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(Bank Holiday) Monday Football Thread
England beat Belgium in their final friendly before the euros. For the first time in a million years, we seem to have a game plan that works - give the opposition the ball, defend like LIONS, and take a chance if it comes our way. It's not going to be pretty that's for sure, but it's served Chelsea and Greece well before. We win our next 6 games 1-0, we win the euros (c&p from every football journalist in the world's twitter feeds).
Gary Cahill gets massively unlucky as he suffers a double jaw fractue after being pushed into Hart. Martin Kelly gets call-up as reserve resulting in some pretty tough questions re: rio ferdinand's omission on footballing grounds - he should clearly be in the squad, especiallly now. Also, isn't Kelly a full-back? Bizarre.
Finally, england are a lot more interesting with GNev on the sidelines. It's amazing how much more i love the guy since he's stopped playing. Hero.
Craig Bellamy leaks his inclusion in Pearce's 23-man GB olympic squad. Becks and Gigs for the other two over-23 places?
Kuyt to Fenebahce.
West ham release green on a free and look to sign grant holt. Oh west ham, you funny idiots.
....great finish by welbeck as well...
joey barton punched in the face outside a liverpool nightclub
england and interesting should never been in the same sentence together
my new green germany strip has been a revelation
5 goals in a 5-a-side game, and a hat-trick yesterday in a 8s game. I AM OZIL
With Kelly's inclusion
it does seem as if Roy is trying to manage LIverpool whether anyone likes it or not.
As for Ferdinand's exclusion, I can understand the player being miffed (and this does seem to put a lie to the idea that he is not prepared to play with Terry) but ultimately, it is the manager's choice who gets selected. If Ferdinand thinks that he is being 'disrespected' who should grow the fuck up. You play for your country with no conditions or you don't play at all.
That said, I do think that it is daft not to call on him if he is available.
The 'disrespect' thing is his agent's comments, mind
Although I suspect they are his own sentiments. Seriously though, you have to ask, how many English defenders would Hodgson go through before he picked Rio? Would he start looking at the Championship? I'm sorry but when you pick an untested young right-back from a side that finished 8th over an experienced England international with top club pedigree... How is it footballing reasons?
Roy is just Merk'ing him
If Terry had been injured
he'd have called up Ferdinand
You see, I'm starting to wonder.
Ferdinand seemingly really, really wants to be included, despite being fully aware that Terry is going. Maybe Roy just genuinely doesn't want Ferdinand there?
It's kinda funny that for so long, so many England 'supporters' (not you, of course) have wanted a manager to come in and start getting rid of the old guard, and when someone finally has an uncompromising will to remove just one of them, it's a matter of controversy.
it's just a guess of course but I think he wants to keep them apart
and you can understand why
on footballing merits you can totally see why Cahill & Lescott would be picked ahead of him but Martin Kelly ?
I suppose the thinking is that Kelly is cover for right back and Jones is cover for Lescott/Terry which makes sense but still is a pretty strong insult to a player of Ferdinand's experience
in short
Ferdinand & M. Richards >>>>>>>>> Kelly & Jones
Beckham's the most experienced current player,
doesn't mean he should be considered for inclusion.
Roy's logic just seems to be choosing Jones over Rio as a replacement for Cahill, then choosing Kelly as right-back replacement.
Besides, we couldn't really play Terry and Ferdinand together, it'd be the slowest central defence partnership since Keown and Adams. It might work against Sweden and Ukraine, but would be found out by any team with pace up front.
I'd take Beckham over Downing
even on the left wing
anyway
England aren't even going to get out of the group so all this chat is fairly academic
so would I
Beckham's passing really hasn't weakened with age, I'd actually go so far as to say having him and Carroll on the pitch at the same time could be almost effective.
Obviously picking Beckham in the 23 man squad would've been ridiculous but then so was picking Downing IMO
Kuyt
a combination of being missed, and probably not missed at all.
I'd have Kuyt over Carroll any day
Great player, always thought so. I could never understand why Liverpool fans didn't like him, especially as he seemed to get played out of position a fair bit to help the team.
Celtic have sacked Alan Thompson, after he refused to meet Neil Lennon in Newcastle yesterday.
Not sure what's happened there.
