NAMING RIGHTS THREAD: Liverpool really won't win the Premiership 2010-2011

I love the guy tbh - he's great when he talks sense, plays a very attractive brand of football when they play well, and brings the lols with tantrums & blindness (selective and otherwise) when they don't but his time has surely come.

xp re Arsene

yeah i don't think i could cope without wenger's comedy touchline tantrums, water bottles and all.

Don't think any of them should lose their jobs.

'surely', the magic ingredient that turns a hoary old 606ism into a golden turd of challopry

Kind of feel Man U aren't that good despite the title and possible CL. Four or five teams are a couple of good signings from challenging next season imo, including Liverpool.

Wenger shouldn't, but should get a kick up the backside and told to stop fannying around and just buy the two or three players he needs to win, like, everything.

Ancelotti should stay, and I think might. Who would they get better?

Mancini should stay and will, if for no other reason than that this year's an improvement. Plus Abu Dhabi don't actually seem to care that much about their club.

agree w/ pandemic, unless citeh somehow get hiddink or.....ancelotti

anncelotti shouldnt but will

I don't think Mancini has been much of an improvement on Hughes and expectations are surely higher than scraping fourth above a faltering Spurs?

ancelotti might be going to roma anyway

Ferguson should be sacked is the genius move imo - complacency's the big risk to Utd, that'd keep the squad from getting too comfortable. Grant surely in.

mancini should and might
Wenger shouldnt and wont

AND we have Gary Neville to look forward to on Sky next season. Great.

there just aren't that many possible replacement

villas boas supposedly wants to take porto into the cl

xppp Hodgson surely in ;)

Think the test should be next season for Mancini. imo they shouldn't sign any players(except if tevez leaves maybe) and the present team after a year together should be capable of 82+pts. If they don't get that he should lose his job.

<3 <3 <3 <3
http://www1.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/Manchester+United+v+Valencia+qjA_gWfP9bOl.jpg

Phil McNulty at Old Trafford: "Hard not to believe this is not the day when Manchester United effectively sealed their record 19th title. Fully deserved win over Chelsea built on the foundations of a blistering start and Sir Alex Ferguson is even moved to take a bow in front an exultant Stretford End."

hard not to believe this is not the day?

oh god he's getting worse

He's not getting not worsterer.

happy st arsenaleringham's day

Heh. I'm nicking that for next season's inevitable capitulation.

Kind of feel Man U aren't that good despite the title and possible CL. Four or five teams are a couple of good signings from challenging next season imo, including Liverpool.

I've been thinking that all season but maybe we've just been underrating them? Aside from Barcelona and Real it's difficult to think of an unequivocally better team out there. They're sort of unexcitingly effective at the moment but maybe that's different from being not that good.

i've not been underrating them since 2003, they've just kept winning titles regularly regardless

Well, it depends what you're comparing them to: to champions from previous seasons or to the other teams in the league this season. If the former, then this United side isn't as good as United 06/07 or Arsenal 03/04 (for example) and certainly nowhere near as consistent at racking up points as Chelsea 2005; if the latter, then I'd say United are the best team in England this season. I've been saying all season that everyone has had lots of bad results and the league has been a battle to see which team is the least shit - well, United 10/11 can proudly say they are the least shit!*

*unless they contrive to lose their last two games

I wondered if they're just hit-or-miss, but their basic dullness makes that harder to spot. They've taken fairly comprehensive beatings from Arsenal, City and Liverpool recently, then wiped the floor with Schalke and Chelsea. I don't think there's a common factor there (maybe Scholes) but it seems sometimes they just click and sometimes they don't.

United definitely deserve the title this year, I don't think anyone can argue. The pity is how easily we could have been saying that about Arsenal instead.

yeah, it's a league of missed opportunities, utd will be the only top 6 finisher without serious 'what-ifs'

Liverpool's is more what ifn't, tbh. Oddly, City can maybe be most satisfied of the next five, assuming they stay fourth.

That's some header from Osman yesterday.

