Sports The Football Discussion Thread!

Shak said:

:/ Sterling's not all that exciting, more annoying than anything else
Casillas is a sad story
Vidal is just depressing along with Schneiderlin and Schweinsteiger to Man U
Downing and Woodgate is definately interesting, I only found out Downing left the hammers today buy I didn't know where
I know nothing of the Stuani deal

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Which team do you support? Just interested because you said Vidal etc. are depressing.

TurkishDelight said:

I think Sterling is an excellent signing for Manchester City! He's an exciting prospect (one of the best in fact), English so he meets the Home-Grown quota in which City are so desperately in need of filling, and he's an upgrade on their current options. Well, at least an upgrade on Jesus Navas!

Casillas is a pretty sad departure but people don't really seem to remember why he was dropped waaaaay back. He and Sergio Ramos, apparently, tried to start a revolt against then manager Jose Mourinho... As well as that Diego Lopez performed admirably in his stead and Casillas hasn't looked like the infallible keeper of old! Sure the Madridista's booing him is kinda uncalled for but Mourinho was proven right in the end!

I'm quite gutted as an Arsenal fan that the rumours of us pursuing Vidal didn't come to anything. I'm not going to claim to watch him very often, and there was talk online of him not being at his best recently but he's a pretty tasty midfield. Juve losing Pirlo and Vidal in one window? Kinda suggests Pogba's not going anywhere. I don't really think we need him anyway with Ramsey, Wilshere, Santi, Coquelin, Arteta, Flamini, Rosicky, Bielik etc. already vying for the two in the base of our midfield!

Downing going back to 'Boro was nice for me to see as I used to have quite the soft spot for them way back when... Football Manager will do that to a man, lol.

And I can't comment on the Stuani situation either unfortunately​

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You must be the first person I have seen who isn't a City fan to be 100% positive about the Sterling transfer. Everyone else wants to convince themselves he will be a waste. I think he will be good for them, but will probably struggle to ever justify £49m.

I think it's a good time for Casillas to move on, it's a bit of a shame he couldn't retire though. I always like and respect one club players, but everyone collects some retirement money these days I suppose.

I'm sure Juve know what they're doing with Vidal, they have rarely made a transfer mistake in recent years. I'm not sure he will have as important a role for Bayern. Arsenal will be fine without him as you say, I think. It would have been a good signal of intent for them though, like Ozil & Sanchez in previous seasons.

I'm mainly hoping Went will look in the thread sometime in the near future to comment on Stuani, but outside of that it's a longshot.

Nuke said:

Which team do you support? Just interested because you said Vidal etc. are depressing.

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Arsenal fan.
All of our DM targets have been slipping away, and Vidal was the last one. I'm convinced now that we wont sign a DM, which is kinda disappointing
(Schneiderlin went to Man U, Carvalho broke his leg, Kondogbia joined inter and I'm not all that keen on the bender brothers.)

TurkishDelight said:

I'm quite gutted as an Arsenal fan that the rumours of us pursuing Vidal didn't come to anything. I'm not going to claim to watch him very often, and there was talk online of him not being at his best recently but he's a pretty tasty midfield. Juve losing Pirlo and Vidal in one window? Kinda suggests Pogba's not going anywhere. I don't really think we need him anyway with Ramsey, Wilshere, Santi, Coquelin, Arteta, Flamini, Rosicky, Bielik etc. already vying for the two in the base of our midfield!​

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COYG
Hopefully we can lift the title this year despite not buying a world class DM
Though if Le Coq does what he did last season consistently, he'll sure propel himself to world class status

Nuke said:

I'm sure Juve know what they're doing with Vidal, they have rarely made a transfer mistake in recent years. I'm not sure he will have as important a role for Bayern. Arsenal will be fine without him as you say, I think. It would have been a good signal of intent for them though, like Ozil & Sanchez in previous seasons.

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We'll need a sturdy DM it isn't a bad fit, and Schweini isn't really coming up with the goods recently what with his on-off form and fitness. League should be the target this season, but I really think that Pep has got to change his style if we are to challenge for the Champions League title.

Shak said:

Arsenal fan.
All of our DM targets have been slipping away, and Vidal was the last one. I'm convinced now that we wont sign a DM, which is kinda disappointing
(Schneiderlin went to Man U, Carvalho broke his leg, Kondogbia joined inter and I'm not all that keen on the bender brothers.)

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At this rate you will be lucky to sign anyone. It seems like Arsene is content with what he has and will distract everyone with contract extensions. Speaking of those extensions, given the amount of games Walcott has played in the last two seasons, I have no idea how he is worth £140000 a week to Arsenal. I dare say he isn't even worth that if he had been playing thirty games a season.

Nuke said:

At this rate you will be lucky to sign anyone. It seems like Arsene is content with what he has and will distract everyone with contract extensions. Speaking of those extensions, given the amount of games Walcott has played in the last two seasons, I have no idea how he is worth £140000 a week to Arsenal. I dare say he isn't even worth that if he had been playing thirty games a season.

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I'm a big fan of Walcott, and a firm believer that he can fire us to the title if he stays fit next season. ~Granted I did say I believed Sanogo would score 5+ goals last season~

Maybe Arsenal could've tried getting Song back? I mean he's not that bad of a DM and he played good for them while he was there.

Arx said:

Maybe Arsenal could've tried getting Song back? I mean he's not that bad of a DM and he played good for them while he was there.

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:/ That'd be almost as bad as bringing back the likes of Samir Nasri, Ashley cole, or RVP...no thanks

Shak said:

I'm a big fan of Walcott, and a firm believer that he can fire us to the title if he stays fit next season. ~Granted I did say I believed Sanogo would score 5+ goals last season~

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I like Walcott to an extent and I do think he has the potential for a big scoring season, but it's hard for me to justify that wage based on what he has done so far. It would certainly be interesting to see if he left if he did have a major scoring season.

