The official Footy thread.

[jacksmith1983]

I didn't watch it but it sounds like I missed a real cracker of a game. However, if reports I'm reading are true, namely that Owen got the winner in the 96th minute after only four minutes of injury time had been flagged on the board then City do have a right to feel somewhat narked. However, as I cannot fucking stand Manchester City, their cocky supporters, "madferit" celebrity fans or money jaded players I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. Personally I think Craig Bellamy is generally overrated, lazy and unproductive (hence why he lasted one season with us) but it seems he was well up for this match.

For me the greatest Premier League match ever still remains Liverpool's 4-3 win over Newcastle towards the end of the 1995/96 season. The look on Keegan's face when Stan Collymore struck home the winning goal was a priceless moment, even if we were inadvertantly doing bloody Man Utd a good turn. Another classic match I'll never forget is Liverpool's 3-3 draw against Man Utd in the 1993/94 season where we came back from 3-0 down. Remember that game cloud? Incase you need your mermory jogging Neil Ruddock headed home our late equaliser and knocked himself almost unconscious in the process. Classic stuff!

I was pleased with our 3-2 win over West Ham yesterday. Great game and to give West Ham their due they really did give their all in order to peg us back twice. However, Benitez's questionable decision to bring off Dirk Kuyt who was playing well and bring on Ryan Babel (who laid on the winner for Torres on a plate) proved inspired. At the end of the day our superior quality eventually proved too much for West Ham and we got the winner. Plus we didn't need bottomless injury time to do it either.

After a shaky start to our season we're managing to both win games emphatically and also squeeze out a result when other teams run us close and give us their best. I'm pleased with how things are going at present, but if anything happened to one of the indispensible trio of Gerrard, Torres or Kuyt we'd have a problem. So fingers crossed...

[cloud]

Smitsmonster, whatever you do be sure to check out MOTD tonight, that really was a breathtaking game of football played at 100 miles per hour. Given all the hype I really expected an anti-climax (i.e. our 2-0 win in this fixture last season where City didn't turn up for once) but as I said in my previous post it was epic.

The Owen goal did come late, I was too busy celebrating to be honest but I could swear it was in the 95th minute not 96, there were a minimum 4 minutes of injury time signalled but bear in mind Bellendamy's long celebrations when he made it 3-3 in the 90th minute then Michael Carrick came on for Anderson. After Owen finished celebrating the winner there were 96 minutes on the clock so I think the timing was just about right. As I say though once Owen slotted in the winner my mind went hazy so I can't say for definite and I don't care, we won and as you say, it's only City it couldn't happen to a nicer club. Overall we deserved the win and if anything 4-3 flattered City, they worked hard and showed some glimpses of quality but like against Arsenal all of their goals came against the run of play and were the result of 2 very glaring individual errors by Ben Foster and Rio Ferdinand. Take Shay Given's heroics out of the equation and it would give a better reflection of how much work City still have to do to mix with the big boys.

Having consecutively beaten Arsenal, Spurs and City as well as that hard fought win against Besiktas in Europe I am very pleased with our form and what the fuck is Mark Hughes smoking saying we're playing worse without Ronaldo? Last season at this stage we had scored about 6 goals compared to 15 now and had accumulated something like 10 points instead of the 15 we now have. Of course we're weaker on paper but as a team we're looking more compact and can mix it up more now.

I didn't see Liverpool's game yesterday because I'm having problems with BT Vision as usual. I did check the half time score and I had a feeling Liverpool would nick a lateish winner. As frustrating as it is I must concede that as far as grinding down the opposition Liverpool are getting to around the same stage as Chelsea now. Will those 2 early losses come back to haunt you though? I don't know but I don't think it's unreasonable to say that you're in need of some comfortable wins or else energy levels are going to drop, quite simply you can't keep grinding out 3-2 wins each week. Are Liverpool missing Alvero Arbeloa? We all know Johnson is a glorified winger and last season with Carragher in better form and Arbeloa adding extra steel you were hard to score against, now I'm not so sure.

And I do indeed remember those games against Newcastle and the 3-3 vs Utd. The 3-3 was a major disappointment but I'll forever be indebted to your 'Spice Boys' for not only a great game against Newcastle but for helping us overturn that 12 point defecit we faced at Christmas 1995. Do you remember the eventual Kevin Keegan rant shortly before we wrapped up the league title that year?

[zanner]

Bloody lucky MAN U again, how come they always have extra time on extra time when playing at home. Ref backhander springs to mind.

[cloud]

Bloody lucky MAN U again, how come they always have extra time on extra time when playing at home. Ref backhander springs to mind.

Eh? Did you see the game, zanner? If so how on earth can you say 'MAN U' were lucky? We fucking murdered them!

[zanner]

Yes I saw it all, I'm just saying it's not the first time this has happened.

