a great manager has to find ways to keep squad players fresh and interested i think, it’s alright picking yr best XI week in week out but sooner or later you’re gonna need to bring other guys in who can hit the ground running

i’ve never liked mo’n. the guy is an above average guy who leaves before the shit hits the fan and everyone notices he spent way too much money to be above average.

xp

also did no-one else watch/have any problems w/ close-hd lawro and his tongue? or have you guys just got used to it by now?

you’ve described villa o’neill, but no other o’neill afaict

And villa sold a lot of o’neill buys for a lot of money, he was unlucky not to make cl with that group imo

also did no-one else watch/have any problems w/ close-hd lawro and his tongue? or have you guys just got used to it by now?

What’s the deal with his tongue?

xposts. Reckon Martinez could manage this Likeable XI? Seriously, I can’t remember ever seeing an interview with him that didn’t make me go “AWW!”

Half-time in Brazil and it’s:

Corinthians 0–0 Palmeiras

Vasco da Gama 1–0 Flamengo

Makes it Vasco’s title by a single goal if I’ve got my sums right. Ismaelinho’s getting his bottle then I’ll be settling down with that lot for the denouement.

He kept sticking it out, licking his lips, generally looking like he didn’t have control of it. Was srs creepy.

I also remember hating his Leicester team, if that means anything.

not really.

Martinez is likeable and i know nobody serious who dislikes him.

h8 that dude

na not really

Red card for Palmeiras’ No.10, as if it wasn’t poised enough. Looked like an insanely violent challenge at first, sadly replays reveal it was just a 50/50 with an extremely awkward coming-together after the ball had been nicked away.

vidic’s mum commentary imo

Goal for Flamengo

Huge Socrates flag floating by in the Corinthians game, towed by a massive bunch of black-and-white balloons. Nice touch, soon to be seen at the Venky’s.

take a lot of balloons to carry Steve Kean out of the ground i think

10-man Palmeiras indulging in insane (but v skilful) showboating across the edge of their own box a moment ago. David Luiz phenomenon suddenly making a lot more sense.

Corinthians’ winger just pulled the Mata-on-Albiol trick for real. I’d never been able to work it out until now.

(It’s a shift-right, drag-back-left and stepover with the right foot, then flicked back right with right again behind the standing foot as it runs across the body btw)

Both Vasco & Corinthians have a man sent off and Palmeiras hit the post. It’s Corinthians’ league atm, Vasco need a goal.

Rooney’s barren spell is going weirdly uncommented on in the media as well

Yeah, though it’s not a simple case of him losing form again. Partly due to Cleverly getting injured (and the lack of fit / in form central midfield replacements) and party due to a post-City-mauling defence-first mentality, Ferguson’s been playing Rooney either in midfield or as a ‘striker’ lying so deep he might as well be in midfield. He’s actually been looking alright in that position and was spraying some Beckhamesque long passes around yesterday, but it does seem a waste of him (especially as goals are so scarce for United at the moment). Having said that, he fucked up Welbeck’s ‘goal’ by delaying the pass for far, far too long so that Welbeck was eventuall offside. He’s not looked so sharp in terms of getting goals recently, but that late volley yesterday would have been a great goal (if it had actually gone in instead of over).

Brawls in both games simultaneously now

Ha, channel 1 cut to channel 2 for the fight action in game B, only for channel 2 to cut immediately to channel 1 coverage to see the fight in game A

All over, Corinthians win the title

I never watch Brazilian Serie A except at the sharp end, but it’s amazing whenever I have watched it. All being well economically (a big if), this’ll be the league that bursts the EPL’s bubble imo.

Rafa v.d. Vaart crying his guts out on Dutch telly tonight, confronted with video messages by his family and friends etc (amongst whom is Sneijder)

He also says he doesn’t think, even though he is pleased right now, Spurs is the ceiling and he has dreams of bigger clubs.

Just reporting to my favorite sandbox board I Love Spurs

Oh, and RIP ‘Doctor’ Socrates :-(

lol i’d happily sell vdv for 20m or w/e, long may we be a stepping stone from madrid bench to milan bench or wherever if it works out as well as this one

What’s he crying about?

He’s touched by his grandparents from Valencia msg and a msg from his parents who escaped living in a trailer park where he grew up because of his money, and he’s crying because his parents said summat about his wife’s cancer episode.

So a lot of crying, yes. But sincere crying tbh

Got a stream for that?

poor dude, man i’d hate to be a millionaire in a part time job doing something im passionate about at a p successful workplace i agreed to in one of the best cities in the world

xp ok forgot abt cancer etc

ik thanks for the liveblogging!

No worries, it was top entertainment tbh

lol

i’ll find a gif of those tears streaming down his face, i’m sure of it

Future Ballon d’Or 2011 winner Lionel Messi joins Cristiano Ronaldo and Xavi in the shortlist for the Fifa Ballon d’Or 2011.

have a sneaky suspicion it’ll go to xavi as a kind of lifetime achievement award

bobby charlton fave for next year

ok well he also was a p important player in a team winning the triple and destroying utd in the cl final, i dont mean it like when giggs won poty

‘an important player’, sure, but messi

But Barcelona are not a one man team, unlike some

why whatever d’you mean

It’s a voting award though iirc, which means tokenism is out

(James—am I right that the Emirates is ticket-free? How does it work? Do you swipe your card to gain entry?)

you whisper ‘arsene knows’ to the gatekeeper

RVP lets you in personally

then Gervinho shows you five yards wide of your seat

if Tony Adams tries to talk to you, you’ve gone too far and need to run back to the start

The France striker and Brazil defender have been banned from using first-team facilities at the club’s training ground, with Anelka set to sign a £6.4million-a-year deal with Shanghai Shenhua in China.

