2012/13 Soccer Thread

Nice to see Leeds fans haven't changed - scum.

I thought Dave Jones was going to have a coronary afterwards, criticized Leeds players for going to applaud their fans who he described as 'vile animals'. Not surprised he hates them, after they spent all game reminding him of charges he was cleared of and which a judge described as 'should never have come to court'.

That would be Leeds fan then, as I only saw one person on the pitch there. Lets face it, almost all clubs have elements of their support they wish they could get rid of.
Also the Sheffield Wednesday fans were singing songs about Istanbul. So like I said, there are elements at all clubs.

For example

One Leeds fan, apart from the others on the pitch behind the goal of course.

Ok 5 then but the main focus is in that one. Still doesn't make my point any less valid. Maybe before Dave Jones starts running his mouth about vile animals and chants he should pay attention to what his own fans are chanting.

Two soccer arfs today.

1. Fergie going on about players wearing the 'Kick It Out' campaign shirts, and then Plug doesn't bother.

2. Norwich fans after a wayward Arsenal attempt "He would have scored that, he would have scored thhaaaat, Robin van Persie, he would have scored that".

blahhhhhhhhhhhhh :/

edit: Going back to the Leeds fan pitch invasion stuff.

I just saw an article saying that they have managed to ID the guy... Wait? What? He escaped? He ran up to Kirkland, two hand shoved him in the face and managed to get away or am I misreading this. I cant find anything saying how it played out besides the video.

Norwich fans after a wayward Arsenal attempt "He would have scored that, he would have scored thhaaaat, Robin van Persie, he would have scored that".

I think they sang it for most of the second half

I just saw an article saying that they have managed to ID the guy... Wait? What? He escaped? He ran up to Kirkland, two hand shoved him in the face and managed to get away or am I misreading this. I cant find anything saying how it played out besides the video.

Well, no one in the stands seemed to make any effort to stop him after he ran back, as you can see in the video. Which was the worst part for me. Hey, I assaulted player on the pitch, what a great story to tell my lads.

This whole "goalscoring full back" thing is proving to be more distraction than we've thought.

That kit is truly hideous.

Oh, and the Leeds fan has been picked up by the Police. Can't have been that hard to spot a knuckle-dragger in the genteel surroundings of Cheltenham.

After a depressing PL weekend 2-0 Shaktar and 2-1 Braga is making me

of course its the 60th so both English clubs will come back and win.

edit: nuts!

lol I bet Juve + Barca to win in the 86th and turned them both on at the same time.

Then I saw Bendtner was playing for Juve hahahah.

Real shame Juve couldn't get the win as Chelsea would actually be in a serious spot of not even getting out of the group stage.

I have a feeling that Chelsea still wont get to of the group.

Saw Schalke during the weekend, they are going to cause Arsenal a lot of problems. They outplayed Borussia (won 2-1) and looked dangerous on the counter. Being third team in Germany means a lot when other two are Bayern and Borussia.

Interesting piece on Porto and their recruitment.

http://blogs.thescore.com/footyblog/2012/10/24/horncastle-jackson-martinezs-arrival-at-porto-a-testament-to-the-clubs-global-scouting-network/

once again utilizing the 250 scouts they have around the globe to find value in markets unappreciated by their competitors.

Well we know where some of that transfer money goes to then. 250 wowzers.

UCRC wrote:

I have a feeling that Chelsea still wont get to of the group.

Saw Schalke during the weekend, they are going to cause Arsenal a lot of problems. They outplayed Borussia (won 2-1) and looked dangerous on the counter. Being third team in Germany means a lot when other two are Bayern and Borussia.

Yeah. Arsenal needs a morale booster today and I'm pretty sure Schalke have the ability to further crush morale. Really nervous about this match. Also really depressed I'm going to be on the road for work for the duration of the match and can't even gamecast it.

Turned on Borussia - Real. Within first five seconds saw Pepe receive ball, get closed down, dive, complain at ref. Switched to something else.

UCRC wrote:

Turned on Borussia - Real. Within first five seconds saw Pepe receive ball, get closed down, dive, complain at ref. Switched to something else.

