Premier League 2011/12

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Springsteen

Springsteen

Number 2, Rafael!
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15 Year Club Well Known
So the new season starts on Saturday.

Official site here with all the fixtures

Opening weekend fixtures

Saturday 13th August

Blackburn Rovers vs Wolves
Fulham vs Aston Villa
Liverpool vs Sunderland
QPR vs Bolton Wanderers
Wigan vs Norwich
Newcastle vs Arsenal (5.30pm)

Sunday 14th August

Stoke City vs Chelsea (1.30pm)
West Brom vs Manchester United (4/00pm)

Monday 15th August

Manchester City vs Swansea City (8pm)

Should be a good season once again, be interesting to see how the new arrivals get on and how the second season players get on, especially those who had excellent first seasons.
 
QPR get a 4-0 hammering against Bolton at home. Good.

Liverpool can only draw against Sunderland. Blackburn lose at home to Wolves and Norwich earn a decent away point at Wigan. Fulham and Villa draw 0-0.

Newcastle vs Arsenal next, should be good.
 
It's not as bad as Song's.

Same old Arsenal in many ways, lots of pretty buildup with little end product. Song should have gone for the stamp and could face action retrospectively. I felt Gervinho had to go, he dived firstly and then slapped Barton, which while he may have overreacted, you cannot raise your hand to an opponent, so he had to go. With better finishing and better balls to the forwards this could have ended 4-4 again, as it was 0-0 was apparent for a while in this game.
 
2-1 win away at West Brom, I'll take that even though De gea made another error, only one in the game but still needs addressing. He'll learn hopefully with being young but it's two goals in two games now and it is concerning. it's a shame because up until they scored we were superb and really should have been out of sight. Rooney took his goal well and the second needed some luck but it was deserved and we held out well. Good to see the ref punishing a diver at the end there. It's a very good away win considering we didn't win away until the end of October last season.
 
Aye, it was good to see an away win a lot quicker than last season.

As for the approach - if this is how they may start (or try) against Barca if they should meet again, I just get the nagging feeling it could be similar - e.g. 20 minutes of United looking pretty awesome before slowly but surely Barca come back and punish us. West Brom couldn't but undoubtedly Barca... will.
 
I gotta' say, De Gea looked awful. I think my cat could bully him off collecting a high ball.

He got away with three mistakes in two games so far, but he can't keep that sort of ratio up.
 
Apart from the mistake I thought he looked ok, he made a good save from Scharner just before the error and made a couple in the second half, as well as collecting balls relatively well. Like I say he'll learn as he goes on and keepers do make errors in games. I'm not saying drop him at all, that would do him no good at all. He just needs a game where he makes no errors and he'll be fine.
 
Zorak said:
I gotta' say, De Gea looked awful. I think my cat could bully him off collecting a high ball.

He got away with three mistakes in two games so far, but he can't keep that sort of ratio up.
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a good keeper will adapt,he's came from la liga where keepers are put under one hell of a lot less pressure than they are here,i think he'll be fine
 
Manchester United had a very sharp pre-season, but their first game kept me a bit worried with the winning goal being a deflected ground cross. The new goalie has also taken some flak from critics. Hopefully they'll get back into their Premier League groove soon, although I guess I'm used to waiting for the second half of the season :)

On an unrelated note, I'm glad to hear Song is receiving a sentence for his stomp on Barton.

Oh, and despite losing to a brutal 4-0, I thought Swanseas goalie was incredible.
 
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Sometimes it's nicer to win narrowly because you tend to appreciate those types of victories at the end of the season. Games where you may not play well, but still win. Though on Sunday we played better than usual in a victory of that manner. It happened a few times last season and that helped us because it instilled that winning mentality in us. yeah the 7-1's and 5-0's are always nice because usually the team is flowing and purring and scoring goal after goal, but you can't do that every week, so the narrower victories are important too.
 
Liverpool beat Arsenal 2-0 at the Emirates. Own goal from Ramsey and Suarez with the second. Fot a long time in the second half it seemed Arsenal would win, but then Frimpong was deservedly sent off for a second yellow and it changed it. Despite looking a little bit offside Suarez managed to have a hand in the first, losing it to the defender before it was hit against Ramsey and the ball looped in. Suarez then added a second towards the end. Arsenal booed off as well.
 
liverpool beat us 2-0. Nothing I didn't expect.

What really hurts though is that Liverpool were not brilliant themselves either. And 11 vs 11, we were both equally shit.
 
Springsteen said:
Liverpool beat Arsenal 2-0 at the Emirates. Own goal from Ramsey and Suarez with the second. Fot a long time in the second half it seemed Arsenal would win, but then Frimpong was deservedly sent off for a second yellow and it changed it. Despite looking a little bit offside Suarez managed to have a hand in the first, losing it to the defender before it was hit against Ramsey and the ball looped in. Suarez then added a second towards the end. Arsenal booed off as well.
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A little unfair I think to be booed off. Those players on the pitch can't help the injury\suspensions\sending off situation anyway but to try their best, and they did that. (With the exception of Van Persie and Arshavin who were awful)
 
I thought it was even before the sending off, but Frimpong can only blame himself for it, he knows he's on a yellow and takes a huge risk like going for a 50/50 mid on, just don't do it. Nasri played well in his farewell performance which I thought was good of him.
 
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