English Premier League 2012-13

Borini should've scored once, possibly twice, in the first half. The one just before half time was a completely unacceptable miss at this level. Sterling, a black 17 year old, has been Liverpool's best player. I know it's too early in the season to panic but...I'm not getting a good feeling about this year.

Matra2 said:

Borini should've scored once, possibly twice, in the first half. The one just before half time was a completely unacceptable miss at this level. Sterling, a black 17 year old, has been Liverpool's best player. I know it's too early in the season to panic but...I'm not getting a good feeling about this year.

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i see the same weaknesses that i pointed out last year: they struggle against weaker teams, they have trouble on the corner kicks (could be because of reina) and some players should play more (coates, carroll)

their next match will be against manchester city :icon_eek:

Liverpool is about to sign the Turk Sahin from Real Madrid, not quite what I should think about that....

Arend said:

Liverpool is about to sign the Turk Sahin from Real Madrid, not quite what I should think about that....

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they could have bought adam johnson, they were interested in him, but he goes to sunderland..

Another poor goal involving a cross and a Spanish goalie. De Gea came out for a cross, didn't get anywhere near it, resulting in Fulham's second goal against Man United. What is going on with these Spanish goalkeepers?

Rebajlo said:

STOKE:

Started: 11 Whites (6 Englishmen)
Finished: 8 Whites* (3 Englishmen*), 2 blacks *Dean Whitehead sent off after 88'

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stoke bought maurice edu :faint2:

Another poor goal involving a cross and a Spanish goalie. De Gea came out for a cross, didn't get anywhere near it, resulting in Fulham's second goal against Man United. What is going on with these Spanish goalkeepers?
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spain is relatively new in soccer, they might not know how to train a keeper
that's something the fench can teach them, for once!

i remember these from when they were still a relatively bad team:

http://youtu.be/2sHOZY9DRAE

http://youtu.be/yVyk3Sy9Keg ( i didn't see that one live but it's so famous that his name (arkonada) is synonymous with "blunder" )

I saw the Zubizarreta goal live. I was watching it with my uncle on British TV. We both burst out laughing. As to the goal against France it reminded me of a goal that Joel Bats of France let in against West Germany in the 1986 semi-final. You can watch most of the match:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNWyeSdFvK8

Here's the goal:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNWyeSdFvK8

Looking at it for the first time in 26 years it doesn't look as bad as I remember it as Brehme hit it with considerable pace.

Matra2 said:

I saw the Zubizarreta goal live. I was watching it with my uncle on British TV. We both burst out laughing. As to the goal against France it reminded me of a goal that Joel Bats of France let in against West Germany in the 1986 semi-final. You can watch most of the match:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNWyeSdFvK8

Here's the goal:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNWyeSdFvK8

Looking at it for the first time in 26 years it doesn't look as bad as I remember it as Brehme hit it with considerable pace.

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http://youtu.be/dNWyeSdFvK8?t=8m32s fixed

joel bats now trains lloris at lyon

hazard is succeeding so far in premier league, i lost track of what he did exactly but he did many assists, obtained penalties and scored one penalty kick
chelsea won 3 matches out of the 3 they have played

frederic38 said:

hazard is succeeding so far in premier league, i lost track of what he did exactly but he did many assists, obtained penalties and scored one penalty kick
chelsea won 3 matches out of the 3 they have played

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I think he has had a hand in 7 of the 8 goals.

A disastrous start to the season for Arsenal. They drew 0-0 against Stoke City. They haven't even scored a goal yet. Below is an article on Giroud entitled 'Arsenal's Olivier Giroud will add intelligence as well as robustness'. Intelligence? What's he trying to say about previous Arsenal forwards?:icon_wink:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/aug/25/olivier-giroud-arsenal

Liverpool looking much better this week.

I put the scud on Liverpool. As soon as I said they're looking better Skrtel practically hands Tevez a goal on a silver platter.

Matra2 said:

A disastrous start to the season for Arsenal. They drew 0-0 against Stoke City. They haven't even scored a goal yet. Below is an article on Giroud entitled 'Arsenal's Olivier Giroud will add intelligence as well as robustness'. Intelligence? What's he trying to say about previous Arsenal forwards?:icon_wink:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/aug/25/olivier-giroud-arsenal

Liverpool looking much better this week.

