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Ah, OK. Don't know why I thought they qualified for the Champions League. Thanks.
Oh well. Playing for fifth or sixth at this point sucks, but staying in Europe is better than the alternative.
I don't know how much Pellegrini is to blame here... but people just keep offering Xavi space, don't they?
Flynn, how's that working out for you?
Long Live High Road Danny Rose.
Anyone got a link to highlights? All I’ve seen from the match is Rose’s goal, which I’ve watched a couple dozen times now. I heard Gomes had a blinder and pretty much singlehandedly denied a bunch of potential equalisers from Van Persie.
We love you, Gomes!
And yes it’s quite alright,
Heurelho Gomes,
You can shag my wife!
not very f**king well.
Best I can do. For some reason they seem to insist on showing the goals before each half, before the rest of the chances. But if you know the score that won't matter much.
Incidently, I thought the Rose goal was a bit over-hyped. It was a fierce strike, no doubt about it, but it was straight at te middle of the goal. Almunia for some reason never got off the ground, and quite frankly, he should have done better.
I had that reaction the first time I saw it but I changed my mind after seeing it a few times. While I agree Almunia should have done better Rose took a ball that had been punched high in the air and volleyed it with a lot of force on target. Considering where Almunia was he was going to have to make an excellent effort to save it. 99% of the time that ball gets popped into Row Z, scuffed into the ground or just not attempted at all. Rose made a terrific strike and that he didn't put it into the top corner is nitpicky I think.
And Gomes...wow. That sequence of saves almost brought a tear to my eye. I love that guy.
Does it really work that way? That seems incredibly dumb, I had thought they only got docked once per administration, doing it per season seems bizarre.
All I'm saying is that the fact that a competent GK should have really saved it knocks it down from "great to excellent" to "good to very good". Truly great strikes to me aren't saveable. YMMV.
EDIT: And obviously I disagree with your assesment of Almunia. His hands were about an inch under the ball, and his feet were dragging the ground. If he just pushes off slightly, he saves that.
He still hasn't found anyone to take the stuff off his lawn for the price he's asking, though.
Arsenal were at their worst for most of the game. Zero directness. Lots and lots of sideways passing infront of a tight, packed defense which didn't give them any space. Nobody willing to shoot, nobody willing to make runs and Bendtner being forced to come deep or drift wide to get a sniff of the ball -- which meant there was never anybody in the box.
Which is why when anyone says Arsenal play like Barcelona I give an old-fashioned look. Barcelona are incredibly direct, if there is no opening they recycle the ball back to Valdes and start again. The only similarity is that they both keep possession very well.
That's why Defoe is infuriating. He has the technical ability to pass but half the time just refuses to and just instinctively shoots if he is within sight of the goal - has no football head.
There's a special place in hell for those two.
"Having grown the club this far we have now decided together to look to sell the club to owners committed to take the club through its next level of growth and development."
If the club's future owners are going to "grow the club" in the same way, your are going to be looking forward to derbies with Tranmere Rovers.
There's a special place in hell for those two.
Sounds like Mike Ashley at Newcastle, after taking them from top 4 to a relegation fight, and then asking for three times what he paid for the club.* During the largest financial downturn in living memory no less...
*He did reduce his demand after they actually got relegated...
They finished fifth in 04 and seventh in 06, and despite their weak finish in 07, were viewed to have one of the few squads with the potntial of breaking into the top 4 again. At least, that's how it was seen in Newcastle at the time, not that Geordies have a particluarly strong attatchment to reality...
Serial club killer Graeme Souness took us out of contention for the top 4
You can say the same about nearly any club. Newcastle hasn't had a good squad since the year of Patrick Kluivert.
Other than that, City defended really well though. United seemed to be oddly content with playing the posession game. Both sides looked like they were lacking in ideas up front...
Chelsea have been quite lucky. Tottenham could easily have scored 2 or so more. Then they'd be in danger of loosing the GD advantage...
Tottenham fans must be delirious right now. I think if you said they would get 4 points from this stretch of Arsenal/Chelsea/United they would have been satisfied, 6 points already and United still to be played is terrific.
