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Post by Maximo Mark on Feb 5, 2014 22:59:18 GMT 1
The reports on Laudrup have been pretty damning today, the only surprising thing is it took this long.
33 points from 35 games, gets you relegated and has had more than enough time to try and turn it around, the abject performance against West Ham showed he probably wasn't going to.
Ultimately being in the Premier League is now worth far too much money to clubs to risk going down, it's alright mentioning people like Pardew but they were never realistically going to go down last year, and the people above at Newcastle and Swansea couldn't be much more contrasting.
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Post by Maximo Mark on Feb 4, 2014 22:31:27 GMT 1
Michael Laudrup sacked by Swansea. Ridiculous decision. Is it really? They've been so poor this season, have had nothing about them whatsoever for a long time now. He also has a habit of being quite abrupt and his managerial tenure is full of short-lived stays, for whatever reason he's not a long-term appointment. It seems like he had no intention of staying past the summer anyway.
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Post by Maximo Mark on Feb 3, 2014 21:15:16 GMT 1
01 (04) Tokyo Police Club - Argentina (Parts I, II, III) (01) (04) (1 week) 02 (02) No Ceremony feat. James Vincent McMorrow - Away From Here (02) (06) 03 (01) Arcade Fire - Afterlife (01) (10) (5 weeks) 04 (03) Nicole Millar - Fall (02) (08) 05 (06) Kye Kye - Honest Affection (05) (05) 06 (14) Real Estate - Talking Backwards (06) (03) 07 (11) Maximo Park - Leave This Island (07) (05) 08 (05) HAERTS - Hemiplegia (01) (13) (4 weeks) 09 (12) Burial - Rival Dealer (09) (05) 10 (07) The Naked & Famous - I Kill Giants (04) (10)
11 (17) Tensnake feat. Fiora - No Relief (11) (04) 12 (08) Lincoln Jesser - We'll Be Fine (07) (11) 13 (24) Le Youth - Dance With Me (23) (02) 14 (10) Clean Bandit feat. Jess Glynne - Rather Be (09) (06) 15 (20) A Sunny Day In Glasgow - In Love With Useless (The Timeless Geometry in the Tradition of Passing) (15) (03) 16 (09) Crooked Colours - Come Down (03) (10) 17 (18) Asgier - Torrent (17) (04) 18 (28) Thumpers - Galore (18) (02) 19 (23) Breakdlaw feat. The Glitchfox - Paint Me Like a French Girl (19) (03) 20 (13) Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip - You Will See Me (04) (09)
21 (16) Say Lou Lou - Better In The Dark (07) (11) 22 (32) Keep Shelly In Athens - Old Time Glory (22) (02) 23 (**) Kids of the Apocalypse - Empire (23) (01) 24 (15) Summer Camp - Two Chords (08) (10) 25 (31) Elbow Fly Boy Blue / Lunette (25) (03) 26 (22) David Bowie - Love Is Lost (Hello Steve Reich Remix) (02) (13) 27 (**) Danny Brown feat. Purity Ring - 25 Bucks (27) (01) 28 (35) Wild Beasts - Wanderlust (28) (02) 29 (19) London Grammar - Nightcall (09) (08) 30 (**) Bombay Bicycle Club - Luna (30) (01)
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Post by Maximo Mark on Jan 7, 2014 19:48:03 GMT 1
League 2 vs. Premier League, two form teams, manager against his former club who he had great success and failure with, but why show Southend vs Hull when you can show Chelsea - Stoke?!
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Post by Maximo Mark on Jan 3, 2014 19:04:51 GMT 1
It's hard to imagine either Ipswich or Leeds finishing in the top 6 to be honest, I'm far more worried about teams behind them taking our spot in the play-offs, particularly Brighton and Wigan, but there's no reason new managers at Watford and Boro can't inspire a top 6 push. Reading and Blackburn have the potential to too.