Also, can someone tell me - can Hodgson call up anyone as a replacement, or only someone from the announced list of back-ups?
He can call up anyone i think
i guess those on standby are just expected to be in a state of readiness.
my understanding of it is that the stand-by list is basically everyone he didn't pick in the orginal 23 man sqaud
with the exception of the players who asked not to be included as stand-bys if they didn't make the first 23. I think Micah Richards took himself off the stand by list which was probably a bit silly given that he'd probably start against France if he hadn't
Can we get a list of players who should have been called up over and above Martin Kelly
I'll start.
Martin Keown.
George Martin.
Lorraine Kelly.
Your go.
George Melly
Steve McClaren's brolly
I don't know about bringing SteveMc into this
still stand by my suggestion of a dead jazz singer though.
Kelly Brook
Dean Kiely
Kelis
Dr David Kelly
RIP
gameplan only worked because Belgium were playing without a striker to make runs behind the defence
Lukaku looked very rusty when he came on but i still think if he started it would've made the difference
This
It'll be different when we come up against a decent attacking side you would have thought.
Belgium are totes gonna be the latest in a line of internaional teams with a 'golden genration' to not win anything aren't they? No decent no.9 = the new portugal.
Reports doing the rounds that we want to sign David Luiz.
Fuck me! Honestly. We might as well sign Laurent Koscielny whilst we're at it, ffs.
David Luiz is a fantastic player
once they ironed out the positional issues in the first half of the season, anyway. He was great in the champs league
Hmmm.
Pretty sure he could've given away at least one penalty in the final, didn't play in either leg of the semis, could've conceded a further two penalties in the home leg against Napoli, and was amongst Chelsea's worst players in the away fixture.
Of course, he's not *quite* as bad as people say, but he's still bad. He's not a defender, and i don't think he's good enough to play for Manchester City, which is all i'm saying. All fit, he probably wouldn't even be in Chelsea's first XI, would he?
He's worth signing for his post match interviews alone
This looks pretty win-win for me.
Either Luiz stays or I get to see you flip-flop on him.
In the past, i haven't particularly 'flip-flopped' on players we've signed who i've not previously rated.
More that they've simply improved once we'd trained them properly. Clichy's the best example. I didn't rate him beforehand, few did, he'd had a couple of quite poor seasons there. It wasn't a case of us signing him and him suddenly going up in my estimation, we signed him, taught him how to defend again, gave him more confidence, and with better players he raised his game.
There's a perfectly good chance that could happen with someone like Luiz. I just don't see the point. We could sign a much better player, who can already defend, for half as much.
yeah he would, pretty much first choice at centre back all season
people don't say he's bad, Lawrenson does, but then he thought Pique was rubbish as well. Being able to actually play football shouldn't be a negative attribute for a centre back.
didn't mean to this^ this
bloody love David Luiz though, absolute class act
People do say he's bad.
Lots of people.
Running out of defence with the ball and losing it, regularly, isn't "being able to actually play".
Lots of defenders can play football without being error-prone.
Kompany, Lescott, Vidic, Ferdinand, Evans, Vermaelen, Dawson, Coloccini, Terry, Cahill, Jagielka, Hangelaand, Caulker, Shawcross - all better than him. If we paid £30m+ for 15th best centre-half in the 3rd best league in Europe, i'd die a little bit inside.
Shawcross and Caulker?
really?
Yup.
Add Agger to that list, too. Forgot him.
i just saw Johnny Evans in there
and realised i must be getting trolled. Fair play
Evans has been amongst United's best players this season.
In fact, many argue he's been their best player.
-
Just noticed that Rooney and Scholes were runners-up to Valencia (worthy winner), but most United fans i know would've had Evans and Carrick 2nd and 3rd, arguably pushing for 1st.
Evans was excellent last season tbf.
yep
a few clownish errors which the highlights shows get behind do not a bad player make. He was our best defender last season. Definitely see him as a future club captain if he can just cut out the lapses in concentration every now and again.
though to be fair
there wasn't exactly stiff competition
I agree he's got potential...
but the lapses aren't "every now and again", *really*, are they. They're most games. He's got no discipline, takes too many risks and costs Chelsea far too many goals.
We don't need another Stefan Savic.
