The Football Thread - Season 2011/2012

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We won but we didn't deserve to. Rooney was getting fed up of never having the ball and was dropping so deep he was sometimes to be seen between the defensive and midfield 4's just to get a touch of the ball even though his presence there was utterly pointless. Our defence looked OK but the midfield had no spark except for from Downing.

Milner, Barry and Lampard are all such uncreative players for England as soon as I saw them listed in the team sheet I knew it wasn't going to be an interesting game to watch and that there would be few chances. Typical English football unfortunately; boring to watch and shaky throughout.

Ramsey thoroughly deserved man of the match. Himself and Bale were the best players on the pitch, it's just unfortunate for the Welsh that they don't have a little more quality around them.

On a positive note for England, Hart continues to prove himself as the best English keeper with an excellent save - albeit from a shot after play had been called back.
 
cambsno said:
Told you ages ago... Capello OUT! ;)
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i notice you say the exact same thing about wenger. You seem to be one of these manager war mongerers. It must be the manager, how about it being the fact that the team is just a bit pants?
 
Snaptastic said:
4th in the world rankings is very flattering. Wales could have beaten us quite easy today.
Rooney looking frustrated at times and fat Frank looking fat doing nothing.

Job done but by painting over the cracks
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That World Ranking system is inept to say the least!!

We had our game against Holland cancelled due to the recent riots and moved up one place to fourth on the back of it!! :LOL:
 
jambosam said:
That World Ranking system is inept to say the least!!

We had our game against Holland cancelled due to the recent riots and moved up one place to fourth on the back of it!! :LOL:
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well, it seems to make sense to me that though - after all we are better when we don't play :LOL:
 
jambosam said:
That World Ranking system is inept to say the least!!

We had our game against Holland cancelled due to the recent riots and moved up one place to fourth on the back of it!! :LOL:
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I wonder if we could riot our way to victory in the Euros?
 
TriggerHappy said:
We won but we didn't deserve to. Rooney was getting fed up of never having the ball and was dropping so deep he was sometimes to be seen between the defensive and midfield 4's just to get a touch of the ball even though his presence there was utterly pointless. Our defence looked OK but the midfield had no spark except for from Downing.

Milner, Barry and Lampard are all such uncreative players for England as soon as I saw them listed in the team sheet I knew it wasn't going to be an interesting game to watch and that there would be few chances. Typical English football unfortunately; boring to watch and shaky throughout.

Ramsey thoroughly deserved man of the match. Himself and Bale were the best players on the pitch, it's just unfortunate for the Welsh that they don't have a little more quality around them.

On a positive note for England, Hart continues to prove himself as the best English keeper with an excellent save - albeit from a shot after play had been called back.
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I would also say another positive note was Ashley Young..continues to impress and has great pace, good shot and always getting in the right places.
Now we just need Jack the lad back to replace Barry
 
timmygcsc2308 said:
I would also say another positive note was Ashley Young..continues to impress and has great pace, good shot and always getting in the right places.
Now we just need Jack the lad back to replace Barry
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Yeah, Ashley Young played well too. I probably shouldn't admit this but after a wayward shot of his towards the end of the game I did say to the tv "yeah, you don't miss those against arsenal do you!" :LOL:

Wilshere is certainly a great creative force for England and he seems to play with a lot more passion for the shirt than a lot of our more seasoned players, and I don't just say that as an arsenal fan, hopefully everyone else can see that too!
 
TriggerHappy said:
Yeah, Ashley Young played well too. I probably shouldn't admit this but after a wayward shot of his towards the end of the game I did say to the tv "yeah, you don't miss those against arsenal do you!" :LOL:

Wilshere is certainly a great creative force for England and he seems to play with a lot more passion for the shirt than a lot of our more seasoned players, and I don't just say that as an arsenal fan, hopefully everyone else can see that too!
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I think they do, I was shocked this when I read a comment from a spurs fan on the sun website saying we need him back in the team plus Walcott to give us the extra zip :eek: and I don't say this just because I'm an Arsenal fan either but Wilshire is such an important player to the future of the England team, at 19 years of age he is a lynchpin of the squad much like young Michael Owen and Rooney were, whereas his compatriots such as Henri Landsbury are older yet still playing in the U21's.

