Sports The Football Discussion Thread!

[Eruption]

I assumed you would be disappointed, a loss to one of the newbies isn't good.

By contrast, my Championship team has took a huge fall this week, Jordan Rhodes was the only player who scored me points. That said 4 of my players play tomorrow.

30 points so far in gameweek 2 of the Premier League one, not sure if that's good or not.

 

[TY]

Well thats more than i got for today... I only have 8 points >.>

 

[Weeaboo Name]

FPL team didn't do so well. Glad I put Shawcross in though.

 

[Eruption]

30 points sounds good then. :D

Redmond looked very special on MOTD (admittedly it's highlights but still), but it also looks like Hughton will have to have a word about his long range shooting.

Not sure if people will have seen this already, but I found it pretty odd. (Link)

 

[Aeroblast]

Cardiff beat Man City 3-2. Kim bo kyung had a nice game and he was involved in Cardiff's equalizer. Joe Hart had a poor game, yet again.

 

[Eruption]

I was looking forward to catching that one on MOTD2, but unfortunately it's on tomorrow instead. I like Kim, he was very good last season and I'm sure he'll continue to do well in the Premiership.

Boro drew 2-2 at Wigan today, very respectable result, but we threw away 2 points pretty late on which is annoying.

I watched a delightful game between PSG and Nantes not so long ago, very entertaining. PSG running out 2-1 winners there, but Nantes gave them a really good fight.

 

[Amore]

United vs. Chelsea seemed relatively boring on MOTD2...Cole's dive was hilarious though. Glad to see Rooney getting a start - that was basically Moyes telling Jose where to shove it :P. Worked too, he was all over the place as usual. (In a good way).

 

[Eruption]

I caught the first 45 minutes of that game, a tactical battle more than anything which neither side wanting to lose so early. Rooney looked pretty good, but after his performance vs. Swansea I wouldn't be surprised if playing him was actually tactically motivated rather than transfer motivated.

 

[Pave Low]

I think that the whole game was played tactically minded seeming as both managers were desperate not to lose that game. Both defenses played well in the game, Chelsea's full backs probably the better defenders in that game. But yeah it was quite boring considering the lack of good chances throughout the game, in the last 5 mins was where I think the United defense had opened up slightly and allowed Chelsea to knock on their door but they still managed to defend the threat well.

Since my second team is Lazio, I'm very happy with a 2-1 win over Udinese who have stopped us from reaching UCL Qualifiers for 2 years now. We have a very strong midfield now after signing Biglia and Anderson (not the United player). Good to see Candreva stay at Lazio and score on the first game back. And a familiar face on the score sheet, Hernanes. Both Candreva and Hernanes scored Lazio's best goals last season so I'm hoping to see more of that again along with a spot in the UCL.

Also, I would suggest watching Bundesliga Highlights or w/e it's called on ITV4 when it's on, basically a Match of the Day for Bundesliga but no analysis just highlights and plenty of goals. It's good to watch so many goals scored in one match, I turned on 10 minutes in to a 4-2 game followed by a 3-3. Now I watch it every week.

 

[Amore]

Yeah, had to give bundesliga highlights a miss last night for MOTD2. Do enjoy them though, started watching around January / February - first match I saw was Dortmund and Nuri Sahin scored, which made me happy :)

Chelsea were typical Mourinho, like Inter - park the bus, even though technically you're equals to the team you're playing, possible even better than them in attack. I know he accused United of having an easy league last season compared to him getting record points hauls, but tbh we made it a hell of a lot more interesting - he wouldn't end the season with a 10-goal game, would he?

 

[Eruption]

Hopefully I'll catch some Serie A to provide some input more on Lazio over the season. Now I'm taking advantage of my free BT Sport I'm planning to watch a fair bit of European football. Marseille-Monaco in Ligue 1 sounds fun next weekend so I think it'll be 2 Ligue 1 games in 2 weeks. I think Lazio are on at some point next weekend too so I'll see when that is. They also have a few highlights shows shown quite often.

I'll take your advice on Bundesliga highlights, it's probably the major league I neglect the most.

 

[Weeaboo Name]

Yeovil vs Brum game seemed like an odd one. Yeovil boss ordered his team to let Brum score after one of their players scored a goal he didn't consider sporting.

Norwich won 6 - 3 vs Bury. Pretty good I guess.

 

[Amore]

Yet Birmingham's manager is still complaining about it. If I were him I'd shut up - Argentina didn't give us a free goal after the "hand of god" incident, Germany didn't walk off the pitch because the referee didn't count Lampard's goal, Liverpool didn't give their opponents a free goal after Suarez used his hand to score. Really he should be thanking their manager for being such a sport.

 

[Eruption]

Still if they were to give the goal back, it should have been immediately. They already caused extra time by the time they gave it back.

Here are the fantasy league standings after the second week. A pretty close week which results in only one switch of positions and leaves ShadowExcadrill retaining a nice lead early on.

 

[Pave Low]

The Champions League Groups:

Group A: Manchester United, Shakhtar Donetsk, Bayer Leverkusen, Real Sociedad
Group B: Real Madrid, Juventus, Galatasaray, Copenhagen
Group C: Benfica, Paris St-Germain, Olympiakos, Anderlecht
Group D: Bayern Munich, CSKA Moscow, Manchester City, Viktoria Plzen
Group E: Chelsea, Schalke, Basel, Steaua Bucharest
Group F: Arsenal, Marseille, Borussia Dortmund, Napoli
Group G: Porto, Atletico Madrid, Zenit St Petersburg, Austria Vienna
Group H: Barcelona, AC Milan, Ajax, Celtic

So Arsenal are already out...

 

[TY]

I can see Ajax reaching the Europe League again, but if they lose too much players it will be hard for them...

 

[Aeroblast]

Group A is a very interesting one for me. United will certainly be a difficult test vs Leverkusen.

 

[Amore]

Oh god, it is Shakhtar!
Even thought Leverkusen lost Schürrle and Shakhtar lost Willian and the might Fernandinho, that is still quite a tough group. I'd say City almost got an easier one - Bayern will destroy them, but other than that they should do well.
We also appear to have to instances of "Group of Death" - F and H. I'd love Arsenal to finally not make it out of their group. And although I know there's practically no way (now they have Neymar they don't collapse if they lose Messi) it would be great if Barcelona lost out to Celtic or Ajax.

 

[Eruption]

By comparison to most of the groups, United have a fairly easy one. But United go out to fairly easy teams at this stage so I wouldn't be surprised to see that happen.

 

[Amore]

I suppose it all depends on whether or not we still have Rooney - when the rest of the team is playing awfully (for example against Cluj last season) he keeps on going and occasionally comes up with something good enough (like his ball to RVP against Cluj).
As you said we often fall short. However, with the squad we have, we should get through. Particularly considering we got through the group stages last season with Valencia playing sub-par, Nani and Kagawa not even featuring.