Re: The EPL thread (II)

[Makaveli]

They're not playing very at the moment, the Arse. Fabregas has gone right off the boil.

I think Robin Van Persie is a big loss to them at the moment. Like the song goes: you don't know what you've got til he's out for three months with a thigh strain.

Aye agree with you, they should have won this one easy with half the Blackburn first team missing 2-0 flattered them, the teams were equally matched for most of the game.

Still think there is a twist in the tail to come!

[JKLever]

They're not playing very at the moment, the Arse. Fabregas has gone right off the boil.

I think Robin Van Persie is a big loss to them at the moment. Like the song goes: you don't know what you've got til he's out for three months with a thigh strain.

I think the Arse have done amazingly well to be in the position they are in given the loss of key players this season.

Kolo Toure probably can't believe he's going to be rejoining them 5 points clear.

[Makaveli]

Well played Arsenal, not an easy game Blackburn pretty much matched them but nothing to show against goal, maybe deserved something from the game but Arsenal did well to grind it out.

Also takes a bit of pressure of them being 5 points ahead should be an interesting run in, faves imo.

And the late goal wipes out United's slight advantage in the goal-difference stakes.

I still think they'll win the title. Arsenal are too brittle.

A defeat at Old Trafford followed by a tonking by AC Milan, and this week could well knock them off their stride and into a wound-licking sulk which might prove terminal in the title race.

But it's better to be five points up than five points back...

I think United have a lot more to prove than Arsenal on saturday esp with the last result, im 100% sure they will be fired up for the match which is not a good sign for Arsenal, and if they perform like they did today United will win, still think it will be close, looking forward to it.

Also think AC are too strong for them.

Though that might not be such a bad thing for them if they get knocked out of both cups early, they can then 100% concentrate on the league.

[LeFromage]

We're not even at the 'tail' stage yet. Season's got a long way to go.

If there were a twist now, it'd be in the mid-section - the abdomen.

[JKLever]

A defeat at Old Trafford followed by a tonking by AC Milan, and this week could well knock them off their stride and into a wound-licking sulk which might prove terminal in the title race.

Could well do the opposite though, if Arsenal are the only one of the 3 teams in with a chance of winning it who have nothing else to play for.

[Merlin]

They're not playing very at the moment, the Arse. Fabregas has gone right off the boil.

I think Robin Van Persie is a big loss to them at the moment. Like the song goes: you don't know what you've got til he's out for three months with a thigh strain.

It's just as well Flamini has stepped up a gear because Fabregas has lost a bit of his early season magic.
Hleb's clever runs at defences helps too - and with the big guy knocking them in fairly consistently, Arsenal just have to do keep doing enough (like tonight) to keep bagging the 3 points till vanP returns ... Toure's return will help at the back.

[LeFromage]

Kolo Toure probably can't believe he's going to be rejoining them 5 points clear.

"Thanks for scoring the winner Phil. You're dropped..."

Nice.

[Ash]

its a good thing that most fans and pundits both are backing man u. more to prove for the arsenal players and thats when theyre at their best. weve only lost 1 game all season, scored more goals than anyone and are 5 points clear...yet still we get more criticism than man u (who have dropped some points they really shouldnt have). its almost like we didnt read the script

i watched the game and they werent that bad. maybe falling into the old trap of trying to "walk the ball into the net" at times in the 2nd half but totally dominated the game except for towards the end of the 1st half and some of the best passing movement you'll see. they should start getting a little more credit rather than people simply waiting for them to slip up...

[Geoffrey Trueman]

Blackburn pretty much matched them but nothing to show against goal.

That's because Hughes insists on playing Benni McCarthy. Without doubt the most over-rated bag of sh*te ever to play in the Premier League. Meanwhile, Jason Roberts, who when at Wigan destroyed Arsenal and sent them packing from the League Cup with a performance full of power and pace is left to rot on the bench. Which surprises me, because of all the managers in the PL Hughes is one that I didn't think would pander to reputation and bullshine.

[Lara Lara Laughs]

I'd play McCarthy over Roberts. Roberts is a good championship player.

[G.Wood]

LLL

Did Sterjovski get on the park on the weekend?

If so, did he do anything?

[Lara Lara Laughs]

Yeah, he came on pretty late in the second half. Didn't really have chance to do anything.

[skully]

Gunners 5 clear, and equal on GD with the Evil Empire. Huzzah.

[G.Wood]

Yeah, he came on pretty late in the second half. Didn't really have chance to do anything.

Thanks.

I can't see how a bloke who has been running in the Swiss and Turkish leagues can cope with being chucked straight into the EPL.

[JKLever]

Interesting take on the 'Premier League playing abroad' shambles and the man running the Premier League.

