Weekend Football Thread 17 - 19 *spoilers*

Caporegime
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You can't blame Evra for not having any height, no.
No amount of positioning or effort on his part can prevent him from being beaten in the air at times.
I can't recall your exact post - you used to post about 20 times a day, most of which I only skimmed because I grew tired of your smug, self-righteous attitude.
But it was a silly post, considering the guys limited playing time.
Certainly my suggestion that Welbeck has something to him was a less optimistic claim and in no way deserving of your unfriendly and uncalled for response.
Perhaps your "blog" is a more suitable expression of your opinions, if you are unable to counter peoples opinions in a polite manner or to instead simply ignore them. ;)

You'll find I quite often counter peoples posts in a polite manner, I believe the post you've just replied to did just that. I'm not smug or self-righteous and have often admitted to being wrong, but I am confident in what I'm saying and don't sit on the fence, perhaps that's why people believe this?

As for Evra, no, I don't blame his height, but as a defender he has to make up for this in other ways by blocking or shepherding the guy out the way rather than allow himself to be jumped upon, however, in this case, he was clearly being held down unfairly, as I said, the goal yesterday was Gary Neville's fault.
Cech has seemingly lost his dominance, VDS cant possibly play every game of importance, and while Reina on current form is probably the best of the three he cant make up for who is infront of him all the time (admittedly yesterday was unfamiliar system defensively which made it look worse)

Back four (or three) are probably just as bad as each other in different ways - and even the basics arent being sorted out (goals from set plays) - all three teams are as shocking as the others

Cech hasn't been as good as people have made out for a number of years. He's almost had a free pass to being the 'Premier Leagues best keeper' when Reina and VDS have both been better in recent years.

As for VDS not playing every game of importance, why not? He broke two bones in his hand and missed game time, before that his last injury that kept him out was getting a broken nose from Robbie Keane's knee IIRC. VDS could quite easily play every game from now til the end of the season and frankly I hope he does, else it paves the way for Foster to play over Kuszczak (who has done little wrong to be regarded as being behind Ben Foster.)


Yeah no team is really playing that well. United have had fits and burts of looking exceptional and then they go and miss a shed load of chances and panic.

The problem is that Manchester United aren't clinical. We replaced RVN's deadliness in front of goal with Ronaldo's all round dominance, but we haven't filled the gap since he went. Rooney is a rather average finisher who will miss, or simply pass up, chances to score all the time. Owen simply isn't good enough to play, always wanting more time and not being clinical enough. Berbatov is more play-maker than goal machine which suits his game and he does it as well as anyone. Valencia is rather negative with the two moves in his locker, passing back or running on the outside and punting a blind cross to no one in. Nani is capable of getting goals but blows incredibly hot and cold and is the only player you'd expect to smash a goal in from outside the box. There are quality players all over the pitch but not a single one you'd put money on to convert on a regular basis. To top that off we are the smallest team in the league and offensively from set-pieces pose almost no threat aerially as we have no high quality attackers of the ball from crosses barring Vidic from corners or free-kicks, but even he doesn't do it like he did in his first two years.
 
Caporegime
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I believe the EPL has been won with a team taking seven losses, but Liverpool are at five already, and it's only October.

I would think that another loss would surely finish it, unless they manage to win just about every other game.

They are currently are at four losses (one home and three away).
 
Soldato
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What I will say (bear in mind that I'm not saying anything like "Liverpool will win the league", merely making a related but seperate point) is that it wouldn't surprise me if a team won the league this year with a record number of losses. If you look at the number of teams who are likely to win at least a couple of matches against the "big 4" this season, and then take into account shock results like Burnley beating Man Utd, as well as the fact that the Big 4 will beat each other, I could easily imagine a team losing 5 or 6 games and still winning the league this season. Over the past few years this was barely conceivable.

It's going to be a fascinating season :D
 
Caporegime
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I believe the EPL has been won with a team taking seven losses, but Liverpool are at five already, and it's only October.

I would think that another loss would surely finish it, unless they manage to win just about every other game.

I really don't understand it, had Liverpool been top now only having lost one or two, I still wouldn't have them down as title contenders, but, as it stands, they are a point behind Villa and City, those teams with 1 and 2 games in hand , and 3 behind Arsenal, who also have a game in hand. Liverpool just aren't very good and banking your season on a player who might not play till the titles out of reach, is retarded. Considering he might not actually be very good when he is fit, just goes to show what a muppet Benitez is.

