English Football Thread 2014/15

[War]

Video: Henry Winter: It is time English football followed the NFL and introduced the Rooney Rule - Telegraph

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

ultra safe predictions

Chelsea
Man City

about 30 points behind

some combination of Arsenal, Man United, Liverpool Tottenham, Everton and Southampton.

 

[Lee1981]

Just back from the bridge.

Great win, not the best game but the result was all that matters

And Hazard, wow, what a player he is

 

[Champagnepapi]

Man City

I just can't seem to back City this season, I don't know why, perhaps the injury proneness most of their players had, plus if they get knocked to Europa League, that could tone their season down even more. I think it'll be a single horsed race with Chelsea winning it with 8 games to spare the minimum.

 

[War]

I sort of called Chelsea to win both league & C-league this season & I continue to feel they will. Not signing back Fabregas has to go down as a major blunder for Wenger, he looks real next level as G Neville mentioned in this article recently - Cesc Fabregas has elevated himself into an elite group of footballers and will be the architect of Chelsea's success - Telegraph. You got to wonder also how Barca failed to get the best out of him in recent years also. With Xavi now finished, he should be the catalan's new mid-field leader right now..

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

has been a summer of weird decisions, but with barca I do think they have developed a rather stubborn methodology where if your face doesn't fit then they'll happily kick you out. lets not forget barcelona also squandered Ibrahimovic and Yaya Toure, now, maybe they were justified as messi provides all the goals any team is ever going to need and even though there's only a handful of central mids better than toure maybe barca could claim to have two of them at the time. however, letting players like that slip through your fingers doesn't look great.

 

[Haarithan]

Hopefully with Sturridge returning back from injury after the dreaded international break, we play a 442 diamond again with him and Balotelli upfront, and look lethal as we did against Spurs, because the last 20 odd days without him have been painful to say the least - played worse than a midtable side if I'm being completely honest.

Neither Balotelli nor Sturridge have looked good playing up top on their own, and the lack of creativity at midfield doesn't/didn't help either. Needless to say our defence continues to make me laugh everytime, so our only real positives so far this season have been our fullbacks. Henderson is getting increasingly better by the days as well, looking much better in advanced positions these days.

Also Gerrard at AM against West Brom (once Lucas came on) looked 10 times the player he was at DM. Visible shades of Totti in some of his touches, and his link up play with Balotelli was just beautiful to watch.

Hopefully we sort out the Valdes deal soon and go with this XI at full strength:

-------Sturridge---Balotelli------
-------------Sterling------
-Coutinho--Can/Allen/Gerrard--Henderson--
Moreno---Sakho/Lovren--Skrtel--Manquillo--
--------------Valdes---------

Doubt Rodgers has the balls to ever drop Gerrard though. And Rickie Lambert actually makes me miss Iago Aspas

 

[Epic]

I sort of called Chelsea to win both league & C-league this season & I continue to feel they will. Not signing back Fabregas has to go down as a major blunder for Wenger, he looks real next level as G Neville mentioned in this article recently - Cesc Fabregas has elevated himself into an elite group of footballers and will be the architect of Chelsea's success - Telegraph. You got to wonder also how Barca failed to get the best out of him in recent years also. With Xavi now finished, he should be the catalan's new mid-field leader right now..

Fabregas wanted to leave rather than Barca wanting to get rid of him, and explain to me how Arsenal would fit in Ozil, Wilshere, Ramsey, Cazorla and Fabregas into the same team without it being annihilated by literally any other midfield in the league.

has been a summer of weird decisions, but with barca I do think they have developed a rather stubborn methodology where if your face doesn't fit then they'll happily kick you out. lets not forget barcelona also squandered Ibrahimovic and Yaya Toure, now, maybe they were justified as messi provides all the goals any team is ever going to need and even though there's only a handful of central mids better than toure maybe barca could claim to have two of them at the time. however, letting players like that slip through your fingers doesn't look great.

It was never going to work out with those 2 players, Messi started playing through the middle and thus there was no starting role to be had for Ibra and Yaya had Busquets ahead of him, who at the time was the best DM in the world, you do always go on about how much you hate these big clubs buying/keeping players around just so others can't have them.

 

[War]

Fabregas wanted to leave rather than Barca wanting to get rid of him, and explain to me how Arsenal would fit in Ozil, Wilshere, Ramsey, Cazorla and Fabregas into the same team without it being annihilated by literally any other midfield in the league.

