2008/2009 Football (Soccer) Thread

[Endie]

As for the Ronaldo bashing. Great, you don't like him. Whatever. The tackle on him by Neville was terrible, and the fact that you choose to have a big whinge session about a little theatrics over it is just silly. Please make a post about every indicent of theatrics in the league (there's heaps) or just be quiet. Signaling out one guy with a bad record for constant abuse is getting really boring. If it's such a huge issue for you I'm surprised you haven't hired assassins to kill Rivaldo or something.

Ronaldo has been a little off touch in the last few games (which incidently are the first few back from a long injury break), but to imply that he's not putting effort in is just pathetic. It's a cheap shot that has no reference to reality.

This is surreal.  I can only assume that you just didn't see the Neville challenge: I detest Neville, myself, but that was a good, strong challenge which took the ball, and merely skiffed Ronaldo on the thigh with his own ankle or shin of his trailing leg.  The incident was shown seven or eight times on Sky this morning, and it was pointed out that the referee had no intention of penalising anyone for a strong but fair challenge until Ferdinand got involved: he gestured for the throw-in and the line judge wasn't interested.

I have no idea what your idiotic nonsense about Rivaldo is about, but why do you bother posting here if you're going to spout such blinkered, angry-fanboi nonsense as soon as someone is critical of your idol?  Why not just post on a Man Utd fansite where everyone will agree with you, if your reaction to someone saying something as patently obvious as "Ronaldo is sublimely talented but play acts to get people booked and is under-performing this season" is going to be "hurf blurf rawr rawr so angry"?

At least back up your enraged furore with arguments, facts or statistics.  Do you think Ronaldo reacted genuinely to Neville's challenge?  Specifically, did Ronaldo, after doing a starfish impression then rolling around, crouching over a bit of his leg that was not in contact and virtually weeping with pain, need medical attention?  No.  He got up without a limp as soon as the booking occurred.

You say that my opinion is "pathetic".  Ok, avoid arguing by blatant assertion.  Now i have to go to the trouble of finding quotes to show how dumb you are to suggest my opinion is not, at least, valid and tenable.

From Steven Howard at the Sun: "Cristiano Ronaldo seems weighed down by the fall-out from the summer’s Real Madrid transfer saga...Ronaldo frets. In time, Alex Ferguson may even regret not accepting the £70million Madrid put on the table."

From Setanta Sports: "Ronaldo's attitude is not right".

From Scotland on Sunday: "[Rooney's] enthusiasm for the status quo is a perfect antidote to the huffiness of his attacking cohort, Cristiano Ronaldo."

Fomr the Man Utd fansite on VitalFootball about the WBA game: "even Ronaldo's sustained poor form wasn't really a cause for concern".

From Sky Sports: "[Howard] found fine saves to deny an out-of-sorts Cristiano Ronaldo, Nemanja Vidic and the impressive Giggs" (my bold).

And regarding the tackle, the papers today agree with me, too:

From The Times: "After Phil Neville had caught Cristiano Ronaldo with his trailing leg, a legitimate tackle accorded a triple roll by the Portuguese, Ferdinand ran 50 yards to remonstrate with his former teammate, turning a piece of pantomime villainy into a potential turning point" (my bold).

From the Telegraph: "Phil Neville, who had harshly been shown the yellow card for a tackle on Ronaldo – the angry reaction of a posse of erstwhile Old Trafford colleagues did not help"

From the Daily Mail: "The challenge received a yellow card but, though Ronaldo was stumbling and therefore vulnerable, Neville had made full contact with the ball."

I could go on, but that's every british paper I've checked so far except the Guardian.  All those journalists agree with me.  You think that they are all pathetic, too?  Why not try arguing with facts and rational discourse?

[sigil]

And so after eight games of this shite,  Bye Bye Juande, we hardle knew ye. But fuck off all the same.

And Hello Harry.

Well Harry, you got your dream of managing a "big" club. That's at the bottom of the table.
With two more points in the league than my rec league team.

That's gone from striker happy to toothless.

