I always thought the role of the DoF was to improve the team, not play their own real life game of Football Manager where they think it's okay to sign a bunch of U21 players as they'll gel into a winning side in the space of three months. How is it Arnesen could get it so right, signing experienced players like Naybet and Davids so younger players could learn from playing alongside them and improve as a result, yet Comolli and Baldini can't?
I've always thought of Arsenal fans as a crowd of Eunochs.Somethings missing and they don't know what!
I know you think that the signings were made despite Comolli rather than because of him, but Bale, Berbatov and Modric were exactly the sort of player we needed to sign to really improve the club. There is no sign of anyone like that from the period after Comolli left. Lamela, Eriksen and Chadli could be the Baldini equivalents if everything goes well.
If you look beyond those three at the rest of the squad, you'll see there were a few experienced hands in key areas of the team who could teach the younger players, such as Davids when Berbatov arrived, Woodgate, Ledders, and to a lesser degree the likes of Chimbonda or Danny Murphy when Bale or Modric showed up. That's what we're lacking at the moment, and it's not like Kaboul's first stint at WHL where injuries to various defenders meant he was thrown in at the deep end due immediately rather than be carefully nurtured (coupled with problems that came from Zokora not being a defensive midfielder no matter how much he through he was Vieira), it's because the spine of our team is lacking an experienced hand.
I've been asking "what have they done to our football team at Spurs?" Now I read that the once mighty Glasgow Rangers are systematically being taken apart.What have they done with their money over the years,comes to mind. Are we on the same rails because if we are we need to change to another line quick!
but when these players moved up a level on the pitch..they moved on. and I can see the same happening to anyone else who moves up a notch......so well done to Comolli for buying future financial windfalls..because for me seeing them perform at a top level seems to coincide with them being in their farewell season..As a football fan it totally contradicts why I watch the game. so whenever I see one of the recent acquisitions do the same then I will..ohh yeah a bit like Lioris..u know what I mean. ive said it many a time and will say it again....the ethos and infrastructure of Spurs stinks....don't give a damn how much we sell players for..i don't enjoy the money I just watch the cheap imitations make another season like the last 25 to be a 'transitional' period.
I agree completely but all this results from the fact that we were crap when the CL was introduced and now we have to play catch up. There is no magic wand now (because FFP would hamper any new billionaire who took a shine to us) so the only way to get to the top table is the way we are seeing. If we'd never signed Berbatov, Bale and Modric we'd have had about £120m less to spend on players and we'd never got near top 4.
[video=youtube;ytYBCOTUluo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytYBCOTUluo[/video] lol.......so many words to describe this...
Fat Frank scores again. Now equal 4th on the prem goal scorers list with Henry - Not bad for a midfielder. Wonder if anybody in Chavland is regretting letting him go?...
Chelsea seemed to labour to that win and City should have done better against the bottom club. Saints have lost their early season momentum and I doubt it will come back, if they can't beat a newly promoted relegation candidate then their cause is hopeless.
Just watching Football First and that is a shocker of a dive from Gary Cahill. Embarrassing for the player and his club. Steve Brice is fully justified in his post match comments. Also a very poor challenge from Tom Huddlestone and he got a deserved red.
Steve Bruce was pissed off too Is it possible to have a game where the officials aren't the major players? It's getting worse every week.
Just seen it on MOTD. Cahill should have seen red. Huddlestone? WTF is he doing? That's not a challenge, it's an assault!...
I thought that Cahill's first yellow should've been a red, too. Really poor challenge and Aluko was clean through. Huddlestone deserved to go and it was a straight red, but his initial yellow was another dive. The first goal also came from an obvious foul. Foy bottled quite a few major decisions, but at least he did give a couple of bookings for diving. Mourinho's post-match comments about Chelsea being clean are utterly laughable. Fergie MkII. Real shame to see Dawson go off injured, too. Hope it's nothing serious.
Well said. One of the main reasons I'm seriously considering giving up on following football at all. I'm going along on Wednesday to see if that sparks my interest again, and taking my son to his first ever live game. But the game is now so seriously skewed to the benefit of certain teams that I wonder if there's any point. The arguments about unfair financial practices are well known, but this situation highlights my other bugbear. The simple test is whether should the situation have been reversed, ie the other team committed the offence, would the decision have been the same? In too many cases it seems that certain teams get an unfair balance of decisions. But the FA / PL don't help the situation they reinforce it. If refs give decisions against the big teams they don't get the big games. The authorities say they want to stop diving but when they get an opportunity to take it they act like cowards - again possibly they might if the decision had favoured a different team, but no way are they going to go against Chelski. First they hide behind their own ludicrous rule of not taking action if the ref "has seen it", even though they can ignore this when it suits them and its their own rule anyway so they can overturn it. So that gets them off some of the controversial incidents. Secondly when the ref "has not seen it", they still don't take action when they could, such as yesterday. They could actually give a retrospective yellow for the dive - but anyone think they are going to? So they hide from other decisions too. I say again - cowards, and two faced cowards because they claim they want to stop cheating. And it should be called what it is - CHEATING, we are too slow to use the word. Finally the bias of the media also often comes through. I was driving yesterday when I picked up TalkSport's commentators on the incident at the time. They said it was a dive. Fair enough. But when I heard the same commentators summary of the game when it had finished, all they talked about was how poor Hull were and how easy it was for Chelski. Not a mention of the dive, not a mention of another subsequent dive from Chelski (sorry I can't remember if they actually mentioned the first one). So what I suspect from that there are other end of match reports I've heard where game changing - wrong - decisions in favour of certain teams aren't even reported. Yet the teams getting the decisions are the better teams anyway - they shouldn't need the refs help! I was going to come on here today to mention this dodgy reporting, but fair play to the BBC for highlighting the cheating. Let's hope they continue to do so and prove me wrong about the commentating problem. But I have no hope that the FA will do anything to stop the cheating, which will continue to favour certain teams disproportionately and perhaps drive some fans away from the game completely.