What an art! Walker tried to pull this off in the Chelsea Spurs game.

one problem. Hes not Pepe. Result? 4-2 Chelsea

Heeeeey, just turned back to Borussia - Real. Within first ten seconds Pepe lost the ball, Lewandowski got clear on goal, 1-0.

edit: What a silly goal for 1-1. They're getting caught out like that (with high line, no marking) all the time this season.

We'll be concentrating on the League then

Don't worry dave! I'm sure City will qualify next year anyways

edit: posted in the 67th so I'm sure they come back and win.

edit2: O my 3-1 and Dortmund is winning....

and Gervinho? I cant wait for the African cup of nations.

Paolo Bandini ‏@Paolo_Bandini
Maybe City should hire another manager just for the European games?

I laughed

jowner wrote:

Interesting piece on Porto and their recruitment.

http://blogs.thescore.com/footyblog/2012/10/24/horncastle-jackson-martinezs-arrival-at-porto-a-testament-to-the-clubs-global-scouting-network/

once again utilizing the 250 scouts they have around the globe to find value in markets unappreciated by their competitors.

Well we know where some of that transfer money goes to then. 250 wowzers.

Martinez who the article is mainly about has 2 goals for Porto today 3-2 right now....

As for the Arsenal game I'm all for them losing 1-0 if this means they have a serious look at the tactics. Not so much worried about the squad as theres a bunch of injuries right now. Its just frustrating to trout out the same tactics with different faces and just wonder why its not working.

edit: To elaborate on this why not even try another formation?

They are so predictable I bet Schalke could of pretty much guessed the formation + players before kickoff.

Santos is getting gutted on twitter for his game. Heres a clue tho. Hes listed at a LB but hes not very defensive at all so why tear the guy apart when hes played there.

They could afford to lose this game so why not throw out a different formation? 4-4-2 with Sanots/Gervinho as actual wingers maybe. Podolski + Giroud up front in some combination. Give Djourou a game at CB and Vermaelen at LB.

Doesn't work very well? not hard to make 1 sub and your back into your 4-3-3 or morphing 4-5-1 or whatever the f*ck its supposed to be.

Manchester United have bought back the rights to their training kit from DHL because they believe they can negotiate a better deal with other sponsors.

that was their 10m just for the training kit deal....

silllllly money.

Arsenal look like they are still online for a Adidas deal for 2014 at 25m.

edit: Just some of the comparative numbers

Arsenal fans buy 800,000 shirts every year, making them the third-biggest draw in Nike’s portfolio after Manchester United and Barcelona.

Manchester United are hoping for a “major increase” from Nike even on their £23.5 million-a-year deal, which also benefits from an additional profit-sharing agreement, giving clues to Arsenal’s worth to a new supplier. Adidas’s deal with Real Madrid, its biggest-selling client, is said to have been struck at 40 million euro a year, although no official figures have been revealed.

Going from 13 to 25 is a tidy bump for a balance sheet that is already in order. Of course over time player wages as they inflate is going to eat into allot of that but it keeps Arsenal competitive if they want to.

Manchester City and Swansea: Committed to giving you more sports bang for your buck. Come for 90 minutes, stay for 103!

RE: Fulham -AAAAAARRRRRRGH

Quite true, Pred.

In other news, Brian Marwood, our occasionally-criticised DoF, has moved sideways to be Managing Director of the new Academy. And who is to be the new DoF ? Step forward - Txiki Berigiristain will join Manchester City FC as Director of Football. Txiki, a former footballer at Real Sociedad, FC Barcelona, Deportivo A Coruna, Urawa Reds and the Spanish national team, held the position of Director of Football at FC Barcelona in the period 2003-2010. His new role at Manchester City will see him take responsibility for supporting the first team manager, Roberto Mancini, in first team recruitment and operations.

Me likey, but I have a couple of reservations...

1. I hope his 'recruitment' is better than it was at Barcelona..if you look at the players they actually signed, they were either well-established already (Silva, Alves etc) or overpriced busts (that Russian CB who's name I can never spell, Marquez)

2. Every setback from now on will be followed by 'CITY TO APPOINT PEP' rumours.

"You buy Arsenal players, we buy Arsenal players, let's work together."

