Football discussion

The_Axe_Emperor wrote:

Anfields5thKing wrote:

hendos_right_hook wrote:In other news, McClaren is in contention for the England job. Any thoughts?

I saw this early but didn't read it.

He failed at it once, I hardly think one good season in the Dutch league changes anything. And he's not impressing at all at Wolfsburg having sold their best player and replaced him with a lesser version at twice the price.

Who was their best player? They haven't sold Edin Dzeko..?

Edin Dzeko is an excellent striker and one of the best goalscorers in world football, but he was not their best player. Zvjezdan Misimović was their best player and the key to the title they won. Arguably the best assist-man in Europe over the past few year. Incredible vision and technique. He's the reason Dzeko has scored so many for club and country.

Good night of international football coming up. Who've you all got?


Big games;

Faroe Islands v Northern Ireland, GpC, 16:00

Kazakhstan v Germany, GpA, 18:00

Netherlands v Sweden, GpE, 19:30

Slovakia v Rep of Ireland, GpB, 19:30

Switzerland v Wales, GpG, 19:30

Italy v Serbia, GpC, 19:50

England v Montenegro, GpG, 20:00

France v Luxembourg, GpD, 20:00

Scotland v Spain, GpI, 20:00

Iceland v Portugal, GpH, 20:45






Can't wait til the England game, anything lower than a 2 goal lead at the final whistle will be a disappointment.

Ferdinand is back as captain

The Scotlan... sorry, the Spain game should be fun

scotland will get pounded i think, hope im wrong though. england should have a good night even with a few players missing,

The_Axe_Emperor wrote:The Scotlan... sorry, the Spain game should be fun

Scotland are going gung ho, we are playing with one forward. It surely can't get any worse than the Czech game though. Playing a 4-6-0 formation away to a side who have just lost to Lithuania is a bad state of affairs.

A respectful 3-2 defeat to the World and European Champions, Spain were releived to get away with that one. If only we'd played like that against the Czechs...

I did have a good laugh at England's result though.

I admit England were terrible, but your options really are limited when a team comes to defend for the whole game, and has 11 men behind the ball from the kick off.

axe it was bad from england should have enough quality to put them away they even had there best player out by the sounds of it.

Yeah like i said it was bad from England, but there wasn't much they could have actually done against those hacking bastards tonight. All they did was chop players down and when they weren't doing that they were just defending. Gotta admit i thought we were fucked when that guy let rip against the crossbar at the end


Anyway its not the end of the world, we're still on track to qualify and be crowned European champs



Side note: It was very disappointing to see England players diving tonight, sometimes i wish the commentators would stop defending them by saying shit like "Oh well he was just trying to avoid contact!" and the like, HE DIVED, WE ALL SEEN IT, JUST ADMIT IT TOWNSEND!

iv been on this band wagon since 1994 and know that this england squad is not good enough. i have never been let down like the last world cup and refuse to belive that capello will deliver in the euros. god i wish i was welsh so i could just be used to losing at football.

Mate, I was joking, I know we ain't gonna win shit anytime soon, but hey, I'm a football fan and therefore I live off optimism




Another thing that caught my eye was the shameful seens in Genoa, absolutely no place for that in the modern game, Serbia should be kicked out of the whole competition.

the serbians have had history with i italians for a while now.

i know you were only joking i wasnt taking a pop. but how often do we expect from the golden genertation and how much longer they gonna play on for as we have obody coming through.

why defoe, adam johnson and ashley young dont get places more often beggers beleif. also i think our so called golden generation is only picked because of their names.

Liverpool are reeling!

unbelievable whats going on at liverpool 2nd bottom. wtf?

Our season will start with our next game. New owners are just settling in, finding their feet. Hodgson will get 2 more games to figure it out, if not he's sacked. We'll finish mid-table and rebuild in the summer. It's what was always going to happen, regardless of who the manager is.

I dont buy all this new owners gona turn things round shit.

Surely when the players take to the field all the things going on behind the scenes are put to the back of there mind?

Also its gona be interesting to see how much rebuilding is done this summer, can you honestly say Torres will want to stick around after a mid table finish and another year in the Mickey Mouse europa league?

I hope Torres is sold to be honest. 50million is the minimum we'd get for him and we could buy two top end strikers for that money. Torres is great but he's injury prone.

To be honest, I'd rather see us rebuild using young English talent and with a view to long term success. Sell Torres, sell Johnson, sell Lucas, sell Aquilani. Buy players like Delfouneso from Villa, Shawcross from Stoke, Sturridge from Chelski, Bostock from Spurs, Wickham from Ipswich.

Line up for next season:

-----------------------------Reina------------------------

Kelly--------Shawcross------------Agger--------Wilson

---------------Gerrard---------Meireles--------------

-------------------------Cole------------------------

-------Delfouneso-------------------Sturridge--------

-------------------------Kuyt------------------------


Playing a style similar to what the Germans played in the world cup where they used two strikers, Muller and Podolski, in the wide positions as support to a main striker, Klose, and Ozil in a free role a bit deeper as the creative spark. Kuyt would be ideal for this system in the short term, he's a hard worker, great link-up player, holds the ball up well and will get his share of goals. Wickham is probably a year or so away from being able to start at Prem level so Kuyt would just be keeping the spot warm for him. I think Wickham is going to amazing and is exactly what England have been crying out for since Shearer retired(Dean Ashton might have filled the void if he'd not been cursed). In Shelvey we have Gerrard's successor and Bostock would be the ideal player to take over from Cole(well, Jack Wilshire would but I'm going to assume Arsenal won't sell him and I think Josh McEachran is the future of Chelski so they prob won't sell him). It's a team that, in my opinion, could compete now and for many years to come.


