Sports The Football Discussion Thread!

Sadly it seems as if good Spurs turned up today, Norwich are getting wrecked. If the second half goes like the first they'll probably get 3 or 4.

Edit - Considering Norwich didn't turn up and Spurs looked great 2 - 0 isn't an awfulresult. On the evidence of that and the Hull game winning away will remain a rarity.

The 'good football' didn't deliver. :( Boro lost and I missed most of the game I wanted to watch (PSG - Bordeaux).

Here are my thoughts for the weekend then -

Finally Ramsey is showing promise again, I've always liked him so it's good to see.

Drenthe probably would be playing in non-league by now if he didn't have a reputation.

Yay Bale scored.

-Lapras- said:

I see Kamara could face Ipswich in his first Boro game, hope he scores 5 times.

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He came off the bench, but had little impact. Unsurprising really he had to fly from international duty to the US to complete some paperwork then back to England so I'm not surprised he wasn't exactly fit.

Scyke said:

Will be interesting to see how Eto'o does tomorrow for us against Everton. Haven't seen him play ever since Inter and so not really sure how good or fast he is still, considering his in his early 30s. Judging by his Fifa 14 card though we will be fine.

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I saw the first half of the game and he didn't really get into apart from that miss when Howard made a mistake and a really bad long range attempt. Hopefully he'll improve as time goes on.

-Lapras- said:

Not a likeable thing about Crystal Palace.

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Not even Holloway?

I liked him when he was funny but now he just seems to moan all the time.

I suppose that's pretty fair. They'll be down soon enough anyway, hopefully with Sunderland.

What do you reckon will happen with Hull city? I heard that they're rivals with Middlesbrough. that's your team, Nuke, isn't it?

United vs. Leverkusen last night...great game. Rooney on form again, although that one where he rounded the keeper and couldn't square it for Van Persie nearly had me screaming at the keeper. I don't remember both of Leverkusen's goals, but there should've only really been one, that was quite a deflection off of Carrick. Quite a promising CL debut for Moyes, though, getting a scoreline like 4-2 against one of the other 2 major contenders (I know they're dark horses and all, but Sociedad will probably end up 4th, let's be honest).

Also, Ronaldo signed a new deal, crushing my soul in the process xD. And has hit 7 goals in 3 games. Just...phenomenal.

Both of Leverkusen goals were down to United's defensive mistakes. Other than that it was a good game for Manchester united and a great game for neutrals to watch.

Pretty strong rumours going around that Hughton will be sacked in the morning. 5 wins in the last 26 league games is pretty shocking and the displays this season haven't improved at all. Not sure how I'd want to replace him mind. Zola perhaps, if he'd leave Watford. Roberto Di Matteo maybe.

Manchester is blue again and Spurs demolish Cardiff but leave it until the last moments to actually score a goal. Obviously early days but the top of the table looks pretty interesting this season.

Manchester United was awful today, if I was a City fan I'd be disappointed the match didn't end 8-1.

So Di Canio got the boot, unsurprisingly. Shame really, he was a loveable madman.

Yeah...main positives I took from that match were:

1) I didn't watch it all. That'd have been horrendous.
2) Rooney's on form, best player on the pitch by far, just let down by the other 10 on his team.
3) It wasn't 6-1
4) United won 6 of their 13 PL titles after starts with the same number of points out of the same number of games.

I'm not jumping on the "Moyes out" bandwagon. My only problem with his team selection is choosing Young ahead of Kagawa (Consistent, limited by being played out of position) or Nani (Inconsistent, but when on form is the best winger in the league hands down, better than Hazard even). Fellaini was a bit overpriced yet has his uses, but Young is absolutely awful and his diving shames the club. It's not too much the manager's fault when almost an entire team fails to show up, it even happened to the great SAF. I do think losing Van Persie at short notice affected the game though, giving City a boost.

EDIT: Oh yeah, forgot about that! Don't see why really, he's crazy but not a bad manager - shaming players must be an Italian thing, Mancini did it too, but Mancini got results, crazy Paolo probably would've done too. Still, makes more sense than Newcastle hiring Kinnear.

I can understand why Di Canio was sacked. 14 new players and 1 point from first 5 games is absolutely awful, with some real **** on a stick performances to boot.

Manchester United were not in the game at all until around the 80 minute mark when City stopped playing at high intensity, as I said earlier I think 4-1 actually flatters United. The only option that they have to take is to take it up the chin and move on. Historically some of the best teams have been beaten comprehensively, even recently. Even Bayern have lost 1-5 vs Wolfsburg and 2-5 vs Dortmund both not too long ago. I think this is the real start of whether Moyes can handle the pressure or not, bouncing back from awful performance to start a consistent run of winning games, that was one of key elements to Sir Alex Ferguson's characters.

Seattle said:

What do you reckon will happen with Hull city? I heard that they're rivals with Middlesbrough. that's your team, Nuke, isn't it?

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Not particularly, our only real rivals are Newcastle and Sunderland with Leeds coming in as a minor one in recent seasons.

-Lapras- said:

So Di Canio got the boot, unsurprisingly. Shame really, he was a loveable madman.

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It was inevitable really, but I'm both disappointed and surprised he went so early. Hopefully he's done enough work to get them relegated anyway.

I think he would have been give a few more games if it wasn't for his antics on the pitch the other day.

Nuke said:

It was inevitable really, but I'm both disappointed and surprised he went so early. Hopefully he's done enough work to get them relegated anyway.

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I think Sunderland will get a boost with a new manager then go back to being ****. I hope they're relegated, they play some really terrible football.

Whoo-hoo a soccer thread! I see you guys like to discuss Premier League the most? I follow all the big leagues in Europe because the local ESPN channel shoves them down our throats and coverage is pretty big.

On the Moyes thing, United went for him because of his longevity with Everton IMO, but despite not many good results I believe he's doing alright. People need to remember that, despite United being Premier League champions, the best teams on paper are really City and Chelsea, and also no one expected Liverpool to play so well at the beginning of this season. At least United made a convincing debut in the UCL.

Yeah, Moyes' lack of CL experience was the thing most of us were worried about, yet despite two moments of awful defending we were the best team for the whole game against the No. 3 team in Germany, pretty good when a lot of people would rank United as No. 3 in England now, looking at our squad.
Plus Valencia's goal was one of the best counterattacks I've seen, and when you're increasingly underdogs in Europe that's the sort of goals that need to be scored.

Considering he bought 14 new players I think Di Canio needed more time to allow them to gel. Sadly that's one thing managers never get in the PL these days. His confrontational style probably played a part in shortening his stay though.

>18 year old comes on and scores a 25 yearder on his debut
>Hooper equalizing with the last touch in normal time



HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. Saving Hughton's job, for another game at least.

Manchester United away. Well, ok then.

Mwahaha. I thought we played well against Liverpool. Still don't get why Young gets played ahead of Kagawa / Nani - they weren't outstanding but at least they can stay upright under atmospheric pressure.