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giroud was unlucky, but he won physically over the stoke players, which means a lot since they are very physical
he also was very helpfull on the defensive freekicks, because there were a lot of dangerous stoke city players, especially peter crough

as for liverpool, it was typical liverpool, losing to a small team and then almost beating the top team
balotelli was useless, manchester city's defense as bad as ever, but liverpool's defense was unacceptable
reina on the first goal could have intercepted the cross, then kelly makes a mess of it, he's not good enough to play as titular

then on the second goal that was an unexpected mistake from skretl, maybe he's thinking about his next club or he is not used to his partners in this defense (rodgers changed many defenders DURING the match, which shouldn't be done)

carroll should play, borini was bad

coates was excellent, on the corner kicks liverpool is better with him both defensively and ofensively (he blocked kolo touré on the corner that led to liverpool's first goal, allowing skrtl to come at full speed in an empty space to smash the ball in)

gerrard is good at making crosses and corner kicks, imagine how dangerous liverpool would be with carroll, agger, coates, and skrtl in the penalty area (i think that liverpool should play with 3 central defenders in the big matches)

Europe said:

I think he has had a hand in 7 of the 8 goals.

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i saw that he won 3 "man of the match" awards in a row
he's the first ever to do so (from the start of the league)

frederic38 said:

hazard is succeeding so far in premier league, i lost track of what he did exactly but he did many assists, obtained penalties and scored one penalty kick
chelsea won 3 matches out of the 3 they have played

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Its been a big turnaround for Chelsea,last season they were one of the worst teams from a demographic perspective now there one of the better ones.Getting rid of black players like Kallou and Drogba[who admittedly was good]and replacing them with some of the best young talent in the world like Hazard and his younger brother,Marco Marin,Oscar and the young Spanish lb they've just signed is paying dividends.They usually start 2 or 3 black players but all the flair marquee players are white and Torres is excelling without Drogba who never seemed to like him which is probably the main reason Torres struggled last season.

amoeba man said:

Its been a big turnaround for Chelsea,last season they were one of the worst teams from a demographic perspective now there one of the better ones.Getting rid of black players like Kallou and Drogba[who admittedly was good]and replacing them with some of the best young talent in the world like Hazard and his younger brother,Marco Marin,Oscar and the young Spanish lb they've just signed is paying dividends.They usually start 2 or 3 black players but all the flair marquee players are white and Torres is excelling without Drogba who never seemed to like him which is probably the main reason Torres struggled last season.

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when you take torres and drogba at their best level, torres is probably better than drogba
but since his very big knee injury, torres didn't fully recover
physically he'll probably never be the same
however this season he's much better than last year, because he is more confident (his goals in the champions league final and at the euro champs probably helped)
his wonderful goal in the last match shows how confident he is
confidence is very important for a striker

azpilicueta, the spanish (basque) player, is a right back, not a left back
it's important because he will compete with ivanovic to play, instead of ashley cole
but it's still nice to have a nice young talented player like him
he played in france before

if they win the league it will be great, even though i like liverpool more but in terms of white players they are the same
they need a lot of depth, that's probably why they bought azpilicueta, because once champions league will start they will get distracted and it will be more difficult to be focused on the premier league
the big teams prepare the big champions league matches for months, multiple months only thinking about the champions league match
they don't want to be distracted by the premier league, so they play champions league and premier league with almost 2 different teams
that's why in 1993 marseille corrupted valenciennes, so they could win easily their league match and keep focused on the champions league match that was coming

I noticed Wayne Bridge, who is a left back, is now in the 2nd division and not even playing, when he was once on the English National Team. I guess you have to be black to play that position now.

Here are the breakdowns from last weekend's round (sorry about the delay...:blush

Swansea City 3 West Ham United 0

SWANSEA:

Started: 6 Whites (2 Englishmen, 1 Welshman), 5 blacks
Finished: Unchanged ratio

WEST HAM:

Started: 7 Whites (4 Englishmen), 3 blacks, 1 Maori
Finished: 6 Whites (3 Englishmen), 4 blacks, 1 Maori

Aston Villa 1 Everton 3

VILLA:

Started: 7 Whites (2 Englishmen), 3 blacks, 1 Arab
Finished: 7 Whites* (2 Emglishmen), 2 blacks, 1 Arab *Ciaran Clark sent off after 58'

EVERTON:

Started: 6 Whites (3 Englishmen), 3 blacks, 1 Arab, 1 half-Turk
Finished: 5 Whites (3 Englishmen), 3 blacks, 1 Arab, 1 half-Turk, 1 small-part Indonesian

