Football Thread (formally Soccer Thread)

[maorifulla]

yeah chelsea were lucky to win the other day

I think arsenal are just like my team Liverpool

World Beaters one day, shit the next

I live arsenals style of play and all they need is some consistency and they will hold their own

[lrdz]

Hull 4th from the bottom not too bad lol

[henno]

If we had a full strength team for most of the season, we could be quite good.

If my aunty had balls she's be my uncle. :heheh:

That's what the premiership is all about,  squad depth not necessarily the best first team.

Chelsea and Man  U to fight it out at the end.

[SteddieEddie]

Man City look good so far, especially if they stomp on the opposition.

Early days yet,

[Wandarah]

They may look good, but they are probably the most hideous bunch of cunts to grace the PL since Chelsea.

Their fans are now just as insufferable.

[SteddieEddie]

I would say if we play like that (mistakes aside) we will win at Man City. Just as we deserved to win at Man U.

LOL

 is it an Arsenal trait to be so deluded? Your defence is as leaky as an 80 year old hooker

[Spork]

Chelsea

Football Thread (formally Soccer Thread)

I think it will be a reasonably straight forward game for any Chelsea supporter who plays FM 2010.

[Spork]

LOL

 is it an Arsenal trait to be so deluded? Your defence is as leaky as an 80 year old hooker

Our last two games mistakes had more to do with our midfield than our defence, Vermaelan and Gallas are an exceptionally good combination, and are working really well together, Sagna is a champion and so is Clichy.

Why else would our defence have not changed at all this season?

But now we have Rosicky back in our midfield we are looking a lot better, even when he came on during the City match he made a huge difference to the side.

[TuataraDude]

Ouch!

Football has had many accusations regarding Hollywoods from players going down, but this one can be considered genuine.

CAUTION: If you are a little squeemish, you will not want to see this.

http://www.bild.de/BILD/sport/fussball/international/2009/09/15/horror-foul-in-suedafrika/video-beinbruch-carara-black-aces.html

[Zenith]

Deseved the red card I guess.
Thats the thing with football, you can get some nasty injuries.

Only fair that if Chelsea break the transfer rules they get punished.  
Sounds like they are getting done pretty hard thou.

Wins for Arsenal and Liverpool today in the champions leauge - all good, thou expected.

[Spork]

Deseved the red card I guess.
Thats the thing with football, you can get some nasty injuries.

Only fair that if Chelsea break the transfer rules they get punished.  
Sounds like they are getting done pretty hard thou.

Wins for Arsenal and Liverpool today in the champions leauge - all good, thou expected.

Just watching the Arsenal game now, but from what I see so far, we didn't deserve it, but we did come back from a 2-0 down (Standard Liegue scored in the second minute, and 5th minute from a penalty)

Penalty looked like a dive to me.

EDIT: I guess we played exceptionally well in the second half, all thanks to Bendtner's goal to open our scoring, He played quite well throughout the game I feel.

Our defence was quite good, not their fault that Eduardo pretty well scored for Standard, then somehow Gallas brought down their captain when Gallas was infront of him....

[SteddieEddie]

I notice you have not talked about the blatant hand ball that got your second goal.

Your team should be playing water polo with all the diving and handling

[maorifulla]

Your team should be playing water polo with all the diving and handling

LOL +1

[Spork]

I notice you have not talked about the blatant hand ball that got your second goal.

Your team should be playing water polo with all the diving and handling

Coming from someone who I pressume has supported Drogba through his career.....

Every team dives.

Do you think if Terry got a handball in the box, then Lampard scored because of it, but no one saw it, would they tell the ref?

No, that isn't how it works.

EDIT: I think Standard where more appealing for offside than handball, it's not handball every time it hits someones hand, as it is not always possible to move your hand away from a fast ball. I do not believe that Song, or who ever it was who made the 'handball' meant to do it, he was more trying to balance his body while he kicked the ball, but then missed the ball as it flung up and hit his arm.

Sure, just because it wasn't meant, doesn't mean it wasn't a handball out of the textbook, but there was no intent.

The commentators that I had (FSC) sucked SO bad btw, most boring commentators in the world.

[SteddieEddie]

"Hand to ball or ball to hand?" Nothing stirs the passion like a controversial handball decision.

You've only got to look at players and managers jumping up and down enraged at a dodgy penalty to know that.

A ball slams into a player's arm and one team is screaming for a penalty, while the others are claiming it was an accident.

It's a tricky one for the referee to call in the heat of the moment.

So what is 'deliberate' handball?

In Fifa's Laws of the Game 2005, Law 12 says a free-kick or penalty will be awarded if a player "handles the ball deliberately (except for the goalkeeper within his own penalty area)".

Page 67 of the document gives "additional information for referees, assistant referees and fourth officials".

It adds: "Referees are reminded that deliberately handling the ball is normally punished only by a direct free-kick or penalty kick if the offence occurred inside the penalty area.

"A caution or dismissal is not normally required."

However, the document fails to describe what constitutes deliberate handball, which places the responsibility firmly on the referee and referees' assistants.

Former Premier League referee David Elleray said the referee's interpretation depends on whether the hand or arm is in an "unnatural" position at the point of contact.

