I didn't know Stoke's ground was in the middle of an industrial estate but with the context of the last ten or so years it couldn't really be anywhere else.
I didn't know Stoke's ground was in the middle of an industrial estate but with the context of the last ten or so years it couldn't really be anywhere else.
Save.
Nice of us to mark no one at that corner.
Phil Jones showing his true self.
Is Lindelof really that shit?
I enjoyed my League One action this afternoon. Throughout the game there were heavy showers that came across and the Posh manager kept having to retreat into the dugout to preserve his cardigan. No such problems for hardy Stuart McCall, who was quite happy to have his refreshingly 80s barnet soaked on a regular basis. That also summed up the game which featured four goals from terrible set piece defending, two utterly brainless red cards, and one fight, during which the Bradford lot kept going YAWKSHUR YAWKSHUR as if people from other counties don't have fists.
A black man called Jermaine Anderson came on for Peterborough at half time, and a woman near us kept shouting 'nice one Leroy!' whenever he did anything semi-useful. I suppose it's a Brexit area.
The one player I knew was ex-Geordie Steven Taylor, who I'm afraid has gone from bombscare to full Helmand province and probably isn't good enough to be playing professionally anymore. Sad to see.
Not only does Stuart McCall have an eighties haircut, it's the same one he himself had in the eighties. He's basically been aging from the fringe down since about 1982.
Watching Romelu Lukaku score half as many goals as he should is already getting boring.
Mourinho not shaking Mark Hughes' hand. Mark will be absolutely raging.
Aye, I dunno what happened to Wor Steve. He got injured and then got shit... ter.
The tannoy man called him 'our rock at the back'. Geology clearly not his strong point.
I hate it when players you've seen at the top basically slum it when they're clearly cooked. Edgar Davids struggling at Barnet and Roy Keane looking limp at Celtic was quite harrowing to see.
Unfortunately for 'our rock at the back' his plight at the top was that block on the line.
Does anyone else have someone on their Facebook you keep to basically make yourself feel better about yourself as a person?
There's a Celtic fan who's a bit of a gimp who comments on everything discussing how Celtic are the best team in the world and the English premier league is shit. I don't think he understands irony or hypocrisy either because he basically contradicts himself every few days. It's glorious.
Also, that coquelin fall is incredible. RIP.
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WARNING: Massive image
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Maybe Clatters has read a part of the rules no one else has where it matters what a player's eyes are doing.
Just watching the highlights of the City game and Neville had an absolute shocker. He's kicked him in the face for fuck's sake.
Do other countries go on with as much faux outrage about fucking handshakes?
None more so than Henry's "he was reaching for the yellow first!" bullshit.
Can I say I've thoroughly enjoyed all the 'Liverpool losing 5-0 should be put into context' pieces whereas us losing 4-0 to them was a sign that we'd be in League 2 by 2020.
24,500 at the Hearts/Aberdeen game is some effort for a league game.
As was to be expected, their defence just got massively exposed once they came up against a competent attack. It's so, so risky and against a good team that translates to just straight up comedy.
People were praising that pass by De Bruyne for the first goal, but the defending was awful.
I reckon they'll get another few bummings this season whilst looking very good most of the time.
I've not seen the Mané thing, but it sounds to me a lot like that one where Nani got shafted against Madrid (albeit perhaps worse due to head involvement) for doing Di Maria whilst not really looking at him. It's understandable to give it, and I've heard differing opinions from non-partisan sources in real life and in the punditry world. Sounds like it fucked what was potentially a good game. I would say that I don't think "kicking someone in the head" is necessarily always a red card offence (I give you the infamous Lambert/Albertz old firm penalty incident in that game for the ages), and that, in the alternative, the 'dangerousness' (or seriousness) of something shouldn't be judged on consequences (ie if there is contact) seeing as that had been largely done away with in the other dangerous play areas - so a foot raised near a head shoud always be a red if it is apparently dangerous to do so (which would be a bullshit rule - for example should Bellerin have been sent off for raising his foot near Salah's head a few weeks ago? Obviously not).
I got called retarded for making that sort of argument at the time. You either have to say something is always dangerous and thus always a red, or it's not and never is. It shouldn't depend whether you get unlucky and someone happens to be in the way.
Having said that, I think the difference between yesterday and the Nani one is that (from what I remember) Nani really couldn't have known there was someone he was going to hit, whereas Mane would have to be completely and utterly blind not to have seen Ederson was there. Makes what Mane did a lot more irresponsible in my mind. As in, you can't always account for the fact someone might be near you but you don't know whilst you should account for someone who is in your direct eye line. I understand that's a difficult thing to police though.
I don't think I've explained what I mean very well but oh well.
Nani's one was a bit different because the ball was coming over Nani and toward whoever it was he booted in the chest while Mane was chasing a ball and had both it and the goalie in front of him. Mane's was a red. Not that he should be looking at increased suspensions or anything because he was clearly just after the ball but ultimately he's still kicked somebody in the head and can't have been far away from his eyes.
I didn't think Nani's was a red at the time but obviously I'm not impartial. If a high boot is automatically a red card for dangerous play then so be it.
He didn't get sent off for a high boot. He got sent for kicking the keeper in the face with a late, high boot. If there was nobody there then obviously it wouldn't have been dangerous, but, since there was, it was.
I really don't get all the wailing.
Do intentions really matter when that happens? As Ian said it's not that should get a further suspension or anything, but if that's not a red card then not many are.
Klopp's being managing us for two seasons now and that's the first and only bumming we've received so far. In fact generally we've been better against the big teams with their 'competent attacks'. Your comments seem based solely on yesterday's match, which we played the majority of with 10 men.
Not disagreeing that we're poor defensively, but it generally hasn't been an issue for us so far against the better teams. It has cost us hugely against lesser teams, though.
No, they can't defend, so going down to 10 whilst behind is a bit of a serious issue, but I suppose the argument would run that with Mané (or 11 players) they might have been able to attack and City wouldn't been as at liberty to completely dominate the game. Getting fisted isn't ideal, but it's still only a loss. As for 'competent attacks' finding Liverpool out, I doubt that (if anything they are much more susceptible to not being attacked and set pieced to death), although put any top 4/5 team in City's position yesterday (1-0 up with opponent down to 10) and most will piss it to some extent. Of the various title contenders taking a big loss to City is by far the most preferable option, if you have to take one.
With hindsight, it's probably a red in the context of current directives. I'd be surprised, however, if there wasn't a number of similar instances where a red card wasn't produced over the course of the season. There was certainly no intent (that you can see from the video), so presumably you wouldn't be looking at any extended ban.
http://www.thefa.com/football-rules-...and-misconduct
Mane was correctly sent off for endangering an opponent. Unless kicking someone in the face is not endangering an opponent.Originally Posted by The FA
The Nani red card was correct, too.
Anyway, even before Mane was sent off yesterday, I thought City seemed like they had sussed how to play against Liverpool. Which is the thing that worries me most about them. There doesn't seem to be much of a plan B.
Renato Sanches has had about three visible strops at a team mate not passing to him/making an awful decision with the ball. Some of them are definitely on a light dose of ketamine.
Sky really dropped the ball losing champions league rights. Every other "super sunday" is going to be piss because all the good teams play on Friday nights now.
Number 2 shirt for Bony
Bony wearing number 2 is wholly unacceptable.
Six points clear of the drop, lads. Stoke at home sounds alright, providing Ritchie doesn't get a respective ban or some bullshit.