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Post by Maximo Mark on Dec 23, 2013 21:38:07 GMT 1
West Brom have been really poor this year, they've averaged less than a point per game in 2013, and although they finished in their highest ever position last year it was a pretty low points tally to do it, they still lost almost half of their games and were only a point closer to the team above them than they were to relegation. Was no real surprise that he went.
I hope Spurs go for Sherwood, it could be hilarious.
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Post by Maximo Mark on Dec 19, 2013 20:45:15 GMT 1
Brilliant winner. Will never get the love for X&Y though, for me a long way behind the rest of their albums, well until they released their last one!
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Post by Maximo Mark on Dec 18, 2013 21:46:09 GMT 1
Oooh Body Talk, simply the best pop album I've ever heard. Robyn was very patchy but Body Talk is consistent throughout, even those left off the final version were better than most of the previous album!
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Post by Maximo Mark on Dec 18, 2013 21:45:00 GMT 1
I couldn't disagree with you regarding Hard-Fi, they've definitely not aged well!
Good to see over half of my points still to come.
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Post by Maximo Mark on Dec 11, 2013 21:06:39 GMT 1
This will make it 41 consecutive Man Utd FA Cup matches on live TV! 8th January 2005 was the last time a Man Utd FA Cup match wasn't on TV, 0-0 at home to Exeter.
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Post by Maximo Mark on Dec 8, 2013 22:03:22 GMT 1
Oh Man Utd will definitely be on. I'd say that, the Chelsea and Arsenal games are definite.
The other two will come from these:
Blackburn V Man City Everton V QPR Middlesbrough V Hull Newcastle V Cardiff Nottm Forest V West Ham Rochdale V Leeds Southampton V Burnley
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Post by Maximo Mark on Dec 6, 2013 19:09:17 GMT 1
Uruguay really aren't much cop and shouldn't be anywhere near seeding. They were my 2nd preferred seed to get after Switzerland, thought it would've been nice to not have Italy I don't think it's that bad a group at all, before the European teams were drawn I'd have said it was better than A, B or G and on par with C.
As for location, yes one is in a sh*t location but it's at 22:00, not at 13:00 when some matches there will be played, it's not like Italy are a team that'll be used to it, and the other two games are at locations which are very near to where we're staying.
Overall, not great but nowhere near the disaster it's being made out to be.
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Post by Maximo Mark on Nov 23, 2013 21:29:06 GMT 1
01 (02) Public Service Broadcasting - Night Mail (01) (07) (1 week) 02 (01) Arcade Fire - Reflektor (01) (09) (4 weeks) 03 (10) Ejecta - Afraid of the Dark (03) (04) 04 (05) MTNS - Lost Track of Time (05) (06) 05 (06) Joe Goddard - Taking Over (05) (06) 06 (04) Jon Hopkins feat. Purity Ring - Breathe This Air (02) (11) 07 (08) Wolf Alice - She (07) (05) 08 (03) Julio Bashmore feat. Jessie Ware - Peppermint (03) (07) 09 (14) Luke Sital-Singh - Nothing Stays The Same (09) (03) 10 (21) The Juan Maclean - Feel Like Movin' (10) (02)
11 (13) Pins - Girls Like Us (11) (05) 12 (07) M.I.A. - Come Walk With Me (06) (10) 13 (18) Emika - She Beats (13) (05) 14 (09) Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip - Stunner (04) (09) 15 (11) Joel Baker - Further Than Feelings (11) (06) 16 (23) Henry Krinkle - Stay (16) (03) 17 (12) St. Lucia - Elevate (01) (14) (5 weeks) 18 (26) David Bowie - Love Is Lost (Hello Steve Reich Remix) (18) (02) 19 (16) San Cisco - Beach (16) (04) 20 (25) James Blake - Life Round Here (20) (04)
21 (28) Tourist - Together (21) (04) 22 (15) Volcano Choir - Comrade (09) (10) 23 (32) Thumpers - Sound of Screams (23) (03) 24 (**) NoNoNo - Pumpin Blood (24) (01) 25 (19) Arctic Monkeys - Do I Wanna Know? (01) (20) (7 weeks) 26 (36) HAERTS - Hemiplegia (26) (02) 27 (31) No Ceremony - PartOfMe (27) (03) 28 (**) Josh Record - Bones (28) (01) 29 (17) Flight Facilities feat. Christine Hoberg - Clair De Lune (02) (11) 30 (34) Outfit - Two Islands (30) (02)
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Post by Maximo Mark on Nov 23, 2013 11:43:46 GMT 1
I saw yesterday that France are in the pot with African and SA teams due to being the lowest ranked European team.
