Football/Futbol/Soccer thread

[Daz]

20 minutes in and Villa are 2-0 down. Great.

When Welbeck is scoring against you, you need to re-think something.

[PorkChop]

20 minutes in and Villa are 2-0 down. Great.

When Welbeck is scoring against you, you need to re-think something.

If he gets a hat trick I may never return to this forum out of shame.

[prophet]

20 minutes in and Villa are 2-0 down. Great.

When Welbeck is scoring against you, you need to re-think something.

If he gets a hat trick I may never return to this forum out of shame.

Cleverley's just bagged too mate, what kind of black magic fuckery is this!?

[SlightlyJames]

I've lost count of how many times Darren Fletcher has come back from injury. What was it this time?

[Romo]

I've lost count of how many times Darren Fletcher has come back from injury. What was it this time?

The shits.

[PorkChop]

I've lost count of how many times Darren Fletcher has come back from injury. What was it this time?

The shits.

He had some mystery illness where he lost about 3 stone apparently.

Well, at least Welbeck didn't get a hat trick.

[Daz]

Hooper Goal -


It makes me happy in my special place.

[Viazon]

^I've scored better.

[Daz]

Tottenham have been awful against Liverpool. I did appreciate Paulinho giving Suarez a good kick though.

[prophet]

Quality finish that from Hooper.

Outstanding performance from Liverpool today. They never put a foot wrong and could've won by an even bigger margin. Delighted to see Flanagan get his first goal for the club and today saw the best of the likes of Sterling, Henderson, Sakho, Allen etc..

With that in mind, here's my prediction for the top 4 right now:
1. Man City
2. Arsenal
3. Chelsea
4. Liverpool/Everton/United

Can't make my mind up. My heart wants it to be Liverpool but my head shows a bit of common sense.

[Viazon]

I still have confidence that Arsenal can win the title. I think we can take Chelsea at home next week. We are still three points above Man City. As long as we keep beating the smaller teams and these teams keep dropping points to them, it could still happen.

[prophet]

I still have confidence that Arsenal can win the title. I think we can take Chelsea at home next week. We are still three points above Man City. As long as we keep beating the smaller teams and these teams keep dropping points to them, it could still happen.

I agree that Arsenal have every chance of winning the title, my bank account is a passionate Gooner. City have to be the favourites though, they're the strongest team in the league by far. As for 4th I don't think Spurs are good enough to qualify, Everton are brilliant and I think they have just as much chance of getting a CL place as Liverpool and United do. Liverpool play Chelsea away and City away back to back so I'll reserve judgement on their chances until the festive period is done.

[AkydefGoldberg]

I've lost count of how many times Darren Fletcher has come back from injury. What was it this time?

I've lost count of how many times Darren Fletcher has come back from injury. What was it this time?

The shits.

Not very nice to be dismissive of a condition that was potentially career-threatening, maybe read up on it before providing a "funny" answer.

But apologies Pork Chop for the two players I wouldn't have expected to get on the scoresheet from United. Welbeck and Cleverley.

I was surprised, did expect Villa to perform better but thankfully Valencia was in beast mode in the first half especially and provided a threat, along with Rafael, that helped us get off the mark. Welbeck got himself in the box and finished well but tbh, the first I'd expect him to score. The second was a good run and put himself in there to score which he has to do more often. Valencia/Rafael as a combination worked well and all our successes came from there. Poor Luna was getting roasted.

Cleverley took his goal well I have to say, nice finish but hope this is a eureka moment for him that he is allowed to go up the pitch at times to support an attack. At the start of the 10/11 season he played further up the field and showed promise and he's scored goals in his loan spells. I think playing this deeper role he is not fully getting what he needs to do.

Villa hardly troubles us and De Gea had an easy game. Our next few games before Spurs in 2014 should be winnable but I can't say with full confidence I'm afraid.

Liverpool crushed Spurs. Spurs, despite doing so well in the EL, have not got their formation, line-up sorted out near enough. Soldado completely isolated (keen to know how much touches he had in the box) and the midfield trio of Sandro, Dembele and Paulinho just didn't assert themselves. Suarez brilliant as usual and a good team performance. Liverpool's title hopes rest on Suarez, he can score them the goal 20 plus goals needed to win a title. But maybe will fall short.