David Elleray consults his assistant during a club
Referees often consult their assistants on decisions
"Referees look at two specifics - did the hand or arm go towards the ball or in a manner which would block the ball, or is the hand in a position where it would not normally be?" Elleray told BBC Sport.

"The challenging decisions are if the defending player spreads their arms to make themselves bigger.

"If the ball hits the arm then the referee must decide whether this action was to deliberately block the ball or whether the player has raised their arms to protect themselves - especially if the ball is hit at speed."

The referee and referees' assistants, therefore, have a matter of seconds to weigh up these factors, and take the appropriate action.

And there will always be at least one manager, 11 players and thousands of fans who will insist they have been hard done by.

His arm was in a position to block the ball IMO

[Spork]

Well yea, but who is to say it was intentional?

BTW, as you must have seen, the ref didn't call it , so the game went on and the goal was counted. Not much will be done on the matter, there are a hell of a lot of goals and big plays in most games of pretty well any sport that could have been not counted if the ref picked up on something, but that is how sport is at the moment.

However, I note that you did not respond about my comment saying that if it was a Chelsea team member, which happens a hell of a lot (just like any other team) then you wouldn't be complaining.

That's life.

[SteddieEddie]

I wouldn't complain about a handball not being picked up, that is the rub of the green.

I can't stand diving though, regardless of who does it. I think if in the replays it is spotted then they should be able to retrospectively punish the sod who did it. Ban them from all leagues for x amount of games, it would quickly put an end to it

[Zenith]

There is some call for 'diving' thou in that allowing yourself to fall will lessen the chance of injury instead of standing against an attack, the trick is to stand up and keep playing - sure wave out and complain to the ref.  
you do see a few lying on the ground with a trainer tending them and the Ref restarts play and the magic power of the wistle fixes their sore leg.

Watching a bit of the NZ vs Oz netball thou there seemed to be more contact and body checks than your average game of Football and not a yellow card insight.

[Spork]

If you are looking for a perfect example of handball, watch some highlights of Arsenal's pwnage of Wigan, Eboue performs a perfect handball, unfortunately he realised afterward that he is not a goal keeper, and even if he was, he was at the wrong end.

I dislike Eboue anyway, as you say runing, no matter who it is, if a player actually dives - like Eboue did a couple of weeks back against Man U I think it was, then they should be red carded and banned for at least three matches, across all competitions.

If Eduardo's suspension had been carried out, he would not have been missed as we only had to face Standard Liegue, and we are going up against another fairly bad team after Liegue.

---

Anyway, onto tonight's match, the whole team seemed to play fairly well, although Song seemed to be playing on ice because of the amount of times he fell over, and Van Persie seemed to be kicking an ice ball the amount of times he fucked it up.

But overall this is one of the better games of our season so far, we dominated 95% of the play, and Vermaelen scored two brilliant goals, the first was a header where he showed how deadly he can be in the air, and the second was a cracker of a strike, that any of the best strikers would be extremely pleased with.

Third goal was coming for a while, ended with a cross in from Clichy, to Eduardo, who booted it into the close left post, and then got it back through a pass from Diaby, and Eduardo planted it in the back of the net via a detour of Eboue's legs.

Fourth was quite a nice goal really, Bendtner had it on the outside right of the box, and saw Fabregas making a run towards the near post, so quickly passed it in and Cesc knocked it into the goals.

The good thing is that at the moment our style of play is consistent, we have played well in every one of our games this season, we just had 'bad luck' in Manchester.

Another good thing is that we have a decent run of average teams for a month and a half.

[henno]

Uniteds 'luck' continues

Great finish, well deserved win but some good goals by City to keep it exciting

[Spork]

Hmm, decent game for any neutral supporter of the Manc game.

Crap arse defending on both account though! Foster is a terrible keeper as well.

[Wandarah]

I have tickets for the Carling Cup game at the Emirates tonight.

Wahey! It's always good fun to see the wee lads have a decent shot. Here's hoping they have the bollocks.

I'm hopeful, yet realise how foolish I was saying such things before the Man City game. Yet with Senderos and Sly in defense, as questionable as both of them are (the latter makes me want to shit my pants), we should be relatively solid at the back.

[Spork]

I have tickets for the Carling Cup game at the Emirates tonight.

Wahey! It's always good fun to see the wee lads have a decent shot. Here's hoping they have the bollocks.

I'm hopeful, yet realise how foolish I was saying such things before the Man City game. Yet with Senderos and Sly in defense, as questionable as both of them are (the latter makes me want to shit my pants), we should be relatively solid at the back.

Could you take some photos? Would be great to see some which were taken by a Iconzian/ Ghubber.

[Wandarah]

I'll only have my extremely shit cellphone camera with me, but I'm sure I can take some very poor quality pics yeah.

Luckily I'm in row 4! So I wont have to zoom too much

[Spork]

I'll only have my extremely shit cellphone camera with me, but I'm sure I can take some very poor quality pics yeah.

Luckily I'm in row 4! So I wont have to zoom too much

You're one lucky mofo tbh.

I'd consider killing to have the opportunity to go to the Emirates for a game.