capello ending Beckham's international career was the one lambasting the Italian earlier in the year for giving him apparently needless caps. :p
 
Indeed!

The press have suddenly pulled the rug out from under him. Before the World Cup, they were fawningly approving, ascribing almost mystical powers to the man. A few rumbles of negativity appeared in the final couple friendlies, but the press continued to paint him as England's Messiah....until that match against the USA, and the subsequent poor showing in South Africa. Now the press have done a sharp about face - and the FA seem to be in on it as well, with their frankly ludicrous statement about the next England manager being English.
 
It's not often that injury makes a player seem better than they really are, and I submit to the belief that its an ominous sign of the times. :(

On a related note, am I the only one who finds it more difficult to read football news nowadays due to all the credibility swish-swashing that's occurring? Perhaps if we really want to bring about this fantasy change in English football we'll need to scrutinize the media with a bigger magnifying glass.
 
Nieval said:
On a related note, am I the only one who finds it more difficult to read football news nowadays due to all the credibility swish-swashing that's occurring?
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I think it's due to a combination of the internet, with news and opinion sites fighting for exclusives, and the 24 hour sport channels which need constant stories to fill their rolling schedules.

Often they're just reporting on little more than speculation, which then gets jumped on by other sites, and so on.
 
Jaffa Cake said:
I think it's due to a combination of the internet, with news and opinion sites fighting for exclusives, and the 24 hour sport channels which need constant stories to fill their rolling schedules.
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A fitting statement Mr. Cake.
Notice how, if you exclude the word 'sport', you'll find that it could almost be applied on a grander scale to journalism today, such the demise, if you pardon my pessimistic mood. ;)
 
So, if the Gunners put 6 by Blackpool, and Blackpool put 4 past Wigan, does that mean Arsenal should beat Wigan by something like 18-1? :eek:
 
Looks like our new owners' honeymoon period is over. 3-1 loss to Stevenage. Their first ever League win, meaning we'll now be a question on a quiz machine for the next decade or so :rolleyes:
 
I meant to post this earlier. For anyone stateside, ESPN 3 is playing Premiership games as well (as Bundesliga and others). I caught the Arsenal game this morning (drubbing that it was), more games coming up.

So will Walcott now skid a few games since he performed so well today?
 
Lord Blackadder said:
So, if the Gunners put 6 by Blackpool, and Blackpool put 4 past Wigan, does that mean Arsenal should beat Wigan by something like 18-1? :eek:
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Wigan's certainly had a horror start. But I reiterate my previous point about Chelsea winning 6-0. Again. There really shouldn't be scorelines regulary that large in a decent competition. Arsenal's 6-0 came from Blackpool going down to 10 men, otherwise it probably would have been only 2/3-0 or the Gunners even conceded maybe.

Other codes that have this lopsided situation where teams are getting flogged on a regular basis inevitably bring in wage caps or draft systems to even things out once the fans and supporters start getting pissed off at the one-sided stuation.

But the Premier League can start by simply banning non-football money from the competition. Chelsea thrashing two full strength teams 6-0 in successive games is just ridiculous. This is a team of ring-in players purchased by external oil money from Russia. Man City is now a team of players purchased with Arab oil money but haven't yet got their act together but I imagine they'll start doing the same eventually.

That the Premier League expects football clubs running their operations like actual football clubs to be able to match these ring-in teams on the pitch in fair competition is just leaving their heads in the clouds, or up their behinds, and creating a problem that will only get worse which they will be forced to eventually address whether they want to or not.

Jaffa's point about the CL money pit and Prem League slice of the cake giving the top teams an advantage, it's still football money as opposed to external money. And the difference is Man Utd beating newly promoted Newcastle 3-0. Or Arsenal beating Blackpool by the same if Pool hadn't had a man sent off. Even with all that CL money, scores like 6-0 are rare events in the normal course of things, usually when a team has a really bad-hair off day when half the team has the flu or something, not when they're the best team the club can field.

