Robbie
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Post by Robbie on Aug 12, 2017 17:12:58 GMT 1
Hopefully Newcastle can win by the same score tomorrow against the team who hasn't spent a penny so far, Spurs.
It's a long slog, 9 months, but I expect Newcastle to be flirting with relegation in the Premier League. In the Championship Sunderland will struggle, Boro are favourites to get promoted to the Premier League. How do you think your team will do this season? For Andy, Mansfield should be favourites to win League 2.
How do you think your team will do this season?
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Post by Shireblogger on Aug 15, 2017 21:51:07 GMT 1
Aston Villa have conceded 5 goals in the two games played so far by John Terry. You've got to laugh.
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Post by Razzle Dazzle on Aug 15, 2017 22:18:57 GMT 1
I'm laughing because I got great odds on a reading win
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Post by Panda on Aug 16, 2017 0:29:35 GMT 1
Not surprised in the slightest. He looked old and slow back in 2010 when Germany destroyed him and Upson at the World Cup so the thought of some of these lightning quick wingers and forwards in the Championship running at him would terrify me if I were a Villa fan.
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Post by Razzle Dazzle on Aug 16, 2017 8:38:35 GMT 1
And villa finished about 13th last year after spending an absolute fortune so something isn't right anyway
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Post by o on Aug 16, 2017 12:47:07 GMT 1
Luton are faves in league 2 and Coventry imo.
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Post by Earl Purple on Aug 16, 2017 14:08:05 GMT 1
Halfway through the first weekend of the Premier League and the second week of the Football League and top of the table in the Premier League at the moment are... Huddersfield! A brilliant result, a 3-0 win away at Crystal Palace. Yes, although in 2010-11 Blackpool began with a 4-0 away win at Wigan but went down whilst Wigan stayed up. Blackpool did get 39 points though, which in many recent seasons has been enough to stay up. For me, it's more a hope that Crystal Palace are going to really crash and burn this season. In spite of that result, the bookmakers don't seem to have adjusted their odds and still have Huddersfield favourite for the drop with Palace safe. I guess Huddersfield were a bit luckier to have them in the first fixture, whilst Newcastle and Brighton had to play Spurs and Man City, two of the league's big teams, and in spite of giving a decent account of themselves, both went down 0-2 eventually. Of course Huddersfield were only top for one day, as Manchester United went top the next day by winning 4-0.
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Tom
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Post by Tom on Aug 16, 2017 20:23:39 GMT 1
I think Reading suffered in the first 2 or 3 games from not having a proper pre-season. But the season has officially started now! Now that BBC Radio Berkshire is on Freeview I can listen to all the games I want to which having never been a Reading Player subscriber (or iFollow as they all are now) wasn't possible in the past, apart from the odd occasion. It sounded like until we got complacent at the end we were comfortably the better team, and it was one of our best performances since Stam arrived in terms of the style of play he wants. They actually said that Villa had given up just before they scored. I know it's very early in the season but that doesn't bode well for Steve Bruce. It was even suggested that Terry might be manager by Christmas!
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Tom
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Post by Tom on Aug 16, 2017 20:29:59 GMT 1
Forgot to add, shame it was midweek as it was the home game I was most interested in going to.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 16, 2017 20:31:08 GMT 1
West Ham were awful, nothing to offer and United will have much, much, much tougher tests to come.
That's my other half's team Swansea in the mix after selling Siggy; he single handedly kept them up last season and the season before that.
Brighton made a good account of themselves, but defensive lapses and fratigue against a team like Man City proved the difference. Just before City scored the first, we were in our own half passing well, then gave the ball away which they scored from the resulting attack. Just before they scored, I was at the game thinking "they won't score", then two seconds later one of our defenders slipped, effectively letting Augero have tbe ball by helping it to him. The second was an own goal that could have been avoided.
One of my work friends went to their open training session yesterday, I gave her my program from the match to hopefully get signed for me; she managed to get 10 signatures on it.