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Post by Maximo Mark on Nov 9, 2013 11:52:30 GMT 1
BT are paying far too much money for this to ever be sustainable. All they've done is hugely drive up the price of TV rights which means the cost of subscriptions will only rise as they try to cover huge losses, but customers will have to pay twice for what they used to be able to get under one subscription so they can't afford to raise prices too much, so won't be able to cover the outlay. The prices BT are paying for football have been a massive gamble, I personally don't think it'll pay off.
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Post by Maximo Mark on Oct 27, 2013 19:47:37 GMT 1
It didn't surprise me today that Sunderland started only two of Di Canio's signings and won. I just don't see how the scattergun appraoch to transfers that he (and Holloway) took this summer can ever work. I'm not at all surprised to see those two rooted to the bottom of the table.
Still, I'm glad they won and Palace looked far better against Arsenal than they had been, I was getting worried that the bottom two were so awful they might take Derby's record of 11 points.
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Post by Maximo Mark on Oct 17, 2013 19:33:14 GMT 1
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Post by Maximo Mark on Oct 17, 2013 19:26:18 GMT 1
Assuming Uruguay qualify I'd guess the pots would look like this:
Pot A: Brazil, Spain, Germany, Argentina, Belgium, Switzerland, Colombia, Uruguay
Pot B: European qualifiers
Pot C: The European country not drawn from Pot B, Chile, Ecuador + 5 African qualifiers
Pot D: 4 Asian qualifiers, 3 North American Qualifiers + New Z/Mexico play-off winner
So, Switzerland, Algeria and Honduras? Or Brazil, Ivory Coast & Japan?
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Post by Maximo Mark on Oct 16, 2013 18:54:29 GMT 1
To be in Pot two would be so bad, imagine being drawn with Brazil! Anyhoo, the hype I was referring to, was the Press! England certainly won't be in the seeded pot; it's done entirely on world rankings, and we're 17th at the moment. I'm a bit surprised Belgium are so high, tbh; they'll be dark horses if they get a good draw. It looks like we'll be moving up to about 10th after the last two results but it won't be enough. The seeds will be Brazil, Spain, Germany, Argentina, Belgium, Colombia, Switzerland and Uruguay/Holland (depending on the Uruguay vs Jordan play-off). If Uruguay win there will have to be some form of special pot as there will be 9 European teams left. To be fair to Belgium (and Switzerland) they've come through qualifying unbeaten and have been backed up by decent friendly results. Belgium have lost 1 of 15 matches since Euro 2012, and Switzerland 0 of 14. England have also only lost 1 of 15 but have 6 draws compared to Belgium's 3. Netherlands have their appalling Euro 2012 in there and have been playing friendlies against the likes of China and Indonesia recently. Italy's recent friendly records is won 1 (vs. San Marino), drawn 3, lost 3.
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Post by Maximo Mark on Oct 12, 2013 10:16:56 GMT 1
I remember having some opposition here last year when I said Belgium and Switzerland were easily the best teams who weren't at Euro 2012, so it's good to see them both qualify with a game to spare.
Very pleased with England last night, and shocked at how Townsend plays. He was a completely different player to the one he is a Tottenham, where his standard trick is to cut inside and blast a shot somewhere into the stand, yet last night he seemed far more disciplined and the majority of the time he did cut inside and I thought 'oh here we go' he seemed to try and pick out a team mate.
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