Thread for general football discussion!

[isildurx]

Hellu!

In my opinion we are lacking a thread for general football talk.
So this is a thread to do that, if you come over a newsstory that you think is interesting or just some funny rumours then this is the place to post them!

Ill start it off with this quote by 'well know fotoball wizard' Paul Merson.

"Ashley Young - He's a great outlet for Villa and he's the best winger in the country, better than Theo Walcott in my opinion."


Anyone else think this? This implies that he would be better than the likes of Walcott, Cole and SWP which would be his main rivals.

For me it is a tough one. I love Ashley, i think hes a great player and probably our most important player. I am however unsure whether he would manage to dominate as much as he does for us for a better team(one of the top4) seeing as he probably would not see as much of the ball. Another issue i have with Young is that he is a bit selfish at times imo, he loves to shoot from freekicks rather than curl a ball into the box which is a area where we all know Villa are strong.

Overall though I would be inclined to say its down to either him or Joe Cole. They are way different players, playing for very different teams, but to be frank i think Joe Cole still is a little better than Ashley Young.

Anyone disagree or agree?

[Cannon_Fodder]

Cole>Young>Walcott probably at the moment

But Walcott>Young>Cole in a season or two.

[Nadar]

Per Mathis Høgmo is the new coach of Tromsø IL. What do you think about that, guys?

[KoeN]

Originally Posted by Nadar

Per Mathis Høgmo is the new coach of Tromsø IL. What do you think about that, guys?

good choice. right man for the job. :]

[isildurx]

[Nadar]

Originally Posted by KoeN

good choice. right man for the job. :]

Wouldn't surprise me at all if you for some reason knew who he is

[roadrunner_0]

although i think that overall it was a reasonably fair outcome, did anyone watch MotD tonight and get irritated about wengers inability to admit that something should have been given against his team? Arsene mate, it was a BLATANT penalty, get over yourself and stop coming across as an arrogant cunt! seriously, he actually pisses me off more than fergie does.

[Nadar]

Wenger and Ferguson are the same kind of people when it comes to admitting things that aren't favorable for their teams

[Maladoni]

Been a weird few weeks at the top. Are other teams catching up or have the Top 4 just been out of sorts of late?

[roadrunner_0]

i was thinking the same myself earlier, and im honestly not sure, on one hand i would say that maybe teams are finally working out how to play against the top four, but the counter argument to that is: look at the teams getting the results, hull, stoke, the hammers today should never have stood a chance, whatever is going on, i think its more trouble at the top rather than the rest of the league pulling themselves up. Arsenal have been suffering from this for a couple of seasons, the ability to turn up against the bigger teams but screwing the pooch against the (supposedly) easy opposition. Man Uts have done it on and off for years, with their notoriously slow starts, but this is the first time i have seen it happen to chelsea, and the only team that dont appear to be affected are liverpool, who are pretty much having the same season they always do, they arent doing any better than usual (or not substantially so anyway) the rest are just doing worse.

[Ste]

So Ince has been sacked from Blackburn...

Who's next for them? Allardyce? Keane? Sounness? Curbishley?

[isildurx]

Since Capello's arrival changes have been made off the pitch as well as on it, with players expected to address each other by their first names instead of nicknames.
The stricter rules appear to have paid off as England have raced to the top of their World Cup qualifying group with four straight wins.

Wonder if they will let me be Norways head coach when i tell them that all it takes for Norway to become good again is to eliminate nicknames.

[Robin]

Comparing 2007 and 2008 results, I don't really see any notable change.

[JC]

Originally Posted by Ste

So Ince has been sacked from Blackburn...

Who's next for them? Allardyce? Keane? Sounness? Curbishley?

I was hesitant back in the summer when we went with Ince, personally I would have gone with Laudrup who was interviewes with the position and according to all the reports at the time was very impressed with the club and our chairman and would have accepted the position if it was given to him. He doesn't have much more more managerial experience than Ince but I just got the feeling he may have been more tactically astute and would have more scouting links around Europe so that we didn't have to go looking in the lower English leagues for players.

Anyway, that's been and gone and I doubt he will be in the frame this time around. All reports at the moment seem to have a Souness and Tugay partnership as the favourite, which doesn't fill me with enthusiasm. Tugay would have the backing of the players and fans but has no experience at all and I have never heard him even consider becoming a coach/manager after retirement so I don't know whether he would want the role. As for Souness, after 3 very successful years (promotion, Worthington Cup winners, top 6 in the Premiership) he quickly went down hill in the last 12-18 months and left the club in a complete mess when he went to Newcastle, which most fans took as a blessing. He made some bad signings, spent a lot of money that we know longer have and fell out with half our squad (including David Dunn who is now back at the club). I don't think he would be a popular choice with the fans and possibly not with the players.