I also find it hilarious that, both Gerrard and Torres played in their recent losses before this one, so a two man team, maybe, but a two man team that even with both fit, aren't actually good enough anyway.

I don't even think Alonso was that good, its Diarra and Ronaldo looking best at Real Madrid, its just that Lucas is that damn bad.

I also found it laughable someone suggested in response to me that Carraghers form has nothing to do with Johnson because he'd been moved out to the other side. He seems to blindly think if Johnson is out of position Skrtel moves over, Carragher doesn't move over either, so blind lack of understanding of defending, or just blind. This ignores the early losses/crap performances from Carragher when he indeed was playing besides Johnson.

Then Benitez moved to 3 at the back, any chance that had anything to do with making the team less vunerable to Johnson being out of position, no surely not :rolleyes:

Johnson who, again and again is the cause for bad defending at Liverpool, with another rather pathetic attempt at clearing that shot(while he also ignored the beach ball he could have kicked away).

I don't blame Caraghers "bad form" on Johnson anyway, I blame the lack of covering his bad form and hiding his bad form on the switch to Johnson, a better right back hid how bad Caragher was, because for 2-3 years he's been a disaster waiting to happen and had it not been for referee's, the most red carded player ever in the EPL.

Liverpool can't play a back 3 with slowish, lumbering and one crap defender. They can't play a 4 back either, because Johnson's just a bad defender.
 
Soldato
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To be fair chelsea might not have pulled the result yesterday. Watching the first half though, you were cutting through villa's midfield and defence like they wern't there. Call um crap if you want, it was just sheer (*^%* happens and outstanding last dig leaps from the two central defenders, fridel doing what he's done for years.. the brick wall.

Can't comment on the 2nd half, fell asleep, but the first half you didn't do too badly, villa were comming back at you, chelsea dealt with that and could have had 2-3 more go in their favour.

Big up the forest, classy first half display against newcastle last night, the nation could see it being kicked about well.
 
Associate
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I don't blame Caraghers "bad form" on Johnson anyway, I blame the lack of covering his bad form and hiding his bad form on the switch to Johnson, a better right back hid how bad Caragher was, because for 2-3 years he's been a disaster waiting to happen and had it not been for referee's, the most red carded player ever in the EPL.

I don't often agree with you, but I am always amazed with how often Carragher gets away with pulling and dragging. TBH i haven't seen too much of liverpool this season but it looks like Carragher has lost another 1/2 yard of pace which is killing him as he was slow to begin with(which was the main reason he was overlooked when it came to picking the england squad).
 
Associate
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All I've heard this week is pundits banging on about how big the Blackburn and Burnley derby is, so why were there less than 27k fans in a stadium that hold 30k+? :confused:

2k seats weren't used to allow a large distance to be able to be kept between the fans (The police requested this).
 
Soldato
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Yeah no team is really playing that well. United have had fits and burts of looking exceptional and then they go and miss a shed load of chances and panic.

Looking forward to next week, if and it is a big if we can beat Liverpool away surely their title challenge may well be finished? I really hope SAF goes out to attack and not try and hold for a tactical draw.

Arsenal are playing pretty great at the moment. They were good at Man Utd and were far from bad at City
 
Caporegime
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Arsenal are playing pretty great at the moment. They were good at Man Utd and were far from bad at City

And got nothing from either. The problem with Arsenal is that they don't have a quality 'get out of jail card' player, I was watching the Arsenal vs Spurs match from 03/04 on ESPN classic the other day and Arsenal were amazing then, they had Henry, Vieira and Pires who were all players who could play badly and get that winning goal, looking at Arsenal now and you don't really have that. Van Persie is the best player there but he often does what Rooney does, dropping out wide and taking himself out of the danger zone.

Diaby isn't a bad player, but I also don't think he's good enough, Denilson and Song are just poor and neither should be playing for a top player, combining all 3 is a bad move, but this has been gone over so many times that it's not really worth bringing up again in-depth. I just think that Arsenal don't have the ability to control games against busy sides anymore and they always look flustered and panicky when a team gets a goal against them.
 
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