The Premier League

Parouisa wrote:Sad to see a famous club like Man United left with nothing to play for in January. Still at least they gave the FA Cup a bit of a shot ... how times have changed. They were never going to get the better of a club with the pedigree of Liverpool. I reckon Fergie will be putting out his first XI in the Carling Cup next year. Made a nice few bob today - thanks to a flying Kuyt!

Jonsmith loves this......

Incidentally Van Persie gets away with what would have got Barton or Balotelli a four game ban. Even youtube have censored it.

Swansea v Chelsea DRAW
Tottenham v Wigan HOME
Wolverhampton v Liverpool DRAW
Everton v Man City AWAY
Man Utd v Stoke DRAW

Get on it and make yerselves a few bob!

Parouisa wrote:Swansea v Chelsea DRAW
Tottenham v Wigan HOME
Wolverhampton v Liverpool DRAW
Everton v Man City AWAY
Man Utd v Stoke DRAW

Get on it and make yerselves a few bob!

i've gone with the following P

Swansea v Chelsea DRAW
Tottenham v Wigan HOME
Wolverhampton v Liverpool DRAW
Everton v Man City AWAY
Man Utd v Stoke HOME

Paying about 60/1 as far as i remember

Good day's work for United. City lose courtesy of Gibson, United win against Stoke with a fantastic cameo from Paul Pogba who will hopefully the future of the Midfield, and they sign 19 year old defender Veseli from City. The only downside is losing Ravel Morrison to West Ham but it looks like he just didn't have it in him to be a United player.

Level on points with City now in the middle of an injury crisis and all to play for.

Two penos at home ...

Parouisa wrote:Two penos at home ...

Did you mean to say "Only two penos"...? Denied a stonewall 3rd towards the end of the game.

Jonsmith wrote:

Parouisa wrote:Two penos at home ...

Did you mean to say "Only two penos"...? Denied a stonewall 3rd towards the end of the game.

Yeah sorry - only two penos at home! I still think City will do it this year - and then next season when Mourinho arrives .....

You have to hand it to Martin O' Neill Sunderland now up to 8th in the table, and hes working with largely the same personnel that Bruce had. Though i have to say i dont mind Brucey hes a sound skin

bocerty wrote:You have to hand it to Martin O' Neill Sunderland now up to 8th in the table, and hes working with largely the same personnel that Bruce had. Though i have to say i dont mind Brucey hes a sound skin

It would need to be sound - Its undergoing a lot of stretching in recent years

OMAR wrote:

bocerty wrote:You have to hand it to Martin O' Neill Sunderland now up to 8th in the table, and hes working with largely the same personnel that Bruce had. Though i have to say i dont mind Brucey hes a sound skin

It would need to be sound - Its undergoing a lot of stretching in recent years

he has let himself go just a tad alright - a fortnight training with the Dubs and he should be back in shape

Parouisa wrote:

Jonsmith wrote:

Parouisa wrote:Two penos at home ...

Did you mean to say "Only two penos"...? Denied a stonewall 3rd towards the end of the game.

Yeah sorry - only two penos at home! I still think City will do it this year - and then next season when Mourinho arrives .....

United going well - 5 goals in last two games (4 penos) and the classy manager still has a go at the linesman .....

Parouisa wrote:

Parouisa wrote:

Jonsmith wrote:

Parouisa wrote:Two penos at home ...

Did you mean to say "Only two penos"...? Denied a stonewall 3rd towards the end of the game.

Yeah sorry - only two penos at home! I still think City will do it this year - and then next season when Mourinho arrives .....

United going well - 5 goals in last two games (4 penos) and the classy manager still has a go at the linesman .....

It amazes me how much he gets away with. Sure I suppose having 'Sir' added to your name is a great advantage.

Real Kerry Fan wrote:It amazes me how much he gets away with. Sure I suppose having 'Sir' added to your name is a great advantage.

They should do a Fred Goodwin on him! Ironic that - Goodwin and Badloser!

