Official Premier League 2009/10 thread

[therockbox]

Dear Roy Hodgson,

Please can we swap Danny Murphy for Steven Gerrard? Then we'd have a player apparently capable of making a ten yard pass.

Loads of love,

therockbox

[Hobo]

rockbox is right. There is nothing Rafa Benitez has really done wrong, some could point and "look at how much money he's/players he's brought in" but when you think that it is 90% the same squad that finished second so that doesn't hold water. The players are capable of a lot better than what they are doing right now and I don't see Rafa doing anything he hadn't done last season this season. Benitez is doing pretty much what he had done last year but the players haven't performed/key players have been injured and generally he is hamstrung on how he can improve the squad by the fact that the people above him for the most part have done very little to help matters on the pitch.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Rafa Benitez has put together the worst Liverpool squad in my living memory. It's no surprise they're not performing. It seems as though Alonso was the key.

It's also a really shallow squad. The argument about a weak squad does hold water.

Liverpool are supposed to be a team you fear having to go and play. I can't wait til Spurs play them next.

FA Cup 1996 final team:

James, Scales, Wright, Babb, McAteer, Jones, Redknapp, Barnes, McManaman, Fowler, Collymore.

FA Cup 2001 final team:

Westerveld, Babbel, Henchoz, Hyypia, Carragher, Murphy, Gerrard, Hamann, Smicer, Heskey, Owen.

FA Cup 2003 final team:

Dudek, Carragher, Henchoz, Hyypia, Riise, Diouf, Hamann, Gerrard, Murphy, Owen, Heskey.

Champions League 2005 final team:

Dudek, Finnan, Traore, Hyypia, Carragher, Riise, Gerrard, Luis Garcia, Alonso, Kewell, Baros.

FA Cup 2006 final team:

Reina, Finnan, Carragher, Hyypia, Riise, Gerrard, Alonso, Sissoko, Kewell, Cisse, Crouch.

Vs Portsmouth today:

Reina, Johnson, Agger, Insua, Carragher, Dossena, Gerrard, Mascherano, Lucas, Torres, Kuyt.

BENCH: Cavalieri, Aurelio, Skrtel, Benayoun, Spearing, Babel, Ngog

Don't make me go further back to the days of Rush.

Every team since 2005 worse than the one before.

[Szumi]

Well if this is indeed Mark Hughes' last match in charge of City, at least he's going out with one hell of a match. This game has been excellent.

[Sam]

Grr trust United to struggle down at Fulham.

Pompey played very well today against what was a very poor Liverpool side, I could see why Pompey are bottom though there were times when they looked awful (especially at the back, the amount of times they whacked bals against one another!) but saying that both goals were top draw ones. I think under Avram they could do well and avoid relegation, he had them playing well at United (a scoreline that flattered us and they should/could have got something from the Chelsea game) considering they're bottom of the league the way they've performed against the top 3 teams (last season) in the last 5 matches has been impressive and this 3 points is vital in keeping them in touch with the other teams in and around them.

Also are City just trying to be the lead game on Football First every week! Always so many goals in their matches!

Edited December 19, 2009 by Sam

[ONO]

John Carew as useless as ever.

[therockbox]

Rafa Benitez has put together the worst Liverpool squad in my living memory. It's no surprise they're not performing. It seems as though Alonso was the key.

It's better than the one we had under Houllier.

It's also a really shallow squad. The argument about a weak squad does hold water.

This is what happens when you're the fifth highest wage players in the league, behind your three main competitors and a Man City team funded by one of the richest groups on the planet. Every massive addition to the squad has had to be made at the expense of players other teams would use as 'backup' - Mascherano came, but Sissoko had had to go. Torres came, but only because Bellamy was gone. Crouch went, Keane came in, and although we recouped most of the money on the Airkickin' wonder not a penny of that went back to Rafa. Instead it was used to reduce the debt we can't service. In the summer the Yanks said that if Alonso was sold, all money would go back to Rafa. Instead he gets £5m to pay up front for Aquilani (as announced by Roma's website, the rest is performance/appearance based), and can't even afford £4m to spend on Turner or £6m on Shawcross. Instead we're forced to panic buy a lumbering £2.5m Greek whose only attribute is being taller than most strikers.

Liverpool are supposed to be a team you fear having to go and play. I can't wait til Spurs play them next.

Based on a reputation forged over twenty years ago. Since then we've been mismanaged at boardroom level, and ripped apart by Souness - who now has the nerve to go on Sky and talk about a crisis when he couldn't even recognise the one he was creating when he was actually at the club.

I think even McCarthy will be looking forward to facing us next week. Most teams will be.

