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

Birmingham had a good defence too

In fact, they had a good team all round

:D

Blues' defence was good on paper and had been good the season before, but then it like, stopped playing well and conceded lots of goals

So I blame McLeish, the current Aston Villa manager

having enough attacking aptitude to keep the ball away from your defence for a few minutes at a time is gonna make the defence look better; personally hoping that Villa hoofing the ball several hundred feet over Jermaine Jenas' head works better than Blues hoofing the ball several hundred feet over Aliaksandr Hleb's head

Where this leaves Blackburn not entirely sure, but they have seemed fairly superhumanly determined to not score goals

chelsea still lacking width in midfield but that's been true for years. Lampard, drogba, malouda et all battering through defences helps in that regard i guess.

Malouda has width. Mata too.

CFC squad looks pretty strong and well-balanced now, maybe even stronger man-for-man than MUFC, though think they have the better first team. Still think it'll take a while for us to click though and have concerns about the high defensive line.

― isn't house rubbish and Pete W mental (Pete W), Thursday, September 1, 2011 8:55 AM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark

Yeah, Porto played suicidally high line at times and not sure at all that this will suit Chelsea. Fair enough the full backs are quick, but I just think it will lead to a couple too many easy chances presented per game against teams who otherwise wouldn't be good enough to break Chelsea down.

U KNOW FRNAK LAMPARD GOTS SOME WIDTH

malouda starts wide but goes straight for goal afaict

malouda nor anelka not really wingers, so we've not played real wide players since Duff/Robben. Not sure Mata really counts, he looks like he'll be allowed to float. But there's a lot more zip about with Mata, Sturridge (who should get a lot of games I hope) and Lukuka, and Ramires and Meireles move the ball quicker, which has been our biggest problem whenever Mikel-Lampard-Malouda-Anelka all start.

The highline really doesn't suit Terry or Mikel, may work better with Luiz, but he's a bit unpredictable in other areas. Looking forward to Cech coming back. Terry is going to be exposed badly if we keep this up, and seems ridiculous to play against the strengths of our best defender.

But glad to see us finally bringing in players at 18-26 range. shame it's taken so long.

blackburn seem like they might be kinda dece - samba/dann, and hoilett/olsson on the wings, goodwillie looks sharp albeit needing a bigger partner - but their season will rest on how well the slavic lads and formica shape up in the middle. from what i've heard though the fans have no faith in kean and want him out by yesterday.

Sturridge (who should get a lot of games I hope)

Sturridge hasn't gone from Chelsea

i could see an awkward period at chelsea where everyone secretly realises that sturridge-lukaku is the most effective strike combo

xp I was looking at odds yesterday for 'first manager to go' to see if Redknapp might be worth a punt, but he's already come in to 12/1. Kean is ridiculously short odds at 4/7 or something, miles ahead of even Wenger.

tom, nult is an everton fan so no surprise he feels scorn, although some surprise that he managed to coherently express it

*scored*

Anyone notice Keown doing some heavy Nultying on the BBC website yesterday?

I suppose that fits in with his usual "say nothing in a way that sounds intelligent to idiots" schtick.

lol ok u know what i mean even if i will have expressed it incoherently via controversial ios based device iphone

Ha yeah, I did! xp His closing line was a peach, something like: "For now, Modric, Tevez and Sneijder will be staying where they are - at Spurs, Man City and Inter respectively."

keowns daily mail columns are full of nonsequiturs and weird prescriptions for arsenal -- recommending he buy upson to get some pace in defence

so on balance i would advise against spending yr time reading keown in the daily mail

keown in

tom, nult is an everton fan

Ah yeah, that figures, pretty sure the newspaper guy (Andy something) in the studio on Radio 5 last night was an Everton fan too

Is there any way Everton's (relative) decline can be arrested? They're a popular club, decent ground, big local support, famous old name, lots of past success, doing about as well as they reasonably can - yet are miles behind the top six in clout, and not catching up even slightly.

I think hovering around under the big three and the next biggest three is about as good as they can hope for. A successful season would = finishing above Stoke imo.

notts forest? xp

what do the hedz make of jol's acquisition of ruiz and orlando sa? from my vantage point it seems a little strange to add two strikers to a team that already features zamora, dembele and AJ.. i guess the latter two haven't really lived up to the billing in terms of classy finishes and AJ in particular is possibly now better suited as a playmaker?

Everton are holding themselves together remarkably well considering they've had limited financial means for years - I really don't think they have much room for maneuvre on transfers although the youth system is good. Without Moyes they might have been relegated years ago. Dunno how they move on/up unless Kenwright finds a buyer and as we all know that's not necessarily a recipe for success.

to an extent i think everton could embrace their situation more than they do - become like an english udinese and keep the conveyor belt rolling rather than moving heaven and earth to cling onto players that do well and grow stale (arteta not at his best and injured the past few seasons but on a 75k a week contract and treated as some sort of talisman). obv it's a lot riskier than what they do now - and they don't have the luxury of udinese's capabilities in south america - but it's go to be better than grim decaying stasis.

Maybe they're hanging on till everyone else's money runs out and off and grim decaying stasis is the norm

i mean really, they've needed a striker for so long, just snap out of it and sell someone. as if you can't replace phil jagielka for less than 12m?

They're running at an unsustainable loss at the moment. The Arteta (and possible future Jagielka) money would probably go on servicing debt rather than another striker.

Also it's just occurred to me that Bolton will end up selling Cahill for less than £10m in the summer - it's either that or let him go for free. Kinda short-sighted.

Tracer - I think Fulham's most pressing need was frwd/attacking players. They have solid, if unspectacular, players at the back imo. Good enough that it's not like they need to score 3 to win a game, just a bit more quality so that they can grab a goal or two often enough to turn draws into wins. Think AJ is done.

uhm cahill has 1yr left on contract so it's either sell for max £5m ish in january or nothing next summer

gartside is a fat fucking nudnik tho

How much is each position in the league worth? If Bolton think Cahill will get them 3 or 4 places higher don't know how that plays out financially? Of course if they think Cahill is the difference between mid table and a relegation dogfight then they did the right thing imo

three or four places is only a few mil difference

they have enough to escape relegation even without him

They could've sold him way earlier in the summer and found a replacement, Bolton seem to have some pretty good talent scouts working for them.

Surely a successful season for Everton is staying up? Not even joking.

id guess city thought they were going to sell cahill when they leant them boyata

thanks pandemic

I'm excited to see Ruiz play for fulham. heard good things. Anyone seen him play much?

If LBI is about today he can give you the run down on Ruiz. I was under the impression he was a left winger/forward but I may be wrong.

think fulham added the right amont of attacking flair- agree that anything you get out of aj at this stage is a bonus

Everton are winding down to a shell company holding only two assets, epl position and the brand name. I don't know if there's even a buyer out there, but kenwright doesn't seem to have any plans beyond stripping the football side to pay for ?????

Moyes and youth will keep them up, probably perpetually.

Wesley admitting he though he would sign for Utd :(

I was never really clear if Villa had put in any kind of sell-on clause when they sold Cahill to Bolton for not much; it might have a bearing on Bolton looking at Derisory Offers and thinking screw it, we'll just keep him

Coyle seemed totally at peace with the idea that they would sell Cahill when the time came, I don't know why they're bothering to be so stubborn about it

bolton turning down 15m for cahill in last year vs spurs turning down 40m for modric with 4 years contract