The Barclays Premier League thread 2015/2016

[Colly]

1 hour ago, MDK said:

Or we'll just shove Vardy out wide and play slow, pedestrian football.

It'd be less pedestrian than Rooney out wide at least.

I'd love it if we played Kane and Vardy but I'd be really surprised if we went 4-4-2 even if just because it's unfashionable. Getting two ridiculously in form strikers on the pitch at once with Sterling and Walcott/Ox wide would be fantastic, but would mean either dropping Rooney or dropping him into almost a holding role. Mebbe Vardy and Sterling off Kane with the usual 3 man midfield?

[Matt]

That's what I'd go with except I'd have Alli, Dier and Barkley as the three in midfield. Or maybe a 4231 with Walcott instead of Vardy.

[DavidMarrio]

I think a combination of Sterling, Kane and Walcott would be decent whether it's a 443 or 4231. 

You could have any combination of Henderson, Barkley,  Alli and Dier for centre mid whether it's 3 centre mids or 2 and 1 attacking midfielder. 

I'd probably go with Smalling and Cahill at centre back. With Clyne and Bertrand athe fullback. 

The squad can be fleshed out with the likes of Butland, Jones, Stones, Lallana, Sturridge and vardy et al. 

I'd be going with a youthful team with some experienced heads in the side.  We aren't going to win but we may as well play some of the youngsters and players who are likely to be still around the set up come Russia 2018. There's some good players available for us. 

[Jimmy]

How's Clyne been this season? Kyle Walker has been in form recently, and I'd be surprised if he isn't at least in the squad, if not starting. I think the England team is quite exciting at the moment. I mean, it won't be at the Euros, but we've got a bunch of options. 

[MDK]

2 hours ago, TLHobo said:

You should just forget about international football. It's dull.

 

1 hour ago, ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster said:

It really is.

Yeah, but you two support top, top teams. Watching England play is the closest I'll get to seeing a team I support do well in a competition. Apart from Orient getting promoted and the 1-1 draw against Arsenal, my favourite moment was beating the Dutch. What a day.

[The Lusophone]

30 minutes ago, MDK said:

 

Yeah, but you two support top, top teams. Watching England play is the closest I'll get to seeing a team I support do well in a competition. Apart from Orient getting promoted and the 1-1 draw against Arsenal, my favourite moment was beating the Dutch. What a day.

Hell even as a United fan I want England to do well and enjoy watching them. I wasn't really old enough to remember all of United's 99 Champions League final but the England 5-1 Germany game is my favourite full memory of a game, so to speak.

[Hobo]

32 minutes ago, MDK said:

 

Yeah, but you two support top, top teams. Watching England play is the closest I'll get to seeing a team I support do well in a competition. Apart from Orient getting promoted and the 1-1 draw against Arsenal, my favourite moment was beating the Dutch. What a day.

I can see that, I guess, but it requires a level of national pride that I really don't have.

[Nerf]

1 hour ago, Jimmy said:

How's Clyne been this season? Kyle Walker has been in form recently, and I'd be surprised if he isn't at least in the squad, if not starting. I think the England team is quite exciting at the moment. I mean, it won't be at the Euros, but we've got a bunch of options. 

Imperious, pretty much. He's literally made two mistakes all season. Both in the Europa League. Both probably a result of exhaustion because he plays ALL THE MINUTES. Otherwise, he just closes down the right flank for 90 minutes. Watching Sterling in his pocket was glorious.

Could be better going forward and passing, but still the best FB we've had since Finnan. Hands down.

[DavidMarrio]

1 hour ago, MDK said:

 

Yeah, but you two support top, top teams. Watching England play is the closest I'll get to seeing a team I support do well in a competition. Apart from Orient getting promoted and the 1-1 draw against Arsenal, my favourite moment was beating the Dutch. What a day.

