Real Football (Soccer to you Yanks) Thread

[Baxley]

And Ledley King, if he can manage some games in SA he could be worth the risk. Shame he got so many problems with his knees, because he is a class defender.

 

[Tyler Durden]

And Ledley King, if he can manage them games he could be worth the risk. Shame he got so many problems with his knees, because he is a class defender.

I go back and forth on this one. Earlier this season I was of the "well if Rio or Terry are out he is by far the best option", and you know......he only needs to be available for maybe one or two games so he could get by.

Then I saw him at Arsenal this season and wondered if the ongoing problems were just becoming too much.

Now..........I don't know. Tough tough call. It's actually debatable that, if he was fit, he would probably be considered better than both Rio AND Terry by now

 

[Baxley]

Well Rio is hardly a fountain of health either, he missing a lot of games of late and is not in sparkling form the few times he does play. Terry himself has been inconsistent of late (whether that is down to his self imposed off the field issues or not). A fully functioning Rio and Terry partnership would be great, but it's looking unlikely at the moment to me. The back up is there though, at the moment i do like the sound of the Dawson Jagielka team at the back, but i think King is better than either of them.

So many potentially world class centre backs England have, but so many unfit and struggling with form. Might be a problem in a few weeks...

 

[Tyler Durden]

Well Rio is hardly a fountain of health either, he missing a lot of games of late and is not in sparkling form the few times he does play. Terry himself has been inconsistent of late (whether that is down to his self imposed off the field issues or not). A fully functioning Rio and Terry partnership would be great, but it's looking unlikely at the moment to me. The back up is there though, at the moment i do like the sound of the Dawson Jagielka team at the back, but i think King is better than either of them.

So many potentially world class centre backs England have, but so many unfit and struggling with form.

True that. We can't kid ourselves though and Fab will DEFINITELY be taking Rio and JT. Hence taking King becomes more of a risk given Rio's fitness problems and JT's dodgy form (I almost typed doggy which would be kind of amusing given this is JT we're talking about).

I think Fab likes Jagielka so I can see him getting in. He picked him for the big friendly against Spain last year

 

[Baxley]

Yeah, Jagielka is going with Terry and Rio. Upson seems to be Fabs lover or something so he is in too. Dawsons form will probably get him in. King, thats a big maaaaaybe.

Oh but then theres this brilliant form of a certian Sol Campbell....

 

[Tyler Durden]

Yeah, Jagielka is going with Terry and Rio. Upson seems to be Fabs lover or something so he is in too. Dawsons form will probably get him in. King, thats a big maaaaaybe.

Oh but then theres this brilliant form of a certian Sol Campbell....

I would love it to be JT, Rio, Jags and Dawson. But I suspect Upson is making it

 

[Peter Parka]

Liverpool hammered Burnley 4-0. Thats West Ham still in the Premiership next season. Irons!!!

 

[Springsteen]

They made a mistake getting Brian Laws to be honest, I mean he wasn't doing that well with Sheffield Wednesday and was just a poor choice when your struggling anyway, surely there could have been better candidates for that job.

 

[Baxley]

The silver lining for Burnley fans is that Laws says he will stay on next year.

lul

 

[Peter Parka]

Well done Fulham for getting to the final of the UEFA league or whatever the fuck it's called now.:clap

 

[Springsteen]

Yep, Hodgson's done a great job there in the time he's been there considering where they were. I hope they win it.

Also, LOL again at Liverpool. Diego Forlan scoring at the Kop endto knock them out, you could not write it.

Incidentally, if Fulham do win it, then Burnley of all teams will qualify for Europe, let me explain.

England is in the top 3 rankings in the UEFA fair play rankings, and for this the Premier League gets 1 extra Europa League spot to the highest ranking team in the fair play league in this Country.

Now at the moment Arsenal are top of this league, but they have already qualified for Europe through their league position, so the next place team gets it, but that's Tottenham, who have already qualified for Europe through their league position. The other three are us and Chelsea, but same story. However the other team is Fulham, who haven't and won't qualify for Europe through their league position so they would take up this European spot unless they won the Europa League, in which case they would enter next year because they are holders.

So all Burnley have to do is manage their discipline for the last two games and hope Fulham win the Europa League, and they will qualify for Euroipe.

 

[Baxley]

Well done to Fulham, i am real happy for their cup run. I hope they win it, but i haven't got my hopes up for the final. I think up to now the 2 leg thing has been to their advantage, on the single match final i don't think they quite have enough to get past a team like Atletico.

 

[Tyler Durden]

The silver lining for Burnley fans is that Laws says he will stay on next year.

lul

AND they may even get a Europa Cup fair play place for next season :cool

Well done Fulham for getting to the final of the UEFA league or whatever the fuck it's called now.:clap

Damn straight. Props to the Cottagers.....just wrong that we have to call them that :ninja

 

[Zorak]

AND they may even get a Europa Cup fair play place for next season :cool

What? How can the worst team this season get into Europe?

