less football freedism more giggling at old french man falling down :colbert:
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less football freedism more giggling at old french man falling down :colbert:
BASED MONK RETAINS UNBEATEN RECORD
BENT RETAINS ABILITY TO NOT SLOT IT IN FROM 6 YARDS
#EPL
Horrific few weeks for the swans coming up. Everton away in the FA Cup, then Napoli (yes guys we're still playing in Europe) home and away with Liverpool away in between. The next two league home games are must wins against Palace and West Brom, then the away fixtures are Arsenal and Everton again.
If we can claw at least 5 points from that it's (relatively) plain sailing from then till the end of the season, with the only big dog fixture being Chelsea at home.
It's funny, there's the stereotypical "This year is our year!" view of Liverpool fans but whenever it is suggested we may be dark horses the response is now "LALALALA CAN'T HEAR YOU SHUT UP" and that is how I feel too. I can't help but think back to the City and Chelsea games - games we should have won but not for blah blah injuries bad referees excuses and think about what might have been. As karma for all my Moyes bashing we're going to end up losing at Old Trafford and that'll cost us something (the league, fourth, whatever, just something) or if we do finish fourth, Moyes will win the CL and we won't be in it next year!
Think last night was a poor result for Arsenal and United. If either is to meet their goals (1st, 4th) then playing for draws is not enough and to me that seemed to be the goal for both teams off the back of their poor weekend results. Not good enough from either manager to do that. Interested to see Moyes come out and say "Yeah United play well over the second half of the season it's fine". Dave, mate, the second half of the season began ages ago. We're in the final third. In your last five games you have got five points. That is relegation form. Not saying United are going down by the way Daniel ;) but a point-per-game is what teams get relegated with. 11 points to make up, 12 games to do it. And hell never mind Liverpool's form, Spurs are showing no signs of letting up either. Gonna need both of them to implode - or maybe Arsenal, who seem to be really flagging - to do it.
Spurs are a weird case. Before their last match, they were 5th on a goal difference of 0. That's just weird, however you look at it. Looks like they've hit a bit of form now. But yeah, still weird. I mean, we've had a shocking season where you may as well flip a three sided coin in order to predict the result regardless of what team we're facing (lose against the bottom team, win against the top team... make what you will of that). But despite that, Spurs were positions and points ahead of us with (before last game) a goal difference of 0! Crazy.
I'm not expecting CL next season at the moment, but I do feel that Moyes needs to move us into a good run of form or this summer will be very interesting or very worrying. Or both.
As for the Liverpool game at Old Trafford, I'll say it again: Flip a coin, that'll be the result. xD
I believe if we win the CL (ha!) and you finish fourth then England just get five teams in the CL. Not sure if that's a certainty but I'm sure they mentioned that possibility in UEFA somewhere along the line. As for both teams playing for draws, I didn't see it that way - I think both teams had attacking intent but it was a poor game regardless, if not for the lack of goals then for the general scrappiness all over the pitch. There was the occasional bit of good football being played but it was generally outside the box, which is a shame. Shocking developtment, though. Vidic to play a full game (and Rio half of it) and we kept a clean sheet. Did Not Expect.
Our form is rubbish points-wise, but our play last weekend was really good and to get a point away at Arsenal isn't a terrible result, although you'd still hope for better in the circumstances. I think Ince has echoed my thoughts recently in that we have no leaders on the pitch, and I do feel that is the big issue right now. There is definite talent, although the Rio, Vidic, Giggs and Scholes of last season simply aren't good enough this season (or in Scholes' case, aren't playing at all). If you look at the games we've lost this season, we haven't been battered by any means, with the possible exception of Chelsea away and City away, the two hardest games we'll get. When you are losing by a scrappy goal or having draws pounced on you at the last minute (we've lost a lot of points late in games this season) then you have to say that the mentality of the players is getting weaker than what we're used to.
We control matches and lose them because the players don't know when to slow a game down, when to time-waste (we never do this anymore, at all - it's weird when you miss Giggs messing around with a foot on the ball in the far corner of the pitch). If half of those losses were draws and half of our draws were wins, we'd have eight more points. Surely some good strong leaders on the pitch could have managed us that.
