"Hate Arsenal" and "Hate Chelsea" goods on sale. This is enough to make me pack it all in, whatever happened to the spirit of sport? This just takes the game too far.
''Manchester United boss Louis van Gaal says it is unfair to play four matches in nine days over Christmas and new year.'' Must be that time of year again when the latest 'new' foreign manager tells us how to run football in our country.
I'm sure that if they do get in the top 4 - which is by no means certain - Louis Van Rental will be hailed by all the experts as a brilliant manager, which I might suggest is not so difficult when you have hundreds of millions to spend! Mind you these are the same experts who predicted Liverpool to finish top 4 for all the many recent seasons they got nowhere near it, and were completely sure that Southampton would be relegated this season.
Actually I agree with him. To think on three occasions already this season, there have been 14 day breaks for International matches, then to cram 4 games into 9 days does seem rather silly.
I think most fans enjoy it though. Everyone's in the same boat to an extent so I don't feel like it's that bad. I do think a couple of weeks off in January might be good fo the players though, trouble is most leagues that are able to have winter breaks also have smaller leagues making for a shorter season.
Yes, us fans do enjoy it and of course a lot of,lower league clubs get their biggest gates of the season for the Boxing Day and New Years Day games. It's not so long ago, I saw 10 goals in a few days at the Lane at Xmas when we beat Reading 6-4 and then a couple of days later beat Fulham 5-0. I bet there was no complaints from anyone at the club that week ! There's two things I reckon will happen in the future in the PL. A winter break will happen, probably in early January and the 39th game will happen.
We all like it because it's all part of our Xmas tradition - and it relieves the boredom. But it's hard on the players - physically and because many have families they don't get to spend much time with. I don't want us to have a midwinter break, but you can understand why other countries do have one.
They can spend SO much time with their families the rest of the year, with their short hours and no need for family to actually work either.
I am sure there are a few footballers around who time their yellow cards so they get Xmas off. Many years ago, I was mates with a guy who played for Millwall and when the fixtures came out in June, he would be working out when he needed all his bookings by, so he would be suspended for the Xmas games.
Van Galling neglected to mention the minor fact that, so far this season, Man Utd have played 14 games - while Spurs have played 22. That's what tends to happen when a team is participating in European football and doesn't get dumped out of the COC after one game.
From FIFA's website: It's that time of year again, when you get to cast your vote for the FIFA Puskas Award. We have finished whittling the thousands of goals from around the world between 3 October 2013 and 26 September 2014 down to just three. Now you have an even tougher challenge – choosing just one which you believe is worthy of succeeding Zlatan Ibrahimovic's stunning effort that scooped the 2013 award. Join us for the FIFA Ballon d’Or 2014 Gala on 12 January to find out which player will receive the award for the greatest goal of the year! Lamela's goal was on October 23rd 2014.
Early contender for The BAFTA award!.... http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...uces-the-biggest-overrection-to-a-tackle-ever
Just when you thought that Leeds couldn't get any more embarrassing, their owner gets banned and this idiot acts like a fish in a boat.
Special mention for the TalkShite Chief WUM last night, who I unfortunately caught while on my way home in the car. It's kind of compulsive listening how awful it all is, which I suppose is all they are going for. They made a completely OTT and desperately unfunny "trailer" of a mock-DVD that Spurs would bring out because Soldado had scored. It was just sarcasm which has it's place, but sarcasm alone is just not clever when it's not based on anything. I think the premise was that Spurs fans were overreacting because Soldado scored, which is ironic because (1) Spurs fans are not overreacting and (2) TalkShite is the HQ of overreaction to just about *anything* that happens in the world of Sport (though mainly when it concerns Liverpool or ManU). Secondly they were saying that Neuer should not be one of the Ballon d’Or finalists because goalkeepers are not footballers. Yes, seriously. Says its not the same skill as attacking so can't be compared so shouldn't be in the same award. So defending and attacking are the same are they? Anyway, both these happened within about 10 mins of classic trash radio so thought I would report on them. Not sure what they did after that as I couldn't cope with it any more.
The club has been using the services of a Sports Psychologist recently, someone Poch has used before apparently. This person has now withdrawn her services quoting "lack of respect from a senior player". I'll leave you to ponder over who this player might be.