Allardyce would be my choice for the simple reason that he knows what it takes in the Premiership and can buy players on a low budget, which is exactly what we need in a manager at the moment. It won't be pretty football and it would more than likely end up in us selling the likes of Santa Cruz (which I'm sure will happen whoever comes in), Benni McCarthy and one or 2 others that don't fit with his style but in the end survival is what matters most for a club our size. Curbishley would be a good choice in the long term but can he turn the club around quickly enough? Keane wouldn't take a job right now and he has just walked out on a team battling relegation so I wouldn't want him to come to us and do the same. We've also been linked with Owen Coyle from Burnley but once again he has now Premiership experience so I can't see our board going for him. Other than that I'm not sure who else is out there that would take a job with us at the moment.

[Ste]

How about Calderwood?

please?


(Oh and Curbishley apparently doesn't want to leave London...)

[Nadar]

Åge Hareide

[Maladoni]

Well I've been thinking about this and I think the Top 4 could become the Top 6 by the end of the season. Villa are there for sure. Everton either seem to have a storming or wank second half of the season so if they win their remaining games against the Top 4 things could be a changing.

Who do we think will win? Man U always seem to kick on in Feb, so that's who my monies on.

2 other points.

1. Well done to Blyth Spartans, a local team with a great F.A Cup history who have now got Blackburn at home. That's managerless Blackburn with the 2 favourites for the job being Sourness and Allaydyce. It's got glory written all over it. Oh and JC if you are thinking of coming up, don't. You'll get chinned in Blyth, its rough as fuck.

2. Initial reports of the new deal offered to Michael Owen by NUFC look to have underestimated both the duration and size of the wage packet, with a four-year contract on £90K a week now being mentioned, rather than the original three years at a mere £80K pw. That would make the striker £18m richer and tie him to SJP until six months before his 34th birthday.

I think this is quite a clever offer if true.... It means if anybody comes sniffing on the cheap, they are going to have to match stupid wages. It could put a lot of clubs off, especially with his fitness record. From Newcastle's point of view, I doubt they'd even attract another player of his quality, never mind afford one so the wages offered from that point of view aren't quite as stupid?

[JC]

Originally Posted by Maladoni

1. Well done to Blyth Spartans, a local team with a great F.A Cup history who have now got Blackburn at home. That's managerless Blackburn with the 2 favourites for the job being Sourness and Allaydyce. It's got glory written all over it. Oh and JC if you are thinking of coming up, don't. You'll get chinned in Blyth, its rough as fuck.

We are no longer managerless, we have big Sam. He might not be a favourite with the Newcastle fans, who never gave him a chance to succeed, but if he can turn us back into an over achieving Premiership team that regularly gets into the top 10 everyone in Blackburn will be happy. To avoid relegation we need to learn how to battle again and grind out wins so long ball unattractive football is going to have to be the way forward.

I was hoping Bournemouth would beat Blyth so it's less of an upset if we lose the tie. Hopefully some of the players will now be playing to either stay in the team or attract attention from elsewhere so we might go on a run of decent results.

[Maladoni]

Your chances of staying up having not employed Sourness have risen 100% in my estimation. Be interesting to see who Sam brings in January. Well good luck with that (cept against The Spartans).

[KoeN]

YouTube - Mitchell & Webb - Football, Football, Football

YouTube - Mitchell & Webb - Football, Football, Football

[isildurx]

Please do not make Villa face CSKA Moscow

[KoeN]

gimme Aalborg!!!

[Nadar]

Aalborg has had a decent performance, KoeN, especially away against Celtic (1-1) and Manchester United (2-2).

Besides, Aalborg is my second hometown - wouldn't want my fav. danish team to meet my fav. dutch team, would I?

[Maladoni]

Originally Posted by Nadar

Besides, Aalborg is my second hometown - wouldn't want my fav. danish team to meet my fav. dutch team, would I?

You're a cross dresser. It all makes sense now.

[isildurx]

Originally Posted by isildurx

Please do not make Villa face CSKA Moscow

Do I even have to mention who we drew...