UCRC wrote:

"You buy Arsenal players, we buy Arsenal players, let's work together."

Worry not, your current squad is quite safe.

Hard to argue with that.

Bonus:

davet010 wrote:

2. Every setback from now on will be followed by 'CITY TO APPOINT PEP' rumours.

Oh sweet god, it is, isn't it. Besides the fact that one could reasonably argue that Berto's floundering in the CL might get him sacked.

I'm begging you City, don't lose again for the rest of the season. Because holy god is it going to be painful to listen to the media come up with whatever fever dream fantasy they can to replace Mancini.

That said, i'm calling it, Pep to Man City for 2013-14.

Arsedness about Chumps League - zero.

It was quite obvious from watching the ESPN game I recorded yesterday that for some reason, Waddle and whichever ESPN drone was in the commentary booth were desperate, absolutely desperate for City to lose. From nonsensical comparisons of Mancini and Laudrup's own careers to wage stats compiled from Christ knows where (they seemed to think that one Swansea player is on £400 a week, to which my unbiased retort would be that if that is correct, he is a cretin who needs to execute his agent with extreme prejudice), to the tired old cliche about City not being able to keep clean sheets (number of teams in Premiership - 20. Number of teams who had conceded fewer goals before any games kicked off yesterday - 4, and 2 of those had played fewer games). No piece of nonsense was too trivial, no analogy too tortuous. And yet Arsenal 'got back to winning ways' by defeating the bottom side in the Premiership only after QPR had a defender sent off and via a move where Arteta was offside not once but twice. Still, at least England's saviour was back - god almighty, how f**king desperate does that sound.

Text from mate watching ESPN live yesterday after Tevez had scored "Based on the reaction of the commentators, I can only assume Mancini texted them a picture of himself cutting off the heads of their children with a blunt axe".

Apologies for the Arsenal reference...not a dig at them (for once), but at the different attitudes adopted by the broadcasters to the two clubs. BBC's Match of the Day chose to concentrate on how poor Vincent Kompany was - I can only ascribe the lack of attacks on Mario Balotelli to the absence of sh*thouse Shearer, who was undoubtedly polishing his vast array of medals and bemoaning to his missus that players nowadays dive and cheat all the time, whereas in his day, deliberately stamping on a fellow professional was all part of the game.

Still waiting for the time when watching van Persie play isn't hurting so much.

Apart from that, interesting game

edit: As for yesterday's game, I loved Arseblog's description: "Not even in the most parallel of parallel universes would yesterday’s match have gone down as a classic."
By the way, QPR was pretty much Julio Cesar and 10 men pretending to be footballers. Mark Hughes will do Steve Kean on them, I'm almost sure (unless they fire him, and pronto, of course). In terms of nastiness and absolute lack of imagination they're up there with Allardyce's teams - minus the discipline and organization.

UCRC wrote:

Still waiting for the time when watching van Persie play isn't hurting so much.

Apart from that, interesting game

edit: As for yesterday's game, I loved Arseblog's description: "Not even in the most parallel of parallel universes would yesterday’s match have gone down as a classic."
By the way, QPR was pretty much Julio Cesar and 10 men pretending to be footballers. Mark Hughes will do Steve Kean on them, I'm almost sure (unless they fire him, and pronto, of course). In terms of nastiness and absolute lack of imagination they're up there with Allardyce's teams - minus the discipline and organization.

Julio Cesar had a good game but all the bloggers on twitter after making a point to mention it bothered me. Sure its 3 points but as far as actual chances I remember pretty much 0.

Bumble a goal over the line to let Mackie then charge past 3 guys with 0 dribbles and almost equalize. A tie would of been slightly harsh but Arsenal maybe only deserved 1.5 to 2 points out of that mess. Luckily they don't break up like that.

No worries.. Next week we can bounce back against, United away. ugh.

Speaking of which I hope Clattenburg isn't in charge. Horrendous game by him today.