2011/12 Soccer Thread - Because Vacations Are For Cowards

I don't know if it's "he's been there too long", but I'm with you that, at a certain point, there's a line between "sticking to your guns" and just insane pig-headed-ness. I too cannot humanly understand how, after last year's end of season collapse (and that's exactly what it was) how you don't make some of the signings you need. Everyone, literally every single soccer website i've been to, anyone i've listened to has all agreed, Arsenal need a goalie, a CB, and a midfielder who puts some tough-tackling steel in the team (how Wenger's forgotten this, after having Viera and Gilberto Silva at his disposal). I don't think anyone doubts that Van Persie is one of the best strikers in the PL, but the dude's only good for 25 games a year, tops.

I just don't get it. I remember saying last year that Fabregas was pretty much saying that he was giving Arsenal one more year to try and win something, and this should've been sorted out much sooner. If the team's captain ends up jetting off with less than 24 hours to the start of the season, that's just horrendous.

Joey Barton ladies and gentlemen.

He was rumoured to be off to Arsenal a few weeks ago. They could do worse...

Saw the game yesterday (I am vacationing offline though), overall it's nice to see some Arsenal again, bad to see absolutely nothing coming through the middle. Most of the joy about watching Arsenal was seeing us utilise creative player in the middle next to wide offensive players. Now we seem to be left with players trying to dribble their way through.
In that case, maybe 4-4-2 is the way? Dunno. I'm kind of happy that I won't be here for Udinese game.

Prederick wrote:

I don't know if it's "he's been there too long", but I'm with you that, at a certain point, there's a line between "sticking to your guns" and just insane pig-headed-ness. I too cannot humanly understand how, after last year's end of season collapse (and that's exactly what it was) how you don't make some of the signings you need. Everyone, literally every single soccer website i've been to, anyone i've listened to has all agreed, Arsenal need a goalie, a CB, and a midfielder who puts some tough-tackling steel in the team

(I understand all of the other points but...) yes, we should have put Szczęsny who had amazing half of a season on bench and splash twenty million on Davide de Gea or Neuer because they're rock solid.
Bottom line: line between pundits who have an idea about Arsenal and those, who just get by by spewing nonsense is probably roughly the same as for the people who think we need goalie and don't.

Roke wrote:

Joey Barton ladies and gentlemen.

the man is a f*cking nut job.

Anyways Cesc to be unveiled tomorrow. Happy its over, pretty sure i'm not going to be happy about the price and how the money is not spent.

£35m is a lot of money for an impact substitute.

Well, the assumption is, at least from what i've read, is that he's the natural sucessor to Xavi. Xavi's got a lot of miles on those legs, and it's starting to show injury wise, so why not get a replacement lined up now?

Prederick wrote:

Well, the assumption is, at least from what i've read, is that he's the natural sucessor to Xavi. Xavi's got a lot of miles on those legs, and it's starting to show injury wise, so why not get a replacement lined up now?

Hmm, didn't realise he was 31 (Xavi, that is) - for some reason I always pegged him as being as old as Iniesta.

That, and I can kind of understand the spending. Barca's done the last two years with an almost comically small squad, competing in La Liga, Copa del Rey, Supercopa, Champions League, UEFA Super Cup, and the Club World Championship. And then international duties. Honestly, I thought Barca wouldn't win in 2010-11 because I thought they'd all just be totally knackered. So, injury prone as he is, if they play up to their potential, having Fabregas-Sanchez-Affelay may mean Xavi-Iniesta-Messi don't have to play 55 games a year.

davet010 wrote:

£35m is a lot of money for an impact substitute.

with the kind of crazy money thats be flying around its pretty much robbery.

the last number I've seen is 29m euros over 2 years, + 5 if they win 2 leagues and 1 CL (should happen but still its delayed money) and 5 more million Cesc pays out of pocket supposedly from his Barca wages.

so 39m euros 35m pounds with less of half of it coming now. So yea instead of sticking to our guns and forcing them to pay us a real fee that was supposedly 40m pounds we get a mirage of 39m euros. So happy they dragged this out for so long.

and you know what f*ck Barca. Bunch of weasels that they leveraged Cesc's history pretty much against him to get the deal done. Sorry were broke but could you pay 5m of the transfer fee yourself.

edit: BTW its nowhere on the Arsenal site. Must be bad for business to sell your captain the week the season starts.