[Nadar]

AaB drew Deportivo de La Coruna
Twente drew Marseille

Both teams that we were this <-> close to beating this year

[KoeN]

Originally Posted by Nadar

Aalborg has had a decent performance, KoeN, especially away against Celtic (1-1) and Manchester United (2-2).

Besides, Aalborg is my second hometown - wouldn't want my fav. danish team to meet my fav. dutch team, would I?

<3

we could have watched together...

[Maladoni]

Nice little site with current content and a decent archive.

http://www.footyfilms.com/

[Ste]

Well Calderwood has finally been sacked after an awful performance at home to a team bottom of the league.

Hope we get someone good next...

[Vaio]

Originally Posted by Ste

Well Calderwood has finally been sacked after an awful performance at home to a team bottom of the league.

Hope we get someone good next...

Carlisle didn't.......

[1-X]

to be fair Doncaster are a much better team than their position suggests

(+ I hope I've got a longshot bonus for it in the prediction league!)

[Ste]

no they're not though

we've just been awful!

[1-X]

we're somehow top yet were lucky to escape from Doncaster with points

Other teams regularly outplay us, I'm surprised we haven't hit a slump

[Insertrandomnamehere]

I'm just going to use this thread to express my frustration with Chelsea drawing with West Ham and Everton this month; thus missing 2 chances to go top and give me lots of groats.
Also due to our shit form, Man Utd have effectively caught up to us. (although their form isn't great either so they may drop points in those 2 games)

But Drogba is back and it's looking good. Had no problem playing with Anelka in today's game; but we'll just have to see how they combine against better opposition!

[roadrunner_0]

as soon as drogba starts to score i expect to see anelkas petulant personality re-assert itself and his form to drop back off again

[bobzy]

Firstly, what a season thus far! I don't think there's ever been a season in the Premier League where absolutely NOTHING is decided come Christmas.

A lot of talk this season has surrounded whether or not Arsenal will cling onto their "top 4" status, with my team (Villa) finally looking like serious challengers to break into the CL. Other top teams are consistently dropping points for the first time in... well, God knows when. It seems that whenever Liverpool drop points (mainly, disappointing home draws), Chelsea are likely to do the same. Thus, is the title actually playing into Liverpool's hands? Maybe not, depending on what happens with Steven Gerrard's assault charge.

Honourable mention as well to Steve Bruce's Wigan side who have slipped in somewhat under the radar to sit in 7th place. Palacios and Valencia seem to be real top class players and, if they can hang onto them come the end of January, could Wigan actually push for Europe?! Bruce always sets up well-organised sides (as we saw with Birmingham) but certain players at Wigan have the flair that sides need these days in order to push on.

Don't be fooled by Hull's start either. The bubble will pop somewhere along the line and, despite their immense start, good results AND Brown's tactical nouse, the club remain only 7 points off the relegation zone with a goal difference of -8.

Soooo..... who's gonna be your top 4? Who's making the UEFA? And which teams are your favourites to go down?!

[Nadar]

So Gerrard was put in jail on Saturday for assaulting a guy in a pub and will now have to meet in court in January. But what happened? The newspapers I've read only tells about assault and that he had to sit in jail for 24 hours...

Will the Stoke fans sing a song to him on the 10th?

Steve Gerrard Gerrard
he's drinking a bottle of rum
and then he becomes a scum
Steve Gerrard Gerrard

Steve Gerrard Gerrard
he goes to the local bar
and hits the DJ with a jar
Steve Gerrard Gerrard

[1-X]

if six men are arrested and there's one victim with facial injuries, it's possible that Gerrard was one of a gang in a cowardly attack?

I'm sure the details will emerge soon, but in the meantime here's a funny gif



edit:

Marcus McGee, a 34-year-old father-of-two, needed four stitches to his head and lost a tooth in the incident at The Lounge Inn bar and restaurant where Gerrard and a group of friends were celebrating Liverpool's 5-1 win over Newcastle United on Sunday in which he scored twice.

Mr McGee, a friend of the venue's owner, was said to have been left in charge of the music system when Gerrard asked to borrow a staff swipe card to change the music but was refused.

A disagreement ensued and others quickly became involved.

"One of them smashed a beer bottle over his head," a witness told The Sun.

"The whole thing lasted less than 10 seconds.

"It turned into a free-for-all. The doormen all ran in and the club seemed to empty in seconds."

A friend of Mr McGee's told the Daily Mirror: "He is quite badly hurt. He has lost a tooth and there is a big laceration on his forehead where someone hit him with a glass. Someone glassed him."