Manchester United 3 Fulham 2

MAN. UNITED:

Started: 5 Whites (2 Englishmen), 4 blacks, 1 mestizo, 1 Asian
Finished: 6 Whites (3 Englishmen), 4 blacks, 1 mestizo

FULHAM:

Started: 8 Whites (No Englishmen), 3 blacks
Finished: 8 Whites (1 Englishman), 3 blacks

Norwich City 1 Queens Park Rangers 1

NORWICH:

Started: 7 Whites (3 Englishmen), 4 blacks
Finished: 8 Whites (3 Englishmen), 3 blacks

QPR:

Started: 3 Whites (2 Englishmen), 6 blacks, 1 mestizo, 1 Asian
Finished: Unchanged ratio

Southampton 0 Wigan Athletic 2

SOUTHAMPTON:

Started: 9 Whites (4 Englishmen), 2 blacks
Finished: 9 Whites (5 Englishmen), 2 blacks

WIGAN:

Started: 7 Whites (No Englishmen), 3 blacks, 1 Arab
Finished: 7 Whites (No Englishmen), 2 blacks, 1 Arab, 1 black-Amerindian

Tottenham Hotspur 1 West Bromwich Albion 1

SPURS:

Started: 4 Whites (No Englishmen), 7 blacks
Finished: Unchanged ratio

WEST BROM:

Started: 7 Whites (2 Englishmen), 3 blacks, 1 Argentine Jew
Finished: Unchanged ratio

Chelsea 2 Newcastle United 0

CHELSEA:

Started: 8 Whites (1 Englishman), 3 blacks
Finished: 7 Whites (2 Englishmen), 4 blacks

NEWCASTLE:

Started: 5 Whites (1 Englishman), 4 blacks, 1 Arab, 1 quarter-Vietnamese
Finished: 5 Whites (2 Englishmen), 5 blacks, 1 Arab

Stoke City 0 Arsenal 0

STOKE:

Started: 10 Whites (4 Englishmen), 1 black
Finished: 8 Whites (3 Englishmen), 3 blacks

ARSENAL:

Started: 8 Whites (1 Englishman), 3 blacks
Finished: 7 Whites (1 Englishman), 4 blacks

Liverpool 2 Manchester City 2

LIVERPOOL:

Started: 8 Whites (2 Englishmen), 3 blacks
Finished: 8 Whites (3 Englishmen), 3 blacks

MAN. CITY:

Started: 4 Whites (2 Englishmen), 5 blacks, 1 Arab, 1 mestizo
Finished: 4 Whites (1 Englishman), 5 blacks, 1 mestizo, 1 half-Asian

SUMMARY OF ROUND:

198 starters (9 games played - Sunderland vs Reading was postponed)

Whites: 119 (60.101 %) - Englishmen: 35 (17.676 %)

Blacks: 65 (32.828 %)

Other non-Whites: 14 (7.07 %)

24 goals (Whites: 11; blacks: 7; Arabs: 2; mestizos: 2; Asians: 1; 1 own goal scored by a White)

Matra2 said:

De Gea came out for a cross, didn't get anywhere near it, resulting in Fulham's second goal against Man United.

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Manchester United has had two truly outstanding goalkeepers during the "Alex Ferguson" era: Peter Schmeichel (1991-1999) and Edwin van der Sar (2005-2011). However, in the period sandwiched between the "reigns" of those consistent, genuinely world-class keepers I'd say that Ferguson often displayed a comparative lack of judgement regarding the position.

Once Schmeichel left for Sporting Lisbon, his understudy Raimond van der Gouw was not up to the task of donning the mantle of number one goalkeeper. The first "replacement", Australian Mark Bosnich, was often erratic (especially his goal kicks, which were frequently atrocious affairs that arced straight out of play), while the purchase of the Italian Massimo Taibi initially raised eyebrows before ultimately proving an ignominious waste of time and money.

Frenchman Fabien Barthez started very well, putting in some sterling performances but as time passed he became increasingly inconsistent. Northern Ireland's Roy Carroll, who had been the number two during Barthez's tenure, didn't cut the mustard either so Ferguson bought the black American Tim Howard - who was also a flop. Howard and Carroll consequently alternated as first choice until the arrival of van der Sar in 2005.