Such an enthralling season - so close in all of the league. We need to make good quality, ready-made acquisitions JUST to make sure we finish in the top four.

[prophet]

AVB sacked - no real surprise there. Hard not to feel sorry for him though, he hasn't done a bad job there and he's had to deal with the blame for the performances of the sub-par summer signings when really the finger should be pointed at Baldini and Levy, particularly the former who spent £100 million trying to replace Bale. I've no idea who they'll get to come in now, I'm not even sure who's available. Solskjaer? Hiddink? Di Matteo? Laudrup?

[Viazon]

Meh. I hope the rest of Tottenhams season goes into turmoil now.

[AkydefGoldberg]

I feel for AVB as this is now a second failure in English football and very much doubt he'll get another chance again. He'll have to work his way back up abroad.

He did very well to get the best out of Bale and get their highest points tally but because Spurs didn't back him enough to get a few bodies in to provide depth to the squad, their squad fragility got found out and they missed out on the CL spot. Personally, I question whether he could have persuaded Bale to stay for another year. I mean, Ferguson got another year out of Ronaldo in 2009 and yes they are different situations but considering Bale produced the best with AVB, thought the latter could have used that in a bid to make him stay.

This season, I actually thought they had done the best business but now it seems Baldini may have cocked up. It's probably been hard for AVB but as a coach, he has to find solutions and he advocated the hiring of Baldini so he has to take responsability for that also. He had to make it work because he wanted it.

Hope this goes tits up for Levy - complete dislike for the guy. No notion of stability - he should have kept Redknapp but wanted to go continental because he didn't like Harry doing the transfer dealings on his own it seemed.

I said to my brother last night watching MOTD2 that I felt AVB would go and Di Matteo would come in and I'd back that. Capello possibly at the end of the WC but for now, a temporary solution will be found. Maybe Hoddle?

The CL draw as expected. Arsenal/Bayern, City/Barca, Olympiakas/Man United, Chelsea/Galatasaray.

Happy with our draw, we should make it through. Bayern to beat Arsenal. City to beat Barca and Chelsea to beat Gala. Love how Jose said he wanted Drogba to experience the Stamford Bridge return when really and cynically thinking, because he wanted an easy draw!

[Enygma]

^ aye I remember that, he did get a bit overboard when that happened

He was a nutcase. Apparently he once asked Enygma if he could borrow his car to drive his daughter to school. What the fuck

It's true. It was in the chatbox with Georgerv. And Bayern again? Damn

[PorkChop]

AVB sacked - no real surprise there. Hard not to feel sorry for him though, he hasn't done a bad job there and he's had to deal with the blame for the performances of the sub-par summer signings when really the finger should be pointed at Baldini and Levy, particularly the former who spent £100 million trying to replace Bale. I've no idea who they'll get to come in now, I'm not even sure who's available. Solskjaer? Hiddink? Di Matteo? Laudrup?

I thought basically all of Spurs signings were questionable from the start - many people were praising their transfers but from what I saw, after Bale left they shat themselves and paid ridiculous prices for okay players. 30 million for Lamela? Joke.

Laudrup would be a fair shout - made very good signings at Swansea and has arguably got them overachieving. He'd do well at Spurs.

[Romo]

AVB sacked - no real surprise there. Hard not to feel sorry for him though, he hasn't done a bad job there and he's had to deal with the blame for the performances of the sub-par summer signings when really the finger should be pointed at Baldini and Levy, particularly the former who spent £100 million trying to replace Bale. I've no idea who they'll get to come in now, I'm not even sure who's available. Solskjaer? Hiddink? Di Matteo? Laudrup?

I thought basically all of Spurs signings were questionable from the start - many people were praising their transfers but from what I saw, after Bale left they shat themselves and paid ridiculous prices for okay players. 30 million for Lamela? Joke.

Laudrup would be a fair shout - made very good signings at Swansea and has arguably got them overachieving. He'd do well at Spurs.

Lamela's release cause was 30 mill and the only way Roma would let him leave was for them to activate it, Lamela is also a world class player who gets played out of postion, he needs to be on the right, but for some reason AVB played Townsend (who is HIGHLY over rated and the only reason he's get wanked over is because he's english and england need their hero who they hype up going into the world cup)

[Kyle]

So, who's looking forward to Barca vs Man City and Arsenal vs Bayern?