[cloud]

I listened to Fergie's post-match comments annoyed that we were in a position where we relied on a late late winner and that pretty much echoes my thoughts on it because as he said "it could have been 6-0 to Utd in the end" and he was right. Thinking about it I've found it was 95 minutes and 28 seconds when Owen scored, there was a minimum of 4 minutes + Bellendamy's 45 second celebration + the Anderson/Carrick switch so mathematically the officials got it right - just.

I know how frustrating it is when you want a team to win and they lose to a last gasp goal, Liverpool and Chelsea inflict that on their opponents just as much if not more than Utd do. I also think Liverpool and Chelsea get more decisions go in their favour than we do. Football is swings and roundabouts if you ask me, we've had some awful decisions go against us at times but I think City's fans are just making a big thing over this late winner to hide their embarrassment at being outplayed in a game they've arrogantly claimed they'd win for weeks now. I thought justice was served because when they got that 90th minute equaliser I for one was absolutely furious that 3 stupid errors at the back and some heroics at the other end spoiled what was a vintage performance.

I'm sorry zanner, but you can't begrudge Utd this win, City were much inferior.

[christats]

Not meaning to rain on Man.Utd's parade but it does happen that a team is outclassed and still can draw and even win.

When there is the special Man.Utd extra time clock then it is a bigger task.One that seemed to last a couple of minutes longer than it should have.

It would have been interesting to see how loud the Man.Utd management and fans would have shaken their rattles in the prams had it been City had sneaked a winner in extra extra time.

I'm not having a go at any supporters in particular because Chelsea fans/players are just as bad.

[cloud]

Of course teams draw and win games when not playing as well as the opposition, I didn't argue on the contrary. This whole conspiracy about Utd having the ref's in their pocket is as laughable as it is pathetic, really those who are saying this should listen to themselves. If Utd do have the officials on their payroll then I dread to think of how much Liverpool and Chelsea are paying them.

You make an interesting point however, I mean let's see, both teams had 11 men, City had just scored and undeservedly pulled it back to 3-3 so it was very much advantage City. As they're the self proclaimed 'biggest club in the world' surely they would have been glad to see all that added time, no? They already had the game won before their players had entered the pitch apparently so if City had made it 4-3 would they be kicking up a fuss? Would they hell. It's just sour grapes, that's all it is and rather than discuss an excellent Utd performance won in spite of some awful uncharacteristic individual errors we're talking about total garbage instead. Let's forget that it was an even playing surface for both teams, let's forget how Utd played 'the world's biggest club' off the park and let's forget that brilliant bit of vision by Ryan Giggs to pick out Michael Owen for the winning goal.

It wasn't bad time keeping that lost City this game it was piss poor defending and excellent attacking play by Utd. I think rather than throw tantrums over the odd second of added time they should really start questioning if throwing £40 million away on Joleon Lescott and Kolo Toure was worth it. I think I have a better sense of positioning than those two!

[jacksmith1983]

And I do indeed remember those games against Newcastle and the 3-3 vs Utd. The 3-3 was a major disappointment but I'll forever be indebted to your 'Spice Boys' for not only a great game against Newcastle but for helping us overturn that 12 point defecit we faced at Christmas 1995. Do you remember the eventual Kevin Keegan rant shortly before we wrapped up the league title that year?

I don't think anyone who's seen it will ever forget that interview. Keegan as a manager was a good tactician, astute in the transfer market and a good motivator, however all of that is underminded by the fact that he was a complete and utter flake when placed under any sort of real pressure. Newcastle, England, Manchester City and Newcastle again. Always the same story. Whenever Keegan takes over as manager at any club you just know it's all going to end with a lip-trembling, teary-eyed televised resignation.

To be honest I think Keegan is second only to Steve McClaren when it comes to worst England managers of all-time. For all he did wrong Graham Taylor at least had the excuse that much of the talent pool he was able to pick from were past it (Gary Lineker, John Barnes), great but always injured (Gazza, Rob Jones) or nowhere near good enough (Carlton Palmer, Keith Curle, Tony Dorigo, Andy Sinton, David Bardsley, Earl Barrett, etc). What excuse did Keegan have in Euro 2000?

[loops]

Pleased to see UTD beat Citeh yesterday. Never saw the whole game just the higlights on MOTD2. But From what i saw United were the better team and like Ferguson said it could have 5 or 6. Mark Hughes can moan about the added time all he wants but the ref got it right.


Everton had a good result yesterday. Louis Saha is on form this season and if we can keep him fit there's no reason why we cant be challenging the top 5 (where we belong).