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TurkishDelight said:

I think that Walcott gets a raw deal as far as neutrals go! He's always been made out to not have a footballing brain, which is ridiculous! He's improved so much since when we signed him as a youngster. I think that if he hadn't been injured against Spurs in 2013/14 we would have gone on to win the league, he was our only pacey outlet and it allowed teams to defend against us easier. I scoffed when I seen the £140k wages too, but the fact you said he hasn't played much in the last 2 seasons in a previous post isn't really fair. He's had a major injury that took a lot of rehab. He looked really sharp at the end of the season and I think he'll repay Wenger's faith. In having him and Giroud rotating upfront, depending on the opposition, we should be able to take down a lot of teams, I'm all in favour for the extension. He's joint top-earner with Ozil and Alexis too, but it's likely they'll get improvements soon too.​

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Well I wasn't trying to suggest he was a poor player, just not worth those wages especially coming off of those seasons were he has struggled with injuries. Hopefully he will prove me wrong, it would be good for him to have a good season going into the Euros.

Excellent strike from the Ox. Arsenal looking reasonably good so far despite Chelsea looking organised at the beginning.

Did anyone watch the Women's FA Cup Final yesterday? Aluko looked like a very special player which surprised me after she didn't play too much at the World Cup. Notts County were lucky that their injured keeper wasn't challenged too often.

Very scruffy match but we got the 3 points in the end thanks to that goal from Coutinho.
Defence was fine, but need to be better going forward.

So proud of Liverpool yesterday. ^_^_^_^_^_^

We improved on our score by 6-0! (still sour about last year) This is a sign that all Liverpool fans are going to get hyped about a title challenge until our away fixtures give us a knock or few. Though I reckon if we can take maybe 9 points from our next 6 away fixtures and not do anything stupid in the home games we could really be in business for a CL spot.

Jeyz123 said:

I am AS Roma supporter, hope we'll do good this year :/

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I'm sure most Serie A watchers are hoping that too. If Juve win by 15+ points again then obviously it's bad for the league. Even though both Milan teams have made some interesting recruits, they will probably be too far behind again.

I can't really comment on Liverpool because I have only seen the Coutinho goal, but aside from that I heard they were a bit disappointing. It's a good result for them because I think Stoke's signings are great and obviously 'Pool had to get over last season's result too.

We got off to a slow start with a draw against newly promoted Preston. They were pretty organised so they should stay up if they can keep that going. We still need some signings and a small change at centre midfield, but we will probably be fine. Nugent (who we're reported to be in for today) will be a good start and a lot cheaper than other targets.

My main team is Chelsea, with my second team being Lazio.

With Lazio, I have no idea how their season will turn out. 3rd was a huge improvement from the season before when we didn't even get into European football, and now were in the UCL Qualifying Play-Off. The only outstanding signing made of summer has been Kishna from Ajax, who is young with bags of ability and potential, and I think it was said we are not signing anymore players this window. Our pre-season was pretty damn awful, lost most of our games even though we should've won from the chances we had but couldn't tuck away. It would be nice for Lazio to have a bit of consistency with their placing each season, so as long as we finish at least 4th I'll be happy.

With Chelsea, not exactly the start we wanted. Pre season wasn't the greatest and we played the game against Swansea how we were playing in pre season. No one was great, Courtois sent off, we were poor. It was sad to see us perform like that at home against Swansea and it doesn't give us too much hope for Man City away next game.

I think Stoke and Norwich were really unlucky not to get a point. Stoke probably deserved the point and Norwich could've arguably had 3. Cameron's goal, in my eyes, should've stood and Grabban had to be putting that in to the open net from a few yards out. If they defended better, a goal or two might have been prevented.

My 1st team is Tottenham Hotspurs... (Actually my 1st team is PAOK from Greece cause i am from Greece.)
We didn't start so well at the 1st fixture of BPL. We lost to Man. United from Walker's Own goal.
I think our goal is to finish at the top 4 of BPL.
Now my second team is Lazio,just like the guy above me.
I hope that we will qualify to Champions League group stage. We will play against Bayer leverkuzen.

We played really well in our opening fixture, completely outplayed Villa in the first half and really should of scored a couple of goals but couldnt (nerves)
Clearly Villa were much better in the second half and took their chance when it came and that is probably the difference between Championship and Premier League you need to finish chances or you get punished.

Do you guys play the Fantasy Premier League? I renewed last year's PokeCommunity league and there's only 3 people there now.
The league code is 2230894-607254.

tittlemouse said:

We played really well in our opening fixture, completely outplayed Villa in the first half and really should of scored a couple of goals but couldnt (nerves)
Clearly Villa were much better in the second half and took their chance when it came and that is probably the difference between Championship and Premier League you need to finish chances or you get punished.

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Are you excited by the arrival of Mr Tomlin?

Banz said:

Do you guys play the Fantasy Premier League? I renewed last year's PokeCommunity league and there's only 3 people there now.
The league code is 2230894-607254.

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I have entered a team now and it automatically put me in the league. I suppose I'll be one GW worth of points down, but oh well. Hopefully I will remember to check it this season, but the app costing £1.50 isn't helping matters.

Nuke said:

I suppose I'll be one GW worth of points down, but oh well.

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No, the league starts from this week. I forgot to renew it before the first matchday.

https://twitter.com/BreatheSport/status/632516698361434112

Lukaku making a pretty good gesture right there. Good example to set to a fair few players out there I think!

I'll join the league. :)