The Barclays Premier League thread 2015/2016

[Rich]

41 minutes ago, MDK said:

Oh don't give us that doe eye sack of shit look, you know exactly what you've done. And to whom.

 

No, you are

[MDK]

Oy, I see one word, I try to make it stretch out to two.

[Lineker]

The Premier League will retain four Champions League places for the 2017-18 season after Juventus failed to beat Bayern Munich in the Champions League.

The West Bromwich Albion head coach Tony Pulis has been ordered to pay his former employers Crystal Palace more than £3.5m after a dispute over a bonus for keeping the club in the Premier League, according to reports. Pulis was entitled to the bonus after taking Palace to an 11th-place finish in 2013-14 after joining with the club in the relegation zone. He was scheduled to be paid the sum – believed to be around £2m –before the end of August 2014 but it was brought forward at his request. Pulis then stunned the south London club by walking out on the eve of their opening Premier League fixture of the season against Arsenal citing disagreements over funds for new players.

N’Golo Kanté is to be rewarded for his eye-catching performances in Leicester City’s title challenge with a call-up to the full France squad when Didier Deschamps names his selection on Thursday for this month’s friendly fixtures. The uncapped Kanté, who also qualifies for Mali, is expected to earn recognition ahead of Manchester United’s Morgan Schneiderlin when Deschamps announces his party for the friendlies against Holland in Amsterdam on 25 March and Russia at the Stade de France four days later.

[Lineker]

West Ham United are hopeful of signing Havard Nordtveit on a free transfer, with Slaven Bilic confirming his interest in the Borussia Mönchengladbach captain. The Norwegian midfielder’s contract runs out at the end of the season and although Bilic denied reports that Nordtveit has signed a pre-contract agreement with West Ham, the club are confident of beating off competition from the Bundesliga and Premier League. The 25-year-old was at Arsenal for three years before moving to Germany in 2011.

[Lineker]

[Meacon Keaton]

On 3/16/2016 at 07:28, MDK said:

Lets all laugh @Colly

I watched a replay thinking it was live, and even I knew you weren't being serious!

[Cymbols]

Tom Fox has gone, prick.

[Steeb]

Also, RETURRRRN OF KRU-LAK.

Well, his instatement as a fully fledged director, rather than the honorary position he held before.

I mean, on the one hand, great, all the figures who seemed to be poisoning the club are out - bar the terrible Paddy Reilly - but we're still down, and Lerner still has the overall helm. Next season will be massive for us, and the summer will tell us a Hell of a lot.

[Lineker]

Quote

Liverpool are looking into claims youth team player Jordan Williams mocked the Munich air disaster during last night’s Europa League match at Manchester United.

It is understood the club are aware of the allegations and will follow their usual procedure of investigating before making any public comment.

A tweet from sent from the 20-year-old academy graduate’s Twitter account, responding to a video of Liverpool fans celebrating inside Old Trafford after a 1-1 draw sent their side through 3-1 on aggregate, depicted an aeroplane emoji and pair of hands clapping.

In 1958 eight United players were among 23 who died in a crash in snowy conditions at Munich Airport and some Liverpool fans have been known to taunt their arch-rivals with a song and aeroplane gestures.

The tweet was quickly deleted and Williams later apologised, claiming his account had been compromised.

“My Twitter has been hacked, I would never put anything like that to offend anyone, sorry about this,” he wrote.

There was a distasteful atmosphere surrounding the whole match last night with Liverpool supporters arriving for the last-16 second leg tie greeted with a banner with the word ‘Murderers’ and the date of the Hillsborough disaster - where 96 Liverpool fans died - tied to a bridge over the M602 in Salford.

In the closing minutes of the game a minor scuffle broke out in the top tier of the East Stand when a handful of Liverpool fans, sat among home supporters, unfurled a club flag but stewards moved in swiftly to isolate the group to prevent a further escalation after a few punches were aimed at them by home fans.

It's so weird how it just seems to be Premier League footballers Twitter accounts that get hacked!

[Baddar]

Bloody hackers. He was probably a United fan too. 

[Benji]

Does anyone ever really think anyone believes that excuse?

[MDK]

3 minutes ago, Benji said:

Does anyone ever really think anyone believes that excuse?

It must suck to be the one famous person that actually does get hacked.

[Lineker]

Quote

Sky is to launch a new TV channel that will make live sport including Premier League matches to non-sports subscribers for the first time.

The new channel, Sky Sports Mix, is aimed at encouraging a higher proportion of the broadcaster’s 12 million-plus subscribers to add its sports packages to their monthly TV plan.

“We are giving millions more people access to great moments from some of the world’s biggest sporting events at no extra cost,” said Sky Sports managing director Barney Francis. 

About 5 million to 6 million Sky customers have a sports package, which costs about £25 a month, with subscribers on the cheapest basic package paying about £20.

“It is a fantastic way for all Sky customers to be able to enjoy some of the great content that has made Sky Sports the first choice for sport. Our aim is to offer sport in a way that can engage, encourage and excite everyone even further.”

Sky said the new channel will offer a “select number” of live Premier League and Football League matches, as well as regular live football from competitions including Spain's La Liga, the US’s MLS and the Fifa 2018 World Cup qualifiers.

The channel also promises to include live sport including golf, international cricket, alongside a lineup including documentaries, sports entertainment shows and kids content such as Game Changers.

There is also the suggestion that it may be a way to win back, viewers who have gravitated to pay-as-you go sport via Now TV, which allows viewers to pay for a day access to Sky Sports without an expensive TV subscription. 

However, Sky is understood to see Now TV customers as completely different consumers of media to traditional TV customers and the company is not using the new channel to try and win them over to a full package.

Sky sees it as a way of adding added value to existing customers to help stop them thinking about defecting to a rival, namely BT Sport but also operators such as Virgin Media and TalkTalk TV.

Sky’s churn rate, the proportion of customers that leave the service for a rival, is running at 10%, which is considered a low level.

“Sky Sports Mix will bring sport to more people and provide many different ways of enjoying our coverage, from high profile live events and fascinating documentaries to clips of incredible moments,” said Francis.

Sky stressed that the “only way” to watch “every minute” of the sport it has TV rights to air – 60,000 hours a year – is to take a full subscription to Sky Sports.

5

[Matt]

When did La Liga move to Italy?

[Lineker]

Are you pissed already?

[Benji]

FFS, they best not add RAW to that. I literally just freed myself from the temptation of watching that two months ago >_>

[EddieG]

Thankfully, they've recently started doing that in Holland, and we get all the F1 races on that, as well as La Liga.

[Baddar]

I'm hoping the new TV money in Spain makes things a bit more exciting in the next few seasons, because Sky's coverage of the league is fantastic. They've got 6 or 7 games live every weekend.

[Rafael]

On 17/03/2016 at 10:38, Lineker said:

West Ham United are hopeful of signing Havard Nordtveit on a free transfer, with Slaven Bilic confirming his interest in the Borussia Mönchengladbach captain. The Norwegian midfielder’s contract runs out at the end of the season and although Bilic denied reports that Nordtveit has signed a pre-contract agreement with West Ham, the club are confident of beating off competition from the Bundesliga and Premier League. The 25-year-old was at Arsenal for three years before moving to Germany in 2011.

Solid player. Might be the last piece in the puzzle for their midfield.

[The Lusophone]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/35835197

9/10. Surprised by a few of the answers.