Official Premiership 2008/09 thread

[Matt]

Relegation is never a good thing for a club. I'm not sure if that's what you were trying to suggest, but if it was it's a baffling statement. The only "acceptable" relegation for restructuring is League One to League Two, any other relegations result in a huge loss of income that makes "a huge overhaul" not worth it.

Newcastle need to stay up this year, if they don't it's harder for an established premier league team to bounce back than it is for one of the yoyo teams. Just look at Leeds, Southampton, Coventry, Leicester, Forest and to an extent Charlton. They were all established Premiership teams that have yet to bounce back and (with perhaps the possible exception of Coventry), I don't see any of them challenging for promotion to the Premiership in the next 18 months.

Relegation is fine for the yo-yo teams like West Brom, Sunderland, Birmingham, etc: because they can bounce back but once they become an established premiership side it's much harder to survive. Charlton are a good example, they bounced up and down for a couple of years if memory serves me right, but once they became an established team in the PL and then got relegated, they haven't been able to bounce back like they had done when they were a yo-yo team.

[Crybaby Bunting]

Meh it was more of a "I don't want it, but if it happens I'll live with it" kinda thing. It's probably just the pessimist in me, but I see Newcastle dancing with relegation for the next couple of years.. and not like the sort of relegation scares of previous seasons (omg we're 2 places from bottom, lets sack the manager and try again) but more down to about 2 or 3 points.

Newcastle would probably do a good job restructuring their finances whilst aiming for 15th spots, but supporters hate a team that lacks ambition (although you know they'd just go and switch to Sunderland as soon as we REALLY look in trouble) forgetting that 85% of all clubs have to do that too. If we kept Allerdyce we'd probably be looking a lot like Wigan now, but from the clubs point of view, no-one wants that to happen because the fans'll riot unless they see 48 goals per match.

Meh it just seems to me like each football club has it's own fair share of idiots, it's just in Newcastle's case that they're far more outspoken... and probably just account for 20% of all the Newcastle fans there are. I guess it's the Man Utd syndrome, each club has their percentage of cunts, and once that club gets popular and has more fans, the cunt rate is still the same... it's just there's more of them so it puts everyone else to shame.

[9 to 5]

Every club do have stupid fans and twat ones, and aye for Newcastle they are far more out-spoken than at most clubs. Then again, I find some teams have a higher wanker fan ratio than some.

That said, most people on here are fairly reasonable when it comes to their own clubs and football. The Rovers crew own the official board by far in terms of realism and expectations.

[Scott McFly]

Quick question - is Kalou a wrestling fan? I've seen him do the "you can't see me" celebration a few times now, but when he scored yesterday he was doing the whole cross-arms in an X straight edge thing that CM Punk does. I'm just waiting for a DX crotch-chop and then that'll really give the game away. Maybe we could e-mail him suggestions. >_>

EDIT: He should totally RKO someone.

Edited January 29, 2009 by Scott McFly

[Baddar]

Lol. An RKO would be fantastic.

Links to the other stuff pls thx.

I do remember James Morrison (ex-Boro) doing a "You Can't See Me!" sign quickly followed by Eddie G's little dance/shuffle (whatever it is) straight after.

[Scott McFly]

This is the first goal from yesterday, watch in high quality, ignore the french commentary:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=kdG30xbRsDQ

[HailtotheYo]

For some reason I see West Brom, Portsmouth, and either Newcastle or Stoke as the relegation teams. (if I had my choice it'd be Blackburn/Brom/Portsmouth) ...

Yeah Brom has started to show signs of life but they'll also suffer from the 5-0 ass rapings of the other day. If nothing else, goal differential will keep them down. I agree with whomever was talking about Stoke being a team to survive on the last day. Isn't Sidibie (sp?) coming back soon ? The 'survives on last day team' is my tie between Newcastle/Stoke above. Portsmouth has the second worst goal total of the bottom nine clubs. That reeks of disaster. Plus, I don't see how any team with the abortion that is Crouch up front as moving up the table.

Bolton/Blackburn play better as a team than the other bottom clubs (at the moment anyway) and goal differential will ultimately be on their side in the relegation battle.

