Sports The Football Discussion Thread!

He wanted to leave in the winter transfer window but the club wouldn't let him, probably because Villa were the team that were after him and our CEO hates Paul Lambert. After this he called Norwich a "****ing ****house club". So you could say it was out of respect to Lambert or that he just doesn't care about this club any more. Can't blame him for being frustrated but he shouldn't act up in the way he has done. Shame as he really has been a favourite of mine over the last 5 or 6 years.

Considering there are 3 teams below us with games in hand (Sunderland have 2) and our end of season run in I think this, Cardiff and the West Ham game were all must win games. Could have done with some positive results then.

Not sure the media will drive him out. Our CEO was the panto villain after he made a comment that the club always has a backup. Everybody loves Chris.

I don't know, both BBC and Sky have decided he's suddenly under-pressure now. One more loss after they say that and they'll up the ante.

That's a shame about Hoolahan, especially after the double promotion and everything he has been involved in.

>hoolahan off for howson
>suddenly 10 men behind the ball
>concede the equalizer
>stoke have man sent off but still can't create chances

Amazing.

On the positive side, West Brom & Fulham are going to be relegated at this rate so there's only one spot for Norwich to slide in to.

Boro scored for the first time in eight games today (club record for not scoring) as Danny Graham grabbed a double. It's a good start in what looked like a tough month of fixtures for us.

Barcelona lost yet again, this time against Real Valladolid (who left the relegation zone thanks to these 3 points), and are now standing third, as Atleti go past them yet again.

By the way:

Villa - 2€ million - 13 league goals
Bale - 100€ million - 10 league goals
Neymar - Courts looking into their transfer price, which is increasing with each passing day, from 58 € million to 80? 90? - 7 league goals

Seeing Town beaten is always nice.

And I'm sure you'd take Bale or Neymar over Villa any day of the week, probably even if Villa was 5 years younger.

Oh, certainly, as a future investment. But this season, the return-per-euro standings are completely freaky.

Nuke said:

On the positive side, West Brom & Fulham are going to be relegated at this rate so there's only one spot for Norwich to slide in to.

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West Brom look like they'll narrowly escape relegation. What's the lowest number of wins to survive relegation? West Brom have just 4 wins, but 13 draws.

Sunderland have 3 games in hand and I think they can get 3-6 points off those.

Cardiff don't look like they'll survive. Their goal difference is very bad and that will prove to be costly in the end.

Norwich's problem is their last 4 games. In the worst case, they might end up getting 0 points from those so they'll have to search for 8-12 points from the next 5 games. They play Sunderland, West Brom at home and Soton, Swansea, Fulham away. Among them only Southampton has no worry of relegation, but the rest of the games are must win games for either team.

Fulham have no hope unless they do what West Ham did a few years ago with Tevez. They've got 6 wins from 29 games this season. They need 6 from 9 now.

We're approaching THE ENDGAME. This part of the season always excites me.

My top four/relegation thoughts as it stands:

Chelsea: Should get the title. City have to play catchup on league games now and I think that Chelsea's able to get the better of the other top teams. I expect them to punish Liverpool more than City will...
Liverpool: Top four please please please. As long as we beat United it should be fairly smooth sailing!
Arsenal: Should get top four. Probably not going to finish 1st/2nd.
Man City: I reckon they'll get second place. They're a strong team but I think Mourinho's gonna get more out of the last few games. Plus, I don't think City deal particularly well with mind games and such at the top.
Tottenham: Top four is a tall order. Results against Liverpool and Arsenal are necessary.
Everton: Possibly my favourite choice of a dark horse in terms of taking the top four. If they can just finish strongly, you never know...
United: Probably not gonna get top four~ I'm okay with this. I hope Liverpool deal the dream crushing blow.

Newcastle/Southampton have survived another season. They might as well just keep going for a high midtable finish~

West Ham, Villa, Stoke and Hull need just a couple more wins to totally avoid trouble. 30/31 points isn't the safest total to have, and a really bad run could make their season's end a nail biter.

Swansea had a fairly busy season with Europa League fixtures and I think they're a lot better than their position looks. Should be fine?

Norwich have a cruel run-in and they'll want to get their points sooner rather than later. I reckon they'll be safe.

Crystal Palace still have a bit of work to do but I think under Pulis they'll get the results they need at the expense of the teams going down.

West Brom have been terrible under Pepe Mel. They were possibly better off with Clarke. I fear for them!

Cardiff are in major trouble unless they can get some crucial results asap.

Sunderland have only played 26 games... as long as they don't get tired from the amount
of fixtures they've played, they should get the points needed.

Fulham literally need to beat Aston Villa, Hull, Norwich, Stoke and Crystal Palace to have a good chance of turning the tables around a bit. Maybe Newcastle and Tottenham might let their guard down if they don't feel they have much to fight for? They're down and they're almost out though.