So, Harry, let's see what you can do.

[Endie]

And so after eight games of this shite,  Bye Bye Juande, we hardle knew ye. But fuck off all the same.

And Hello Harry.

Well Harry, you got your dream of managing a "big" club. That's at the bottom of the table.
With two more points in the league than my rec league team.

That's gone from striker happy to toothless.

So, Harry, let's see what you can do.

To be fair, Harry took over Portsmouth when they were in the bottom three if I remember rightly, maybe even bottom.  And Tottenham has some really good players left.  Just so long as you don't believe that goalscorers are an important part of a football team.  Going to be a long time til the transfer window opens.

[lamaros]

stuff

I actually go off what I watched. I thought it was a poor four and clearly hit him on or around the knee with some force. I guess if you make all your opinions up off an incident you've seen off newspaper reports then all power to you? But that's not even the point.

That doesn't change the fact that you singling out Ronaldo for abuse about his theatrics, or his playing poorly and being nothing more than a "sulky shit" as if he is somehow the only player in the league to overact a foul. Obviously you cannot read if you think at any point I'm defending his overreaction. But making a stupid personal attack on him exclusivly is just the usual stupid shit you see everywhere. Until you want to set yourself up as some kind of arbiter of reasonable reactions and point out all the shit that happens in every game from all sorts of players, and not just Ronaldo, then it seems quite reasonable to suggest you're being a dick by having a go at him.

So yeah, I hope you can follow. My problem is that people constantly and repeatedly point out incidents where Ronaldo overacts and then use it as an excuse to hang shit on him generally. Unless you're prepared to do that for all players I fail to see how you can honestly say that doing so is not pathetic.

Oh, and Harry will keep spurs up.

[sigil]

I just had this horrid thought.

Given Harry's penchant for wheeling and dealing, but with Spurs tendency to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory....

Landon Donovan to Spurs

[Endie]

stuff

I actually go off what I watched. I thought it was a poor four and clearly hit him on or around the knee with some force. I guess if you make all your opinions up off an incident you've seen off newspaper reports then all power to you? But that's not even the point.

Fuck me, you didn't even read what I wrote (to spell it out again I saw the match then re-watched that incident numerous times today).

And stop lying about what I said, which was, far from saying he was 'nothing more than a "sulky shit"', in fact that he has "God-given talent" and that I had recently been comparing him to George Best.  What I said was that he is under-performing and squandering his ability with his negative attitude.  And, after you spouted your nonsense, I checked and saw that there's a lot (the majority of what I read) of professional journalists agree.  How am i supposed to have a discussion with someone whose idea of discourse is "RAH RAH NOT LISTENING NOT READING MY TEAM ARE THE BEST RONALDO IS THE BEST ANYONE WHO DENIES THIS IS STUPID"?

Fact is, you reacted like a ridiculous fanboy and demonstrated that your reading comprehension sucks (for the bits you actually read, which were clearly, obviously limited.

Apples.  How do you like them?

[Endie]

And for those here to discuss stuff: Liverpool enter November top of the table.  It's a victory in and of itself.

[sigil]

Much better stuff today.
Much better

[Mr_PeaCH]

Spurs:  relief
Pool:  love
Hull:  wtf (awesome)

Also Villa:  for real?

[sigil]

Indeed, all love for Pool, I miss Robbie, but I'm glad they're doing well.

[Amarr HM]

Just want to agree with Endie before I read the rest of your extremely long posts  It was barely even a foul it was a good hefty challenge from Neville booking was harsh, Ronaldo for all his greatness can be a right twat. Also well done too Pool for validating my point that Scolari doesn't have what it takes to manage a Premiership team he's a bluffer. Oh and in case you didn't notice I'm a United fan we'll still be there at the end, so just roll with the flak I've been doing it for near twenty years now 

[Endie]

I agree.  I still think Man utd will win the league (though I suspect that they can only lose another 8 points all season or something and still do so.  I think Chelsea will finish second, though, with us (Liverpool) third.  Even if Ronaldo doesn't shake himself out of his sulk and bang in 14 or 15 goals in the league between now and the end, Rooney looks like he could do the job by himself, right now.  And Torres seems to have tendons of glass  .

