Official Premier League 2010/11 thread

[Summers]

West Ham fuckin' suck.

[Kaney]

Was it just bollocks then when someone said Maradonna was interested in the Aston Villa job?

[EddieG]

I like that tonight's match will feature the best goalie Holland has ever had, with a promising young Dutch goalkeeper.

[Adam]

Steve Harper is neither young nor Dutch

I'm looking forward to this game tonight, gonna try to watch as many games as I can this season, this should be a cracker. I think Newcastle have a massive task ahead to stay up, but they could give Man Utd a run for their money tonight.

[EddieG]

Aye, I know BBC this afternoon on their site was saying Krul would start. ¬_¬

[Dynamite]

Barton's moustache is ridiculous.

Decent first half from us. Rooney is trying too hard and nothing is coming off for him. It's nice to see a confident Berbatov playing well and I think he'll do even better once Hernandez comes on for Rooney. I didn't expect Evra to start but we look so much better with him in our team and he does a brilliant job playing with Nani who likes to cut infield so often. I put a quid on Berbatov to score first and us to win 3-1 at 30/1 so that still looks possible too.

[stokeriño]

I put a quid on Berbatov to score first and us to win 3-1

Close, but no cigar. >_>

[Sam]

Berbatov did very well, could have easily had a hat trick today. Rooney on the other hand is playing like the whole world is on his shoulders, he needs to just relax and find his groove a bit. Yet another top draw performance from Scholesy, the game away at Fulham will be a much bigger test than this though but I'm confident we'll have a good season.

[YI]

I'm sorry but commentators need to learn the difference between control and domination. Domination implies danger, I don't think Man U looked particularly DANGEROUS all that much (and when they did it was often because of our total fuck-ups). Yeah, we were totally outclassed and did fuck all going forward (Carroll made a couple of 'chances' for himself and Gutierrez was fucking raping O'Shea), but going on about "The scoreline doesn't reflect the game"...fuck off, bullshit. 3-0 was perfectly suited. Man Utd had the possession, yes, had the control, but I honestly felt more goal based dread in the Algeria/England game. I'm not one of those Newcastle fans who's utterly deluded, but I think we coped as well as to be expected there (I was thinking it'd be more before the game). If anything, I think Spurs looked more 'dominant' against Man City. :/ (I remember Harper making one PROPER save all match) On the flip side, Man City did look better than us going forward (my definitions of words is all over the place ). I'm actually quite confident about our survival opportunities. We've got some kinks to sort out, mostly in our defence (but our defence has never been good since the days of Darren Peacock and co). It hasn't been 30-days since purchase, so can we please return James Perch? He was even worse when we put him on the left against Rangers. Ryan Taylor's a good enough player, is he just the drizzling shits in training? Because none of our managers ever want to actually play the fucker. Routledge could shockingly be a fairly tidy player for us against some teams lower down the league. Really, I think there's potential there for us to be less sloppy, and close in more and be fairly competent against high level teams (even if it's just as much as keeping goal difference respectable), I think our problem, especially with the 4-5-1 (which I presume will be permanent as all signings we're making/rumoured to be are focussed on flooding the midfield) is what we're like in an even game, whether we can make chances going forward. I think Kevin Nolan had a great season last year, but for the man linking the midfield with Carroll he goes walk-abouts far too much, and there's extended periods of games where he just fucking disappears altogether.

Scholes was unreal.

Edited August 16, 2010 by YI

[Sam]

Honestly I think Newcastle will struggle to stay up, the defence looks leaky, the strike force isn't premiership quality and the midfield is workmanlike but not really creative. Man United were very comfortable and it showed in their performance.

Yeh Spurs looked way more powerful going forward but that match was a totally different scenario, this one was more like Chelsea Vs WBA, neither Chelsea or United were at their best and yet both walked out with comfortable wins.

Plus the thing with United is they don't necessarily have to dominate non stop with constant attacking to be a threat, they have the capability of suddenly upping the pace stringing some great passes together and all of a sudden you're a goal down despite the fact you been doing okay.

Edited August 16, 2010 by Sam

[YI]

...funnily I'm more confident after that match, because unlike West Brom, we didn't look 'out of our depth'...just, not as good as yous. But as I said, it all depends what we're like in the 50/50 games, or the games where we should be attacking more.

I will agree with the strikeforce thing. Grapevine (probably bullshit, but still) says we're looking at Kevin Prince Boateng...who I think would adapt a lot better than Nolan in his role, and would be a better link between Caroll and the midfield. We really needs a goals striker, but it requires a significant investment. I have faith in Carroll and I think with the right delivery (whether he gets it) he'll EASILY break double figures, but he's 21 and untested at this level...he shouldn't be having this much pressure on him to get the goals as lone striker.

Edited August 16, 2010 by YI

[Sam]

It's just a worry that Newcastle went down with a better team than they have come up with and the fact you lack a proven goalscorer at this level could be very costly. I guess you might look stronger defensively when Sol starts playing which could help quite a bit. I just can't look beyond the three teams that came up to go straight back down again. Wigan are a side that loses 4-0 one week and then goes and beats Chelsea 3-1 the next, they're crazy plus they have a few quality players which should save them. Can't really see who else would be low down the table, the league is all quite tight through the middle.

[stokeriño]

I watched about half of the match (from the first goal until Nani went off). I was impressed by how frisky Gutierrez seemed, having never watched him before.

Travelling up to Wigan at the weekend. I'm sure that beating WBA 6-0 and Wigan losing 4-0 to Blackpool will make most people see it as a sure thing, but we lost this fixture last year. I refuse to take it for granted.

[Blue Rosler]

Wigan are going down, there's very little quality in that team.

[Colly]

I agree with YI. I went into last weeks game thinking it would go one of two ways, either we'd get a royal pasting, or we'd get a cheeky early goal and give them a scare. As it stood Carroll almost got that cheeky goal, but missed, and we contained them to three. Yes they were comfortable and could have caused more problems if they really wanted to, but all things considered we won't be playing Man Utd every week. Nolan won't have to spend his game chasing Paul Scholes around so can actually help out up top and Gutierrez and Jose can be let off the leash again. Plus we don't play another big 4 team until November, so hopefully we can get some points on the board prior to that.

Season starts on Sunday...

[stokeriño]

Ramires has been handed Chelsea's number 7 shirt.

Recent wearers of this shirt include:

- Winston Bogarde

- Adrian Mutu

- Andriy Shevchenko

He is so doomed.

[Hobo]

Why do I get the feeling this is the farewell season for Giggs and Scholes by how the commentary last night praised them both so much? Also why do I get the feeling that Man Utd will suffer the loss of these two guys in their mid 30s because they tend to drive the team on when they play.

[stokeriño]

Giggs is powered by magic. He's got another 30 years in him yet.

[Dynamite]

Giggs has another year in him at least, particularly as he's more willing to take a reduced playing role at the club than Scholes. Scholes still wants to play 2 games a week and is still so motivated to do so that he's unhappy at only getting 1 a week. It will be a sad day for English football when either of them retire.

[stokeriño]

Conversely, Gary Neville can go fuck himself.