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The 2011-2012 Football Thread

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What I find astounding is the incredible hypocricy of the British media, when Greece won the Euros in 2004, they were derided for the overly defensive style, when Chelsea win against Barcelona, with possession of less than 30% across two 90 minute matches, Roberto De Matteo is painted to be some kind of football whizz kid when in fact it's John Terry that is picking the team. Well, I hope Hodgson does bring success to England because he ain't going to do it playing beautiful football (certainly not against Spain) and we'll see how they take to them tactics if England win the Euros.
 
These attacks on Hodgson are really beyond the pale. Talk about self-destructive behavior. It's one thing to joke about 'Woy' here and there, but the Sun (as usual) has all the subtlety of a bomb going off. But as I said before, maybe there will actually be some blowback from the public against the media over this. Anybody with a brain can see the obvious and frankly sound logic behind the choice - though the decision to restrict the choice to Englishmen in the first place is silly.

It's also lame that the media are blaming the FA for Tottenham's late-season slump, more or less absolving Redknapp.

P.S. Beckenbauer's winding-up of the English was pretty hilarious...the press reaction was vociferous even by Englsih standards. Methinks they doth protest too much. ;)

FA Cup: Liverpool have been playing terrible football all season. The only time we look decent is against derby rivals or teams that just have a really bad day. There is almost zero chance we will win the FA Cup; it would be a near-miracle.

With that being said, if by some unbelievable chance we win it, I won't be the least bit apologetic. It's Chelsea's job to make their obvious advantage count, and Dalglish, for all his bluster, knows that he's taking a pretty agricultural side to Wembley. We'll need a huge slice of luck. I'm going to don my shirt early Saturday morning and suffer through it.

The only thing I can say in Liverpool's defense is that we played some of our best football in the FA Cup, and we deserve to be in the final.
 
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the question if Hodgson is the right choice sure is difficult, his problem will be that he will get the blame despite the fact that he won't take control of the squad until _9 days_ before the game against France

9 days (of which very likely he will have 6-7 days usable... tops) to put his idea of a strategy or tactics plan into the minds of his players...

the French are ridiculed for their recent tournament results but they still have a hell of a squad especially in attacking: Gomis, Ribery, Benzema etc.


i think an additional problem is that ENgland opposed to Spain or Germany is the lack of bigger "blocks" of squads

Spain is 70% Barcelona, 20% Real Madrid, 10% the rest
Germany is 60% Bayern München,20% Dortmund, 10% Real Madrid etc.

with england it always seems they are cobbled together from dozens of teams , similar to Austria ;)
 
It will be hard to blame Hodgson much for England's Euro 2012 performance. France is clearly superior in talent and England are nowhere near the level of Germany and Spain right now. England also has an old squad and you can't teach old dogs new tricks. I expect England to play much like they did in South Africa.
 
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Just as i thought, Bolton and Chelsea were going to be useless for us today. Oh well, we absolutely have to beat Norwich and West Brom now. Hopefully one of them is a BIG win to boost GD.

Regardless it was great to see the Muamba today.
 
A decent hit. I might tip that as goal of the season. This loss could cost Chelsea a CL spot.

Liverpool won't attack that well against Chelsea, but we might manage a similar performance in defence. If Suarez has another blinder we may make a game of it.

EDIT: Lionel Messi has just broken the single season goalscoring record for European top-flight clubs. He has scored sixty eight times this season. Gasp.
 
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Just mind boggling. If only 2 or 3 of them went against Chelsea in the CL :p
 
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daneoni said:
Just mind boggling. If only he 2 or 3 of them went against Chelsea in the CL :p
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One would have been enough...No matter how good Chelsea were, they were half the width of a crossbar from going out anyway...

Newcastle's win really spices up the title race. Man U's run in will be far easier than City's if Newcastle play like that against City.
 
Should be a cracker because City will be massively up for it knowing whats at stake. I fancy Kompany against Cisse...but then again Cisse could just have a plop from the corner flag and it'll probably manage to avoid every City player on pitch and end up in the net.

Still can't get enough of today's goal.
 
Rangers administrators have received an unconditional bid for the club, which is surprising as we expected all the bids to have strings attached. So it looks like the new owner will be an American, Bill Miller, who I know nothing about.

Americans owning football clubs... nothing can go wrong there, eh?:rolleyes:;)
 
Lord Blackadder said:
FA Cup: Liverpool have been playing terrible football all season. The only time we look decent is against derby rivals or teams that just have a really bad day. There is almost zero chance we will win the FA Cup; it would be a near-miracle.
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Yea, Chelsea are clear favourites but I won't accept Liverpool has been playing terrible football all year. The home defeat against Arsenal was the most one-sided affair I have ever witnessed and even Arsene Wenger admitted his team were lucky. Ditto home games against Newcastle, Spurs (albeit it was only a draw), Manchester City and Manchester United (very unlucky to draw in the league and destroyed them in the cup). We have played some decent football this year but where we have NOT performed is against the so called lesser teams where the players don't seem capable to rouse themselves at Anfield. There have been some terrible performances amongst those (Wigan, West Brom, Aston Villa, Sunderland and QPR). Most of those happened after top-4 was ruled out following the home defeat against Arsenal. Not sure how to rate those games as much experimenting with younger players took place.