And Lyon will take one to Munich
Good to hear the games are going ahead though, there was talk of calling them off earlier. Eurostar is ofc unaffected so the British teams will be fine.
Serves Wenger right for his stubbornness: Fabianski. Fabianski keeps ####### up, but Wenger refuses to learn. And Silvestre? Really? Wenger's central defenders for the match were 2 old guys he picked up at bargain rates, one because he is utter crap (Silvestre), the other because he spent most of the season not playing because he made the mistake of signing for Notts County (Campbell) and then wanted out after realising how stupid that was. If Wenger is going to pay #### all attention to the defense, he deserves to have to whine and moan like a little baby and blame everyone else except himself for Arsenal always falling short.
"We've had discussions with a number of first-team players and we've resolved some contractual issues over playing in the FA Cup final - and the only player who is not available is Aruna Dindane. The chairman of his club Lens has dug his heels in - he wants four million euros for him to play another game for Portsmouth and we are not in a position to pay that. I've asked the player and his agent to go and see the club. I'm hoping something positive will happen from that a meeting will take place shortly."
4m for one game? Talk about extortion.
When Dindane signed on loan for Portsmouth, there were various clauses in the contract. One of them stated that if Dindane played X games for Portsmouth (I believe it's 20 games), Lens would be due 4m euros (roughly £3.5m or $5.4m). This kind of thing is fairly standard in loan contracts - if Dindane is playing lots of games for Portsmouth, it means he's doing well, so Lens should get a higher fee. The counterpart to this is that Portsmouth would have had to pay a lower initial fee. So (sake of argument) Portsmouth could have signed Dindane on loan for 3m euros as a flat fee, or for 1m euros up front then 4m euros if he played in 20 games. As part of the loan, Portsmouth also have the option to sign him (for a set fee) at the end of this loan if they want - although obviously they won't be doing this due to their situation.
Portsmouth are now demanding to renegotiate the contract. It's absolutely not extortion to want to stick to the original terms as agreed. It's not Lens' fault that Portsmouth have messed up their finances. Portsmouth benefited by a lower initial price. They're now trying to get away without paying the bonus. Too bad for them.
The goalkeeper situation is a mess all over, but I'm not sure what Wenger is supposed to do about it right now. Mannone isn't any better.
As for the centrebacks Vermaelen, Gallas and Song are injured. Campbell has been pretty good (I suppose you might fault him for part of the last goal, but it was just a really good goal) since he came back from no man's land and Silvestre is the dregs of the team.
Of course, if they do stay up, given how dismal they are, it does raise the question of what that says about Hull and Burnley.
They didn't look too enthusiastic in the first 15 minutes or so, either. I think a better team would've put them under serious pressure. Bodes ill for the upcoming Chelsea fixture if they play like that again.
Ilan was an utterly useless lump up front, and Cole wasn’t much better. Zola might as well have put out a nine-man team, to be frank. Stanislas and Faubert at least got after it a bit down the right flank, but the delivery was generally very poor. West Ham offered vanishingly little, and a good side like Liverpool ought to have pummeled them but they settled for a "professional performance". I have never heard Anfield that subdued.
I don't fault Campbell, or the signing of Campbell. I fault Wenger for being in a situation where if he hadn't signed Campbell midseason, the Arsenal defense would be utterly screwed.
Injuries happen to every team. If Fabregas, or van Persie, gets injured, and you are unable to cover for them, then fine. Any team will be affected if its best players get injured. If Man United has Rooney injured, they will be affected; Liverpool, Torres, Chelsea Drogba. Etc. What is unacceptable is how lacking in depth Arsenal are overall. Even when ther non-star starters get injured, they are screwed. Take away Vermaelen, and the Arsenal central D is crap. Song isn't a central D. Combined with an unrealiable goalkeeping situation, and you have a crappy defense.
Song came up through the ranks as a central defender (he played some of Arsenal's CC games over the past few years there) and would clearly be playing there over Silvestre. Silvestre is behind Vermaelen, Gallas, Campbell, Djourou and Song on the depth chart. He's the dregs.