Pretty much agree with everything that he says
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/columnists/holt/2008/02/13/smiling-scudamore-pushes-through-his-divisive-money-grabbing-plan-89520-20318091/

[Brass Monkey]

JKL, sorry but can you post the article please? It's a long story, but basically I can't open it here.

[JKLever]

Smiling Scudamore pushes through his divisive, money-grabbing plan

Oliver Holt 13/02/2008

It's a shame what happened to Richard Scudamore. Maybe once there was a time when he cared about the greater good of the English game. Maybe once.

But now he's become a figure to be distrusted and to be mocked, a human grin who has become synonymous with the ongoing betrayal of our national sport.

He's not just The Man Who Sold Football. He's also The Man Who Pretended It Was Nothing To Do With Making More Money.

His legacy, sadly, will not be that he built up the most successful league in the world.

It will be that he created the Greed is Good League and became its leading apologist and that the avarice of the clubs who were his paymasters was his undoing.

I don't bear him any personal malice but I have come to despise what he stands for and where he is trying to take our game.

He should have resigned when he mishandled the Carlos Tevez Affair catastrophically last season.

And now his position appears utterly untenable after he turned the Premier League into a laughing stock and a pariah across the world with his ill-conceived proposals to export matches to unwilling football colonies.

The arrogance of that, the presumption of it, is quite staggering. British gunboat diplomacy is born again and Scudamore is its Lord Palmerston.

His tragedy is that he allowed the rapacity of English football's new breed of owners to nudge him towards the risible idea of playing a 39th game in Singapore, Delhi or Miami.

And that he did not have the vision to see that there comes a point where people who love something and see it being twisted out of shape will stop and say 'enough is enough'.

Where Scudamore really invited scorn upon himself was in his desperate claim that he had conceived this plan for the general good, not just for the benefit of the elite clubs. That's what makes people seethe. The idea that really the Premier League is a philanthropic organisation keen to look after the smaller clubs and not just feather its own nest. Really? Well, if the Premier League are so keen to spread the wealth, why don't they get organised and share the revenue like they do in what is actually the world's most successful league, America's NFL?

Why don't Manchester United, Chelsea and the rest split their merchandising and their ticket sales, as well as their share of the television money, equally with the other clubs in the Premier League?

Why don't they give a percentage to the clubs in the lower divisions, too, for that matter to promote the general health of the game in this country and preserve some of its disappearing traditions?

You don't have to think about it for too long to realise that, actually, that's why our league is being flooded with American owners.

They look at the Premier League and they see one giant money-making free-for-all where the rich get richer and the poor start going to the wall.

There are none of the checks and balances they have in the NFL or even in Major League Baseball. In England, it's take the money and run. They get to keep the lot.

I look at where Scudamore is trying to take us and I realise even more that the brave and principled people who gave up their Manchester United season tickets and formed FC United were absolutely right.

They weren't eccentrics or Luddites or attention-seekers. They were just people who could see that our national game was being stolen from us by degrees and who didn't want any part of it any more.

They were voices crying in the wilderness, a footnote in football's acquisitions and mergers department. But it turns out they just ran out of patience before we did.

[Brass Monkey]

Yeah, a good article. Agree myself. Cheers chap.

[Makaveli]

Yeah, a good article. Agree myself. Cheers chap.

Hey how you doing buddy? slippery road down the table ain't it.

[Brass Monkey]

Hey how you doing buddy? slippery road down the table ain't it.

Yeah.. when I have a good week, you and Ash have a better week. Wish I'd known that one transfer at a time was 'free'. Never mind. I'm gonna break Ronaldo's legs, then I should gain some ground

[LeFromage]

Don't bother - I've already killed Ronaldo by picking him. Since I moved heaven and earth to shoe-horn him into my team of steady-Eddies, he's been all kinds of piddle.

I did the same to Gabby Agbonlahor earlier in the season. He was going great guns until I picked him. Then he went on a run of not scoring for about twelve games and counting. Then he got injured.

Anyone notice how Robin Van Persie has been crocked for most of the season? Yeah - he was my star striker.

I call it the Dello magic touch.

[JKLever]

Uefa Cup tonight.

Slavia Prague v Spurs and no doubt Bolton reserves v Atletico Madrid

Aberdeen 2-2 with Bayern at the moment

[Lara Lara Laughs]

Blatter's blocked the 39 game. Link.

That means it definitely can't go ahead so the panic's over.

[Brass Monkey]

Blatter's blocked the 39 game. Link.

That means it definitely can't go ahead so the panic's over.

Best thing that corrupt little c*nt has ever said.

[Lara Lara Laughs]

Liverpool, playing at home, knocked out of the FA cup by Barnsley.

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