beast

Having not seen Bolton much this season I was really impressed with them last night... Mark Hughes mustn't sleep very much...

Anyone catch Chelsea/Everton? Fuckin 3-3... ugh...

thank the football gods for Villa finding form!! hahaha

1. Already figured Bolton can get a draw from the Citizens. Aint nothing good about Bolton other than they are the pioneers of a form of footie that Stoke is glorifying for all. Sparky seems to be under a ton of pressure to date and his interview shows his frustration. He may get sacked before the end of the season as predicted.

2. Also figured Moyes will squeak a draw since it has been a scored draw at the Bridge for like 4 BPL seasons already and this was done without Cahill.

Guess Chelsea still havent solve their set piece problems and Cech has been exposed again. Maybe Turnbull will get his run although for the last Everton goal, Cech was unlucky. Drogs went to clear it but his header bounced off a Everton player's head and all the way into the goal and Ivanovic standing at the post cant clear it.

And it was this time one year ago, Scolari started haemorrhaging points until he got sacked. Maybe history will repeat itself?

3. Hope this doesnt mean Man U will slip. Towards the end, Villans were so clueless, even when they got the ball, they dont even know how to run the clock with it or lose it easy to Man U. Man U should have won it or get a draw instead. And Valencia despite getting into good positions, cant score. Its times like these, Ronnie is so missed.

for once, thankful for a city win. haha.

Given City's tip top form, they may go into a series of draws again.

Hopefully they will make it to Champ League next season so we can see the likes of Balotelli, Maicon, Villa, Silva and CR& grace BPL. Plus whoever is player of the tournament in the WC. And throw in Kaka and that Brazilian lout from Juve while we are at it.

city owned chelsea. chelsea looked like they had no to clue what they do. struggled with possession throughout the entire game until the end.

Thats the reason why Chelsea wont win the BPL this season and Man U will. Chelsea cant seem to cope when the opposing team press them hard. Similar to what Wigan did to them. The only time they succeed was with Man U and that was at the Bridge.

Plus, City stopped attacking and defended the lead and only counter attacked when they got the lead. And Chelsea lost their composure as they accumulated cards after card. Maybe Wiley was more in favour of City but nothing Chelsea did went for them.

This coincide with Scolari's alarming fall from grace despite being League leaders. The good thing is Pool and Arsenal is shite this season. So Carlo will still get 2nd and Roman may just call in Guus again.

Anyway you know you will lose when Lamps miss a penalty for you. The only time I saw him miss a penalty was a penalty shootout with Barnsley I think and some Charity Shield thing.

BTW what was Rafa thinking? Experimenting with Kuyt infront? Now? When he needs points more than ever? And when got in Ngog, he immediately got 2 chances. Imagine what he can do if he got 90 min.

:>

Why didnt anyone mention about France's group? Picking South Africa is like playing against the world's pub team. And the Irish must be gripping when they saw that. Bet they wanted France to draw Brazil or Spain and Ivory Coast or Nigeria after Thierry Handball's antics.

Domenech should tell Les Blues to concede one and just score 2 in the second half and not totally demolish them. That will keep the hosts happy and not trigger a massive riot. Les Blues would just have to think about beating Uruguay since Mexico should be pretty good.

so excited for the world cup. look out england. ha. should be a good match and both the usa and england should advance.

interested in seeing how south africa fairs in their group and obviously group of death.

Probably. Algeria would be like the Faroe Islands. At least Egypt should put up a better fight. Dont know about the Slovenians though.

Anyway if England beat US and US beat Spain in Confed's Cup, does it mean England will trounce Spain?

It would be even more awesome if No Ko players defect to So Ko before a world wide audience. You can bet their handlers would be armed and ready and willing if they even think of that.

Plus even if the No Ko players are great, so what? I doubt No Ko would allow anyone to play overseas even in J League and I wonder what will be the penalty if the No Ko team dont meet their target for the World Cup.

^ oh i know. it's just ruud's history with united and then pavlychenko's a spur. we need a defender and a striker. i doubt wenger would bring in ruud. does he ever play for them? well, im guessing not since he wants to leave.

Wenger's relationship with the other top 3 aint that bad. He got Silvestre and Gallas, sold Ashley to Chelsea but I think he refuse to sell Adebayor to Chelsea.