If you knew anything about what was going on at the club over the last 12 months then perhaps you'd be better placed to understand. It's been chaos and the key players(Torres, Gerrard, Reina, Carragher) have all been affected because they've not known where their futures lay, where the future of the club lay or whether they would ever play for a club capable of challenging for honours again.

No doubt you need to get rid of alot of the players you've mentioned there mate. Dont often see many liverpool fans not having Carragher in there starting 11.

I'm gona be honest here and I no you'll disagree with me but Joe Cole really isn't the answer. I think he looks decent in a team that dominates games like Chelsea can. But with your midfield being so poor and him not seeing as much of the ball he's just going to become more and more like a spare part. The thing Liverpool have lacked for years is real (quality) width and he wont offer you that playing on the left

You've still not replaced Xavi Alonso which is a massive mistake, dont get me wrong £30mil for him was good business but the way he used to keep things ticking over in games was a joy to watch at times.

Kuyt..... well the least said about him the better. Not good enough to lead the line, not clever enough to play behind the main striker and doesn't provide any decent service when he plays wide.

He's more than good enough to lead the line to be fair to him. He's not a right winger, and he can't play the support role but he's 10 goals and 10 assists every season and with the right supply, he can score 15 a season which is what we need.

We haven't replaced Alonso. True. But we've changed style and Gerrard can play central midfield and be more effective than Xabi. He doesn't have Alonso's passing but he's much better allround. Meireles is the perfect partner for Gerrard I believe. £30million was a poor deal considering what we were offered by Real. We turned down an offer of Robben and Sneijder. Then an offer of Robben, Granero, Garay and £5million. Ridiculous. Rafa fucked that deal up completely.

Meireles and Gerrard are a match for anyone. No question. I think if we can get those two playing well, with a solid defence behind them(one not containing Glen fucking Johnson) and a fluid attack in front, I think we'll be able to dominate teams. Cole will suit that style for me. I think he's only a short-term fix. As i said above, John Bostock(or Josh McEachran) would be ideal to replace him but too young right now.

I love Carra, but he's had his best days. Ideal as a player-coach, helping the younger players and filling in when needed but he's done as a starter IMO.

We will never agree on Kuyt mate. I just dont rate him. Think he's shit. Yes he will run his bollocks off for you but then again so does Kevin Davis.

The problem with having Gerard playing so deep is that you seem to run out of ideas when you attack teams. Know real suprise torres is finding it hard to come into form, him and Gerard have a great understanding and i think he's missing the link up play he gets with Gerard. I know he's still not 100% fit so maybe give him a few more weeks.

Meireles and another player in the middle who can collect the ball off the back four and make something happen your after imo. What the fuck Lucas offers you I dont know.

Carragher is a liability at the back, his lack of pace is shocking at this level. Hyypia was a good example of someone who didnt need pace to play at the back but Carra is well past it. Shawcross aint a bad shout tho

Sami Hyypia was so over-rated it was criminal. Carragher was one of the best centrebacks in Europe for a few years and carried Sami for most of their time together. Before Carra, Henchoz carried him.

I think Gerrard is best suited to that deeper role, it's up to the others to match his standard. He's not creative enough to play in the hole. His best position is wide-right in a 4-4-2 but that formation doesn't really work anymore.

Lucas is an average player, decent squad player. Nothing more.

Kuyt number's for every season except last year, are better than Wayne Rooney's. Yet Kuyt gets called shit and Rooney is a world class player apparently. So strange. Kuyt is a good striker. He should be played where he belongs.

Sir Alex Ferguson has revealed Wayne Rooney wants to quit Manchester United.


The Old Trafford boss admitted he was "shocked" and "disappointed" to hear the news but said he had not fallen out with the 24-year-old England striker.

"We are as bemused as anyone can be, we can't quite understand why he would want to leave," said the Scot.

Ferguson said the "door is still open" for Rooney, who will miss Wednesday's Champions League game with Bursaspor after being carried off in training.

The forward suffered minor ankle damage at the end of the session and will sit out the European tie at Old Trafford.

Rooney's future has been the subject of intense speculation over the last few days following reports that he was not prepared to sign a new contract.

His current deal is due to finish at the end of the 2011/12 campaign.

If he does leave then Everton would be in line to scoop a small fortune. The Toffees have a sell-on clause in Rooney's contract which states that they would get 25% of any excess sum over the £27m United eventually paid for the striker.


== ==


Goodbye Rooney. Would be a massive loss for United, who will he go to? Madrid it looks like?

yeh rooney also says city are more likely destination that barcelona or madrid.

Don't think he'd get in the team at Madrid, or Barca.

Rooney to City in a swap for Tevez?

I think Chelski will be his destination personally.

Well the Madrid game has just finished and they absolutely battered Milan. He could get into the Madrid team if he got back on form, Higuain was poor tonight and Benzema is off form too. It would be a good move for his as him and Ronaldo have great chemistry on the pitch.


Also i can't see him going to City, and especially not in a swap for Tevez. Tevez is in great form and of course hes the captain, City will be reluctant to sell.

Higuain is much better at leading the line than Rooney. Rooney's a better player but he's not as good as a centre-forward. He wouldn't get into the Madrid team. Higuain and Ronaldo upfront, Kaka/Di Maria and Ozil in the attacking midfield roles.

Rooney and Ronaldo together were over-rated. They couldn't play upfront together and as a result Rooney ended up wide left for United. He wouldn't get picked ahead of Kaka or Di Maria in a wide role.

Tevez wants to leave City, he doesn't like Mancini at all. Ideal move to swap them.