Some Monday reading material.

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/6861161/corruption-murder-beautiful-game

Oh, and the mask has long slipped from Barca's face of 'doing things the right way'...much as it pains me to say it, I'll be cheering on Real Madrid this season, as the stench that comes from Castle Greyskull (thanks to La Liga Loca for that one) is at least nauseating from the start, rather than a sweet layer on top of endless hypocrisy.

I was thinking that 34 years of following City had made me immune to early season giddiness...

I was wrong.

It's not often you can splatter a team 4-0, have 19 shots on target and the opposition keeper quite genuinely have a blinder.

And as for Sergio Aguero....bloody hell. Edin Dzeko actually had a good game as well.

davet010 wrote:

And here they are

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_7QN...

I am very impressed with the third goal.

davet010 wrote:

And here they are

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_7QN...

I'm jealous. Would love an Aguero jersey.. will have to settle for a Wilshere one. At least the worst that can happen with that is he changes his number over the next couple of years as hes not going anywhere.

As for the only club that matters blah.

Eboue off (good), Vela off on loan (good), Bendtner still going (good) supposedly, Cesc gone ;_;, Nasri probably gone, Clichy gone, Denilson off on loan.

Thats a ton of turnover and the only ready now player we brought in is Gervinho. Who honestly before the red card wasn't having all that great a game anyways. Troubling times and it might get worse vs Udinese.

Good result... as for the actual game... yikes.

Gibbs goes off at half because of an injury (thats never happened before), Djourou comes on and has to go off because of an injury (thats never happened before) and suddenly Arsenal are playing their new 19year old backup RB as a LB.

I think a good August results wise would be qualify for the CL group stage for that very important cash and get 2-3 points out of the Liverpool + United game. Looking at the depth of the squad right now between injuries/bans/players in limbo because they are being sold but haven't yet and its scary.

Saw both legs of the Super Cup and just wow. Poor Real just don't have an answer to Messi. Real could easily be the second best team in the world right now and they might not win anything this year besides the Copa Del Rey like last year.

edit: Brazil vs Mexico in the U20 right now to face Portugal in the final who beat France 2-0 earlier today.

Wouldn't be a "Classico" without a Madrid red-card (I thought the tackle was worse than the De Jong one on Ben Arfa I moaned about last season), benches clearing, red cards for players on the bench, apparently racist chants, Mourinho attempting an eye-gouge, and some guy having his hand around the throat of one of the substitutes.

I saw a picture of the handbags... Kaka standing on the pitch looking at what was going on with hands on his hips. Shame the rest of the Barcelona and Madrid players can't follow his example.

Roke wrote:

Wouldn't be a "Classico" without a Madrid red-card (I thought the tackle was worse than the De Jong one on Ben Arfa I moaned about last season), benches clearing, red cards for players on the bench, apparently racist chants, Mourinho attempting an eye-gouge, and some guy having his hand around the throat of one of the substitutes.

I saw a picture of the handbags... Kaka standing on the pitch looking at what was going on with hands on his hips. Shame the rest of the Barcelona and Madrid players can't follow his example.

That is a great picture. Marcelo should absolutely cop a several-games ban for his antics. He had both a sly kick at Messi and a horrendous foul on Cesc, as seen here:

IMAGE(http://gif.mocksession.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/MARCELOMESSI.gif.pagespeed.ce.sJb7zjD4vl.gif)

IMAGE(http://gif.mocksession.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/MARCELOFABREGAS.gif.pagespeed.ce.iR5WOZv59Q.gif)

Please tell me me got booked for that.