Ruud is injured most of the time, as usual. But with Ronnie in, I bet his time is up. He was kicked out by SAF largely I bet due to Ronnie and now he has to move again. Which is quite sad because he was delivering the goods for Real almost immediately when he joined Real.

this is why he didn't shake his hand:

"If people want to label Wenger a sore loser then fine. Frankly I thought Hughes behaviour on the touchline was appalling all night. Like a big blustering bully he prowled around, baiting Wenger, swearing at him, and basically behaving like an oaf of the highest order - then he complains at the end when a handshake is refused him? What a cunt. Honestly, if you behave like a cunt then people will treat you like a cunt and Hughes got exactly the kind of respect he deserved - none. "

and beast if any of those strikers go to the gunners then the world must be coming to an end.

Hey, you asked who can Wenger buy in Jan. Not like his options are great. Anyhow Ruud is still a good buy or loan deal. He may not get you 20 goals but 10 should be easy for him. No wonder 'Arry and Rafa are looking at him too.

And its not like wenger is a wimp. I recall him going toe to toe with the bear like Martin Jol. If Sparky swear and curse at him, Wenger can shoot him down just as well.

who do you think wenger will bring in january? chamkah? mario balotelli? or noone.

lost 3-0 to man city. didnt watch it but just saw the stats. outpossesed mancity 69 31 and had an equal amount of opportunities on paper at least.

Either no one or someone no one has heard of.

Jan are notoriously bad for signing unless you are talking about people who want away for more playing time like Ruud, Heskey or Pavluchenko. Imagine either 1 of them in a Gunner shirt.

Cockuta misses and why am I listening to a game on the radio? HAHA

Arsenal played fine for what they had on the pitch. City wasn't so much better, it was just individual players that outclassed Arsenal. Glad City got through, should help them down the table in the league.

You know you gonna lose a match when you get a German to take a penalty and he misses. And a German captain at that.

arsenal didnt have the fight required to win that game.

citeh were ok first half but second half they came out flying, arsenal couldnt keep up.

thats another trophy challenge ended.

Carling Cup ranks low on Wenger's priorities so no sleep loss over this. But I wonder what piss him off so much that he refuses to shake Hughes' hand after the match?

it's unclear - i question whether or not he was on board the robinho signing though he wasn't really in a position to challenge his new owners. the moment they succeed in signing a blockbuster transfer will be the beginning of the end for hughes and the side's recent form isn't helping him delay that day too much.

like spurs, they need to up their wage bill to be competitive to the level they want. wenger has been systematically cutting the overall squad wages by releasing/selling his highest salaried players (fabregas a notable exception) and signing younger players who aren't in a position to negotiate huge wages.

transfer fees get the headlines but it's personal terms that allow you to attract the talent you need for a title challenge.

True on the wage thing. ONly Henry got his 100,000 pounds a week deal. And Arsh has been moanin and griping about his 'low' pay. But even if Arsenal cant pay big, they will still have a steady stream of young players willing to join them since wenger will let you play 1st team as long as you are good.

Even Pool's wages aint too good. Stevie G got his 100,000 pounds a week. Nando gets a measly 70,000 a week I heard. Not sure about Carra.

arsenal overall skills are good. But they are not good enough to be at top 3 esp with the youngsters ? they need few oldies to balance the team.

Actually, I don’t know how true is this older v younger argument. Arsenal probably need ‘steel’ in their DNA and more experience.

Wenger got rid of Viera for Cesc. And when Juve played Arsenal, Viera was second best. Cesc despite being young has a few years under his belt. And Cesc while hot tempered, didn’t get redded as much as Viera.

Wenger got rid of Gilberto for Flamini and Flam and Cesc were a good combo.

Wenger got rid of Henry for Adebayor and Manny immediately repay Wenger by scoring 20 goals and earning Wenger a hell of a transfer fee. And even better still, he has RVP, who is a Henry/Bergkamp morph according to Wenger and Wenger need not pay a 20 or 30 million transfer fee for RVP.

i don't think burnley will be relegated whereas you do, which seems like a reasonable bet to me - rather than trying to trick me into taking pretty long odds on either of the things above. btw the quote you provided is out of context and was directed in response to this:

what i was pointing out that according to beast's own logic, there is a much stronger case to be made that burnley will be safe - yet he is stating the opposite.

yet again you are arguing a position i'm not making. grant wasn't brought in to pompey to win the league or beat liverpool. he was brought in to save them from relegation. this doesn't require brilliance.

this is exactly my point - hughes is obviously trying to stay away from blockbuster transfers for precisely these reasons.

i assume you guys are talking about COMS (unless we just switched to sunderland when i wasn't looking)... man city's average attendance figures have been higher than liverpool's this season!

I dont know how much pull does Hughes have. If the Sheikh can get Ronnie and I mean CR7 or is it 9, and Hughes think he has a big ego and cant be handled, do you think Hughes has the power to call off the deal?

