Official 2012/13 Premier League thread

[Colly]

Meh, as I said after 'He could've been killed'-gate, all the goodwill I'd built up towards him over his mellow years was on its way out anyway. I do seem to remember his speech at Sir Bobby Robsons funeral being a lot less cunty towards a certain small city in the North East.

It's nice to finally hear confirmation that rules are different if you manage the #mostfamousclubintheworld though...

[stokeriño]

Just to throw another log on the fire...

[Lineker]

Despite the fact that Dermot Gallagher has said on tv that Harry was spot on

[Colly]

That's unusual, Dermot usually invents some bizarre interpretation of the rules to back the ref. I actually think he was right though, I don't see much of a foul and given that he's onside there's no obligation for the West Brom player to move out of the way since he could actually have scored had Green not flapped it into his own net.

[stokeriño]

Chelsea's 8-0 drubbing of Aston Villa has been named 'Performance of the Week' by the League Manager's Association. http://www.chelseafc.com/news-article/article/3020818/title/benitez-collects-best-performance-award

Not heard of this award before. Do they really give out a crystal football to someone every bloody week? :/

[Cheeky Hughes]

Mancini will probably be charged because he made a comment about the referee's weight. Which is obviously a lot worse that storming the pitch and giving all the officials a verbal beatdown. Obviously.

[stokeriño]

Or saying that the referee was on the young side and, by implication, incompetent/stupid.

[Hobo]

Sky were wonderful in their 'Fergie is an old master and his young apprentices need putting back in line' rhetoric over the 'wee' club thing.

[Dynamite]

Mancini will probably be charged because he made a comment about the referee's weight. Which is obviously a lot worse that storming the pitch and giving all the officials a verbal beatdown. Obviously.

IIRC, Fergie got a 4 game touchline ban when he said the same thing about Wiley being fat the other year.

[Lineker]

Former Czech international Václav Drobný (ex-Sparta, Strasbourg, and Aston Villa) has died after a tragical accident in mountains at the age of 32.

[Sam]

To be fair Mancini likes a good charge onto the pitch to confront the referee too, as seen in the Champs League this season against Ajax. They're all the same really :/

I mean Pardew can hardly complain when he was also berating the 4th official during the same game that Fergie was berating refs.

Edited December 28, 2012 by Sam

[Colly]

I hardly think you can compare John Carver whinging at the fourth official five minutes into injury time as one of our players is stretchered off with Fergie going for the ref on half time and before the second half, plus the linesman on half time and throughout the entire second half.

[Sam]

Pardew was shouting at him when the goal was initially disallowed.

[Jimmy]

Fergie should've just taken a leaf out of Pardew's book and just push the linesman or forth official

[Cymbols]

Former Czech Republic and Strasbourg defender Vaclav Drobny died in a sledding accident early Friday at the age of 32, Czech media said.Drobny, who played twice for the Czech Republic, skidded off a piste and crashed into a tree in the Czech winter resort of Spindleruv Mlyn, some 140 kilometres (88 miles) northeast of Prague.

"The accident occurred shortly after 2:00 am (0100 GMT)... despite the physicians' efforts, the young man succumbed to his injuries early in the morning," said a report on the local police website.

Drobny was the captain of the Czech Republic's under-21 team that won the European Championships in 2002.

After the tournament, Drobny moved from the Czech top league to Strasbourg for which he played 42 games before being loaned to Aston Villa, but he never played for the Birmingham side.

He then moved to Sparta Prague with whom he won the Czech league title in 2007 before switching to play in a Prague regional league.

Sad news

[stokeriño]

A fun fact revealed to me by the CFC website's pre-match article:

Since the inception of the Premier League in 1992, Chelsea have won more 1-0 league victories than any other team. Their current total (103) is two more than Manchester United (101).

Not-so-fun fact:

Chelsea have taken only one point from their last four trips to Goodison Park.

[Lineker]

Sunderland: Mignolet, Gardner, O'Shea, Cuellar, Kilgallon, Johnson, Larsson, Colback, McClean, Sessegnon, Fletcher.

Subs: Westwood, Campbell, Wickham, McFadden, Vaughan, Ji, Bramble.

Tottenham: Lloris, Walker, Dawson, Caulker, Naughton, Lennon, Sandro, Dembele, Bale, Adebayor, Defoe.

Subs: Friedel, Dempsey, Vertonghen, Huddlestone, Parker, Sigurdsson, Livermore.

Referee: Martin Atkinson (W Yorkshire)

4-4-2 and Vertonghen only on the bench. Plus it's Sunderland away. Not optimistic at all.

[GoGo Yubari]

Vertonghen could use a rest. I'm more disappointed that 4-4-2 still exists and Gylfi cannot get a PL start to save his life.

EDIT: Okay, now I'm glad Ade's starting just for that magnificent haircut.

[Lineker]

Bleurghh

[GoGo Yubari]

Sunderland score, as a result of an unnecessary setpiece from an unnecessary foul from Kyle Walker to make up for unnecessarily losing the ball.