Where is the sense in that? :24:

 

[Tyler Durden]

What? How can the worst team this season get into Europe?

Where is the sense in that? :24:

I know. It's a Fair Play thing. They're only the 5th or so best team even then in England, but all the others have already qualified for Europe

 

[Springsteen]

It does seem unfair to a point because it kinda contradicts the whole point of 'qualifying' for Europe, meaning by winning games, however I will say that good discipline should be recognised.

Now I'm not too sure whether that should be by a European spot, and as I mentioned Burnley are 5th in this league (although again, Fulham would have to win the Europa League for Burnley to qualify via the fair play league) so it's not like they have even won it.

But then exists the problem of how you better share out the 3 existing Europa League places which would become available by getting rid of the fair play initiative, and one way is to make it available via finishing in the next league position (this year this would be 8th in the Premier League, but another year it might well be 6th, depends on who wins the cups), and that I believe would be fairer because it means you have to earn it rather than being good.

Although then we're contradicting the entire point of what these positions become available by, and that's because England is in the top 3 fair play positions as goverened by UEFA.

In my opinion it is a little unfair considering Burnley have done fuck all pretty much all season and a team like...Everton say have had a much better season and don't get anything.

But what I say doesn't really matter because UEFA love fair play.

Also Barcelona have responded pretty well to going out of Europe, winning 3-0 at Villarreal at half time, Messi, Xavi and Bojan with the goals.

 

[Peter Parka]

It does seem unfair to a point because it kinda contradicts the whole point of 'qualifying' for Europe, meaning by winning games, however I will say that good discipline should be recognised.

Now I'm not too sure whether that should be by a European spot, and as I mentioned Burnley are 5th in this league (although again, Fulham would have to win the Europa League for Burnley to qualify via the fair play league) so it's not like they have even won it.

But then exists the problem of how you better share out the 3 existing Europa League places which would become available by getting rid of the fair play initiative, and one way is to make it available via finishing in the next league position (this year this would be 8th in the Premier League, but another year it might well be 6th, depends on who wins the cups), and that I believe would be fairer because it means you have to earn it rather than being good.

Although then we're contradicting the entire point of what these positions become available by, and that's because England is in the top 3 fair play positions as goverened by UEFA.

In my opinion it is a little unfair considering Burnley have done fuck all pretty much all season and a team like...Everton say have had a much better season and don't get anything.

But what I say doesn't really matter because UEFA love fair play.

Also Barcelona have responded pretty well to going out of Europe, winning 3-0 at Villarreal at half time, Messi, Xavi and Bojan with the goals.

I think the final places should go to the teams whose manager and players made the less cliches in the post match interviews for the season. For example you get docked a point for saying "well thats down to the manager to decide" increasing up to 5 points for saying "it was a game of two halves" ect. It would improve MOTD no end!:nod::thumbup

 

[Tyler Durden]

I think the final places should go to the teams whose manager and players made the less cliches in the post match interviews for the season. For example you get docked a point for saying "well thats down to the manager to decide" increasing up to 5 points for saying "it was a game of two halves" ect. It would improve MOTD no end!:nod::thumbup

Lol. For cliches then it would surely go to Sam Allardyce's team!

 

[Springsteen]

Chelsea beat Liverpool 2-0 at Anfield. Pretty much wraps up the title for Chelsea, they'd have to not wih at home to Wigan and us to win both our games, first being Sunderland today. We could win it still but it's really really unlikely.

I think the game exposed Liverpool for what they now are, a team going nowhere. Now what you do is a complicated thing, you can get rid of Rafa, but that would cost £17m allegedly in compensation, but if you don't do that and give Rafa £40/£50m to spend next season it will just go down the drain next season and they'll finish nowhere again. I think the top two players (Gerrard/Torres) are going this summer anyway which would leave them in a deeper pit.

They should just get rid of Rafa, get a better manager and they need to get rid of the averageness in the squad as a whole.

 

[Zorak]

Chelsea beat Liverpool 2-0 at Anfield. Pretty much wraps up the title for Chelsea, they'd have to not wih at home to Wigan and us to win both our games, first being Sunderland today. We could win it still but it's really really unlikely.

I think the game exposed Liverpool for what they now are, a team going nowhere. Now what you do is a complicated thing, you can get rid of Rafa, but that would cost £17m allegedly in compensation, but if you don't do that and give Rafa £40/£50m to spend next season it will just go down the drain next season and they'll finish nowhere again. I think the top two players (Gerrard/Torres) are going this summer anyway which would leave them in a deeper pit.

They should just get rid of Rafa, get a better manager and they need to get rid of the averageness in the squad as a whole.

He's going to Juve, so it won't cost Liverpool anything.

Personally, I think the best thing liverpool could do is sell Gerrard. He's getting older, and is greatly over rated. (Cost liverpool the game today, not the first time he's done it either) Scoring a few 20 yarders doesn't excuse his tendancy to hit 45 yard diagonal balls to no one...