BelfastBloke's Rolling Footie Thread 2013-14 Season

[Pan]

The rolling Football thread for Season '13-14 might as well start off in the traditional way with the same intro as did the original rolling Football thread all those seasons ago. But with the new tradition of leaving the musty changing room of Dadsnet...
We've been top heavy with premiership stuff but it's really for any footie played on the planet and beyond.

Footie fans please sign in with

1.Which team you support.
2.Which team(s) you loathe.
3.How you are getting your kids to follow the correct team.

1. A thought on the season (Premiership/Championship/Champions? League/FA Cup/League Cup/all leagues world wide.)

The current fixtures are quiet nice for us. We had some tougher games at thte start of the season when we weren't very good. But now we have a few surely winnables and playing much better, even sans RvP.
Meanwhile teams above us are being fixtured together and so taking points off each other.

Yesterday Cov let slip a 0-1 lead in the 2nd half to a 2-1 defeat. Play offs look like a bit of a struggle now.

Oh I don't know Dan. Chelski's midfield looks like it caves a bit under pressure, and Flamini and Wilshere look more than capable of doing that. They didn't like the Black Cats sticking it in their faces, so I'd be a bit more hopeful.
fwiw

'cept of course Wilshere has managed to invite himself out of proceedings...

At least we didn’t lose.

On a blustery sodden night, I found it fascinating that Wenger didn't use any subs. I've never known him to do that.

He had Flamini, Carzorla, and Bendnter warming up down below us for the whole of the second half, but never threw one of them on.

He always subs around 70 mins in. I can't remember that last time he used no subs.

Arseblog: "The conundrum of Olivier Giroud was fully illustrated in East London. He snatched at a presentable chance in the first half, yet it’s hard to believe players such as Podolski, Ramsey and Walcott would find the opportunities they do without his presence.

In a sense, we can’t live with him and can’t live without him."

And season's greetings to all!

No convinced by Utd's 'charge up the table' yet. Yes we have winnables and clubs above us are busy taking points off each other - but we aren't exactly stamping authority in games. Quite how Rooney wasn't even booked for kicking the Hull player from behind is a bit of a mystery. And please please please can we have Vidic off the bench and organising the defence better than anyone else can.

I'm still feeling raw after the Boxing Day match

and with good reason Horsemad. Rogers was a bit wrong to implicate a Manchester conspiracy but some of the decisions were cockamainy.

A

Agreed

Aarrgghh! Stupid phone!

Agreed Pan - it was made worse by watching it at a City fan's house!

DS mentioned Rogers' Manchester conspiracy theory; pretty pointless Rogers making that point, I thought, although the ref WAS totally rubbish!

Our beloved Ole Gunnar Solskjaer to Cardiff. I'm sure he knows what he is doing....

Pan I'd like to think that Ole knows what he's doing, but I'm actually not so sure.
Mr Tan does not appear to be an owner who actually understands the Premiership at all, in fact I'm not sure he understands any football league come to think of it.
Malky McKay was not a bad manager - he did nothing wrong and he retained the loyalty of the fans to the end - which goes a huge way.
As much as I adore Ole I'm not certain he'll do any better with the raw material available to him and I do hope he won't taint his future prospects with this move.

Moving onto other matters - I couldn't believe we didn't at least draw with Spurs today or better still beat them at home
We absolutely have to get things under control and fast now or else we won't be in the CL next season and that's just unbelievable.
Moyes needs to get a grip on the midfield failings and fast if possible this transfer window.

Solskjaer understands football, that's for sure. Whether that is relevant in his new job is debatable.

Looking forward to the North London derby in the FA Cup tomorrow, although it'll be a nasty atmosphere, likely dreadful weather, and I'm sort of expecting to lose. Very focussed on the Premiership at the moment, although the FA Cup would be easier to win than the Prem, of course. Given our trophy drought, FA Cup would be good.

I think Mr Tan is actually investing in the wrong area for his talents - comedy seems much more appropriate.
Surely he had to be having a laugh when he suggested Liverpool should play in their away strip at Anfield now that he's changed Cardiff's colour to red ?
I'm just sorry that he didn't get the opportunity to suggest that to SAF before he retired - I'm sure the ensuing conversation would have been very enlightening (if brief) for him

Now Man U. are out of the FA Cup they can concentrate on other things -
Like not getting relegated.

Fair enough, Old Trafford is a hard place to win a game of football -
Just ask David Moyes.

I was supposed to do a speech at Old Trafford but was thrown out before I finished testing the mic.

All I said was 1-2 1-2 1-2

Naughty Dan

snot funny.

Pan, DH has lived through the bad times with City, he has learned to roll with the punches and be philosophical about results, though he still gets frustrated.

DBIL on the other hand, is not dealing with Uniteds' form this season very well at all. He had spent over 20 years picking on DH and poking fun at City, but has now taken to avoiding the topic of football around DH. DH finds his behaviour amusing, as he would never bother saying anything to him about it - he always says it could be his turn again soon. He fully expects the rough with the smooth....a legacy of the dark years.

He has said though that the biggest mistake United could make is getting rid of Moyes - he reckons lack of continuity was one of City's biggest problems - they went years not being able to steady the ship and build anything.

I know. I'm really kidding. It's just soooo haaard to take.

We'd spent years politely patronising Citeh fans, it's soooo haaaaard.

No Moyesy must stay and be given a good while, I agree. I remember the dark days of Busby-McGuiness-Busby(again)-O'Farrell-Docherty and 2nd Division. I like to take a long view as well.

Job done. Train tickets to Wembley being researched.

It's a date.

Very quiet in here...