[Whisper]

Someone needs to tell Wayne Rooney that the world cup is still 6 months away and he should focus on turning up on a saturday first. He was awful last weekend and if anything he's even worse today. But no matter how badly he's playing it will be Berbatov on for Owen come the hour mark... heaven forbid we should substitute Rooney.

And don't even get me started on Scholes today...

[Shelty92]

I gotta take back what I said about Gibson being a better first-team choice than Anderson. Yeah, he can score a goal, but at least Anderson doesn't shoot every fucking time he has an inch of space to set up a shot. Rooney (since he can't seem to do anything useful in the pitch) should've pimp slapped that lil' hoe when he took a shitty shot from a position where he could have either passed it to Owen or Rooney, who both were inside the box. Scoring three goals in two games doesn't mean you're the new Pele, you twat.

Oh, and I can't understand what's wrong with Paul Scholes today. It's sad to see both him and his so called "replacement" (referring to Anderson) play like they were in a League Two side. Let's hope Fergie does something significant at half-time, as I'm afraid this looks just like the Aston Villa game a week back.

[therockbox]

Someone needs to tell Steven Gerrard that the world cup is still 6 months away and he should focus on turning up on a saturday first. He was awful last weekend and if anything he's even worse today. But no matter how badly he's playing it will be Benayoun on for Lucas come the hour mark... heaven forbid we should substitute Gerrard.

Uncanny.

[Whisper]

I'm not sure what game you're watching, but at least Gibson has the ability to pass a ball 10 yards. Anderson either takes a heavy touch, or attempts a ridiculous 40 yard cross field ball that drops straight on a Fulham player's head. And don't even start comparing Anderson's "shooting" to Gibson's.

I'd rather see Gibson shooting wide than Anderson trying to play ridiculous hopeful passes that come off once every five games. At least Gibson is trying to do something positive with the ball.

[Guest Raving Rich]

Message to Sir Alex: get Scholes off now!!!!

Edit: Shit he's coming back out for the second half, we're fucked.

Edited December 19, 2009 by Raving Rich

[Whisper]

Jesus we need some defenders.

[Guest Raving Rich]

Shambolic defending by United there. Game over.

[ONO]

John Carew as useless as ever.

*Hides*

[Shelty92]

I'm not sure what game you're watching, but at least Gibson has the ability to pass a ball 10 yards. Anderson either takes a heavy touch, or attempts a ridiculous 40 yard cross field ball that drops straight on a Fulham player's head. And don't even start comparing Anderson's "shooting" to Gibson's.

I'd rather see Gibson shooting wide than Anderson trying to play ridiculous hopeful passes that come off once every five games. At least Gibson is trying to do something positive with the ball.

I'm not saying Anderson was playing better than Gibson, but Gibson's been overconfident about his shooting after he scored those few goals (which, to his credit, is at least something that Anderson hasn't been able to do in over two years at United), and that really hurt the whole team's performance. But then again, whenever Anderson's in the starting line-up, it automatically hurts our performance so... yeah.

And Scholes is ridicullously horrible today.

Edit #1: Yay, 3-0. It's bye bye to our title hopes this season.

Edit #2: Yeah, overreaction due to one of the worst days I've had in ages combined with an awful performance. Here's hoping that Rio, Vidic and co. get healthy soon, or otherwise we really are fucked. The midfield really misses the contributions of Fletcher and Carrick.

Edited December 19, 2009 by Shelty92

[Guest Raving Rich]

Firstly, fuck you Paul Scholes. You've had a shit game today and I am disgusted you're still on the pitch right now.

Secondly, fuck you Sir Alex for getting your tactics wrong. You start with a 5-5-2, then bring on Berbatov to go up top and send Rooney to the left wing instead of bringing Obertan on, then you keep that cluster fuck Scholes on the pitch.

Both of you can get fucked for today.

[Gazz]

Man United are losing 3-0 to Fulham

Rage against the Machine are probably going to score a Christmas Number 1 single

It might even snow on Christmas Day

Just out of interest, has anyone seen four menacing looking dudes riding horses yet? I think they answer to the names War, Famine, Pestilence and Death...

[Sam]

Pfft don't think you can say goodbye to the title quite yet, this season has been crazy, there's going to be loads more losses for all the top teams to come this season. Let's not forget that Chelsea aren't exactly blowing people away at the moment either.

[Whisper]

Yeah writing the title off is a slight overreaction. This season has been fairly ridiculous thus far and we'll be ok once we get the 900 defenders we have injured back.

I'm sure we'll go on our usual post christmas run and Chelsea may struggle with losing players to the African Nations Cup. Either way, much football to be played yet. If you're writing the season off at this stage then you're in for a rather dull time.

Edited December 19, 2009 by Whisper in the Wind