The General Football Thread

Whats Jose done now?

 

Made a mistake going to WHU.?

 

How are Milan going to pan out after the Chinese takeover. Over 600m euro for a club that doesn't even own its ground. It must be the brand that is AC Milan.

 

Man Utd winning 1-0

 

Silvio will be laughing into a coke smeared cleavage tonight. For the sake of libel, I should add that's a joke. Gulp.

 

Sorry missed this.

Funny you mention that mate as that thought crossed my mind too. Foreign police just won't stand for it, there's a very thin line between party mood and rowdy. In their eyes it's the same thing when it comes to English fans... particuarly with the reputation we carry still from years ago.

To be fair though, seems like some Leicester fans acted like utter twats by throwing flares/bottles at the police... asking for trouble though still doesn't make it right that police were hitting any Leicester fan in sight with batons.

None of our fans (that I saw) acted like that in Milan. The worst I saw in Milan was bottles going in the canal and plastic cups of beer in the air. Pretty dickheadish behaviour but not the biggest crime in grand scheme of things. Enough to make all bars shut up shop though understandably.

Even so though, as I have said to you before, I have no doubt that had those scenes at the canal been in the Duomo, then police would have waded in.

Funnily enough, I don't remember seeing ANY police at all at the canal which suprised me at the time. They were crawling all round Duomo from around 9am though.

 

Their squad probably cost more than the combined cost of the other seven teams left in the EL. Are Manchester United supporters really going to soak up the glory knowing that?

 

Bearing in mind what Ides posted above, we could rephrase that as ManU buying the Europa competition 1-0.

 

Anderlecht just bought a bit back. 1-1

 

Good for competition.

 

There is an air about Man Utd that is starting to resemble what they used to represent in the 1980's. It seems hard to imagine what they were like when they spectacularly underachieved for the best part of two decades, spending the second one with a sequence of "glamorous" managers who could never make a dent in the prowess of Liverpool. Growing up in the 70's and early 80's, they always seemed to be parading the latest talent who was going to propel them to the very top , raiding other clubs for their best players in the hope of achieving success. As an avid reader of "Shoot" in those days, Man Utd seemed to start each season in fresh hope but the title always alluded them. This seems to be happening since the departure of Sir Alex so that they don't even look like being a top four team.

I find it quite amusing seeing many of these big teams starting to slide. The fate of Wenger's Arsenal is, if anything, even more enjoyable for non-Arsenal fans especially because of the perceived arrogance of their manager and is lack of grace when decisions are made against his team. With Arsenal , this is made even sweeter when you see that their bitter rivals Spurs both play better football and provide the national squad with it's best players. Liverpool seem to be on a permanent quest to capture their glory from the 1980's and they have come pretty close albeit they have had to plunder other teams to build a squad . They still seem to come up short and even if Klopp's eccentricities make him hard to dislike, it is hard to see them ever matching Chelsea.

This begs the question, I suppose, that how long can a team's dominance in English football last and whether teams like Man City and Chelsea who have unlimited funds can buck this.

 

Was happily reading that till I got to the following sentence '' made even sweeter when you see that their bitter rivals Spurs play better football''....however true that is, I had to spit reading it. I would like to see Spurs sink into oblivion....for no other reason than bitterness and spleen.

I remember telling a United player (who was sneering at me supporting Saints) that all things change....as I pointed out Leeds had been dominant once. He wasn't having it....United are not exactly making up the numbers, but you can't hold onto the very top for ever.

 

I am the typical neutral from yesteryear - before SKY jumped in alongside the invention of football, ie the Premier League - I like the underdog football club. Whatever that underdog is, if they are fair and deserving of support, and don't have a reputation for doing things underhandedly, then I will support them rather than any overdog.

Having got the extremely uncomfortable situation of Ranieri out of the way which, I don't think qualified as underhanded, they just needed to do something because they were heading for relegation. It turned out to be a rather good decision in the short term, as they won't be relegated now. I'm interested to see their progress under Shakespeare. They appear to be in the sort of form [Everton aside] that suggests the Top 4 could have been in their scope all season. I'm not sure Top 4 and the Champions League would have been possible, given the shallowness of their squad, but that middle-sized club could well have been showing the way again this season. I'm quite chuffed that they are still hanging on, as the last representatives in the CL. That just shows that overdog mega-millions never buys certainty. It just brings the possibility that much closer.

So the mega-rich clubs can all be relegated in the next couple of seasons. And you can throw Everton in there too because Koeman is the manager, and it's about time too. They've been in the top division for long enough without a break. Last season was the best by miles, in terms of competition, and that was down to the overdogs not having it all their own way. This year it's back to boredom, because I can't get terribly enthused over which of them will win anything and whether a Manchester club is punching below its weight.

 

http://news.sky.com/story/far-right-claims-responsibility-for-borussia-dortmund-blasts-10838440
Dortmund bomb update.

 

Harry Redknapp appointed as new Birmingham manager.....

 

Really? Urgh.

Even more reason to go down?

 

Steve Cotterill will join his coaching staff also.

 

'Arry has only gone and taken the Brum job! WTF. Long drive from Poole each morning.

 

Leicester playing tonight?

 

Yep, hoping they do it.