So you think they can finally sell out SOL if they bring Barca? Shit club if you ask me when they can't fill their stadium during even big games.

And stars like Henry and Ronnie? Are you having a piss? Henry doesn't have the speed anymore and you really need to see Milan play. I wouldn't trade Milner for Ronnie. Fuck, last match I wouldn't even trade Aurelio for him. Ronnie is done.

I still stand they can't bring Messi. Not a fucking chance.

1. who cares if they can sellout COM and not SOL. Anyway COM is pretty full these days at 40,000 for the big games like vs Arsenal. My point is at least the big clubs will go to places in England other than the usual big 4 stadiums.

2. When Man City went down to Camp Nou to talk about Robinho's loan, there was talk about players transfer since Barca cant pay for Robinho's transfer fee in full. The question is who will Hughes want? Messi is out of the picture. That remains older players like Puyol and Henry etc. Xavi and Iniesta are out as well.

3. They probably cant bring in Messi but thats what they said about Ronnie leaving Man U and see what happened.

4. I was taking about Cristiano not Ronaldinho. Henry may not have the legs but he is a BPL icon next to Cantona and if not for the Ireland trauma, which seems to have affected his peformance of late, he stil has it in him to get close to 20 goals a season. Not saying he still has the speed though.

This is a bit out of topic. But can anyone explain to me what is Cormac's point in his ending of No Country for Old men about?

I mean Javier Badem's character gets into a car accident, he fixed his busted arm and hobble off. So what is this suppose to mean?

You cant stop an evil guy?

BTW Road is a much superior book to Old Men, although Cormac's narrative style may be a bit difficult to accept in the beginning.

i think so. i would say same top 4 as last year but different order.

Hope not. Nothing against Pool or arsenal. But it has been a long time since someone with caliber crashed the top 4 tea party. Nice to see Man City enter the big leagues and invite Barca or AC to SOL and actually have the resources to make it pass the group stages. I mean their team is so deep, they can field a BPL and European team. And finally Barca will know Manchester have more than one club.

Not to mention City is the only team which can afford to bring all the stars to BPL like Messi, henry, Ronnie, Maicon, Ribery which they cant do now since they are not in Europe.

ok - 20 bucks says burnley will not be relegated

that's a little harsh - he was a penalty shootout away from being the first team from london to win the champions league... if you want to blame anyone it should be anelka - he should have gone to the goalie's right

at any rate, saving pompey is a far cry from winning the league - especially if he can spend in the transfer window as they did the last time they were in this position. however, he'll need to get off the bottom of the table before january to succeed

there's no drawback that throwing money at players can't resolve - maybe not with specific players like kaka but in general this is true. also mark hughes is clever enough to get good players for less than 100 million pounds... at any rate, i dare you to go to turf moor and relay your characterization of burnley's support to their fans

1. If you want to blame someone, it should be Drogs for being red carded and JT for missing the empty net. Even if Nico scored, they would just continue until one team finally miss. Probably Chelsea since its Average’s team.

Average went to the finals beating Pool. I cant recall how they did it since Jose was knocked out by Pool twice in the semis but I think it was largely due to Drogs again. But that doesn’t make him better than Jose.

Just as a point of comparison, see how Guus and Wilkins outsmarted Rafa in last season’s quarters. They exploited Rafa’s lack of man marking in the posts and poor set piece defence and used Ballack and Essien to shut down Stevie G and Nando became ineffective. That was helped by Xabi not playing. But nevertheless their tactical brilliance got them through. What brilliance does Average have or showed?

2. Hughes maximizing little known player wont work in City. He joined City when Thaksin was in charge and City being bought by the Sheikh and ended up being the richest club in the world was unexpected by him.

City is now fantasy football and about massaging big egos and managing them by letting them play in rotation when all wants to play since it’s a world cup year no matter what. Also, what will happen when some players speak up and moan about Sparky not having the right tactics and strong arm his sacking like what happened with Scolari.

Robinho obviously cant be controlled. Much. And 7 draws in a row against fodder like Hull and Birmingham is ridiculous for a 200 million pounds team.

Compare Hughes’ man managing to how Ancelotti is buttering up Drogs. Singing his praises like how great a striker he is etc. He must have realized Scolari got nothing from Drogs by not buttering him up and marginalizing him by using Drogs as a sub compare to what Jose got out of him by kissing up to him even when Drogs didn’t get Jose 20 goals each season.

