*Official* English Football Season 2014-15

[grecian]

Got to love that goal.

Bony quite good shocker, great move though. When is someone decent going to buy him, the bloke doesn't deserve to live in Wales, who does?

Edit, mind you expected him to bury that, maybe he does deserve to live in Cymru.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

God, Leicester are ****. At times they managed to make Villa look as though they were capable of stringing three passes together.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

As much as I worshipped him as a kid I think Nigel Pearson is going to get the chop soon and rightly so. Leicester are awful and him losing it with the fan in midweek is something you can't really come back from. Dead man walking.

 

[Cabinet96]

 

[Cabinet96]

Any stabs at a final Premier League table? Should probably wait until tomorrow but I'm bored.

1. Chelsea
2. Man City
3. Man United
4. Arsenal
5. Southampton
6. Liverpool
7. Tottenham
8. Everton
9. West Ham
10. Newcastle
11. Swansea
12. Stoke
13. Sunderland
14. Crystal Palace
15. QPR
16. Aston Villa
17. West Brom
18. Hull
19. Burnley
20. Leicester

 

[sledger]

There is no need for the level of abuse directed at Wenger there. It saddens me terribly.

 

[Ikki]

Disgraceful. Don't care if fans want Wenger out; he has done so much for that club he should never be abused like that.

 

[Pothas]

They really deserve a season of proper a pain, a new manager and a 12th place would do nicely.

 

[Tom Halsey]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhEfSUPnZL4

It's a good job he's learnt up to four seeing as that's the score they lost by tonight.

 

[Pothas]

Could have easily have had to stretch to 5 or 6 as well.

 

[grecian]

I feel a bit sorry for Moyesy now, not his fault he was promoted beyond all ability.

In the end going to Spain was a bold move too, should be praised. Going to end in ****ing disaster though, because of the ineptness and all.

 

[Magrat Garlick]

^^^ bitter, much?

 

[Pothas]

I feel a bit sorry for Moyesy now, not his fault he was promoted beyond all ability.

In the end going to Spain was a bold move too, should be praised. Going to end in ****ing disaster though, because of the ineptness and all.

Yeah I hope he does well.

 

[Uppercut]

^^^ bitter, much?

Oh yeah definitely. His incompetence is a widely accepted fact but not many outside the club seem to realise how much of a bastard he was at United.

 

[sledger]

Haha yeah, I've never quite understood the latter point tbh. Care to elaborate?

 

[sledger]

Wenger criticism justified but abuse is not - ESPN FC

He is a flawed but brilliant man who has given Arsenal fans incredible things during his tenure. To see him castigated as if he was a charlatan is not right.

Abuse is the way of the world these days. Manners are too often in short supply. As somebody who writes about football every day, being part of a robust debate and differences of opinion are fantastic. Having that back-and-forth about the game is what makes it such a passion for so many. Yet for every opinion, there's also the name-calling, passive aggressive goading, arrogant dismissal and a complete unwillingness to even accept other people might have a point of view that differs.

That's why criticism of Wenger is fine. Booing is not the horrendous abuse some would have you believe either. It's merely a way for a disenfranchised group of people to express the same emotion. But personal abuse, berating a man to his face as he walks to catch a train just isn't right.

Yes; well said that man.

 

[Uppercut]

Haha yeah, I've never quite understood the latter point tbh. Care to elaborate?

To turn the question around, where does the idea that he's a decent guy come from? Nobody thought that when he was at Everton. He was notoriously authoritarian, prickly in interviews, and driven by results over style or enjoyment of the game. Like an old-fashioned schoolteacher, the best you could say of him was "he's harsh, but he gets results". He didn't suddenly stop being harsh just because the results stopped coming. I know they don't come out of his tenure looking well either, but it's informative that none of the players are peddling the "nice guy out of his depth" story.

As for specific instances of bastardry, the refusal to accept that anything which went wrong was his fault really grates. He was already blaming the players after dos, tres, quatros games, criticising them publicly, saying we needed a few new faces (which he had failed to buy when he arrived). Plus he sacked our entire backroom staff and replaced them with his cronies. Including RVP's personal fitness coach, which "coincided" with the return of his recurring injury problems.

 

[sledger]

It's not so much there is/was any prominent idea that he was a decent guy, just that there was nothing immediately evident that drastically suggested anything to the contrary tbh.

 

[Cabinet96]

Arsenal have sent the kids and Podolski's to Turkey. #PrayforaDortmundwinjustincase

 

[Tom Halsey]

I wasn't really aware that bitterness post was aimed at me, although if it was then I would quite like to know how finding that Moyes press conference ridiculous qualifies as bitter tbh. If ever having found some amusement in something any given public figure has said or done then yeah I am a bitter ****. I mean it's almost like Dutch Schteve, albeit not quite as bad.

I am a bit more sympathetic to Moyes than Uppercut is, although there is no doubting that at times last season he was a ****. However I would put it down in some cases to plain incompetence and actually thinking what he was doing was for the best (getting rid of the entire backroom staff, his alleged ways of trying to impose his style of defending upon Ferdinand and Vidic) and other bits of it simply down to extreme stress (most of the rest of it but particularly the public statements that the squad weren't up to it). I mean I doubt most of us can really imagine what it is like to get a dream job, have it all publicly fall apart and have the world laughing at you. Not that I think he deserves any great sympathy either, but I don't necessarily think he is a **** until there is some greater evidence of it down the line, and I am indifferent as to whether I want him to succeed in Spain or not.