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Post by o on Aug 17, 2017 10:13:11 GMT 1
If Villa make Terry manager, they'll be in Div 1 by Christmas!
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Robbie
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Post by Robbie on Aug 17, 2017 16:25:05 GMT 1
The new edition of the Premier League Handbook has been published and is free to download from the Premier League website www.premierleague.com/publicationsThere also used to be one for the Football League at thefa.com website but I can't find one for this season so maybe they've stopped putting the publication online.
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Robbie
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Post by Robbie on Aug 23, 2017 22:34:53 GMT 1
Not the best of starts to a season for Newcastle... Beaten tonight by Notts Forest in the League Cup. I was surprised to read earlier that the last time we were knocked out in the second round of the League Cup was way back in 1990, against Middlesbrough.
Quite what this means for Newcastle and the prospects of Benitez staying I don't know. He's already voiced his disatisfaction over the lack of available transfer funds though he's also trying to be diplomatic, and attempting to be conciliatory, when voicing them. The truth is, we simply aren't good enough and have no strength in depth.
It really could be a long, and probably eventful, season...
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frag
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Post by frag on Aug 29, 2017 0:42:54 GMT 1
Something's clearly rotten in the state of Denmark Arsenal, and even as an avid fan, it's hard to know where to start, so this post might be about as organised as our papier mache defence, but it'll probably be more cohesive than our tactics, and longer than our title challenge. Owner - Silent Stan took over a few years ago (sometime after it became hard to tell seasons apart, partly because I lived at the same place for a few years so can't anchor on where I watched matches, and partly because we only really have two types of season), and since then has done little and said less. There are vague ideas that he wants to stick around for a while, but no hint of sporting ambition. Most notably, he took a couple of £3m "consultancy" payments, before graciously waiving the fee last season, instead buying a ranch and setting up a hunting channel. Board - Ivan Gazidis talks the talk fairly often, saying about 5-6 years ago that we'd be competing with Bayern Munich about now. Three 1-5 scorelines show we don't deserve to be in the same competition as them, and so it is this year (unless they tank the CL just so they can beat us again in the Europa League...). If the board had had any spine, they'd have sacked Wenger about five years ago. Manager - Should now be considered alongside George Graham rather than Herbert Chapman. The first half of Graham's tenure saw us win the league twice, before we became a team that was very good at putting a cup run together, but were often poor in the league. Both late-era sides had a knack for narrow, often lucky cup wins against superior opposition (PSG and Parma for Graham; Man City and Chelsea for Wenger). The only thing going for Wenger right now is he seems to be able to persuade some players to join this sinking ship, although at the same time, our transfer hand is played far too weakly (more on that anon). He certainly was a very intelligent man, but appears to have succumbed to a toxic combination of senility and extreme stubbornness. It's that or some sort of madness; how else can you explain our frankly bizarre team selections so far this season? The matches - Against Stoke, we started with our shiny new left back at centre back, a right back at left back, and a right wing back who wants to be a central midfielder (for a different club). By the end, chasing the game, we had as many as six players playing out of position. I caught most of the second half; our huffing and puffing was actually encouraging, until Walcott came on, apparently replacing "end product". However, I watched the whole thing with a kind of numb detachment. Of course we'd be 1-0 down when we switched on, and of course we'd struggle to break through their defence. Losing at the Orcs' lair is just the sort of thing we do. On to Liverpool, where we actually had our best side available, save for the long-term absentee Cazorla. Pre-match, I was looking forward to seeing our first-choice centre back trio of Monreal, Koscielny and Mustafi, with the strength and power of Kolasinac on the left, and Lacazette starting with Alexis for the first time. Instead, we plumped for... - Holding at CB - I like him and think he has a lot of potential, but he looked exposed and unconfident enough at Leicester that he was dropped for the Stoke match. Surely it could have been forseen that he'd be outmatched by Salah/Mane/Firmino?