*Hansen
dunno why people are kicking off over Martin Kelly
I assume Jones and Johnson are going to be ahead of him so it's not going to have any effect really is it
i actually don't mind Martin Kelly.
If Walker's injured, and Richards made himself unavailable for whatever reason/is also injured, i can't see many better candidated, tbh.
It's a bit depressing that a quarter of the national squad is made up of players from Liverpool's worst side in decades, like, but we'll live.
yeah
I just look at the perspective that it's better to call up a player who most likely won't get any game time than someone who thinks they've got a divine right to be first choice. It's not like Kelly's a bad player either he's quite decent. The only grumble I can see is that a right back is replacing a centre back but honestly, you couldn't take Ferdinand, if only for the Terry thing
Caulker
Jones was supposed to be back-up right-back; Caulker should have come in as cover at centre-back. Clearly (probably) the only reason Hodgson has called up Kelly is because he worked with him at Liverpool, he knows him and he rates him as a talented youngster. Which is understandable really, considering how little time he's had to watch other candidates, but hopefully this bullshit will stop as soon as he's in the job full-time.
He's this year's Stephen Warnock
I'm actually liking Roy more and more each day
has had a shit time of it with withdrawals already, stuck to his guns over players who (seemingly) have attitude problems, has clearly decided he can't be bothered to have Ferdinand and Terry in the same squad and again stuck to it. There may not even be a problem between them, but you just know the media will twist anything they can, an odd glance in a photo or something, and blow in out of proportion. Just a potential problem he can avoid by not picking Ferdinand.
As DK says above, when does an England manager stop picking certain players?
Hazard to Chelsea is official, then
http://www.chelseafc.com/page/LatestNews/0,,10268~2797352,00.html
£78m all in, apparently.
Seems a hell of a lot of money for a player who's never played in a major league, but he certainly looks very talented.
I'd have probably chosen Chelsea of the three, if i'm completely honest, a) for the London factor, and b) because they're more likely to be serious contenders for the Champions League again than the other two, i think (though both should expect to be in the mix, for different reasons, perhaps).
Sounds like he's just gone to the club who offered him the highest salary, though, which obviously i can have no problem with whatsoever. Word is City offered him around £100k a week, United a bit more but heavily image rights centric, and Chelsea have offered him a flat wage thought to be well north of £150k per week. This isn't really that interesting generally, but it would suggest that City hoping that being the best team in the country might mean the end to silly salaries is a touch naive.
Overall, quite excited to see him arrive in England, and potentially to see a Chelsea side which may adopt a more fluent, passing approach to their football now the battering ram that is Drogba's left.
Wonder how long it'll be until he fucks off to Spain
I wouldn't necessarily see that as a negative.
He's been being groomed by Zidane for years, hasn't he, but any potential move (which would be at least two years down the line) would only mean he'd done very well at Chelsea, and see them earn a nice profit.
Oh yeah, I'm not worried about it.
Fact of the matter is that Real Madrid and Barca can turn virtually anyone's head- Real have even managed to turn a few Barca heads in their time. If it happens, it happens. Worrying about who might want a player in the future would be a daft reason to not pursue them now.
I'm not sure he's any better than Andrey Arshavin was when he first arrived
Wouldn't pick him to be as good as Silva, or even Mata, probably. Maybe given a couple of seasons he'll grow into the league like Ronaldo did, but when have Chelsea ever given anyone a couple of seasons to settle in? Seems like a lot of money. Good luck to him I guess.
Wow, what a goal:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4PCNSraDQg
What a talent.
blates a cross.
Pfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffft
PLAYER.
Szczesny Scores Wonder Goal In Training
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Y14CtYnm6yw
Blates a cross
"To all the people who are saying this is either easy and they could do it or they can't see what was good about it, first check out the slow-mo here = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxmPWv1bAEI
If you still think the same please feel free to film yourself doing the same shot (Roughly same distance and angle, doing Rabona, hitting the post right in the top corner and then going in) and then send it in as a video response.
I will give out prizes to anybody who can do it."
:''''''''')
:D
prizes.
the goalie was well off his line.
'Joseph' Barton arrested advertising to 101greatgoals
come again, champ...
'according' got auto-corrected to 'advertising'. Apologies.
He's claimed he just got smacked from behind, but I'm not sure why he'd get arrested as well if that was the case.