[cloud]

I thought Keegan did a good job at Fulham even though he was given a fortune by a certain wealthy owner there and at least at Newcastle he can be associated with their good times back in the mid-90s. That apart you're right he just can't handle pressure and the England job like with Steve McClaren was a disaster waiting to happen. I thought Glenn Hoddle was unfortunate to lose his job as he wasn't doing that bad a job and certainly had more tactical nous, switching the two was an odd move but at least we improved under Mr. Eriksson who again received unfair flak, he wasn't the tactical genius the Italians made him out to be but at least he was competent.

Loops, for a scouser you sure speak sense. I think those whinging are simply clutching at straws, 4-3 should have been 6-1 in reality but that's football for you.

Check out Fergie and Gary Neville celebrating, I fucking love those two!



I agree about Louis Saha, he's a quality player who when fit put in some excellent performances for us with a top quality goals to games ratio. Unfortunately with fighting on all fronts we needed someone who could give us more games and it certainly wasn't for footballing reasons why he was sold. If he can stay fit then that's a huge boost for Everton because he'll easily give you 20+ goals per season.

[christats]

Of course teams draw and win games when not playing as well as the opposition, I didn't argue on the contrary. This whole conspiracy about Utd having the ref's in their pocket is as laughable as it is pathetic,

It wasn't bad time keeping that lost City this game it was piss poor defending and excellent attacking play by Utd. I think rather than throw tantrums over the odd second of added time they should really start questioning if throwing £40 million away on Joleon Lescott and Kolo Toure was worth it. I think I have a better sense of positioning than those two!

I don't claim that Man.Utd have the ref in their pocket.No moreso than Chelsea,Liverpool and Arsenal.
I didn't care who won the Manc derby as I don't like either team.
The bias towards big teams is possibly in our heads.
Then again games I have seen were decisions go either with the higher status or home team have been frequent.

The main bugbear I have is the increased amount of time added on,i.e Tottenham had a couple of bad injuries.Did their match get extended by 7 mins.
No,which was probably a good thing for them.
Diving and cheating also is very annoying.
As for bad defending,both City and Utd were guilty.Just that Utd have the luck of the Germans,sorry I mean never give up attitude.

[cloud]

Oh damn it, YouTube has removed Fergie and Neville's dance .

Fair enough christats, however just one thing... Utd defended badly, Bellendamy's first goal was class (even if the ball was carelessly given away in the build up to it) but apart from that I don't think our backline was consistently bad. Evra and Vidic had decent games, O'Shea was also so-so but the two players who both had 'mares were Ben Foster and Rio Ferdinand, apart from those 2 suicidal moments when City scored and failing to track Tevez's run at the end of the first half I didn't think they had that much work to do really. Throughout the whole game Foster made just one save compared to the many Shay Given had to make. City's whole defence was a shambles and Ryan Giggs especially tormented them throughout, I think any neutral who watched the game is agreeing that Utd were on a different planet to City.

City should be happy though, they're making progress and in the near future maybe Fergie will have to take them seriously. In the meantime their job is to get 4th spot and Champions League football, maybe then they'll attract the John Terrys, Kakas and the Ashley Coles instead of the Lescotts, Bridges and Bellendamys of this world.

Finally on the subject of a certain Craig Bellamy, so much for him cleaning his image up. That slap on the fan who came onto the pitch was cowardly, I noticed he waited for the stewards to have full control of him (restricting his arm movement) before running over and taking a cheapshot. He then shit himself when Rio Ferdinand squared up to him. City aren't a popular club as a rule but the attitude of their players is worrying with Tevez, Adebayor and now Bellamy behaving so petulantly. I see another suspension coming...

[Tim Rogerson]

Guys

There's a hilarious YouTube video out which, using footage from Downfall, re-invents Hitler as the Man City manager being told of Owen's late 96m winner. Well worth watching.

[jacksmith1983]

Wow, this thread has been a tad quiet as of late...

Well quite a Saturday again in the good old Premiership with Man Utd snatching what most pundits feel was a totally undeserved point against a Sunderland side who by all accounts played out of their skins today. I feel sorry for Sunderland, letting a scalp like Man Utd go thanks to a freak own goal at the death must be very hard to take, however Man Utd are surely going to be concerned that a presumed mid-table side succeded in getting the better of them for the most part. They'll have to view this as two points dropped.

Looking forward to tomorrows game with Chelsea and to be honest I'm confident we'll get the three points. Yes we were lacking in the CL in the week but anyone who follows Serie A will tell you that Fiorentina are a class act who have rebounded in recent years after falling on hard times awhile back. At any rate I think we'll be hungry to bounce back after that.

[cloud]

Well I didn't see the game but a 2-0 loss for Liverpool today was quite something on paper. I expected and hoped for a draw but it wasn't to be. I can't believe Liverpool have now lost 3 times already this season - as well as that loss in the Champions League which was meaningless anyway as they'll still qualify I'm sure.