One incredible scene was right at the end of the Arsenal match. BT Sport had Moyes inset on the corner of the screen while showing what the players were doing. It was the 93rd minute with three minutes of extra time, and we were just on the edge of Arsenal's third of the pitch with the ball at our feet. Moyes was yelling at the players to attack. The next thing you see is him holding his arms wide with a dumbfounded expression when the players instead slowed the play down and started pushing the ball back to the keeper. Admittedly they were on the far side of the pitch and probably couldn't see or hear him, but you my reaction was pretty much the same as Moyes'. Where is the late hammering of the goal? We could have snatched something at the final minute but instead Young, Rooney, Carrick and Evra - all champions last year - were looking around and then passing back into our own half. Shocking.
It looks like Raheem Twattybollocks was taught the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart technique from Kill Bill.
I'm glad the gif didn't show Howard Webb's next four steps.
Love Raheem, smurf Webb.
Also why does every Man United fan call him Stirling and not Sterling? No excuses Bubba, it's right there on his shirt in the gif!
My apologies, Psy. I wouldn't let it slide if it was one of our players so... fair play.
Original post fixed.
How not to defend: THE GAME
To get nerdy, you know in RPGs where you can bump stats up and down when making a character? Brendan Rodgers has actually decided to dump defence in order to pump up the attack. Seriously like remember the mid-90's when Newcastle used to challenge for the title by boasting the likes of Ferdinand, Asprilla, Ginola, Shearer etc. and their mantra was "yeah we've got a trout defence but we don't care, we'll hammer you anyway"? That is literally Liverpool. Martin Skrtel is 2014 Phillipe Albert.
Liverpool have now scored more goals than any other team in the league this season... and have conceded more than the likes of West Ham, Hull and Manchester United.
I can't let it go without some form of taunt though. Old Manus did you enjoy Nathan Dyer being shredded by England's Glen Johnson and England's Raheem Sterling? Ho ho ho. Delicious.
Post-EoFF Football Thread Superbowl thoughts:
1. thank you based shelvey
2. we are looking much better than we did with laudrup
3. not often you score 3 goals against Liverpool at Anfield and go home with nothing
4. smurfing Jonathan Pearce and Danny 'remember me?' Mills talking bollocks about the penalty decision. Skrtel had his arms all round him. Tell me where in the rulebook it says that is not a foul
(SPOILER)I'm not bitter
For all the trash we've got about our defence this season, it's actually not been much worse than previous seasons, if at all. Our highly touted attack has been the area we've struggled in. I think we've conceded less than a few of the teams above us. In conclusion: Smalling and Evans are obviously more world class than Rooney and RVP. Wait, what?Quote:
Originally Posted by Psychotic
How weird is it that I went to find another instance of this happening and was actually surprised that it's the first time this season? With Liverpool's high scoring games this season, I genuinely thought "Ah, but it can't be the first time it's happened, can it?"Quote:
Originally Posted by Manus
Oh I was just having bantz :greenie:
Heard some suggestions that England should just line up like Liverpool with Sturridge, Sterling, Gerrard and Henderson all performing their club roles, and then have Rooney doing Suarez's job. Thoughts on that? (I guess Wilshere is Coutinho)
>implying Hodgson has any intention of playing football Brendan Rodgers style
>implying it won't be hoofball from Hart to Andy Carroll for 90 minutes
>implying Gareth Barry will not play every minute of every game
Gaz Baz has had a pretty decent season at Everton. I would prefer to see him play than the likes of Wilshere or Hodgson's personal favourite Tom "TC23 The Brand" Cleverley.
I think Rooney and Suarez are two different kettles of fish these days, and Suarez is rather central to Liverpool's play. Still, it's not a bad shout - I always felt that England would do better if they simply focused on a specific club when selecting their players. Fair? Perhaps not. More likely to win? I think so.
EDIT: Watching this game is painful, and I'm not just talking about it being on a very horrid ITV broadcast. Seriously, what the hell. Anyway, back to the game... you may as well title this match "Manchester United: An Experiment in Playing Without a Midfield". Actually, you could call a lot of our games that this season, but none more so than today. What the hell. We're playing long ball because there is literally nobody in our midfield. At all. We are out of the centre circle pretty much at all times. Carrick plays deeper than ever before. Cleverley was in midfield for a little bit but mostly was floating from flank to flank. All the other players (sans defence) were sitting up top. Olympiakos aren't just beating us, they are dancing around us and having a lot of fun.