Now see how great Drog is performing. He is performing even better than he did for Jose. Drog was even sub after he scored his 2 goals on Sunday. This makes Drogs feel happy since he got his goals and he wont sulk when he exits.

And that is only drogs, there are still people like Nico and others like Essien and Lamps playing out of position and Deco, malouda being rotated. You don’t hear them bitching like Nani and babel and Pavluchenko about lack of playing time.

nah i wanted to bet on this. wigan above burnley.

but i'll bet you that liverpool will finish above spurs

Will they finish above Man City?

Money talks, bullshit walks.

Guus showed he can excel in BPL albeit it was with Chelsea.

Mancini is Serie A champ.

Jose will bite for Man City cos it will help him create his aura of the 'Special One' when Man City becomes BPL champ under his watch.

Pool nixed Nando sale for 50 million. But if its 100 million, they may bite although Nando might say no and Rafa walks out.

Messi's buyout clause is what? 200 over million? Wont it be great if City buys Messi and they got the Argentina Messi instead of the Barca Messi?

Pompey will buy in the winter. They are not playing badly, they just can't get the results. I think Grant can keep them up with few additions.

Hull is playing better now that Bullard is back and there was some kind of higher up that left as well and I think that suits Brown a lot more now. They might stay, but just.

The only ones I see are Spurs, Mac City and Villa. Depending on the draw I don't see any of them being better than Liverpool in Europe. (Liverpool also had lots of injuries this season but I guess that's different discussion)

I don't think City can get Messi or Pato. Ribery maybe but he plays as much as Kewell now. People think that City will throw money and every player will join them. First they need to get a better manager, better defenders and maybe then some real stars will come.

1. I thought Pompey got their own transfer ban cos they couldn’t pay forward their sales of Lsss and GJ?

BTW Average Grant is not as good as he is made out to be. He basically inherited Jose’s team, used the same tactics and got 2nd in 3 competitions. Many were saying Jose will never lose in cup finals although I think he may have done so for Inter.

2. For Man City, they have made their intentions clear. After learning from Chelsea, they want to buy a big name player and build other lesser lights around him. Thats why they made Kaka their main target and they were willing to pay 100 million for him. They made enquiries for Messi when they were talking about the Robinho deal but Barca rejected them. If Barca was willing to sell Messi for 150 million, you think the Sheikh will say no?

Who they will target next will depend on who will be the next breakout star in the WC. Man City not being in a Champ League team is a big drawback. After all, who wants to go to Burnley and get involved in a relegation dogfight in some sandy pitch with the cold wind blowing, 23 fans watching and a dog strolling around the pitch, if you are Messi. Wont you want to be adored by 98000 in the Camp Nou instead? But if they can get into Champ League, now we are talking. Throwing money on a big name coach is not a problem for them. Like Mancini or Guus.

possible but i doubt it. i still think liverpool will finish top four (most likely 4), burnley will be under wigan (most likely relegated).

right now for me relegated teams will be wolves, burnley, bolton or everton

looks like chelsea will be champions, unless something goes very wrong.

What about Pompey or Hull? Everton wont get relegated with Moyes around. Last season they were also in deep shit early on with tons of strikers injured and yet they made it to Europe.

If Pool doesn’t make it to Champ Leagues next season, at least it will have someone new who probably wont get knocked out at the group stages. Plus you can imagine who Man City will get to join them when they make it to Europe. Messi? Ribery? Pato?

arsenal played with no substance. They held the ball well in the beginning but it was all for nothing. They really deserve to lose.

Actually no. Their passing and movement were good but they lack a RVP or even Adebayor who can make something out of nothing or make the best of the least. They were at the edge of the box, in the box or broke the offside trap and could have scored plenty but the end product was not good. They just huffed and puffed and nothing came out of it.

Of course Chelsea defended real well. Like the commentator said, when Arsenal was at the break, many blue shirts would raced back in their box defending and JT made a couple of good tackles.

another great november to be a gunners fan. injuries stacked up. shortcomings made loud and clear. losing 4 out of 13 games. not scoring in last two games and defensive frailties still not corrected from last season. fuckin a.

Plus its not even X’mas and their BPL hopes are dashed. Again.

yeah that play by Walcott was a perfect way to sum what they tend to do... shoot themselves in the foot.

To avoid being selfish or because he was nervous... no way you'd want that kinda guy in the English line up... unlike Defoe who has been on a bender!

Actually Capello wants someone speedy down the flanks. I will rather take him than Lennon or even SWP. At least young Theo show some end product like in Croatia unlike Lennon and SWP seems to lose the ball too easy going back to his Chelsea days.