- Bellerin at LWB, and Ox at RWB - even though we knew he'd just rejected a take-it-or-get-out final contract offer. He clearly didn't want to be out there.
- Welbeck up front - not even Giroud!! Well, Welbeck did score at Anfield last season, I suppose. I still find it odd to start a key away game with your third-best striker (possibly fourth-best if you consider Lucas)
In the end, it didn't matter who we picked or which formation, because the ten outfield players combined for one of the most gutless, dismal, insipid, woeful, effortless performances in PL history. In many ways it was worse than the 8-2 at Old Trafford six years ago, because it wasn't exactly a young/ragtag team, but a settled, mostly experienced line-up. The defence was completely exposed not by a lack of quality and experience in the team, but by the combination of Xhaka needlessly giving the ball away, Ramsey being miles out of position and not bothered to track back, and Ox simply thinking about his upcoming medical. Each player played beneath themselves. Marking was optional, just like tackling.
It's far from the first time we've been turned over away at a big club, but the repetitions of the same mistakes, and performances that are getting worse, not better, is truly sickening. The manager is tied up in blinkered logic, confounded by another dismal away showing - Spurs in April could easily have been 4-0, or even more - because we put in a decent shift at Wembley, and sometimes at home. Since he doesn't respect the fans enough to resign, he isn't answerable to anyone, and his comfort and complacency creeps down to the players, who should all have been fined a week's wages for such a performance, but from whom we can expect only a couple of "we'll learn from this" type articles on the official website, followed by a similar abomination at Chelsea in 3 weeks' time. Rinse and repeat until the manager finally deigns to retire.
Transfers - the 8-2 humiliation precipitated a most un-Wenger-like trolley dash, as we signed five players in the final few days of the transfer window (pop quiz: name those five!) to inject some hope into the fans. Will the 4-0 humiliation trigger something similar? Who knows? We could use a central midfielder to provide Xhaka/Ramsey with some accountability, plus an attacking player as a pre-replacement for Alexis, plus replacements for anyone who leaves (caveat: I'm ok with Reiss Nelson as a backup RWB, but the Ox money must be reinvested in central midfield). We've chased Lemar (good in 50/50 challenges, I've heard) for most of the summer; after Wenger declared the deal "dead", Liverpool seem to be preparing an offer - could we revive our interest?
There are strong rumours linking Mustafi to Inter, which just sounds completely insane to me. Why spend £35m on a centre-back, watch him have an encouraging first half of the season, only to ship him off next summer? Especially when your other non-rookie CBs are all nearing the end of their careers and/or have chronic injury problems. The only explanation is that a replacement is imminent; Virgil van Dyke is linked, but why go to Arsenal when presumably you have Liverpool or Chelsea still interested?
At the start of the summer, I felt we needed some fairly substantial investment to compete. It started promisingly, with (supposedly) first-choice left back and centre forward secured by mid-July. Since then, nothing, except for: 1, szczipping off Szczesny, who would've been our first-choice keeper again by 2018 - leaving us with goalkeeper as a problem position waiting to happen. 2, Gabriel surprisingly left, promoting another youngster, Chambers, to the first team. We haven't even managed to clear the highest-paid deadwood (Gibbs, Debuchy), or last season's late signing, Lucas, who actually did very well when he played, but whom Wenger seems to hate for reasons unknown.
Contracts - the summer has been dominated by Ozil, Alexis and the Ox, all of whom are in their last year of their contract. Ox is set to join Chelsea (£35m seems a good deal for him, as he'd probably sit on their bench - except for a hat trick against us, of course). It looks like we'll almost certainly lose Alexis for nothing (although Wenger might be overruled by the board), and would need to spend £100m to replace him. Ozil I've been quietly confident will actually sign on, but right now I'm not so sure...
Even beyond those three, we have a large number of players coming to the end of their deals - I think it's about fifteen of our first team squad out of contract in either 2018 or 2019, which sounds insane. With our current trajectory, what does that mean for the future?