A careful viewing of the second one indicates he got the ball first...although the scissor action seemed a little unnecessary.

Kaka standing on the pitch looking at what was going on, that sounds like his Madrid career distilled into 5 seconds.

A little sounds kind, and the ninja-kick on Messi (who was brilliant, again. He's so good it's almost to the point that you can't replicate him in FM. I certainly haven't seen the AI come close) should've been a red. Totally intentional, utterly unnecessary, shady as hell.

I certainly don't like the way Barca conducted themselves over Cesc, nor do I think they are above the dark arts when needed (See: Busquets, Sergio), but I've seen some of the match, and Madrid verged into the disgraceful a few times, and that was before Mourinho decided to see what a cornea felt like.

The point was made, in a rather tedious way, by Mick Dennis from the Daily Express on Sky this AM that Mourinho doesn't actually 'love' football. He just loves winning and being in the limelight.

He then went on to ruin this pertinent point with a load of tosh about 'sometimes there needs to be more', hankering perhaps for a world where the opposition just sits about and applauds Barcelona while they tica-taca about, Alves dives like a clown, Busquets kicks you up the arse from behind and Pique elbows you while the ref isn't looking. Granted you'd also be treated to the sublime Messi, the intelligence of Iniesta and the industry of Xavi, but would you want to ?

Fortunately I was away for those last few days of Cesc saga.

Frimpong off, Koscielny injured, Arsenal lose.

That's not exactly the start to the season you want.

Oh, speaking of injuries, I wasn't here last week to laugh with you at Kieron Dyer lasting five minutes in his first game at QPR, so let's do it now.

(If you think it's mean to laugh at him... well, boy gets paid huge money for running on grass for couple of minutes and making his joints go pop! in front of tens of thousands of people every couple of months. I wouldn't call that bad luck.)

Announced on Sky Sports that Chelsea have signed Juan Mata from Valencia, at a price estimated at €29m. Be interesting to see how that goes, considering Arsenal were projected to be picking him up in July for €20m, while his buy-out clause was still open.

Boring, boring City only manage 17 shots during their victory over Bolton. 3-2 flattered Bolton, to be honest. And a message to Owen Coyle, based on his post-match interview.

Stay off the whizz, mate.

(Okay, topical, but bear with me.)
You probably remember how I talked about Szczęsny's father, Maciej (currently goalkeeping coach at club from Polish first division), punching Roberto Mancini and generally being a "nutter" (in words of his son). I forgot to mention that he's also quite clever for an ex-footballer, has strong character and likes pranks.
You probably also heard about our local corruption scandal: several clubs, tens of players and referees, some coaches were (or still are) investigated, and all of the evidence lead to one man, Ryszard Forbrich, pseudonym "Barber", who set up hundred of games through direct links with refs and managements of some clubs, mostly in early 00s. (He's serving his four-year sentence.) However, not all of managers who are being investigated lost their licences. One of them, Czeslaw Michniewicz, was found to have made 711 calls to "Barber" in short period of time, yet no charges were pressed, and Polish FA doesn't seem to mind. His official explanation is that they didn't mention football

So in delightful scene after one of today's games Szczesny walks up to opposition manager, yes, *that guy*, and hands him T-shirt with CM711 written on it. Some journos ask him what it means, and here is delightful fragment of interview:
Like Cristiano Ronaldo is recognized worldwide as CR7, here's our special CM711. Man deserves it, because to talk seven hundred and eleven times with football corruption ringleader and not mention obvious topic requires some kind of recognition. I don't know if I could find that kind of perseverance in myself.
Were you trying to send message to his club [that it's wrong], or to him?
Nothing of the sort. If he would talk with "Barber" about football, we could probably consider rights and wrongs of the situation, or something. But since he was able to talk with the man more often than his own wife and not touch that subject even once - this requires a prize.

[upon which many more lines of deadpan comedy from Szczesny follow]

That is pretty amusing.