The Premier League Thread

Changing the subject: Carroll's red card, do you think he will get it appealed or not? I genuinely can't decide, obviously Chico played his part, but it still looked like an elbow swing that didn't really connect. It's a classic bit of West Ham niggle that usually doesn't get noticed.

 

Nothing in it for me but it would be a bit hypocritical of the FA to rescind it, considering there was an incredibly similar incident between Remy and Johnson, where both players leaned their heads in ever so slightly and Johnson flung himself to the ground à la Chico. It was blatant to anyone looking that Remy hadn't actually butted him but the FA turned down Newcastle's appeal (and accepted the appeal for Johnson!)

 

Anyone remember the incident when Ramirez got sent off? (think it was the same game Fox got sent off as well). If I remember correctly it was a similar thing, where Ramirez didn't mean to hit the bloke in the face, but did. Anyone remember if we appealed, and what the outcome was if so?

 

Think we appealed Foxy's - hoping for a longer ban

 

All the commentators saying it wasn't a red were wrong for me. In the slow mo's f you look at Carroll's facial expression it tells you he was trying to hit the guy and if he wasn't 8ft 10 he would have connected where he was intending.

 

Just finished watching MOTD2 Extra. Right at the end, Mark Chapman read out a text from a Saints fan, which said... not even a mention about three cracking goals by our England players... Chapman then said, rather dismissively, I thought. I've read out your text, there's the mention. [We] can't mention every club in just 45 minutes.

Well, actually they could, if they didn't spend oodles of time on about 3 or 4 clubs in the PL, every week. This week, not unnaturally, they concentrated on both ends of the table, but when they highlighted Fulham's problems, not a single second was wasted on how they were dissected three times by goals of excellent quality. Yes, this was mentioned last night on MOTD, but the analysis was largely from Fulham's perspective. Of course, a mid-table club called Manchester United took up a lot of time on the programme.

If I was a BBC Sports editor, I would be saying that we couldn't keep on mentioning the same clubs, week in, week out. We are a public service, not a commercial one, and therefore have to spread the chat around.

 

They talk about our English players every week on MOTD whether they've played well or not. I don't understand the desire of some people to hear it reiterated at every last opportunity.

 

You've missed the point entirely.

 

I just don't think I'm likely to see any Saints fans getting up in arms because the guys on MOTD2 haven't given Stoke enough credit.

 

That's not MY point.

 

Saurez and Sturridge are ****, they took 23mins to score.

 

I know, I'm taking issue with the caller. Your point is that the BBC is a public service and MOTD should therefore have more balanced coverage, but it's a common misconception that because the BBC is state funded that means it's not in competition with the privately owned stations. In fact the BBC functions essentially on the same incentives as the privately owned stations because its funding still depends on its popularity, so actually MOTD does have a legitimate reason to favour the more popular teams.

 

Yeah the public service remit probably obliges them to give some minimum level of coverage to all teams but obviously they're going to favour the big teams. Even as a fan of a "smaller" team, I'm more interested in what happens at arsenal, city, etc than I am in what happens at hull, stoke, or villa. Every fan wants to hear about their own team but the way to make the majority happy (if you can ever achieve that) is to focus more on the high-profile players and teams.

 

It was a home game against either WBA or QPR!?!?! I was in a perfect seat to see it, and it was a blatent red! More blatent than Carroll's imo.

I felt for Fox though. He hadn't actually played that bad that day, he was frustrated, and Davis pass was short, so he dived in. He was already on a yellow.

They both got the standard ban I believe.

 

Yeah I agree. It was West Brom, we lost 3-0.
If I really had to call it, I think Carroll will win the appeal. Just.

 

Never used to be a common misconception. The BBC did provide a very balanced output years ago. They have become more populist, it's true, but their public service remit remains.

Funnily enough, I'm NOT more interested in what happens at Arsenal, Chelsea, ManU, etc... I have always been a supporter of the underdog, if I can't have news of my own main interest. I realise that, these days, that is not the way to go, but then I've never gone along with the herd.

 

I still think it was (just) a red, and I still (just) think that the FA wont overturn it. There appears to be some element of anger in his face as he's doing it, it doesn't seem like a completely natural swing of the arm to me, and he isn't far off doing a full 360 degrees spin.

But the more I see it, the more I do think that it could have easily have been only a yellow.

In an ideal world, Chico would get banned as well for his reaction. And a bigger ban than Carroll at that.

 

I'm sure you're not alone, but you are unfortunately in the minority! I like the occasional story from the lower leagues or about a smaller team doing well, but I would get bored if they were all like that, and in that sense I think the bbc strike roughly the right balance. The title race is always going to be more compelling for the majority of people, for all kinds of reasons, than the race for 10th place.

I think it's often forgotten that until relatively recently, match of the day only showed one or two "feature" matches, and only the goals from the others. So in a way they've become much more egalitarian in that every team gets more even coverage than they ever used to.

 

True. Let's also not forget that it was only in 1992 that MOTD started showing the goals from all the games.

Southampton have actually got a decent amount of coverage in the media generally this season, although I don't think any of our games have been one of the top 2 matches on MOTD (I could be wrong there, I don't always watch). I wouldn't expect much more to be honest. We're the epitome of mid-table security/dullness at the moment so unless we go on a crazy winning run or get involved in a 4-3 or 5-4 against one of the top teams we're unlikely to be much higher than the 4th or 5th game.

 

Kolo cock up WBA 1 1