"Teams Patrice Evra Hasn't Lied to the FA About" - OTT 20 [R]

"Hey guys, good luck winning with THIS guy leading the line next year."

 

I'm kind of pissed off he was so shit the last 18months. Had he been a little better and actually been able to lead the line Chelsea would of binned Drogba to either China or the stands and we would of won the FA cup.

18 months of gloating has backfired a little...

 

Squeeze me?

If he had been playing to his full potential, then he would have been every bit as likely as Drogba to be scoring the big goals in the big games. So, um, that makes no sense. We'd have still lost the FA Cup, but Fernando Torres would have scored the winning goal.

Yeah, that's much better.

 

Appears Owen Hargreaves has been released by City. Not a surprise, that.

 

Ha! Joey Barton has been banned for 12 games.

 

And yet Terry is still walking scott free and back in the England squad. The FA is definitely not corrupt or self serving

 

Right. I know this has been beat to death, but I don't understand how Suarez and Terry are different. I just don't get it.

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That said. I was watching highlights from previous seasons. In particular, I watched Torres when he was having success with us. He just seems a different player, and maybe I am looking too much into it. Looks like those first two years he was way happier with us, and he didn't win anything.

 

So what does everyone think regarding our competitors for third and fourth next season?

I think we'll be competing with these teams:

Chelsea - Are obviously going to spend big this summer and already linked to Lucas and Hazard. I think they will definitely be top four next season.
Arsenal - It will be interesting to see what Arsenal do this summer. Will RVP leave? I hope he does because then they will be much worse next season and allow us to slip into fourth. I think Arsenal will be our main competitors for the fourth place slot.
Spurs - I think its a good chance Modric leaves this summer and then Bale will consider leaving as well especially without Champs league football.
Newcastle - Was this season a fluke or will they challenge again? It will be interesting to see if they can keep their team, improve it, and make another challenge for fourth place.

 

Chelsea have a problem in that their owner buys players the managers doesn't need or hasn't recommended. Take the flavour of the season, Hazard, as an example.
Arsenal will always be challenging ... for a champions league place and, seemingly, that is its board's content.

I think if Newcastle do not break that squad, and there is little to suggest this will happen is onto a winner. Already started making some judicious additions and that is what breeds success.

Spurs fell away badly at the end and almost in a similar situation to Liverpool (peaking-wise rather than achievement-wise) before Alonso, Arbeloa and Riera left. And they were never replaced with similar quality (that talk of Barry was for Alonso was laughable). Most importantly squad cohesion was disrupted and we never recovered while everybody else around was improving, and fast.

What about Liverpool this time round? We do not know, and that is the honest truth. We have a mid-table squad that is severely deficient in midfield creativity and I think the departure of both Comolli and Dalglish attests to that. Unless that glaring short-coming is addressed, any talk of challenging for 4th, at the very least is triumph of hope over reality.

It will be along summer ...

 

Thoughts on Chelsea
-Petr Cech seems to be reborn. After he fractured his skull, he was still good but not as good as he had been, I think he has started to make a rise again. He is quality.
-Backline is strong enough, but if racism trial comes back bad for Terry, then they will be without him for matches, correct?
-Their midfield is interesting, Lampard looked better at end of season. They have some youth there, but how sharp they can be and who will stay is interesting.
-I don't even want to touch their forward situation. A mess right now.

Thoughts on Arsenal and Spurs
-Typical Arsenal and Spurs. Arsenal has a lot of youth (shocking, I know), but youth doesn't win matches. Players like Van Persie do. Spurs didn't make it to fourth, and I think what happened to us will happen to them. One major player leaves, and other players will say "this signifies that our club doesn't want to win so I want to leave".

Thoughts on Newcastle
-I don't know what to think about Newcastle.

 

Suarez is foreign and was accused of racism by a Manchester United player.

 

Chelsea will invest heavily, so it is a matter of whether or not they're already drawing up Roman's the scout's wishlist or whether they will wait to appoint a manager first. Get the recruitment in dugout and on the pitch and they will be obvious title contenders next season.

Arsenal will finish third or fourth again.

United will strengthen, but there's been a sense of them defying gravity for a couple of seasons now and there are only so many times Paul Scholes can come out of retirement. The drop-of in quality from some of their current stalwarts to their most immediate back-ups is, in several key positions, vertiginous.

Spurs are about to fall apart, I reckon. Modric will go, Bale may well find the siren calls irresistible and their strength in depth has been suspect for a while. They face a daunting task: remaining competitive will require them to spend most of what they earn from outgoing players (and then some) on incoming alternatives. And they don't have CL to offer this year.

Newcastle are a real wild card. They had some dodgy runs this season, but overall I think everyone agrees that their season was excellent. It's whether or not that represents them at maximum throttle, or whether that's them with some headroom left. Only time will tell.

I would put Liverpool in that context too. We know that our season was below par, especially given the disappointing contributions from several key players, new and established. Performances have often been very satisfactory, results not so. So the headroom should be substantial, even by just playing to potential with what we have. Realistically though, that wasn't enough for KD, so it won't be for the new guy(s). Unless a workable system of play is quickly bedded in and it includes whatever changes are needed (players/tactics/karma) to make us score more.

 

You could make an argument that we were "unlucky" while Newcastle was equally "lucky", albeit only slightly so.

Goal differential is generally a good indicator of actual quality, and can often tell us if a team was "lucky" or the results overstate their level of play. I think this holds true, even with the freaky score liens we had this season. If we had a goal difference table, the Top 4 wouldn't change, but 5-6 would be Chelsea and Everton, and we'd come in slightly ahead of Newcastle at in 7th place.

With the tendency for things to regress towards the mean, we could expect to be slightly better next season, even if nothing major happens, though we clearly weren't good enough to challenge for a Champions League place.

 

Newcastle were lucky to the extent that they struck gold with Ba and Cisse. Of course we have to give credit to Pardew for playing a system that maximised their potential, but still. Their defence ranked 10th out of 20 over the season, ours 3rd. However, our "failed to score" percentage was 34%. Newcastle's was 18%. Newcastle's most common result was a 2-0 win (16%), our was either a 1-1 draw or a 0-1 loss (also 16%).

Goals, goals goals. Obvious, but even more so in the numbers.

 

Looks like the FA is throwing Beckham an international retirement party, whether he likes it or not.

 

Suarez scores - Uruguay v Russia 1-1

 

Old, but still funny.

 

Dirty Deiter...!

Nice goal from Little Luis.

 

So he can shoot with his left after all? Wish he did that for us. Well, maybe this season.

 

England won away to a highly respected opponent in Norway. Ashly Young scored in the 9th with an assist from Carroll, when Engerland enjoyed a good half. Second half Norway pressed for an equalizer, so the Hodge brought on Kelly to replace the Manc. Phil Jones. Gerrard went off for Barry in the 46th. (good)
Engerland were rated, good. But nothing better.

Good match from Jon Arne, I still miss the ginger!

 

Los Estados Unidos 5 - the Flower of Scotland 1. Ofcourse Scotland were missing Charly Adam

 

I bet they missed his free-kick expertise.