Gerrard and five other men - none of whom are team-mates - were arrested and held for questioning at Southport Police Station for several hours on Monday.

He and two others - 29-year-old John Doran and 19-year-old Ian Smith, both of Huyton, were charged with causing assault occasioning actual bodily harm and affray while the other three were bailed pending further inquiries.

[isildurx]

Originally Posted by bobzy

Soooo..... who's gonna be your top 4? Who's making the UEFA? And which teams are your favourites to go down?!

For me atleast i still think that WBA, Stoke and Hull will struggle bigtime.

Villa and Arsenal is going to battle it out for 4th and i really think Arsenal HAVE GOT to bring in reinforcements in january if they are to be able to remain in the top 4 seeing as im confident MON will also strengthen with 1-2 players.
So its hard to say atm how its going to go, january will be a very important month.

[isildurx]

Holy mother of christ i almost fainted at the end with the whole penalty debacle.

What a sweet three points to get, not deserved at all but I take what I can get.

[NEWSBOT3]

hull getting into europe this season would be comedy gold though.

[bobzy]

Originally Posted by isildurx

Holy mother of christ i almost fainted at the end with the whole penalty debacle.

What a sweet three points to get, not deserved at all but I take what I can get.

Haha, yeah! Thank God they got that decision right though .

I agree, we definitely didn't play well enough for three points. However, I hate teams that take the approach Hull did and "park the bus, playing for a draw". Whilst I don't necessarily blame them for doing this, I don't see why they should deserve anything out of a game if they're not going to attack. We lacked creativity tonight and (once again) a game has shown how much we miss Carew. Great three points to get at the end of the day though!

[bobzy]

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

And then you get this absolute gem which makes me feel no sorryness(word?) for Hull City at all:

Hull boss Phil Brown on the same incident:
"It's a tough one. The referee got it wrong because he gave it originally.

"The linesman took up a position that he was giving the penalty but for some reason they've changed their mind between them.

"The referee is 15 yards away but he consults a linesman who was 40 yards away from the incident."


Phil Brown, you bitter, bitter wanker (he IS a wanker by the way, what's with the posing and the shit sitting players out for a half time bollocking?!). Refs eventually gave the right decision - what's your problem?!

[roadrunner_0]

to be fair, the hull players fucking deserved that bollocking last weekend, and their second half performance was greater than the first (though that wouldnt have been hard)


i dont think that he is any worse than any other manager tbh, and lest face it, all managers make mistakes, and without the benefit of slow mo replays it was by all accounts hard to call

[Lok]

I've seen a referee do that before when the referee thought we'd handballed it when it was clearly the opposition striker (Milan Baros, would you believe). After Eyal Berkovic going mental and trying to get himself sent off, the ref consulted with the linesman and gave us a freekick. So Phil Brown's wrong there.

As for the bollocking out on the pitch. If Hull are going to survive they are going to have to put in a massive amount of effort every game, as that's what kept them afloat so far. If Phil Brown wants to give them a kick up the arse, then they were right to do so.

Verdict on the game is that Hull played better than Villa just about, not enough to totally deserve a win but a defeat is very harsh on them. But they adopted a good approach to just park the bus and wait for Villa to run out of ideas. Only a piece of misfortune really denied them a deserved point.

The battle for 4th will be interesting. Villa are pretty much a very good one dimensional counterattacking team with a great attitude (and there's nothing wrong if you're a one trick pony that's very good at it) while Arsenal have players who are radically better than anything Villa have but who's attitude to matches seems very poor. If Arsenal sort their heads out, it's not going to be a contest.

[roadrunner_0]

it still will be i think, with arsenal having more and more injuries in midfield i think arsenal are going to have a very tough time to hit 4th unless they buy a damn good defender and a damn good controlling midfielder in january

[isildurx]

Originally Posted by Lok

while Arsenal have players who are radically better than anything Villa have

I cant see who this would be except for Fabregas, and perhaps to an extent Adebayor at his best. What Arsenal has that Villa sorely lack is fantastic wingbacks aswell as better creativity in midfield(but Rosicky and Fabregas are injured) usually. Arsenals team this season player for player really isn not that much better than Villas in my opinion, and if Villa bring in a new striker in January and Arsene just buys some youth theyre going to struggle bigtime.