Yea, but that's what i mean - Cesc wanted to leave Barca because he never was given the freedom to express himself in the mid-field like was at Arsenal. Back at Chelsea now, the old Cesc is back immediately, so Barca should question themselves why they couldn't get the best out of him.

If Arsenal took him, they didn't have to fit all those players in. Just sell one of those players mentioned & get a proper DM, as the guys on premierleaguetv were rightfully saying last night.

 

[Epic]

Yea, but that's what i mean - Cesc wanted to leave Barca because he never was given the freedom to express himself in the mid-field like was at Arsenal. Back at Chelsea now, the old Cesc is back immediately, so Barca should question themselves why they couldn't get the best out of him.

If Arsenal took him, they didn't have to fit all those players in. Just sell one of those players mentioned & get a proper DM, as the guys on premierleaguetv were rightfully saying last night.

How can Iniesta, Xavi, Messi and Fabregas be in the same team and all be given the freedom to express themselves, this is just illogical to me, the question should rather be why couldn't Barca convince Fabregas to stay 1 more season with Xavi's role limited this season, and that's the Barca hierarchy letting themselves down again.

With Arsenal, I still think the problem is rather the lack of a proper DM than a lack of creativity a Fabregas could give them, and sure they could sell Cazorla, but he isn't going to fetch the same amount of money given his age and just the level of player he is, this is the same club that didn't compete with United for Falcao, because they can't. I know there is always this ridiculous number being thrown about of how much Wenger has to spend and how he isn't doing it, I refuse to believe the Wenger of today after years of taking shit from the media and critics wants anything but a winning football team. However, if that's truly the case then Wenger should be gone or a director of football brought in.

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

It was never going to work out with those 2 players, Messi started playing through the middle and thus there was no starting role to be had for Ibra and Yaya had Busquets ahead of him, who at the time was the best DM in the world, you do always go on about how much you hate these big clubs buying/keeping players around just so others can't have them.

ha, very true. yes, while I think barcelona have probably failed to get the best out of certain players at least they released them back into the game. Ibrahimovic would have been such a sad loss had he spent 2-3 years on the bench at barca decaying. it's been great watching di maria strut his stuff too which would have been compromised so that 80m on James made sense.

 

[thedon5]

We weren't expecting Ozil to be such dogshite. We weren't going to pass up the opportunity to sign him just because Fabregas might be available in a season. Two seasons ago if you said that Fabregas was better than Ozil you'd need your head checked. We have our man, we stick by him. His time is running out but he can still come good.

Besides, it's not just Ozil. Ozil himself was a luxury buy, we already had Cazorla who had played a blinder the season before. Even oil clubs wouldn't have bought Fabregas in our position. Also consider we wouldn't have picked up Sanchez had we brought in Fabregas, we definitely need Sanchez much more, that's for sure.

It just so happens though that by not picking him up we've handed the title to another team. Go figure, nothing we can do but that doesn't mean we should've bought him.

Selling Cazorla had nothing to do with Fabregas as he's predominantly a winger now, and no way in hell are we selling Ramsey, Wilshere or Ozil.

The commentators had it spot on in the Chelsea game. Fabregas isn't the Chelsea player we need, Matic is.

Falcao is the wrong player to bring up, there are only around five or six clubs in world football that would ever be able to afford him.

Regardless, absolutely inexcusable from Wenger not to bring in a DM or a CB. Flamini continues to cost us game after game, he's lost us at least four points so far, possible more and Chambers has played every PL game this season when he was meant to be nothing more than second choice RB and fourth choice CB. He's done well mind you.

 

[War]

BBC News - Price of Football calculator 2014

BBC Sport - Price of Football: Ticket increases outstrip cost of living

Ha this is known for a while of course, probably has gotten worse since the Conservatives came back into power coicidentally - gotta laugh at my country sometimes...

 

[Skater]

I did the calculator and it came out that I will spend £607.67 this season. That's just my season ticket and the 1 and only programme I buy a year. I never buy food or drink inside the ground, and I don't go to away games since I work until 2pm on a Saturday.

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

arsenal's season ticket prices are an absolute disgrace.

haha, noticed no prices are listed for rangers though, perhaps because there can be no guarantees that they'll even survive financially until the end of each month.