The future - It already looks unlikely we'll get close to Man United or Man City at the top. Pre-season I considered it very close between us, Chelsea, Spurs and Liverpool; early evidence suggests we haven't learned from our mistakes of the past few years, and with Wenger in charge, it's difficult to predict us higher than 6th this season. Depending on transfers, and assuming Wenger lasts to the end of his contract (who has both the guts and the power to get rid of him?), we could also be overtaken by Everton and Leicester. Could we keep the likes of Ozil after that? What's our contract renewal plan?
The Liverpool capitulation could be the start of a Chelsea-style mutiny; the optimistic view is that the players and fans can force Wenger out by mid-Autumn, leaving us time to scrape into the CL, either via the league or Europa League. The squad base is still there for the right manager, with the right additions, to have us challenging for the title in 2018/19.
Pessimistically, if Wenger sees out his contract, I can see us becoming the new Newcastle: unpopular but durable owner, big stadium, large fanbase, but unable to hold a good team together, and living on past glories.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2017 17:31:16 GMT 1
To quote Claude from Arsenal Fan TV whenever Wenger is mentioned to him.....
"HE'S GOT TO GO!!!" (Not until after they play Brighton however!)
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Tom
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Post by Tom on Sept 3, 2017 15:35:37 GMT 1
frag
Discovered today that Tarpey joined Barnet very late on deadline day, so late that it had to be announced on Friday and almost didn't happen at all. I assumed when he signed his contract he'd be staying for the season, it's not like Maidenhead have started badly He can't have too many options when it comes to L2 clubs nearby (it turns out he turned down Coventry earlier in the summer because he didn't want to relocate), but I hope he keeps Barnet up as the move isn't going to look so great otherwise. Signing that deal did mean that Maidenhead got a sizeable fee for him though (it was called a "substantial" record fee) when they wouldn't have got any money at all otherwise. I'll continue to follow his career, if it wasn't for his incredible season last year i'm not sure whether Maidenhead would have even won the playoffs let alone win the title.
Early signs are that they may not miss him as much as feared anyway. They've picked up 4 points from the last 3 games and the only game he played (he missed the other through injury) they lost!
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Robbie
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Post by Robbie on Sept 9, 2017 14:40:13 GMT 1
Man City 5 Liverpool 0
I don't think I've seen such an inept performance by any Premier League team in the past few seasons as Liverpool have managed this afternoon. They were down to 10 men after a red card but Liverpool's defence make Newcastle's look brilliant. Posters at the Liverpool official forum are going mad with Klopp!
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Post by Deleted on Sept 10, 2017 8:31:37 GMT 1
Brighton finally off the mark!!. Now I can enjoy the Premier League ride without having to worry about finishing the season without winning!.
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Post by Earl Purple on Sept 10, 2017 11:10:33 GMT 1
Bad day yesterday on Merseyside whichever was your team... I only saw the highlights yesterday but Everton forgot to show up and I guess Rooney's mind was on other things and that probably didn't help.
Charlton now 2nd. Strangely Plymouth, the only team to have beaten us so far this season, have not won any of their other games. We dominated against them in the first half but failed to convert our chances then conceded 2 in the second half.
So far we've beaten Bristol Rovers (h), Northampton (h), Rotherham (a), Oldham (a) and Southend (h). Of those the best win appears to be Rotherham away who are not that bad in this division.
I guess our biggest test so far will be Wigan at home on Tuesday. The first time we'll be playing one of the more favoured teams in the division. They lost yesterday at Shrewsbury. Last time we played them we did the double over them but that was their relegation season of 2014-15 so you'd expect that.
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Robbie
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Post by Robbie on Sept 11, 2017 11:25:17 GMT 1
Breaking news: Crystal Palace have reportedly sacked Frank de Boer. It's not exactly a surprise. Roy Hodgson has apparently been lined up as the new manager.
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