Away from home our form has been alright. Beat Arsenal, Chelsea (twice), Everton, Stoke (where only Newcastle from the top 7 has won) in total winning 13 games (competitive) away from Anfield.

To boot we have not taken our chances missing 85% of our penalty kicks this season and having a ridiculously high close encounter with the woodwork (32 times and counting when the average in a season is close to 18). How many points were lost there?

Look, I am not apologist BUT this weekend is one-off and with a bit of luck Liverpool will be departing Anfield South with another trophy. Here's hoping anyway
 
Wirelessly posted

Fuzzy14 said:
Rangers administrators have received an unconditional bid for the club, which is surprising as we expected all the bids to have strings attached. So it looks like the new owner will be an American, Bill Miller, who I know nothing about.

Americans owning football clubs... nothing can go wrong there, eh?:rolleyes:;)
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Trucking hell! :eek: Good luck; you never know what you are going to get with those American folk. :)

Cisse seems good at finding the corner of the goal.

Cheers,
OW
 
Fuzzy14 said:
Americans owning football clubs... nothing can go wrong there, eh?
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This may sound a little harsh, but the EPL and SPL have made their bed, and now they must sleep in it. In order to make more money and gain a global audience for their product, they had to make it more global and (by definition) less English/Scottish. That means a healthy dose of foreign players, managers and owners.

Look at the EPL - the English can no longer afford to own their best teams.

Oh, and the other factor is the fact that the leagues and FAs obviously do no vetting of potential owners - as long as you have the money you are good to go (even if that "money" comes in the form of debt leveraged against the club).

Confuzzzed said:
Yea, Chelsea are clear favourites but I won't accept Liverpool has been playing terrible football all
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You make good points. I still put it to you that overall we have just not been good enough. BUT, as you point out, that stems almost exclusively from failing to finish chances. Our defense is good. Our midfield has been very average but just about good enough, and Lucas will be back next season. Our strikers have been woeful. Suarez has not had a terrible season (leaving aside the non-footballing issues), but it's clear he desperately needs a better strike partner. We need more depth up front. Carroll has been a failure. Liverpool could still have a role for him - but as a third striker/substitute/Europe League player.

Logically, you're right, it's a one-off game, and Liverpool do have a chance to take the cup. But my gut instinct is negative. I don't want to get my hopes up only to see Torres dash them to the soundtrack of a Gary Neville climax. :eek:
 
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Wayne Rooney's shinned effort against City last season has been deemed the best goal of the Premier League era. So, if that is the best goal in the Best League on Earth, does that make it the best goal ever scored? :rolleyes:

In all seriousness, Cisse's goal was better than that, not to mention the famous Bergkamp goal from 2002 (?). As for bicycle kicks, I'm still in awe of Rivaldo's, which was chested down and struck from twice the distance of Rooney's. That is just magic. But that one didn't happen in the Best League in the World, so it doesn't count. :D
 
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Lord Blackadder said:
So, if that is the best goal in the Best League on Earth, does that make it the best goal ever scored? :rolleyes:
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Well, the bestest goal scored in the 20 years since Sky invented football.

A favourite of mine is the Di Canio goal against Wimbledon when the fun-loving fascist sympathiser hops up into the air before volleying the ball into the net. You know, this one.
 
What makes the Di Canio goal so good is that those kinds of volleys are fairly rare, probably not that much more common than bicycle kicks.

I thought you were going to bring up Deano's blast. ;)
 
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TBGSITBLITW,

I prefer Cantona's goal to Rooney's. Think Suarez won some vote on Sky earlier in the year. If enough of your club's supporters can be arsed, you win. Garbage. Also find the player of the year awards unsatisfactory; seems to be more player of a short season - similar feel to ESPN's MOTM vote at 60 minutes gone. Have player of the season, with the vote at the end of the season.

Cheers,
OW
 
Lord Blackadder said:
This may sound a little harsh, but the EPL and SPL have made their bed, and now they must sleep in it. In order to make more money and gain a global audience for their product, they had to make it more global and (by definition) less English/Scottish. That means a healthy dose of foreign players, managers and owners.

Look at the EPL - the English can no longer afford to own their best teams.
Click to expand...

My subtle joke was perhaps too subtle, I wasn't having a dig at xenophobic dig at Johnny foreigner coming in and stealing our women, I mean football clubs, it was a dig at Gillett and Hicks but perhaps you've tried to purge that from your mind. John W. Henry seems to be doing not bad though, so you lot can't be all that bad.;)
 
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