There's a Hoegaarden-fuelled, over-explicit prediction for you.

[Amarr HM]

Yeh it's only nine games in, United have come back from bigger deficits with that many games left. Ha there's no harm in predictions I'm throwing my hat in the ring by saying Scolari doesn't have the mettle already I could well be proven wrong, I did think Torres would flop last season boy was I wrong about that but then I predicted Spain to beat Germany in the Euro champs final won me a few bob for that, sometimes you get it right. I'm hoping that Liverpool's lack of squad causes them to falter I hate making predictions on the Premiership but I think you might be right. Oh and don't forget Berbatov I love having him in the time he's a real United player.

[lamaros]

I think Utd can win, the only problem is being in touch at christmas. If they can manage that within maybe... 8 points? then they have a chance. Liverpool hasn't won for a long time and might not know how to do it, and Chelsea will have a bad run at some point I expect. Arsenal is much more of an outside chance, given what they've shown so far.

Injuries will really screw Liverpool over though, if they lose Gerrard and Alonso at some point, while also having Torres having the odd niggle here and there then they'll lose a bit. Their second string isn't as strong as Chelsea and Utd, no where near.

However there's still a good chance Liverpool or Arsenal could sneak it in my mind, especially if they go out early in the champions league and focus on it. People forget how big a deal the champ league is for tiredness and fixtures, and recently all 4 teams have gone the length in it. If one drops early this year it could have a big say in how it all goes.

I'm pretty sure Ronaldo, Rooney, Berbatov will get around 20 each. Ronaldo has 3 already and it's a long long season, and he takes penalties.

Endie: Look through the football threads on here and see if you can find anyone else apart from Drogba who people hang shit on for theatrics. The fact is people repeat the same stuff over and over about Ronaldo (and Drogba to a leser extent) and it gets boring. Maybe worth a minor aside, but pointing out all that stuff every time there is some minor incident with him is very boring and, to me, seems entirely unfair given it doesn't happen to anyone else. Boring topic, I guess in future I will just ignore all the crap.

[Endie]

Lamaros, I agree with you about the fragility of the Liverpool squad: we simply don't have the depth to deal with three or four injuries, while both Man Utd and Chelsea have been without that many key players already, this season.  A scenario in which we win is also one where we get amazingly lucky over injuries.  It'll be especially difficult to sustain a challenge if we have good runs in Europe and one or both domestic cups.

[Amarr HM]

The fact is people repeat the same stuff over and over about Ronaldo (and Drogba to a leser extent) and it gets boring. Maybe worth a minor aside, but pointing out all that stuff every time there is some minor incident with him is very boring and, to me, seems entirely unfair given it doesn't happen to anyone else. Boring topic, I guess in future I will just ignore all the crap.

Take it on the chin it's what happens when you got the greatest player in the world playing for the greatest team in the world 

[HaemishM]

Ronaldo - He is a DIVING BITCH. Having only watched football since the '06 World Cup, there has been maybe one game I've seen him in where he didn't pull an Oscar-worthy performance on a foul. He is without any question the greatest goddamn footballer playing in the world at this very moment, but he is also one of the worst divers/overactors I've seen. Drogba is right up there with him, but I give Drogba points for being more willing to foul a motherfucker back. Ronaldo just puts on his whiny cunt face. I think the reason it annoys me so much more than anyone else is because of the talent he has - he doesn't need the theatrics, and I honestly think he could be even better than he is without them. I didn't see the foul you guys are bitching about, but I'm familiar with his work.

