Kenny Dalglish Won't Be Delivering the Module: English Premiership 2011-12

At least Arsenal are perverse enough for next week not to be a foregone conclusion.

yes it is. give him 5 years.

good point. prob should give him 10 years or so really.

levy get us a fuckin target man ffs

de gea was ok imo, couple decent saves.

He fell over when tripped and shouted when almost kicked in the face, you can tell he's crap.

I meant more the mistakes, eg flapping at that cross which could v v nearly gavet Spurs a lifeline that would have made it an uncomfortable end, and dropping the shot before Defoe kicked him.

a million xposts to darragh - Evans clearly took on the "Vidic role" tonight. Really excited about Welbeck, he wasn't really in the game til the second half but he's always liable to come up with something unexpected like the backheel for Anderson's goal and it was sweet seeing him and Cleverley link up.

god that was nult-like...you get my point tho! xpost

Yeah I was just being a dick, you have a point, still think it's too early to condemn though.

Not too bothered about De Gea tbh, clean sheet will do him good. Like the way he often looks for a pass rather than just booting it. There'll be mistakes but i can live with that

spanish commentators just pronounced it de *hard G*ea and de Hea within the same sentence - it's de Hea, right? and as i type i have missed a goal.

I always thought it was de Hea.

Definitely 'Hea'.

how will de gea hold up against arsene wenger's "shoot on sight" arsenal?

yeah can he handle it on a balmy summer afternoon at (home to) arsenal

haha xp especially if they throw Arshavin up as a target man

lennon back to his worst tonight.

Season starts here tbh, that's out of the way.

Next week Man City I thought I heard?

Like the way he often looks for a pass rather than just booting it.

― Number None, Monday, 22 August 2011 21:59 (11 minutes ago)

supposedly the distribution was what put him ahead of stekelenberg et al in utd's thinking

I thought we were fine for 55mins but almost too patient until the final third when we just looked too hopeful, too many long range shots. After the goal it was obvious what was going to happen. At least Old Trafford is out of the way I suppose.

We looked worse as soon as we started chasing it, and no real threat upfront or balance in midfield throughout.

Friedel looks better than Gomes at least. Nice to see a Spurs keeper who can organise an area.

come end of the season you will all see vdv is the problem, mark my words

he was awful. dumb shots from outside the box and there with 7 mins left he loses the ball in midfield and then turns his back on an oncoming player right after that.

Also, Jones and Smalling are really really good

well that was painfully inevitable

couldnt tell with vdv whether he'd been instructed to take silly potshots at de gea all night or if he was just totally naffed off with everyone after lennon didnt cut back to him and thought he'd go rogue

de Gea is probably shit btw

i did feel for vdv after the lennon thing actually but jaysus he is such a pain in the balls to fit into a team without it revolving solely around him

thought vdv was probably out of position but that's just a polite ways of saying "pain in the balls to fit into a team without it revolving solely around him" tbh

not sure if united were really good tonight or if spurs made them look good. they won an awful lot of the 50/50 balls and rooney was bossing everyone around him and everyone looked sharp.

not sure about that defence though. almost everything were dealt with but always a bit laboured (one too many tricky dribbles to get out of trouble from defence?) Don't think de gea was that bad - missing the cross was poor and looked a bit nervous kicking the ball (understandable). Fumbling the Thudd was harsh considering how much that ball was cunted towards him - will see how it goes wouldn't be surprise to see a few goals from mistakes from this defence though.

Also, Jones and Smalling are really really good

and wellbeck and young

did think that bale, livermore, friedel looked bright for us, and defoe played smarter than he did in any game the whole of last season. but i can't look past the leadenleggedness of niko and vdv for the entire second half to explain how that fell apart, and when livermore (who'd been closing down very well in cm) came off for the quarterpounder it was over as a defensive effort.

Was impressed by Livermore, thought he held his own.

are people here still going to keep pretending huddlestone isn't rubbish btw

lol

he's fat, and he tackles inadvisably at times, but he is the best passer of the ball in the world

if watching thudd thudd a ball across the park doesnt stir something in your breast there's clearly something wrong with you, it's a magnificent sight

might not mean he's the best player mind but still

actually thought he was alright when he came on tbh, should have had livermore alongside him though

man friedel is older than i am

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/aug/22/manchester-city-fringe-players-leave

so adebayor doesnt have to train with anyone, doesnt have to attend matches, and gets 150k a week, 600k a month, 7.2m a year til 2014. he must really be on the horns of a dilemma right now.

how do you manage to stay as fat as thudd when you have the training regime of a top ('top') club imposing itself upon you? do they let him stay out and ping 70-yard balls into skips while everybody else is in the gym?

icebergers iirc

what d'you mean adebayor doesn't have to train xp?

SWP only on 60/week? Thought it was more.

new Joorabchian client Nigel de Jong rejects contract offer, is one thing in that piece that could affect the actual City team.

pffft they'll just buy melo or busquiets or someone and forget de jong exists

The idea that those three are comparable in ability I find strange. Though De Jong might be roughly in the middle of the two.

he's pretty rough in the middle as is

Anderson isn't the slimmest either, which is worrying for a Brazilian at his age. He's improved his shooting a thousandfold though, scored a few nice composed finishes in pre-season too

it was a ref to his style of play/position tbh

anderson doesn't look to be carrying weight to me, tbh, that's his build imo. he's as good a central option as utd have, and has deserved a place instead of carrick for so long now i'm bored by making the argument

Oh, i love Anderson (and hate Carrick with all my soul) but we kinda need a defensive midfield option for more challenging games

still anderson (not forgetting permanently fucked options like fletcher, obv).

Fletcher played 90 mins with the reserves last week, so he should be back soon barring another relapse. I would love to see the Cleverley/Anderson partnership become first-choice but we'll see. It's certainly made our central midfield a hell of a lot more dynamic than it has been in years.

well,

that and facing a spurs cm of krancjar and livermore tbf

made it a crackign game though

I'm saying. I imagine we'll revert to five in midfield away from home against tougher opposition

tougher opposition than us? be srs

maybe against liverpool's wave after wave of central midfielders