I really think fat frank (what a sitter he missed last night) and Stevie have been stifling our midfield for quite a while now, the reputation they built up in their mid twenties is sadly diminishing and they are consistently outclassed at international level by players such as Young and Wilshire, and say what you want about Capello but at least he doesn't care about reputation and plays in-form players, Steve McLaren's 'untouchables' notion was farcical (or was that Sven GE?). Another example being Gary Cahill and I desperately hope we get his signature in January even if it's an agreement on a free in July, magnificent player and him and Terry make an excellent partnership.

And lastly imagine if Ramsey was English ;) I think on his own Ramsey is OK, but coupled with Jack they are a devastating pairing as shown against Man Utd. last term
 
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timmygcsc2308 said:
I think they do, I was shocked this when I read a comment from a spurs fan on the sun website saying we need him back in the team plus Walcott to give us the extra zip :eek: and I don't say this just because I'm an Arsenal fan either but Wilshire is such an important player to the future of the England team, at 19 years of age he is a lynchpin of the squad much like young Michael Owen and Rooney were, whereas his compatriots such as Henri Landsbury are older yet still playing in the U21's.

I really think fat frank (what a sitter he missed last night) and Stevie have been stifling our midfield for quite a while now, the reputation they built up in their mid twenties is sadly diminishing and they are consistently outclassed at international level by players such as Young and Wilshire, and say what you want about Capello but at least he doesn't care about reputation and plays in-form players, Steve McLaren's 'untouchables' notion was farcical (or was that Sven GE?). Another example being Gary Cahill and I desperately hope we get his signature in January even if it's an agreement on a free in July, magnificent player and him and Terry make an excellent partnership.

And lastly imagine if Ramsey was English ;) I think on his own Ramsey is OK, but coupled with Jack they are a devastating pairing as shown against Man Utd. last term
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I agree with every point you've made in your post. Ramsey's recovery from his leg break has been a huge relief for me, he was on such great form before that incident and I was scared he'd come back a shadow of the player he was becoming but luckily he's back to that form and growing as a player rapidly despite his prolonged absence from the game. If only we could have seen the same recovery from Vela when he suffered a similar injury!

I read a reassuring article about Gary Cahill being hungry for european football, apparently he feels other defenders are developing at a pace ahead of him because of their involvement in european tournaments. It seems that the competition for his signature is between Arsenal and Tottenham and fortunately in that race, even with our recent poor performance, I still think we come off better if reliable european participation is what he wants. Mikel Arteta joined us for the same reason!
 
Well, at the death, Chelsea doubled their lead, Arsenal lost theirs. Still, I reckon a draw suits Arsenal better than Dortmund.

At the other end of the scale, in league one, Stevenage batter Sheffield Wednesday 5-1.
 
Watched a bit of the Barca v Milan game although I was flicking between that and the Arsenal match. Wenger looked pretty happy with the draw at the final whistle despite the late goal.
 
Just caught the second half of the utd benfica match.

United have looked unbeatable this season so far and whilst they didn't look poor by any stretch, for the first time this season they didn't look invincible.
 
joescrivens said:
Just caught the second half of the utd benfica match.

United have looked unbeatable this season so far and whilst they didn't look poor by any stretch, for the first time this season they didn't look invincible.
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I agree Joe but in fairness the side Fergie put out against Benfica last night was a side chosen very much with the upcoming game against Chelsea in mind. It was an exercise in squad rotation and an away draw (in possibly our toughest Champions League group game) was great result.

Things actually improved in the second half - in the first half they looked very much like a side that hadn't played many mins so far this season.