LIVERPOOL!!!!!!!! Talk about a lucky victory. Completely off-the-wall-fall-ass-backwards-into-a-victory goal, but hey, they held off one of the best scoring teams in the league. Anelka was mostly invisible, Deco and Lampard disappeared for stretches of the match as well. It was an exciting game, and had Liverpool merely pulled a nil-nil, I'd have considered it a victory. But we've beaten 2 of the other 3 big 4. I don't want to jinx our title hopes by even thinking it's possible. But, I will say that Liverpool have done a damn good job this year just grinding out victories. The luck they've had can't hurt either. Torres' legs are seriously fragile, but I think if he can get 28-30 games in, he'll bang in 20 goals or more. If Keane gets on track and contributes at least 10, with another 10 from Gerrard, well, there's a chance. Their best signing since Torres has got to be Riera though. Finally having an actual winger out there to create width has been a godsend. Maybe Rafa will finally sign a real right winger in January, though Kuyt has actually done well.

Hull in 3rd place. It can't last forever (can it?) but they are halfway to the magic 40 number with only 9 games in the season, so I have to think they are almost a sure thing to stay up. They just play well, without fear. Phil Brown is definitely going to have to be considered manager of the year.

Harry to Spurs? WTF? I love what he did with Pompey, so now he gets to go to black hole of talent in Tottenham. Shame on Spurs fans and board for not giving Ramos a real chance, IMO. I still think most of Spurs' problems start in the front office. Radek Cerny was a good goalkeeper and instead of replacing Robinson with him, they shipped Cerny off to QPR where he's having some success. Spurs front office should have handled the Berbatov situation a lot sooner and with more class. Having him sit on the bench for 3 games soured the whole team. At least you know Redknapp will probably fix their defense. That team has too many good players to be this bad, though I'm not sure they need all the good players playing the positions they are playing. They need to be playing Frazier Campbell off of either Bent or Pavlyuchenko.

[Amarr HM]

I'd like Pool to sign McGeady from Celtic he has plenty of ability but doesn't seemed to be coached to well and playing in the SPL can't be good for your game.

[HaemishM]

McGeady would be AWESOME. I'm not sure what the kerfluffle between him and Celtic management has been this year, but they've wasted him on the bench at times. He has a tendency to just put his head down and try to blow past the guy in front of him without looking for a good shot or cross, but yes, he'd be incredible. He's damn good as is.

And let's face it, the SPL is good for seeing how well you can take a punch. There are some rough motherfuckers in that league.

[Amarr HM]

McGeady would be AWESOME. I'm not sure what the kerfluffle between him and Celtic management has been this year, but they've wasted him on the bench at times. He has a tendency to just put his head down and try to blow past the guy in front of him without looking for a good shot or cross, but yes, he'd be incredible. He's damn good as is.

And let's face it, the SPL is good for seeing how well you can take a punch. There are some rough motherfuckers in that league.

I agree sometimes he takes too many touches , but he has a lot of ability maybe Keane could put in the good word for him, anyone has to be better than Pennant.

[Endie]

Yep, he's a creative wee bastard, with almost 20 assists last year and, though he'd take a while to adjust to the defenders he'd be facing in the Premiership, he has 20-odd caps and a good number of Champion's League performances under his belt so he's got experience to playing good at the top level.

[lamaros]

But can you really see Rafa picking him up? I can't see it.

Kewell has been getting on the park (and score sheet) so far this year. If I was a liverpool fan that'd annoy me a touch, but as an Australian fan it just makes me happy.

[Amarr HM]

Yeh well I was surprised Benitez went for Keane I always thought he'd get overlooked he's a good little player worthy of a top team. Problem with McGeady is he mightn't have the guile to play at the highest level hasn't shown it at international level yet for me, but with some good coaching he's worth a shot in my book.

[lamaros]

I'm still not sure about Keane at the top level to be honest. I certainly think he had a great partnership with Berbatov at Tottenham and was adept at putting in a few premiership goals, but Liverpool paid too much for him and I'm not sure if he's going to be able to set up a great partnership with Torres (who is really very different to Berbatov), nor be able to really lead the line himself when Torres is out.

However that said, he's never really had a chance to prove himself at the top before, so I'll wait and see if he can do it.