I like that there's no clear winner/losers yet. <3 Hopefully it'll stay that way until the last day!

West Brom's fate will largely be decided by their next few games as they're playing 4 relegation threatened (well Swansea and Hull not so much, but they are still within range) teams in a row. If they keep playing they way they are now, they're totally screwed, but one win against any of those teams could put them back into form.

Happy to see Barca lose again, I'd be very very happy to see them finish outside the top two.

Edit: I agree with a lot of that Luck Hax, but I think City will still scrape the title unfortunately. I've just realised how many relegation six pointers there are going to be in the coming weeks.

Chelsea
City
Liverpool
Utd
--
Arsenal

--
Norwich
Fulham
Cardiff

The thought of going head to head with West Brom in a relegation battle is not a nice thought for Norwich fans.

If Arsenal don't win this FA Cup now, it would just be ridiculous for their fans. I'd rather they didn't though.

City must be hating Wigan right now.

Just looked at some relegation odds.

Norwich 3 /1
Swansea 16/ 1

On the same amount of points, yes they have a game in hand but they do still have to play the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea, Everton, Newcastle and various other teams that are fighting for their lives. I know I've hardly been mr positive about Norwich recently and I do think they will stay up but are they REALLY that much better than us? I'm pretty sure they only won one game (Cardiff) in February.

Also this is the sort of media coverage I was talking about the other day. I can only presume they've not actually researched anything and are basing their whole view on the fact that Norwich aren't one of the big sides.

-Lapras- said:

Just looked at some relegation odds.

Norwich 3 /1
Swansea 16/ 1

On the same amount of points, yes they have a game in hand but they do still have to play the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea, Everton, Newcastle and various other teams that are fighting for their lives. I know I've hardly been mr positive about Norwich recently and I do think they will stay up but are they REALLY that much better than us? I'm pretty sure they only won one game (Cardiff) in February.

Also this is the sort of media coverage I was talking about the other day. I can only presume they've not actually researched anything and are basing their whole view on the fact that Norwich aren't one of the big sides.

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The bookies don't care about what the actual chances are, they only care about how popular the particular result is. Tommorow if 80% of the punters put their money on Tottenham winning the league, then their odds would be around 1/6.

At the moment Liverpool's odds of winning the league are between 5-6.5.
Arsenal's are between 20-25.
Both teams have same teams from the same number of games. Liverpool are yet to play Man City, Man Utd, Chelsea, and Spuds, while Arsenal have to play Man City, Chelsea, Everton and Spuds. Still there are 4 times as many people betting on Liverpool to win the league, which is why the odds are like that.

It's meant to be some sort of cross between the likelihood of result and the popularity of the bet amongst punters, but neither should produce that kind of disparity between the odds. Yet surprisingly I have seen worse odds in the past.

This is a good week of football for me, Champions League football and Boro play at home again tomorrow. It's always good when midweek football is on.

It starts out based on the actual likelihood, but once the bet starts coming in the odds change depending on how popular the particular result is.

The worst odds I've ever seen were on Betfair for a Australia vs South Africa cricket match. Australia and South Africa were both 1/6 to win the match, and draw was 750/1. How can 2 different results have odds of less than 1? They should start calling themselves BetUnfair.

-Lapras- said:

Chelsea
City
Liverpool
Utd
--
Arsenal

--
Norwich
Fulham
Cardiff

The thought of going head to head with West Brom in a relegation battle is not a nice thought for Norwich fans.

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United getting 4th and Arsenal going outside the top 4 for them? I'm almost certain that won't happen. Arsenal have an uncanny talent, after all. #4thplaceisatrophy

I love that "a trophy" looks more like "atrophy" in hashtag form. Anyway I'm rooting for Wigan to inflict another cupset. I really want to see them lifting that cup! Really doubt they will but... they have beat City so...?

I'm betting a certain Spaniard amongst us is happy with the way results panned out tonight.

As for Boro, we dropped two points to a goal that was handled in the build up. Between that and the goal we had disallowed two weeks ago against Sheff Wed despite it being well over the line, the officials have robbed us of some good points that could've assisted a late play off run. Typical really though, we'll never get the rub of the green.

Man City underestimated Wigan yet again, they thought Wigan would bend over but they obviously didn't. It was too late when they woke up.

Arsenal gets knocked out by FC Bayern. They were way too cautious during the first half to have a real go at them so Bayern took advantage of that and kept the ball for themselves. Atletico steamrollers mediocre Milan side that nosedived massively this season.

Man Utd vs Liverpool prediction: Liverpool will win as long as United remain static and all over the pitch as they have been for the majority of the season. Otherwise I can hope for this to be a classic match between two fierce rivals. and the game finishes with uninspiring 0-0 scoreline

Nuke said:

I'm betting a certain Spaniard amongst us is happy with the way results panned out tonight.

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dancing at work actually and I'm in some sort of high and it feels so good

praying for Barça or olympiakos for next round