[bobzy]

Yeah, I agree - Arsenal's first team really isn't THAT much better than Villa's; if at all. As isildurx said, their main advantage is that they have good full backs who are quick and will attack AND defend. Luke Young/Shorey/Reo-Coker/Cuellar/whoever O'Neill plays in the wing back roles are nowhere near as good as Clichy/Sagna.

Having said that, I think I'd rather have a central defence of Laursen/Davies than Gallas/Toure (also both are formidable) and the midfield engine of Barry/Sidwell/Petrov certainly give Fabregas/Rosicky and, er.... Nasri/Denilson/Diaby(?) a run for their money.

Also Lok, you say we're a very good, one-dimensional, counter-attacking team but I think you're wrong. For the moment we are, sure, but we haven't had our main striker (Carew) available for some games now. What he allows us to do is hold the ball up and get the midfield pushing forward to join in with our attacks. Without Carew, we rely on the pace of A. Young and Agbonlahor pretty much solely. Presumably this is the reason we're a "one-trick pony"? Besides, with both sides missing key players, we gave Arsenal a stuffing (AGAIN this season) and only came away with a 2-2 draw. I really don't see much of a gap between the sides to be honest - maybe more so in squad depth, but we've got time to improve that.

[Lok]

Gallas, Sagna, Clichy, Nasri, Fabregas, Van Persie, Adebayor, Eduardo (injured), Rosicky (injured) are all players that really are technically superior to anything Villa have.

There's one way to play against Villa - sit back and make them resort to hoofing balls into the area and hit them on the break. There's absolutely no one to play a pass through the middle and Hull played the right way and were very unlucky to come away with nothing yesterday evening. Even with Carew, the simple step of man marking him is pretty much the only thing extra required. But even then, if you stop Villa from running at you, you are halfway there defence wise.

The fact that you're even close to Arsenal (having seen Villa and Arsenal live this season) is that their attitude for some reason is very, very poor. Because of this, Villa are looking very good for 4th place. If Arsenal sort their heads out, they'll go on an insane run and Villa won't have a chance of keeping up. 3 or 4 of Arsenal's team look so gutless that I suspect 5th may be in the offing for them.

[bobzy]

Yeah, sorry but, again, I just don't see this at all. Cuellar is one of the most technically gifted centre backs in the Prem at the moment, and certainly possesses more technical ability than Gallas (wtf lol?). Similarly, you're actually saying that you find Nasri and Rosicky completely technically superior to Petrov and Barry? Van Persie more so than Ashley Young? Sagna isn't exactly the height of technical ability either - and can't cross a football to save his life.

If there's one way to play against Villa, and it's THAT simple that an armchair football fan on the internet can pick it up easily - don't you think teams would've stopped us by now?

"Hull played the right way" is a pretty disgusting comment as they did absolutely nothing in the attacking sense and just sat back. As I said previously, whilst I understand the tactics behind this, if you're not offering any kind of attacking force in a football game then you don't deserve any points. Love your comment of "Even with Carew, the simple step of man marking him". What games have you been watching involving Carew? The whole point of him being a big target man is that he's hard to handle. Just look at how many problems he causes when he plays! He wins the majority of aerial balls and holds up play to allow A. Young and Agbonlahor to run in behind.

And again, the fact we're "even close to Arsenal" is not purely down to their attitude being misplaced. It's the fact that, under O'Neill, Villa are a side that can cause ALL teams in the Premier League problems. You only need to look at results against the so-called "big 4" this season - we've taken 4 points from Arsenal and only lost to Chelsea. I suppose this is because we're PURELY a counter-attacking force with absolutely no defensive backbone? Maybe Man Utd and Liverpool (who had 0 shots at all at Villa Park, by the way) didn't adopt the "right approach" that Hull did in parking the proverbial bus?

No, it's the fact that, like it or not, Villa have improved vastly over the past couple of seasons and are now a genuine threat to the elite teams in England. Our squad depth isn't great and, should we have any OTHER (bear in mind we've been without Carew for a while now, and Laursen & Cuellar are also out) major injuries, we may well be in trouble. However, O'Neill isn't an idiot and has, thus far, been pretty astute in the transfer market. He knows we need more strength in depth and, in Randy Lerner, we've got exactly the right chairman to enable this.

I guess, for some reason, football fans think that Arsenal have a God-given right to be in the top 4 because they play attractive football (on the whole) but since losing Vieira (especially) they simply haven't been the threat that they were before and, let's face it, this current crop of players are NOT good enough to be challenging for the Premier League title. Thus, the team is involved in a scrap for 4th place instead.