United still managed to win three championships between the departure of Schmeichel and the arrival of van der Sar, but the errors of their "interim" goalkeepers proved particularly costly in the Champions League. The thing is, van der Sar had moved from Juventus to Fulham back in 2001, four years prior to transferring to United, while Barthez was loaned to Olympique Marseille a couple of months after Howard's arrival in 2003.

I was always of the opinion that Ferguson should have shelled out the extra money to sign van der Sar instead of Tim Howard and wondered why a goalkeeper of the Dutchman's calibre was somehow not considered a priority for the key job of replacing Barthez.

A somewhat similar "succession" scenario arose during the lead up to van der Sar's retirement. Ferguson groomed both Ben Foster and Tomasz Kuszczak to potentially take over from the Dutchman but both players' confidence was shattered after perpetrating a series of glaring errors so they were deemed unsuitable. Ferguson therefore turned to David de Gea, who also appears to possess certain "deficiencies" - although the Spaniard's youth can be cited as a partial excuse...

why was schmeichel so good? because denmark has good goal keepers
if they are looking for a replacement to schmeichel, they must look where good goal keepers are
when spain will have caught up with other european countries on how to train goal keepers then why not look there, but right now their goalkeepers are not on par with the best europeans

liverpool and manchester united have spanish goalkeepers, meanwhile the danish are nowhere to be seen: andersen plays in a bad french club near my region (evian thonon) and sorensen never played in a good english club

also lloris won't play champions league next year, he left lyon for tottenham
is that a joke?
lloris is amazing, and i'm not partiotic at all, but i was able to see most of his matches these last years because i'm french and he's much better than casillas, he might be the best in the world currently: http://youtu.be/x-AKlhiZCo0
he should play in barcelona, and he wouldn't be out of place there with his name starting with "ll" (typically catalan)

at the 2012 euro champs the quality of the goal keepers was incredible, there were so many excellent keepers
there is no reason to have so many spanish keepers in the top clubs
notice that i never put casillas and valdes in my "world best 11" despite them being named every year
they are good but not the best, they have weakpoints

frederic38 said:

he should play in barcelona, and he wouldn't be out of place there with his name starting with "ll" (typically catalan)

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Speaking of Spanish goalies who aren't that good - Victor Valdes. He must be the luckiest keeper ever to get that job. You'd think a team as rich as Barca would buy the best keepers in the world. Though in a way it is a nice touch to keep him as I believe he was in their youth team.

WEST HAM:

Started: 7 Whites (4 Englishmen), 3 blacks, 1 Maori

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You can add Andy Carroll to the Englishmen at West Ham - though I suppose he might replace another Englishman.

BTW it's kind of funny to see a Maori playing football. I lived in NZ as a boy. From what I remember the Maoris were hopeless at both football and cricket but really good at rugby. I remember them saying things like "soccer is for pommie sissies".

"at the 2012 euro champs the quality of the goal keepers was incredible, there were so many excellent keepers
there is no reason to have so many spanish keepers in the top clubs"

Reina dropped at shot right at him that gave Hearts a goal yesterday.

Matra2 said:

Speaking of Spanish goalies who aren't that good - Victor Valdes. He must be the luckiest keeper ever to get that job. You'd think a team as rich as Barca would buy the best keepers in the world. Though in a way it is a nice touch to keep him as I believe he was in their youth team.

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yes, i never pick on his mistakes because he's catalan but it seems that in barcelona they emphasize so much the passing of the ball and the fun that comes with it that they forget the goal keeper
i saw a video about valdes in which it was mentioned that he didn't like to play as a goal keeper until he was 18 years old
he had, i think, a legendary match in the champions league final vs arsenal
but you can't judge a goal keeper this way, you need to see in the long term and see if he's good at every part of the role of a keeper
he's till pretty good and can change a match with his saves
same for casillas

@ europe:

Reina dropped at shot right at him that gave Hearts a goal yesterday.

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and that's not the only one
i mentionned quite a few costly mistakes by reina last year, and in the match against manchester city which liverpool almsot won (1 week ago) reina had a big mistake too (he missed a cross and then kelly missed it too, then yaya touré scored)

A very dark day and transfer window in the Prem. SSN was a video stream of overhyped Africans, one after another looking for their next host club to leech from. Although on the positive there looks to be a lot of future material for the black flops thread.

I do hope Michael Owen lands himself a good club and contract to retire on, nobody deserves it more than him.