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2010-2011 Football Thread

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Wenger said the order was supposed to be Fabregas, Nasri, Arshavin so credit goes to Rosicky for stepping up when Nasri didn't want to (Wenger thinks it was because he was fouled right before it happened) - kinda like Nani at Craven Cottage.

It was a great game though, great advert for the EPL.
 
Fuzzy14 said:
LB if you have a decent broadband connection I have found there are ways to watch footie without such subscriptions, as long as you have the relevant cables to connect a laptop to the TV (not quite HD though...)
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Yeah, I've gone that route before, with mixed results. My TV has VGA and HDMI inputs, so I will probably be piping some games to it from Teh Internets. It's better than nothing. I'm not going to bother with trying to get my games in HD, it's just not worth the cost at this point. Can't wait for the day when everything's in HD and you don't have to pay another fee just to use your TV's full capabilities.
 
Anyway, we played Nottingham Forest last night – the first time we've played them competitively in ages. The fact that the last time we played in Hull Billy Bremner scored the winning goal is indication enough of that – it's nearly 34 years ago. :eek:

It's interesting how footballing fortunes diverge. That season – 1976-77 – Forest won promotion to the then First Division, and within a couple of seasons were not only English League Champions but two-times European Cup winners. For us, relegation beckoned the following season and we began a long period of shambling through the bottom two divisions, nearly blinking out of existence on more than one occasion.

In recent years it's been their turn to decline as we climbed the League, however our respective movements through the divisions have kept us apart. For me this was especially frustrating, as I lived in Nottingham for a spell and have been wanting us to play against Forest for ages.

Anyway, last night it finally happened. A 0-0 draw might not have been just reward for the long wait, but it means that we're still unbeaten at home this season, and still to concede a goal. Which is alright, really. It's the away form that's the problem...
 
I never had any illusions that we could beat United at Old Trafford, we're just not good enough. It still ruins my day to lose to them though. Our defense was poor, Torres was invisible and we were not enough of an attacking threat. Still, for a 7th place team 3-2 is not a bad scoreline against Manchester United. :eek:

I take some small comfort to see that United are not that great either... I could be wrong, and maybe it's bias, but I don't see them anywhere near the title this season. If Rooney finds form again they might improve markedly, but I just don't think they have the depth anymore.

As a matter of fact, I'll make a bold prediction and say that you can call the engraver on this season - Chelsea will win again. They are head and shoulders better than everyone else. Liverpool is a midtable side, Man U and Arsenal are showing serious defensive frailties, Man City is still burning money like its going out of style but have no cohesive team yet. Spurs will fade as the season goes on, or be distracted by their European adventure. It may also be a pretty low points total for the top clubs this season.

To complete the horror weekend for me, Columbus were beaten 4-0 by Seattle. I can't remember the last time we lost an MLS match by such a margin...we play them again on Oct 5 for the Open Cup, I demand revenge!

Jaffa Cake said:
Anyway, we played Nottingham Forest last night – the first time we've played them competitively in ages. The fact that the last time we played in Hull Billy Bremner scored the winning goal is indication enough of that – it's nearly 34 years ago. :eek: ages.
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That's a long time coming, that matchup. The first time I heard the name Billy Bremner was while watching a Monty Python skit, and I had no idea who he was...

The promotion/relegation model make for some interesting situations where two teams may not face each other for many, many years.
 
Lord Blackadder said:
As a matter of fact, I'll make a bold prediction and say that you can call the engraver on this season - Chelsea will win again. They are head and shoulders better than everyone else.
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Maybe, but look at their schedule to start the season! Ridiculously easy. They should be battering the likes of WBA, West Ham, Blackpool, &c. We'll see how they hold up against tougher competition when they get to finally play some.

United really need to get their defense sorted out. Rio gets his knee sorted out and plays a Champions League match just fine, then catches a virus and has to sit out the Liverpool match! Talk about snakebit. And whatever happened to the Jonny Evans that kept Drogba so quiet at Stamford Bridge? And do United have a defensive midfielder other than Fletcher? (Nice screwup to allow Gerrard's second goal, BTW.)

Oh well, thank goodness for Berba. Guess the extra heading practice finally paid off; the overhead kicks are already old hat.
 
Silencio said:
Maybe, but look at their schedule to start the season! Ridiculously easy. They should be battering the likes of WBA, West Ham, Blackpool, &c. We'll see how they hold up against tougher competition when they get to finally play some.
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Good point, but the easy start to the season will have them playing very confidently, and I think that momentum can be a powerful psychological factor for a team. Few would argue that they are anything but the best team in the league right now by a clear margin. If Arsenal or Man U are to launch a title challenge they will have to improve their play significantly. It could happen of course, but my money's on Chelski to repeat.