Inter is clearly (justifiably) terrified of Messi. Any time he touches the ball he's got two, sometimes three, guys on him.
How do you say "flat-track bully" in Catalunyan?
If I'm not mistaken, this is the first time Guardiola's Barcelona lose by more than one goal.
The tie is far from over, though.
United-Spurs 7:45
West Ham-Wigan 10:00
Arsenal-Man City 12:30
I thought Bayern made a big mistake in bringing on Gomez though. When they were 4-4-1 with men running from midfield they were bossing the game. 4-3-2 just didn't work for them - they were losing possession too easily and lacked shape. At that stage, a competent team would have really started hitting on the break, but competent is not Lyon at the moment.
I think the most relieved man must be Ribery. If Bayern had lost, he'd have been blamed, and it would put the cap on what must be the worst week of his life.
His stock has taken a beating lately, huh? Will he still be one of this summer's Galacticos?
So, seventh place will be good enough for a Europa League place in both England (because of this ruling) and Italy (because Inter and Roma will be contesting the cup final for the fifth time in six years).
In other news, this is what I would call a "hard cap".
Good. Well, not good--it's obviously very, very bad that a Premiership club got itself into such a state--but you know what I mean. It would've been an embarrassment to have Portsmouth playing in Europe next season.
Well, one of the 50 worst or so. I've watched a lot of Liverpool.
We should still have enough in the second leg though.
Good result for Fulham in Hamburg, though they would have loved to get a goal (even if they gave one up).
July 21st.
At Fenway.
What could possibly go wrong?
-------
Sardonic -- I assume you saw the news about Davies. Provided he's ready-to-go by mid-May(ish), he's still going to the World Cup, right? I'm also interested in who you think is going as the third (and perhaps fourth) forward role(s) -- Bedoya? Gomez? One or two of the MLS guys (Ching, Casey, Findley, Cunningham)?
I think Davies at least gets invited to camp. It is disturbing to hear that he won't be ready to step on the field for Sochaux so late in the game though.
I think if Davies can't go at all, we go with Jozy and Deuce as the starters, and Bedoya gets a ticket to SA. Looking at the US depth chart, if something happens to Jozy or Clint, I'd much rather see Donovan up top with Feilhaber, Beasley or Torres taking his spot in the midfield (probably with a formation change as well), than see Casey, Gomez, Buddle, Findley or any of that group.
In that scenario, I wouldn't be surprised to 4-3-2-1 formation that has been busted out in the past, with Bradley, Edu and Feilhaber in the 3, Donovan and Beasley/Holden in the 2 and Deuce or Jozy as the 1.
So in some sense, it doesn't matter much which of those guys makes the team, since I doubt that any of them would see significant minutes. I think Bedoya will get the call since he's actually been capped lately. For the same reason, I would project Casey to make the team over the rest of the pu pu platter that is the US forward pool.
My prediction for what the roster will be:
FW: Altidore, Dempsey
MF: Donovan, Bradley, Edu, Holden
D: Bocanegra, DeMerit, Onyewu, Spector
G: Howard
FW: Casey
MF: Feilhaber, Clark, Torres, Beasley, Bedoya
D: Bornstein, Cherundolo, Goodson, Marshall(?)
G: Hahnemann, Guzan
Unless Burnley beat Liverpool tomorrow, the long-standing bottom 3 are all going down, as we all predicted they would several weeks ago. The relegation fight has been very disappointing this season.
Now I just hope they have enough gas left in the tank to take care of business against Bolton at home and get the confidence back up. And if Villa can get something from Eastlands, so much the better.
Muppets, both of them.
I can see why Altidore lost his cool. A cheap tackle and then having the guy throw the ball at you while you're down is a bit much. Dumb move by Jozy, but the other guy instigated.
Yeah, definitely a ##### move by Hutton. He definitely deserved to have Jozy get in his grill a little bit about it. Shouldn't have lost his cool though.
EDIT: Not to mention Hutton falling like he was shot by a sniper.
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