Personally, if I were the manager of a team playing Chelsea knowing even with my best team out there I'd get flogged 6-0, I'd think why bother. I'd bench all my regular players for that one match and just arrange 11 Millwall players on loan to kick the ***** out of them. If the Prem League don't want to make it a fair competition, someone else will have to take it into their own hands. :cool:

EDIT - Update - looks like Villa is having a bad-hair day today. Can't even score from a penalty. Who'd be a Villa or Toon supporter, flogged one week, win the next.. a bit of consistency please..
 
awmazz said:
I reiterate my previous point about Chelsea winning 6-0. Again. There really shouldn't be scorelines regulary that large in a decent competition.
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Yeah, poor Villa, you'd have thought the likes of Newcastle and their billions would have gone easy on them ;)
 
Fizzoid said:
Yeah, poor Villa, you'd have thought the likes of Newcastle and their billions would have gone easy on them ;)
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The key word is 'regularly' (even if I spelled it with a typo). It happens, as I said if a team has a bad day. Villa couldn't even score from the spot today. But regularly? You know and I know and the world knows that Newcastle isn't going to have another win like that again anytime soon, even against Wolves next Saturday.

Chelsea's playing Stoke next Saturday, what do you reckon? 4, 5 or 6 nil there? And then West Ham the next weekend, another 4, 5 or 6 nil there too? Will they even concede a single goal in their first four matches? Newcastle may have scored 6 in one game but have also conceded 3 in just one game too and likely will concede more. No comparison.
 
Yes but who would have predicted Blackpool slotting 4 past Wigan so maybe Newcastle do have it in them to get another hat full at some point, who knows. I don't see Chelsea getting 4-6 goals against Stoke, Stoke's 'defense' is fairly strong. I don't see them winning, but I don't see them loosing by a boat load either...
 
Their previous match only 4 months ago, 25th April 2010, Stamford Bridge:

Chelsea 7 - 0 Stoke City.
 
Three 6-0 scorelines, and Fulham draw with United. This is not your usual weekend of football!

I'm shocked that Villa capitulated that badly. The Blackpool result is more understandable since they were down a man and playing a top four side. Poor Wigan look headed straight for the drop. It's not the loss against Chelsea that hurts, it's the loss against Blackpool - a team they surely need to win against to stay up.

Big game for the 'Pool tomorrow, and no Joe Cole. Man City have a more talented and much more expensive squad than we do. However, I think Hodgson is the better manager and crucially I think Liverpool will be stronger in defense and generally more organized and efficient as a unit. But I must say I do not expect to win. I'm hoping for a 2-2 or something like that. If we score early we just might be able to nick a win.

EDIT: it seems that Bob Bradley remains a possibility for the Villa manager hotseat. I don't want to lose him as a national coach, but I'd love to see an American manager in the Premier League. It's a big, big risk. Bradley's a decent enough manager, but this would be a major step up, and he's had no preseason to prepare either. Also, that leaves the USA job vacant. Perhaps they'd try to get Jurgen Klinsmann again.
 
Craven Cottage is a tough place to visit and United in particular have had a tough time there recently. They were very poor today and somewhat lucky to have gotten a point out of it, though that's more then they got there the previous two seasons. Some shocking defending all around and a particularly poor performance from O'Shea.

I have Jonny Evans, Nani, and Wayne Rooney in my fantasy team. Evans had an awful game today, Nani missed a penalty, and Rooney sat out with a stomach ailment. I think I'll hit the drop before poor Wigan does.
 
Andy Carrol doesn't look bad eh?

I think he'd be a better choice to try and integrate in to the England team at this point rather than Zamora purely for age reasons.
 
Silencio said:
I have Jonny Evans, Nani, and Wayne Rooney in my fantasy team. Evans had an awful game today, Nani missed a penalty, and Rooney sat out with a stomach ailment. I think I'll hit the drop before poor Wigan does.
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I also have Rooney in my fantasy squad....I knew I should have taken Drogba! :p

MackPro91 said:
Andy Carrol doesn't look bad eh?
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Depends on what you mean by "doesn't look bad". In terms of skill he seems pretty effective....but he needs to lose the ponytail. ;)
 
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