Silencio said:
Oh well, thank goodness for Berba. Guess the extra heading practice finally paid off; the overhead kicks are already old hat.
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I wonder if this performance will alter any Manchester United fans' opinions of Berbatov. Many still remain pretty skeptical of his style of play.
 
Lord Blackadder said:
He shouldn't be playing anymore as far as I'm concerned.
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I'd have been quite happy for him to have had a long playing career with HMP Wayland's team...

I might be meeting up with a Coventry fan I know in a few weeks, I'll have to canvas opinion. By one of those coincidence's that always seem to crop up in football, we play Coventry in our next home match. King will score, you can expect that much.
 
Lord Blackadder said:
Good point, but the easy start to the season will have them playing very confidently, and I think that momentum can be a powerful psychological factor for a team. Few would argue that they are anything but the best team in the league right now by a clear margin. If Arsenal or Man U are to launch a title challenge they will have to improve their play significantly. It could happen of course, but my money's on Chelski to repeat.
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Indeed, Chelsea certainly look the part so far, but haven't had any real tests. However, have they improved significantly or have the likes of Man U got worse? I know they sometimes dont' always have the best of starts but throwing 2 goal leads away is unheard off
 
Lord Blackadder said:
Good point, but the easy start to the season will have them playing very confidently, and I think that momentum can be a powerful psychological factor for a team. Few would argue that they are anything but the best team in the league right now by a clear margin. If Arsenal or Man U are to launch a title challenge they will have to improve their play significantly. It could happen of course, but my money's on Chelski to repeat.



I wonder if this performance will alter any Manchester United fans' opinions of Berbatov. Many still remain pretty skeptical of his style of play.
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I think the defences of the 'Top Four' are pretty much the same, not good; Chelsea can be got at, and when they come up against a decent forward line, they will be found out - chances are being created, just not converted.

On the Liverpool game - Fletcher went AWOL for 15 minutes, allowing their midfield more room, and he got played during a well worked free kick. Still, Hargreaves will be back soon to help him out.:rolleyes: And Woy, what are you talking about?

Berbatov - I've changed my opinion, I now think he's rubbish.:D

Cheers,
OW
 
Fizzoid said:
Indeed, Chelsea certainly look the part so far, but haven't had any real tests. However, have they improved significantly or have the likes of Man U got worse? I know they sometimes dont' always have the best of starts but throwing 2 goal leads away is unheard off
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I agree - Chelsea have not improved much if at all over the last couple years - but Man United, Arsenal and especially Liverpool have weakened considerably. They are all leaking a lot of goals these days.

oscillatewildly said:
I think the defences of the 'Top Four' are pretty much the same, not good; Chelsea can be got at, and when they come up against a decent forward line, they will be found out - chances are being created, just not converted.
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I think there's some truth in that. The composition of the defenses haven't radically changed, but they are being exposed more often. With less dominance up front and in the midfield, opponents are spending more time attacking the top four than they used to, and that leads to more goals allowed.

oscillatewildly said:
On the Liverpool game - Fletcher went AWOL for 15 minutes, allowing their midfield more room, and he got played during a well worked free kick. Still, Hargreaves will be back soon to help him out.:rolleyes: And Woy, what are you talking about?

Berbatov - I've changed my opinion, I now think he's rubbish.:D

Cheers,
OW
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With the current squad we have, we were never going to win at Old Trafford unless Torres and Cole were on hot streaks of form, which they are not. Ferguson launched a ridiculous attack about our performance, talking about cricket scores and other such nonsense. :rolleyes: The fact of the matter is, United let in two goals and very nearly dropped points at home against a weakened, hated rival. Berbatov rode to the rescue now that Rooney is off-form. Sour grapes, Alex. I'm annoyed about the loss but in reality it means nothing for Liverpool's season - you never count on getting points from a top four side. We need to focus on beating the lower and midtable sides and try not to fall too far down the table.

He should be less worried about beating a 7th-place side and more worried about Chelsea running away with the league.
 
The cricket score is a tad too far, but a couple more goals wouldn't have been out of place. Managers spout guano, just look at Fat Sam (the Blackburn Rovers bloke, not the one from Bugsy Malone), I'm just surprised at how infected Hodgson has become.

Torres - some service would help.

Cheers,
OW
 
Anyone else following the Bundesliga? It is easily the most exciting and competitive league in the world. Bayern lose yet again to last seasons miracle team Hoffenheim, meanwhile Schalke are still without a point after 4 games. Hopefully tomorrow they get something... :(
 
NathanCH said:
Anyone else following the Bundesliga? It is easily the most exciting and competitive league in the world. Bayern lose yet again to last seasons miracle team Hoffenheim, meanwhile Schalke are still without a point after 4 games. Hopefully tomorrow they get something... :(
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I'm a casual Kaiserslautern fan. I normally try to catch some matches on ESPN3.com when I can. But I haven't seen them anywhere else. I don't know about the most exciting, but definitely entertaining!

