The Barclays Premier League Thread 2014/2015

[MDK]

Mourinho also fine after calling Dowd a fatty, which seems fair enough.

He IS fine, RAWR

[DavidMarrio]

I don't get how the standard of refereeing has gotten substantially worse over the last few seasons. I don't remember it being as bad as it was a few seasons ago.

We need the likes of Uriah Rennie back. That or a few of us should get our refereeing licence and work our way up to the Prem. Sure we could do a better job then most of the refs.

[Thrilla]

Nah, I'd just give all the decisions against Man City to piss Hughes off >_>

[Baddar]

Wait, all the decisions don't go against City already?

[Gazz]

As expected, Cahill will not face retrospective action. Trial by tv as usual.

I thought Sterling's was bad the other night, but this decision is ridiculous.

I am shocked that the FA doesn't punish England internationals.

[Johnny Latino Heat]

Speaking of that Cahill thing, I watched the final 20 minutes or so on Portuguese TV, and I honestly felt disgusted. I usually don't watch many Premier League games and had heard about this, but the guys doing the commentary for the match were absolutely disgraceful, constantly whining about how the referee had had influence on the game's result in Tottenham's favor. They did this while saying "Cahill should've seen a yellow card there, the refereeing is being very poor, but Chelsea clearly has more reasons to be unhappy". No, you idiots, that was a red card that should've been given, and when a team suffers five goals like the ones they did, all clean and in the last one's case, at least, very much consented by the defence (IMO, I think the defenders being there and not being would be the same thing; the goalscorer, can't remember his name, did whatever he wanted inside the box), that team has no right to complain about the refereeing.

Like I said, I had heard about how the commentary guys always sucked up to Chelsea and Mourinho, but I never thought it would be this bad. I find it particularly disgraceful, since the games are broadcast on a club's television (in this case, Benfica TV) with no affiliation whatsoever to Chelsea and no ties to Mourinho (except being both from Portugal, but I don't think they verbally fellate other Portugal representatives on the matches; at least, I never heard them go on and on and on about José Fonte, for instance); it's even worse when Mourinho has had several verbal wars with our manager, even just a few months ago!

Again, disgraceful.

[/rant over]

To be fair, the Vertonghen "handball" wasn't (it's not handball every time the ball touches the hand etc) and Fazio's tackle that looked a bit dodgy at full speed turned out to be rather excellent and got the ball alone.

None of the goals were at all contentious (well Chelsea's first was the closest to being contentious with Costa being in an offside position) and the penalty that was given was a penalty.

You're only helping my case, though; like I said, I only saw the final 20 or so minutes of the match and haven't seen that handball and tackle, but judging from the commentators, the absolute only reason Chelsea lost was not because Tottenham scored five goals, was not because Tottenham was better overall, it was because the referee hurt Chelsea so much that the poor guys just couldn't win the match. It was beyond pathetic. I'm honestly really pissed that instead of concentrating on calling the match down the middle, they were too busy sucking up to Mourinho. They're more biased than when they call Benfica's matches, and it's Benfica's TV channel!

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Oh I WANT to help your case. I agree with you totally.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Any Stok sightings?

[Ant]

He was active yesterday in the FM15 thread. He lurked but didn't post.

Perhaps the result is still too fresh

[MDK]

The mods should take his shoelaces away

[Rich]

But I don't want his shoes slipping off and him falling over and killing himself!

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Still, bet he's glad that his team aren't called Zhelsea right now.

[stokeriño]

I direct you to the chapter title of the most recent entry (posted yesterday) in my FM diary.

[Thrilla]

HE'S ALIVE!

[stokeriño]

I'm just going to place these two quotes next to each other, for it is in their combination that they amuse me.

After that [2005] final we were fortunate as a coaching team that we could work with him for another five years, as he almost left that summer for Chelsea. Eventually the pull of Liverpool proved too much and we had long meetings trying to explain our plans and ambition and how important he was to us.

Rafa Benitez
3rd January 2015

I wish I'd met Brendan when I was 24 because I think I'd be sitting here talking about a lot of titles that we'd won together. 'The reality is, Brendan came into this club when I was 32 years of age and it's a shame that relationship didn't start 10 years ago.

Steven Gerrard
3rd January 2015

[Ant]

I thought everyone knew he didn't leave Liverpool as he feared for his families safety following death threats?

[stokeriño]

Are you saying that Rafa's plans for Liverpool between 2005 and 2010 would not have been sufficient?!

[Ant]

Erm..i mean well when you put it like that..i mean...umm.

Oh whats that Mum? Yeah be right there!

[Colly]

I get why you've put them together, but the second one is just him fawning over his current manager. At an absolute push he maybe means 'If I was 24 I wouldn't have had to play parallel to my centre halfs and some other poor sod might have cost us the league'.

[TCO]

He definitely bottled that Chelsea move because of something to do with his family I reckon. He definitely wanted to and should've moved to Chelsea.