Football 2011-2012

[TheGayTent]

Things I learnt this weekend. Liverpool still have far too many bang average players and talk of the title by some fans and pundits is laughable.

Arsenal are still dirty and indisciplined.

Sam Allardyce plays crap, defensive, negative football. On the plus side, another new ground

[jammy2211]

Watched Fulham / Villa game last night, decent start to the season and pretty much carrying on from where we left off. Solid defence but we never play to 'win' a game just sort of, play our own style and see what happens. Means we'll never be dragged into a relegation dogfight but equally never going to hope to break into the 'top 7' above Everton or something. Makes us a really good side over two legs though, so barring getting a Europa league group of death I can see us going far there again.

[Wooderson]

Things I learnt this weekend.

Liverpool still have far too many bang average players

[Wooderson]

Indeed.

Good game though I thought. Your boys played some encouraging enough stuff first 45 with Adam pretty influentual (faded badly second, and room for defensive improvement) & Suarez - whilst a bit leggy - getting involved. Sunderland pretty shite first half with Gyan really isolated. Second half, they looked quite a bit ahead of you on fitness which told. (Possible consequence of using fair amount of pre-season as a shopwindow for the deadwood? See Joe Cole started 4 of your 6 pre-season games and Poulson 3)

Thought Richardson was lucky with the yellow. Suarez made a bit of a meal of it, but pen and red all the same I thought. Dowd's argument didn't make much sense either; if rounding a keeper of course you're going to be going away from goal and as MOTD showed, he hadn't exactly narrowed the angle too much. Saying that, thought Carraghers challenge on Gyan first half wasn't a good one either.

edit: quite liked McCarthy's quote today.

"How big a player is Matt Jarvis going to be this year?"

"well about five feet eight inches, same as last season".

[strummer77]

I thought the 2nd half was awful.

Sunlunn clearly stronger. The talk of our pre-season games being used as shop window arent far wrong.

LFC are at least a couple games away from performing effectively. Thought Carroll looked aimless and disinterested.

[Ed209]

[pink_triangle]

New season but nothing changes as resilient man utd win through with a late goal, expect they werent winning away last season which if a sign to come could be scary. I look at the top 6 from last season and struggle to see many goals outside man utd, unless mancini decides to take a risk. With them 2 also having the best defences its hard to look beyond either winning the league. Im finding it hard to make a judgement on chelsea, I expected big spending but it hasnt really come, suspect they and city will both do big business before the season ends.

[The Nal]

[ampersand]

[kaosmark2]

New season but nothing changes as resilient man utd win through with a late goal, expect they werent winning away last season which if a sign to come could be scary. I look at the top 6 from last season and struggle to see many goals outside man utd, unless mancini decides to take a risk. With them 2 also having the best defences its hard to look beyond either winning the league. Im finding it hard to make a judgement on chelsea, I expected big spending but it hasnt really come, suspect they and city will both do big business before the season ends.

[The Nal]

Fabregas finally gone.....

[chappiepunk]

Go on Wenger, sign up Joey Barton

Silly of Gervinho to raise his hands though, and Song earlier if the review panel take a look. Hardly need suspensions ahead of the Liverpool game.

[chappiepunk]

[The Nal]

Sneijder and Eto'o both due back in Milan today. Eto'o looks like he could defo be off. As for Sneijder..... Utd still want him 100%.

Nasri off to Citeh today?

[eFestivals]

costing over £20m probably more of a reason.

while Arsenal rarely shell out that sort of money, my comments were based on them not having picked up sooner when he'd have cost far less - they're normally quite on the ball at finding very talented youngsters.

[eFestivals]

New season but nothing changes as resilient man utd win through with a late goal

whoa - hang on. One major thing has changed. Utd have a shit goalie and so are hugely vulnerable to any team who takes them on properly. I did wonder if that was how things might pan out, particularly at the start of the season. Teams need to get at 'em, and they're there for the taking.

Whether he's permanently dodgy I don't know, but it might not matter anyway - I can't see fergie sticking with him too long if he carries on like that. And while he might be a highly rated young goalie, so was Ben Foster, so was Rob Green, so was Chris Kirkham, so was the goalie who's just gone to turkey (who was that? I forget the name), so was Richard Wright. Etc, etc, etc .... I'm wondering if fergie has made yet another of his many goalie f**k-ups?

[The Nal]

I'm wondering if fergie has made yet another of his many goalie f**k-ups?

Edited August 15, 2011 by The Nal

[jump]

whoa - hang on. One major thing has changed. Utd have a shit goalie and so are hugely vulnerable to any team who takes them on properly. I did wonder if that was how things might pan out, particularly at the start of the season. Teams need to get at 'em, and they're there for the taking.

Whether he's permanently dodgy I don't know, but it might not matter anyway - I can't see fergie sticking with him too long if he carries on like that. And while he might be a highly rated young goalie, so was Ben Foster, so was Rob Green, so was Chris Kirkham, so was the goalie who's just gone to turkey (who was that? I forget the name), so was Richard Wright. Etc, etc, etc .... I'm wondering if fergie has made yet another of his many goalie f**k-ups?

[eFestivals]

Scott Carson, I was surprised by his move as he was their captain.

ah yeah, that's him.

I can only think I forgot the name because there's been sooooo many of those "highly rated young keepers" in recent years that there's too many to remember, with nearly all of them turning to shit shortly after they've been lauded.

It's clearly the case that young keepers don't tend to live up to the expectations, much more so than with lauded young out-field players. And it's also the case that the best goalies are at their best when aged 30+.

De Gea might not be one of those turn-to-shit types of course, but who knows? We only get to find out as games go by. But if he carries on as he has then Utd are defo going to be in trouble this season - probably not enough to drop out of the top four, but more than enough for them to fail to win anything because teams will target that weak spot.

[pink_triangle]

Hes only 20. How many 20 year old keepers have ever played in a top team? Casillas and Buffon are the only two I can think of.

[The Nal]

Barca fans gathering in the stadium for Fabregas. Just finished his medical.

"Imagine the worst situation — we lose Fabregas and Nasri — you cannot convince people you are ambitious after that. The message we give out is important. For example, you see about Fabregas leaving, Nasri leaving. If you give that message out you cannot pretend you are a big club."

Arsene Wenger. 11 Jul 2011

Spend the f**king money Wenger!!

Nothing changes.

Edited August 15, 2011 by The Nal

[pink_triangle]

From the BBC website

"Next summer, Arsenal could find themselves with Robin van Persie, Theo Walcott, Alex Song and Andrei Arshavin all with one year left on their contract"

Looks like it could be a case of history repeating!

[TheGayTent]

They won't miss Walcott or Arshavin though

[The Nal]

They won't miss Walcott or Arshavin though

[The Nal]

Barcas, number 4, Barca's Barca's number 4