Didn’t Pandev and some other dudes in Italy sue the shit out of their clubs for doing something similar?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6DsNAJPlR-U

how much fog does it take to call off a game? because this carried on for 90 minutes.

yeah i think it was some other lazio players too

it does seem really fucking classless and typical of that shower

obv in a country where every attacking move isn’t a 60 yard lump forward to the big man/quick man it’s possible to manage better in fog

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OogmN23oIxc

chippy vela proves he is not always shit with a beaut of an overhead (i.e. he is the mexican rooney).

u wd think that Abramovich, with his boyish Tim Roth-esque good looks and enormous stolen fortune, wd realise that it’s more fun to play the loveable, generous gangster and despot rather than just being a fucking cunt all the time

(James—am I right that the Emirates is ticket-free? How does it work? Do you swipe your card to gain entry?)

You use your membership card, which you wave under a scanner thing in the turnstile. Unless you’ve got tickets off General Sale, in which case they send you paper tickets in the post.

Unless you’ve got tickets off General Sale, in which case they send you paper tickets in the post.

They send a man round and he presents thenm to you on a silver salver.

Thanks.

anelka & alex- yes pls

That fog’s great. I particularly like the parallel universe results scrolling along the bottom: Stoccarda v Colonia, Amburgo v Norimberga, etc.

That reminds me, not only did Monaco get relegated last year, but they’re now three points adrift at the foot of Ligue 2

i watched the first half of that parma game, wasn’t actually that bad, iain dowie on the co-commentating duties seemed to particularly enjoy it. The game itself wasn’t all that tho.

Alex not getting into the Chelsea team is unfathomable to me right now.

not convinced that luiz will ever be even as good as alex tbh

ha xp

I presume it must be personal

rip monaco, you once gave us henry, petit and thuram

i’ve never understood chelsea shitting on alex. he has always seemed their best centre half whenever i watched them; even when cavalho was there. does he have a stereotypical shitty brazilian footballer attitude/eating disorder?

Also on offer in the Chelsea’s January sales—Paulo Ferreira. I’d forgotten he existed.

does he have a stereotypical shitty brazilian footballer attitude/eating disorder?

RIP Socrates.

if vela is the mexican rooney, then who is the english chicharito?

not gonna be able to catch the game until tomorrow but if the line up isn’t

——————reina——————

johnson——skrtel—agger——enrique

————henderson—adam————-

kuyt————-bellamy———maxi

——————suarez——————

i’m gonna need a written explanation from king kenny. Perhaps downing for kuyt is the only acceptable difference. Cue Carroll starting and bagging a hat trick.

michael owen xp

if vela is the mexican rooney, then who is the english chicharito?

― tumblr whineys (Cuauhtemoc Blanco), Monday, 5 December 2011 15:43 (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Permalink

d bent

Hmmmm, needs somebody more boyish, the young Owen might have sufficed if he hadn’t been such a boring joyless git

you’d be joyless too if you were REDACTED

Reina, Johnson, Enrique, Skrtel, Agger, Henderson, Adam, Spearing, Bellamy, Carroll, Suarez

lol?

Feel like this is a huge test tonight. Win and there’s a huge top/bottom split that likely won’t be bridged again this season; lose and there we are in the middle ground, could go either way, season of transition type-of-thing.

nah that gap won’t be bridged this year nor next regardless of tonight

wild conjecture

It shouldn’t be but bear in mind this has been a longish undefeated run. If it ends with us in middle ground, then there’s a slump, the season could feel pretty dispiriting come new year. Spurs doing the good run thing the right way imo.

So who is Tony Hart then?!

Beloved creator of Morph?

HI RONAN

Good start here both teams with good chances

Actually now that i say that, it occurs to me that Tony Hart didn’t create Morph he just hung out with him

yeah good game so far. liverpool have had some disappointing results this year and they won’t finish fourth but they are definitely playing better football under the current regime than they have for many moons.

carroll btwn two pacy tricksters- kenny gets it

dembele on fire

RIISE BELLAMY

Carroll’s looking a bit more assured. When he does get it under control he could take his time a bit more, have a look round, because he does tend to bounce his man off a yard—he gets rid immediately, like he’s always worried about being caught out.

Lovely from Suarez, he didn’t even drag it back but sold his man totally.

just thinking that about riise bellamy yeah...golf clubs ahoy

Swallez

ya

why did bellamy not catch that ball? he seemed to be on the ball then just..ran out of play

jay spearing is actually playing right? by which i mean he is on the pitch/teamsheet?

Pass by him to a Fulham shirt two mins ago was disgraceful

Homely lad, number 20? Yeah he’s out there somewhere

Jeez, that’s unlucky

how the fuck? lol

Riise in ACRES

Peach of a crowd reaction shot to that Henderson effort, ho ho

the concept of controlling a game is not a familiar one to this lfc team

This’d be the thread for mentioning The Blizzard, wouldn’t it? Cos issue 3 came out last week and has a brilliant interview with Egil Olsen. Communism, long balls, Roberto Martinez, Wimbledon, Jostein Flo and:

at one point I knew the capitals of

all the 90 departments of France. Though

with Norwegian pronunciation. That’s

when you know you’re reasonably insane.

HI RONAN

― Sad Banter (p much resigned to deems), Monday, December 5, 2011 9:14 PM (37 minutes ago) Bookmark Permalink