And given that Keane is a proven premiership performer, and no other strikers for Liverpool are that (Torres excepted) it's not a huge surprise to see Rafa go for him. Proven 20 goal a year players in the prem are a reasonably safe bet if you want to improve premiership form, McGeady is nowhere near as safe.

[Amarr HM]

Sorry that's bullshit, Keane's been playing and performing at the top for six+ years has 35 international goals in 85 apps he's more than proven and he's not all about goals makes some nice assists. The reason I was surprised, the fact is Irish players just aren't liked by the Continental managers, if they were Wenger with all his market savvy would have bought Richard Dunne a couple of seasons ago, that guy is one of the best defenders in the Premiership. Instead he gets Silvestre ha love that he's not a United player anymore.

EDIT:awful punctuation.

[HaemishM]

I thought Pool overpayed for Keane as well. I'd have rather seen them buy another true winger so that Kuyt could go to the bench or be a second striker. Keane was a great provider for Berbatov, and I just haven't seen enough of that kind of partnership with Torres yet this year. I find he gets out on the wing way too much to score.

You know, Babel could have that right winger position sewn up, but he takes too many touches way too often and I have never seen him provide any kind of decent crossing from the line. He only seems able to cut inside at best. I'm still not sure why Rafa signed him. Of course, I was surprised he let Kewell go, and Kewell seemed very capable when he was able to get on the pitch last season. More and more it's looking like a good thing that Rafa didn't get to sell Xabi Alonso. He's been reborn this year, and putting him in the midfield alongside Mascherano has been great. That won't last when Torres gets back, but it sure helped against Chelsea.

[Amarr HM]

I thought Pool overpayed for Keane as well. I'd have rather seen them buy another true winger so that Kuyt could go to the bench or be a second striker. Keane was a great provider for Berbatov, and I just haven't seen enough of that kind of partnership with Torres yet this year. I find he gets out on the wing way too much to score.

Those runs can create a space for Torres leaving him with more room as it pulls defenders out of position if timed well. I actually don't know how much Keane was but Spurs never give out players on the cheap so  it wouldn't surprise me if he was overpriced.

[HaemishM]

I think Pool paid 20 million pounds or some such.  Overpriced, but I doubt they were getting a decent striker for less than 15 anyway.

[Luxor]

Bloody hell, where did Spurs pull that from?? 

[Amarr HM]

I think Pool paid 20 million pounds or some such.  Overpriced, but I doubt they were getting a decent striker for less than 15 anyway.

Sounds little over priced but you gotta fork out these days to buy anyone decent, sure not an out an out goalscorer but damn better than Voronin & Kuyt put together. For someone that's only been watching since 2006 you know a good bit about the subject fair play.

[lamaros]

How long will Fab last at the gunners I wonder. I think they'll probably drop back to 4th this season.

[Mr_PeaCH]

LOL! 

I believe, Spurs, I BELIEVE!!

(Although... for Fuck's sake, Harry... enough with the Russian already; start Bent plzkthx.)


Aaand... Berbatov to Ronaldo was somekindaniiice.

[WayAbvPar]

Yeah, that move Berbatov put on his defender was just SICK.

[Amarr HM]

Yeh man that was beautiful and it resulted in a goal. Bergkamp comparisons start here..

[HaemishM]

I think Pool paid 20 million pounds or some such.  Overpriced, but I doubt they were getting a decent striker for less than 15 anyway.

Sounds little over priced but you gotta fork out these days to buy anyone decent, sure not an out an out goalscorer but damn better than Voronin & Kuyt put together.

You got that right. I like Kuyt because his workrate is just sick, but a Premier League goal scorer he is not. Voronin just looked lost out there most days - even his good days weren't very good. I really wish Pool could have hung onto Crouch, because I think with enough starts, he could give you 10-15 goals, and be a great target man for Torres. For goals, he'd have been better than keeping Kuyt in my opinion, but Rafa seems dead set on having Kuyt on the right wing for defense as much as anything.

For someone that's only been watching since 2006 you know a good bit about the subject fair play.

Thank you. I've become almost OCD obsessive about football since then. I probably watch way too much thanks to Tivo.