Yesterday's game was strange, in terms of on-field events it was one of the most bizarre games I've seen in some time. Utd were poor, Rooney had his worst game in years, Scholes suddenly forgot how to pick out a piss, Fletcher suddenly lost his energy and fight, Nani was just being typical Nani, Welbeck looked out of his depth and the whole defence looked shaky thanks mostly to Ben Foster's poor decision making. I lost count of the times the ball was needlessly given away, I saw 9 individual bad performers for us and collectively there was nothing happening for most of the game. Add Utd's bad performance (with only Evra, Anderson, Valencia, Carrick and Berbatov finishing the game with any real credit) to Sunderland playing out of their skin as they so often do against us and you'd think we barely deserved a point but yet somehow I can't help but be disappointed by that as overall it was the minimum we deserved. Take out Ben Foster's incompetence who was at fault for both goals and didn't look comfortable all afternoon and we'd have been talking about a poor Utd performance but a narrow win all the same. Utd seldom play convincingly after European nights and the players looked tired all afternoon, having been made to work hard for that 2-1 win over Wolfsburg it was to be expected really. However, Sunderland were fresher but which team had 2 or 3 players suffering from cramp at the end?

Overall I think it was a point gained but 2 dropped and the big lesson from yesterday was that Ben Foster's had it at Utd, he's not been convincing all season and that was his 4th poor performance of the season. Edwin van der Sar ain't perfect but at least he's consistent and doesn't cost us many goals, Foster has already cost us 8 goals through his errors, we've got away with up until now but if it persists I think we'll be in deep shit. I have a funny feeling that we won't see Foster playing for Utd again, at least not in the Premier League, time will tell though but sooner or later Fergie has got to make a decision.

[jacksmith1983]

I can't believe we've already lost three times in the league this season either and the worst thing is that if I'm honest in all three games we thoroughly deserved to lose into the bargain. Two more losses this side of Christmas and I think we'll be effectively out of the title race and really even then now a gap is being established we need to win against the other top sides. Today was a bitter disappointment as despite the Fiorentina result I still felt we had turned a corner following a few good battling and comprehensive wins at home and on our travels. I've always had 100% confidence in Benitez, but if we do find ourselves out of the title race early this season I think people higher up are going to have to consider if he's not in the place Gerard Houllier was at half a decade ago where he'd took the club forward over the course of his manaherial tenure but didn't seem likely to take us any further. If that happens I think it will be time for a change at the top as settling for decent domestic and European cup runs whilst scrapping for the fourth Champions League spot is a step back in all honesty. Glen Johnson already looks like a £18,000,000 white elephant and opposition front lines must rub their hands with glee when they see his name on the team sheet. It defies belief that Benitez spent so much on him. I'd rather have seen us retain the services of Arbeloa, who is a better all-round player anyway, so we could have spent the money on a good quality partner or cover player for Torres. Too late now though and if this season does go pear shaped for us before the festive break I think some important people are going to hold that particular decision to close scrutiny.

[zanner]

Another lucky extra time goal for MAN U aginst SUNDERLAND, and again at old Trafford, beggars belief really

[cloud]

Why does it bother you when Utd score or even how they perform? It's not like we're Nottingham Forest's rivals is it? Also Utd's training programme is designed to give our players that extra bit of sharpness over our rivals because of having to fight on all fronts so it stands to reason that we will score late goals against tiring opposition players. And as I said before, take out calamity Ben Foster and Utd would have won against Sunderland so you're not the only one who's frustrated because we deserved more than what we got and yet that was with 9 underperforming players - just underlines how strong Utd are imo. Luck? I don't think so.

Smits, as you know I'm no fan of Benitez, however I do think you sounded a bit defeatist there. Utd once overcame a 12 point midway barrier to win in '96 and in our Euro and domestic double win in '08 we got off to the worst start in Premier League history. I think you'll drop more points before January with games against Utd, Arsenal and City still to come as well as other banana skin ties. But I can see the league going down to the final few weeks and while I can see the final day being contested by Utd and Chelsea I still think for the most part Liverpool will be there or thereabouts.

I notice Benitez is apparently getting £12 million to spend this January, I dunno where Hicks and Gillett keep securing these funds from because one minute they're broke and the next they've been buttered up by Benitez to give him more. I agree with what they say about Benitez though and if only Fergie got the same backing from the tight arse Glazer family. Is it their fault that the vast sums of money they've given Benitez to spend has mostly been wasted? Is it their fault that instead of spending his £20 million summer kitty wisely he used it on an inferior right back to what he already had instead of a striker or winger? And why spend so much on Alberto Aquillani when his injury record is worse than Owen Hargreaves? Benitez underlined his bad man-management by losing Xabi Alonso when he was one of your best players and as I expected - if anyone could have fucked up the Gareth Barry transfer it was Mr. Benitez!

[zanner]

A massive ref backhander springs to mind