Here's to Villa getting back on track tomorrow against Blackburn in their Carling Cup clash. Albrighton has been the biggest up for us so far.
 
US Soccer once again tried (and failed) to get Klinsmann on as head coach, but failed after refusing to give the ex-Germany manager the level of control he wanted. US Soccer (our FA) does exercise a lot of control over the league and national team by European standards, and Klinsmann wanted to bring in a large staff. Personally I think it's a disgrace because it undermines Bob Bradley to a large extent, since they tried once already to get Klinsmann and made Bradley permanent as a "plan B". Now they've done it to him again.

Klinsmann seems a good manager but I question whether he would have gotten better results than Bradley, and he certainly would have cost an awful lot more.

oscillatewildly said:
The cricket score is a tad too far, but a couple more goals wouldn't have been out of place. Managers spout guano, just look at Fat Sam (the Blackburn Rovers bloke, not the one from Bugsy Malone), I'm just surprised at how infected Hodgson has become.

Torres - some service would help.

Cheers,
OW
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United could have scored more, they were the better team. But Ferguson is full of it as usual. As you say, most managers do it, it's a competitive environment and passions flare. You won't catch me cutting SAF any slack though. ;)

Torres is not getting the best service, it's true. I worry that our midfield with Gerrard and Cole is not set up to best serve Torres. I feel like the center of the park in front of goal is apt to get crowded while there is unexploited space on the wings, a situation exacerbated by Dirk Kuyt's absence.

NathanCH said:
Anyone else following the Bundesliga? It is easily the most exciting and competitive league in the world. Bayern lose yet again to last seasons miracle team Hoffenheim, meanwhile Schalke are still without a point after 4 games. Hopefully tomorrow they get something... :(
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I rarely watch any matches, but I have been reading about it more this season. There have been a few really lopsided scorelines lately, Borussia Mönchengladbach just got smashed by Stuttgart. USA midfielder Michael Bradley plays for them, so I hope he wasn't as bad as the result sounds.
 
Lord Blackadder said:
United could have scored more, they were the better team. But Ferguson is full of it as usual. As you say, most managers do it, it's a competitive environment and passions flare. You won't catch me cutting SAF any slack though. ;)
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I took that as an intentionally misguided comment to deflect from our defensively fragile midfield and shaky defence so as to redirect attention to our seemingly rejuvenated attack - which was universally agreed upon as our downfall last season.

My gripe with that is, playing a 4-4-2 means you won't be using possession to minimise you opponent's threat (think if we have the ball that means they don't have it to hurt us) and instead rely on a solid back four to snuff out chances, which at the moment Man Utd lack hence all the goals we've been leaking.

Surely SAF sees this as well?
 
Nieval said:
Surely SAF sees this as well?
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I don't think Berbatov is effective in a lone striker formation, and I suspect Ferguson thinks the same.

I think Ferguson realized that he could afford to play a 4-4-2 against Liverpool in order to make best use of Berbatov. Better opponents in the league and in Europe won't allow him that luxury.

I'm sure we've all wondered how Mancini is going to keep his huge squad of primadonnas happy over at Manchester City. The answer appears to be that he simply can't.
 
Losing to Brentford...Yeah, this season is just getting better and better…

I wonder how long it takes before Moyes has to go… Last season he could blame a horrible start in the league on injuries and the whole Lescott-mess, but I'm not sure he'll be excused just as easily this season if it doesn't turn arouns very, very soon...
 
Well, I hope Liverpool weren't getting cocky about their neighbours' Cup misfortune – they're out as well, eliminated on penalties at the hands of League Two Northampton Town.

Cue talk around the notion of 'a load of cobblers'.
 
And on top of that ignominy, we are teetering on the brink of insolvency. Frankly, Liverpool as a competitive force has largely ceased to exist, and competition is no longer relevant anyway this season, we need to get our house in order. All I care about now is coming out of this season with new owners, no points deductions and avoiding relegation. I'm mostly joking about that last one. :(

I think Hodgson can turn things around on the pitch, but he'll need to spend this season rebuilding and we need new owners, the sooner the better. Hopefully they'll be in place by January.
 
Crazy day of cup results today! Newcastle beats Chelsea at the Bridge in a thriller. Northampton beats 'Pool in a shootout. Citeh falls to West Brom. United looked poor for vast stretches of their match against Scunthorpe but piled it on in the second half to pull away.

I think Citeh's loss is especially bad. They need to win some sort of silverware, even the Carling Cup would have given them some legitimacy. Pressure's got to be pretty intense on Mancini.
 
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