The Barclays Premier League thread 2015/2016

[TCO]

Iheanacho makes his senior debut for City, immediately gets right in the face of Behrami. I think he's gonna do just fine as our youth graduates go.

Yeah he'll make a fine signing for a Championship or continental Europe team in a few years when City sign another player for £50mil! Great body for a homegrown spot on the bench in the Champions League too!

Edited August 29, 2015 by TCO

[Gazz]

Yeah the amount of bookings the ref made today was a joke. He was flashing them at basically any foul towards the end. 

Mitrovic will learn, it wasn't the most malicious of fouls and another day it could've easily saw just a yellow. Having two points from the first 4 games is actually more than I anticipated given the fixture list. I'm still confident in the squad and it took a jammy deflection to break down the defence today with 10 men on the pitch.

International break now and two winnable fixtures after so nothing to worry about!

Never mind nothing to worry about, I'm massively positive after these first 4 (plus the cup) games. Had we gone down to ten like that in the last few years Pardew would have been preparing his post match excuses before he made a tactical change. Today we immediately went 4-4-1 and there were massive sections where it didn't even look like we had ten. All the players were applauded off today as Andre Marriner scuttled down the tunnel (aren't refs supposed to be last off?.

Will be interesting if we make a late move for Austin, Mitrovic is looking a liability though we do have Cisse, Perez and Riviere.

McClaren made positive subs towards the end too (Perez, Cisse and De Jong all coming on). If that had of been last season, we'd would have lost 6-0 and would have had Janmaat on the left wing and Cisse at right back. Our defensive organisation too is night and day.

[Colly]

Honestly watching McLaren on Tuesday from five yards away was fascinating, he's constantly aware of what's going on and looking to improve things, definitely not a believer in 'when they're over the white line there's nothing I can do' philosophy we've been used to for ages. Just gutted there's an international break.

[Moses Julep]

I'm loving Chelsea this season. 

[Asuka's Gonna Kill You]

Chelsea losing at home, Liverpool getting smashed at home and Coutinho red carded which means he misses the match against us.

 

Safe to say it's been a pretty good weekend so far 

[Gazz]

Is that Mourinho's first home loss since about 1965?

[Gorka]

Didn't Sunderland of all clubs do it last season or before that?

[brenchill]

Is that Mourinho's first home loss since about 1965?

Since 2014.

[Cheeky Hughes]

Iheanacho makes his senior debut for City, immediately gets right in the face of Behrami. I think he's gonna do just fine as our youth graduates go.

Yeah he'll make a fine signing for a Championship or continental Europe team in a few years when City sign another player for £50mil! Great body for a homegrown spot on the bench in the Champions League too!

Bloody hell, people complain when they don't play, and they complain when they do play.

[TCO]

Iheanacho makes his senior debut for City, immediately gets right in the face of Behrami. I think he's gonna do just fine as our youth graduates go.

Yeah he'll make a fine signing for a Championship or continental Europe team in a few years when City sign another player for £50mil! Great body for a homegrown spot on the bench in the Champions League too!

Bloody hell, people complain when they don't play, and they complain when they do play.

I was just making fun of 'as far as our youth graduates go' bit! I suppose when Michael Johnson was the previous golden child of that system it's only up from there!

[Cheeky Hughes]

Iheanacho makes his senior debut for City, immediately gets right in the face of Behrami. I think he's gonna do just fine as our youth graduates go.

Yeah he'll make a fine signing for a Championship or continental Europe team in a few years when City sign another player for £50mil! Great body for a homegrown spot on the bench in the Champions League too!

Bloody hell, people complain when they don't play, and they complain when they do play.

I was just making fun of 'as far as our youth graduates go' bit! I suppose when Michael Johnson was the previous golden child of that system it's only up from there!

It WAS Marcos Lopes, but he's swanned off to Monaco.

Honestly I think Iheanacho has the best chance of stepping up, never seen a youngster look so confident on the ball. Maffeo has a lot of potential at right back to take over from Zaba/Sagna when they retire, and Manu Garcia looks like a heir apparent to Silva. Hopefully the new Academy is starting to show some results. Our under-16s smashed Boro's under-16's 10-0 yesterday!

[Colly]

Tottenham's love of the Phantom Menace will never fail to baffle me, especially with it's horrendous use of Jewish stereotypes.

[stokeriño]

Well that was more than a little bit of a disgrace.

Liking the look of Kenedy though (although perhaps not at left-back in the future...).

[Dynamite]

Lovren's defending for the second West Ham goal was embarrassing.

[Arjen Robben]

[Kyle]

Howard is on point today. 

[Hobo]

The thing about today was it's a prototypical Liverpool vs. a team they should beat kinda game. West Ham were compact, they were deep and they invited Liverpool to come onto them and then countered and because Lovren and Skrtel both decided to take the afternoon off (which is a big disappointment because they had been rather good) Liverpool end up losing. It felt like there was a bit of a mental drop off from the Liverpool players as well. Like they came in with the attitude of "we're going to beat this lot and don't need to try" which, again, I've seen Liverpool teams do a lot (going back years and several managers).

Coutinho getting sent off is a massive pain in the neck. On the plus side Sturridge is back in training, Henderson should be back after the international break too. 7 points from 12 isn't horrible.

[Szumi]

I have now seen the West Ham keeper in possession of the ball with a foot or both on the getting outside of the box three times. Surely that is illegal? Twice he stepped out of his box when punting it, and just then when he slid, the ball was in the box but feet clearly out of the box.

I don't really follow what you're saying, do you think goalkeepers aren't allowed out of the box with the ball?

If the goalie has possession of the ball with his hands, I was puzzled as to why he was showed to have his feet out of the box. If a goalie is stepping out to punt the ball away, and his feet are outside the box, planted, before he actually kicks the ball, I'm puzzled as to how that is not hand ball.

[Kyle]

Jesus, Cleverley was lucky not to have his ankle snap on that challenge. 

[Colly]

I have now seen the West Ham keeper in possession of the ball with a foot or both on the getting outside of the box three times. Surely that is illegal? Twice he stepped out of his box when punting it, and just then when he slid, the ball was in the box but feet clearly out of the box.

I don't really follow what you're saying, do you think goalkeepers aren't allowed out of the box with the ball?

If the goalie has possession of the ball with his hands, I was puzzled as to why he was showed to have his feet out of the box. If a goalie is stepping out to punt the ball away, and his feet are outside the box, planted, before he actually kicks the ball, I'm puzzled as to how that is not hand ball.

If the ball is outside the box and he's handling it it would be handball, his feet position makes no difference. It's all balls and lines in football, feet don't make a difference unlike rugby.