Gosh, Mancini does not look comfortable before the motd cameras.

There's a teeny bit of Bowie in Cracked Actor about him atm.

Gosh, Mancini does not look comfortable before the motd cameras.

― Ismael Klata, Sunday, 8 May 2011 22:07 (4 minutes ago)

truly, he is civilized after all

Mancini is the worst manager in the league. Well, in the top three with Hoillier and Kean anyway.

nice to see a bottom three that Avram Grant isn't part of

avram grant has performed or overperformed every season in england til now

whoever gets the most points always deserves title, but man u's maximum possible points tally this year would not have been good enough to win league in any season from 2003-4 onwards - so statistics do back up the fact that this is not a great team, a schooling from barcelona would confirm that beyond doubt, but we shall see.

great relegation battle this year. love it.

I have tiny hopes Birmingham might get sucked back in, but it's West Ham plus two from three now. I'm rather disappointed it won't be a last-day free-for-all. It might not even make it to the last day, conceivably.

djourou not covered in glory, second deflected in off his mediocre block, other two just plain awful defending from him

Relegation battle has been great.

Obviously we're all just waiting for the main event

― William Bloody Swygart, Sunday, 8 May 2011 15:12 (7 hours ago)

Nothing revelatory.

if Blackburn or Birmingham lose next weekend then I think they'll at least be theoretically capable of going down on the last day, however much it looks like 3 from the bottom 4.

I've been wondering the how good are United question as well.

They were brilliant yesterday and have comfortably been the best side all season. If they've dropped points it is at least partly because they have been able to - not every game has been a must win and that allows a certain complacency to creep in, plus the squad juggling issues of dealing with the CL.

Think they've actually played some of their best football for three seasons or so as well. We won't know how good they are until Barca I guess.

Last word, though, to wazaroon.

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01306/SNN0903ROON-2802_1306734a.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3569681/Wayne-Rooney-New-V-sign-insult-storm.html&usg=__lnbm1e4Ed12IrY3cJAAFw0xr4SM=&h=390&w=280&sz=22&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=C1qDua4ZXs95NM:&tbnh=152&tbnw=109&ei=3rnHTefBIomr8AOgtMz1Bw&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dwayne%2Brooney%2Bv-sign%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26rlz%3D1R2GGLL_en-GB%26biw%3D1276%26bih%3D571%26tbm%3Disch&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=126&vpy=46&dur=905&hovh=265&hovw=190&tx=110&ty=171&page=1&ndsp=19&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0

As for Carlo, hope he stays. Be fucking furious if he doesn't.

Ah, link didn't work. it was to this, though.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3569681/Wayne-Rooney-New-V-sign-insult-storm.html

blackburn and birmingham are still in trouble. 'burn have to play man utd next, which they will probably lose, meaning that if wolves beat them on the last day they are guaranteed to finish above them (even if wolves lose to sunderland). in that case, one of wigan or blackpool would probably have to get 4 points to relegate blackburn (as blackburn would probably stay up if it went to goal difference, as theirs is considerably stronger) - but it's certainly possible that wigan could do this (blackpool, less so).

i'd put my house on blackpool and west ham to go down. i would like it if the third team was boring blackburn, but probably it will be one of wolves and wigan.

wolves win next weekend + west ham beat wigan next weekend = wolves are mathematically certain to stay ahead of wigan and ham. anything *other* than a wigan win would be decent for wolves, tbh.

every team in the premier league has already acquired a points tally that would have kept them up last season. it is excellent stuff.

It's not just a question of whether this team is as good as previous United teams but also how it stacks up against other teams in Europe at the moment and, Barca and possible Real and *maybe* Inter aside they evidently stack up pretty well. Maybe European club football in general just isn't that good at the moment?

Well, United thrashed Schalke who thrashed Inter who beat Barca while winning the European Cup last season, so United should beat Barcelona about 10-0 at Wembley.

http://i.imgur.com/eEQeR.jpg

his face is melting

we now know what he's going to look like in 30 years time.