I totally get this . I want England to do well but for me the team just doesn't inspire any enthusiasm for me to care more. I don't think we are good enough to win competitions but we just haven't performed in god knows how long. All I want is to play well and try to advance as far as we can

I loved France 98 and Korea/Japan 2002 as a kid but now I just feel that it's smash qualifications, massively under perform in the tournament and play crap.  

Plus I hate Woy 

[Matt]

I barely even support England these days, I mean I want them to do well but I just can't bring myself to care that much. "Oh we've been knocked out of another tournament by some tin pot country, meh" is pretty much my reaction every 2 years.

Although that's pretty quickly becoming my stance on Leeds these days. If it weren't for scum being hilariously shit (for their standards), I probably wouldn't care at all about football these days.

[METALMAN]

4 hours ago, TLHobo said:

You should just forget about international football. It's dull.

It's the only good football! All the colours and excitement of a tournament, the national anthems, the shirts without sponsors, the greater breadth of teams that can actually win a tournament.

I mean, I'm only talking about world cups tbf, I wouldn't watch the rest of it, but that goes for club football too.

[Jimmy]

Yeah, in theory we all don't care or are bored by it, but we'll all fully commit to the Euros and feel devastated when we inevitably got knocked out on pens by Portugal. It's so much fun to get caught up in, I love the pub atmosphere for England games. 

[DavidMarrio]

I loved the 2010 World Cup, we went to a tequilla bar for the Mexico/France game. Safe to say, I ended up falling asleep on a curb near my house and got aa lift from the milkman on the back of his milk truck back to my house. 

I couldn't normally care less about qualifiers or friendlies but I love a international tournament. (Apart from when they get pointless players on as pundits such as fast talking and mumbling Adebayor in one of the world cups) 

[Moses Julep]

2 hours ago, metalman said:

It's the only good football! All the colours and excitement of a tournament, the national anthems, the shirts without sponsors, the greater breadth of teams that can actually win a tournament.

I mean, I'm only talking about world cups tbf, I wouldn't watch the rest of it, but that goes for club football too.

See, I find the whole thing exciting but that's because by and large the atmosphere is fantastic and we only get to see these matches every two years (well at least worthwhile international matches as opposed to friendlies and boring qualification), but the football is honestly not that enthralling. The past four international tournaments have been by and large predictable and won by teams everyone expected to win. The last tournament that wasn't predictable, World Cup 2006, was an absolutely reprehensible shit show where Italy kinda cheated their way to victory (I still think of Grosso throwing himself to the ground in the dying minutes versus Australia and it makes my blood boil). Not to mention Portuguese and Dutch players essentially diving and being violent for an entire tournament and you've got a recipe for disaster. Euro 2004 also had unlikely winners, albeit unlikely winners that put me to sleep by having 11 men behind the ball at all times and then sneaking in a header for the win.

So yeah, club football can make me incredibly jaded, but there's no denying that from a purely footballing point of view when someone assembles a team full of talented players, it's going to make for good matches.

[Gorka]

If the 2014 World Cup was considered "predictable" then it must be hard to get pleasure from football.

[METALMAN]

Oh yeah, the football's not very good, but I don't really enjoy watching football as a rule. I get into these things more for the context and it feeling "special". And I only really get that for the World Cup and, to a significantly lesser extent, the European Championships.

And I find international tournaments far less obviously predictable than club football.

[DavidMarrio]

I always like seeing players I don't get the chance to see that often. Plus there's always one or two players who will have a blinder of a tournament and end up moving elsewhere because of it. 

[Thrilla]

2 hours ago, Jimmy said:

It's so much fun to get caught up in, I love the pub atmosphere for England games. 

True, who doesn't love a rousing rendition of 'There were ten German bombers in the air', >_>

[DavidMarrio]

29 minutes ago, Thrilla said:

True, who doesn't love a rousing rendition of 'There were ten German bombers in the air', >_>

Exeter done that in the cup replay at Anfield after Klopp wouldn't wave at them. 

[METALMAN]

That song annoys me. The RAF is a British institution, not English. :/