Fantastic comeback by United.. Great game too very exciting. I don't think they have the squad to win the title this year but they will push City all the way.

Jonsmith wrote:Fantastic comeback by United.. Great game too very exciting. I don't think they have the squad to win the title this year but they will push City all the way.

There's good depth in the squad though - Mike Jones, Howard Webb, etc .....

Parouisa wrote:

Jonsmith wrote:Fantastic comeback by United.. Great game too very exciting. I don't think they have the squad to win the title this year but they will push City all the way.

There's good depth in the squad though - Mike Jones, Howard Webb, etc .....

Suarez a disgrace. If Liverpool want to retain any credibility he has to go. Evra should have kept his dignity rather than jump around at end but I can understand his feelings.

Indeed it was Disgarceful stuff from suarez though I thought Sir Alex's views on the matter were a tad rich. The outrage commited by suarez yesterday would hardly be any worse than

1) Going Ninja on the terraces
2) Publically F$$ing at your nations football fans who have travelled half way across the world
3) Refusing to take a Drugs test

none of which were deemed "selling offences" by Sir AF

OMAR wrote:Indeed it was Disgarceful stuff from suarez though I thought Sir Alex's views on the matter were a tad rich. The outrage commited by suarez yesterday would hardly be any worse than

1) Going Ninja on the terraces
2) Publically F$$ing at your nations football fans who have travelled half way across the world
3) Refusing to take a Drugs test

none of which were deemed "selling offences" by Sir AF

Agree totally. Ferguson was not as aghast as he made out. I think a large part of his rant was just to pile the pressure on Liverpool/Dalglish. I also thought it interesting that, when remarking on how far the fight against racism had come, he talked about 'a long way since bananas were thrown at John Barnes', as this too was done by Liverpool fans.

Ferguson was stirring and, as Omar points out, hypocritically so. Still, though, Dalglish's stance on this whole affair just goes from bad to worse, and really is making him look very, very bad.

I am no fan of SAF but this is not about him. When Sky interviewed Dalglish he clearly did not know that Suarez had refused to shake Evra's hand and was thus made to look pretty stupid. His bit about banter is a bit of a joke too - if Hillborough & Munich is banter then that says it all really.

I think it's a bit ironic too that Suarez racially abuses anybody when he himself would be viewed in much that same way as Evra would be by the right wing extremists in the UK who thrive on racism.

poor auld Mick is gone ..... really this time.

Good article from Paul Hayward


YOU know the sky is falling in when the fans debate which was worse: the 8-2 thrashing at Manchester United or the 4-0 thumping in Milan; when a feeling of sadness creeps over the work of a once great team and a distinguished manager who has brought so much wisdom to the English game.

Power has been slipping from Arsenal for seven years now, since their last trophy. When it drops away incrementally, the loss of strength can be covered up with talk of prudence and faith in sacred principles. But some days that power splinters and crashes. It makes awful wrenching sounds, as it did when Milan humiliated the Gunners on a patchwork pitch.

Nothing about Arsenal worked. They failed to track runners, neglected to press the ball, made ruinous defensive errors and created little around the Milanese penalty box. The stats showed a respectable possession rate. But the eyes told another story. Even Arsenal’s vaunted passing was innocuous.

They caught the House of Berlusconi on a good night — that should be said. Robinho and Kevin-Prince Boateng punched endless holes in a comatose Arsenal midfield. The normally stately Zlatan Ibrahimovic decided it was finally time to stretch his legs, dashing about with lethal intent. Milan were a mighty force. They were quick, entertaining and bold: all the things Arsenal, in their torpor, were not.

The critical kicking they will receive on Thursday will come with no relish or schadenfreude. A great football manager is being humbled by the decline of a team he has built in his own intellectual image. He has a body of work stretching back 15 years to protect him from the hysteria of short-termism. But a defence is harder to mount when the decline is year-on-year: when the quality of players brought in is consistently lower than those who are lost to predators.

In the press conference afterwards Arsène Wenger made no attempt to surround himself with barriers or irony or optimism. He faced the reality of this performance head on and acknowledged that the struggle for fourth place in the Premier League could be undermined by this blow to their self-esteem.