As for the Championship, at the moment it looks clear as to who is coming up. Barring a pretty bad second half, two of Wolves/BC/Reading are already up. Which of them though, is going to have to run through the playoffs ? I say BC on the simple fact that Reading/Wolves light up the pitch. I don't see BC making it out of the playoffs though. Of the teams that would be in the playoffs if they started right now, I like Cardiff/Preston. Cardiff because they rarely drop the full points, and Preston because they are strong at home. That's a common theme among the better teams no matter what division.

So for promotion I'll go with Wolves/Reading .... and .... Cardiff. why not

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

I'd love for Reading to come back up again. I loved them in the Prem. Very nice team.

[Scott McFly]

I want whatever teams have the most Scottish internationals/possible-internationals to come up. So Wolves, Birmingham and... Cardiff would be my picks. Unless I'm missing an obvious team.

[Matt]

I want whatever teams have the most Scottish internationals/possible-internationals to come up. So Wolves, Birmingham and... Cardiff would be my picks. Unless I'm missing an obvious team.

Reading?

I hope Cardiff don't come up, I detest them. I'd rather see scum win the league than Cardiff get promoted.

[METALMAN]

Cardiff's Scottish players are basically Rangers rejects.

Chris Burke, Gavin Rae, Ross McCormack.

And formerly Stevie Thompson of course.

[alldaws1]

I'd love for Reading to come back up again. I loved them in the Prem. Very nice team.

You just enjoyed us putting something like 10 goals past them in the space of a week or whatever it was

[Marcos]

I want whatever teams have the most Scottish internationals/possible-internationals to come up. So Wolves, Birmingham and... Cardiff would be my picks. Unless I'm missing an obvious team.

Burnley probably then.

In which case, boo to you

[Scott McFly]

Rangers are infamous for buying promising Scottish youngsters from other clubs and doing fuck all with them before shipping them off. I can only think of Kris Boyd in their current squad who this doesn't apply to. And McCormack's pretty good, I'd rather have Rangers castoffs than Reading's two Scottish players - Chris Armstrong (who?) and Graeme Murty who's so bad he's on loan to Charlton.

[Farmer Reil]

They loaned their captain to Charlton?

Lol.

Anyway, I'd LOVE to see Cardiff in the Premiership. If only because they're Welsh, and Dave Jones is lovely (and fucking deserves a promotion after all these years). Unfortunately though I see it being Wolves, Reading and fucking Birmingham.

Wolves in the Prem will be awesome though. Wolves, Reading and Cardiff would all be awesome.

Edited January 29, 2009 by Farmer Reil

[-A-]

If Spurs don't win the Carling Cup and the FA Cup doesn't have a winner outside the top 6, it's going to be interesting to see who gets the third Europa (urgh) place. The table's close, but it does seem like Villa and Everton are going to be in the top 6, leaving one place for the rest to fight over. Even Man City can get into contention after being near the relegation zone seemingly last week. If they win their game in hand they're only 1 point behind Wigan and the mighty West Ham who're level on points in 7th and 8th. Here are the teams with a realistic shout of 7th place.

7 Wigan: Played 23, 32 points (GD +2)

8 West Ham: Played 23, 32 points (GD 0)

9 Man City: Played 22, Points: 28 (GD +10)

10 Hull City: Played 23, Points: 27 (GD -15)

11 Fulham: Played 21, Points: 26 (GD +1)

I can't figure out how to align it properly :/

[IAceI]

We're 1 point behind Hull and are 7 goals better off. We're on a good run, they're on anything but. So I'd put us in with a "realistic chance" if that's what that list is.

I'd also put nearly every team in the bottom half in with a "chance" and the majority with a "realistic chance" all the way down to Blackburn. It's too unpredictable to narrow it down to them 5 teams as having the best shot at the final spot. For the record, I don't think it will be us who get it. But I wouldn't feel safe saying Wigan, Hull or Fulham have my money riding on them coming 7th either.

[-A-]

Yeah, things are really close and realistically, anyone in the league can still qualify through the league. I wouldn't be surprised if Sunderland made it into 7th, I just wanted to draw the line somewhere, so this is just the immediate 'chasing group.'

[Steeb]

Kalou's celebration yesterday apparantly was a 'handcuffs' gesture, in support of an Ivorian freedom fighter who was arrested, or something like that. So not a wrestling thing.

[Scott McFly]

Damn. Well, I can still pretend and hope he randomly superkicks someone. >_>