It's the same '10 point' approach every year from Fergie in the Champions League group games - he'll look at what league fixtures we have and use the squad to select who he feels can pinch that point away from home and look to win the home games.
 
i didnt see the first half, just the second. What did surprise me though was in that last 15 how much penetration benfica got into the box when phil jones and smalling were playing and as far they have both been impressively competant. They seemed to get a bit nervous at the end, some great goalkeeping though, must be nice to have two young goalkeepers who are both strong
 
Well i love the banter on this thread but its been pretty obvious to me and my Corals betting slip that Man Utd will win the Prem again. :puke:
 
jambosam said:
Well i love the banter on this thread but its been pretty obvious to me and my Corals betting slip that Man Utd will win the Prem again. :puke:
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This time last year I thought Chelsea had it in the bag based on their performance. However, with 34 games yet to go an awful lot can happen. With SAF at the helm I do have a lot of faith in United sealing the deal though sadly!
 
From the BBC website:

MISSED PAOK PENALTY: Chaotic scenes at the Toumba Stadium. Stefanos Athanasiadis surges into the area and is caught by Carlo Cudicini as he tries to go round him. This time, that is a penalty, and Cudicini is booked. Lino steps up to slot coolly home and turns to celebrate. He gets quite far too, before being called back and told to retake it because Cudicini had come off his line. Incredible. Lino has another go, and this time drills the ball low and wide of the left-hand post.

Why on earth order a retake when Cudicini moved off the line? He seems to be punishing PAOK twice? :thinking:
 
Still 20 mins to go so this could be wrong but 4-2 down away to Blackburn after the recent poor win over Swansea backs up the fact that wenger is clueless. Koscielny scores an og after yet another hopeless performance... When will wenger learn that he is probably fit for championship football at best? Still can't defend set pieces and I wouldn't expect us to even get a euro spot. Wenger said he would only buy players better than we have. Better look at what Barnsley or Oldham have in defence then.
 
a great result for me though. I have a 10 game accumulator on a pound that will get me £135,000 if I win it and it starts with blackburn beating arsenal :)

9 more to go

:)
 
joescrivens said:
a great result for me though. I have a 10 game accumulator on a pound that will get me £135,000 if I win it and it starts with blackburn beating arsenal :)

9 more to go

:)
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Give me 5k to ease the pain if you win ;)

Who else do you have on?
 
It's been a funny old weekend for results. Part of me takes solace in liverpool's display but I hate to see tottenham win!
 
I said in the other thread (the fantasy football thread) that I can't think of a worse display from any Liverpool side in recent years.

Obviously happy that United picked up another 3 points but Chelsea or United could have had a bag full of goals today.
 
dinners said:
I said in the other thread (the fantasy football thread) that I can't think of a worse display from any Liverpool side in recent years.
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You have a short memory then, nearly every match in the first half of last season was even worse.

Very poor today but when it went to 9 players there were always going to be more goals, and moderic's strike was something else!
 
liverpool were poor but I feel really sorry for arsenal they have been dealing with 8-2 jokes 4-3 weeks now.
 
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:LOL: Bye bye spurs :D Not often you'd find me backing Stoke but this was definitely one of those occasions!
 
Enjoyed the Leeds United v Man United game tonight - rivalry resumed for one night.

Great to see some rare starts and debuts too - Fryers looked good at the back, Diouf had a quiet game and Amos didn't have much to do. Pogba is quality but didn't do much after coming on and it's the first time I've really seen Cole.

Berbatov looks good in central defence too !
 
TriggerHappy said:
:LOL: Bye bye spurs :D Not often you'd find me backing Stoke but this was definitely one of those occasions!
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I think you can safely say looking at the team Spurs put out that they don't care much for the Carling Cup this year!
 
mattd said:
I think all non arsenal fans were hoping for that one, it was never going to happen though.
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As an Arsenal fan and a lad who grew up near Shrewsbury, if we were to lose to anyone I would have been happy to lose to them!
 
Well done Falkirk :clap::clap::clap: on knocking Rangers out of the Scottish Cup tonight.
 
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