The first test is an FA Cup tie against resurgent Sunderland. A sense of shock prevails. “We were never in the game. We were very poor defensively and offensively and it was shocking to see how we were beaten everywhere,” Wenger said. “It was our worst performance in Europe by far.”

The deeper The Invincibles retreat into history the greater the problem for The Inconsistents. Today’s Arsenal side are always fighting off comparisons, especially when Thierry Henry returns, woos the crowd, then glides off back to New York with the club he loves in such a mess.

The brief Henry comeback show ended in the stadium where the 2003 team beat Inter Milan 5-1 with two from the inventor of va-va voom. So desperate were Arsenal as they trudged off 2-0 down at the interval here that they thrust the cameo man into a central role for a whole 45 minutes as another European adventure imploded, this time at the first knock-out stage. Four years ago the Gunners prevailed over AC Milan in this arena, with goals from Cesc Fabregas (now with Barcelona) and Emmanuel Adebayor (currently on loan at Spurs). Fabregas and Samir Nasri are the latest in a long line of luminaries lost to more pragmatic and free-spending rivals.

The dispersal of these talents was shown up again when Dennis Bergkamp cast his expert eye on the scene. In an excellent interview with Alan Smith in these pages yesterday, Bergkamp observed icily: “You need a few strong characters who can get the team going, in training as well as matches. Sometimes you need more of a winning mentality than a passing mentality. I’m not sure Arsenal have enough of that in their players, when the attitude becomes more important than the ability just to pass the ball.

“I don’t know if the English mentality is missing a little bit. We had it with the back four, who had the mentality of thinking, 'OK, this game is ours now’.” Bergkamp evoked the midfield of Freddie Ljungberg, Ray Parlour and Robert Pires to paint more honey on the old days.

After that reminder of lost glories, Wenger’s toilers could have done without a real burst of first-half energy from Milan . Two strips of shagpile were laid down the flanks of the San Siro pitch, thus restricting the ball’s movement in wide areas and forcing the play into the middle third, where Robinho, Boateng and Antonio Nocerino ran amok.

Wenger’s men were no match for the industry and enterprise of the Rossoneri. Even after Boateng’s 15th-minute hooked finish, which was redolent of Van Persie or even Marco Van Basten, Arsenal watched the runners go by and failed to squeeze the space around those black and red shirts. Bergkamp’s complaints echoed round the stadium. As the goals poured in, the Arsenal fans who had chanted so lustily in the square outside the Duomo fell mute. Disconsolate London looked moodily down from the high altitude of the San Siro’s top tier. Premier League football looked pretty sick, too. Chelsea are in Italy next week too to face the lethal counter-attackers of Napoli, with Andre Villas-Boas feeling Roman Abramovich’s breath on his neck. There will be no more financial lording it over Serie A if all the English clubs are eliminated before the quarter-finals.

The traditional Arsenal cycle over the past seven years has been spurts of promise followed by hard landings and battered morale. A classic example was the Carling Cup final defeat to Birmingham which sent the team’s confidence into a nosedive. Some frantic late transfer window trading in August seemed to have added experience and backbone but these are no good without top-grade quality.

The Bergkamp generation can hardly be expected to stay silent. There is no obligation for them to ignore this damning evidence of Arsenal’s mediocrity. Wenger’s professorial aura will come under renewed attack as the Sunderland game approaches and supporters direct their indignation against him for failures in the transfer market and his excessive faith in players who keep failing to justify his high opinion of them.

This squad can no longer save him so he must save himself by going on without large numbers of them. It will be expensive, but the alternative would be even more costly: the ruination of his work. We saw another step on that path here and it hurt the

Parouisa wrote:poor auld Mick is gone ..... really this time.

United looking good for Europa League. Be nice to have some silverware this season.

City have their heartbeat back. Yaya Toure makes such a difference to them. If he can stay injury and suspension free til the end of season they will take some stopping.