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

https://twitter.com/#!/piresrobert7/status/156678415376855040

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9003925/Eric-Cantona-announces-bid-for-French-presidency.html

66/1 at Wm Hill, they could've been a bit more generous

I think countries with their own sufficiently good and/or well-established leagues don't care that much about the Premiership but that's not actually that many in the grand scheme of things.

Obv. El Clasico is a much bigger deal internationally than any English club game (although the FA Cup Final might still come close?)

That Cantona thing is amazing.

is it though? El Clasico i mean

The FA Cup Final's no big deal outside of England, is it?

yeah it is

Rivals el classico, for white ppl i'd say

even near 20 years of shit finals haven't dimmed its lustre

Fair enough. Never meant anything in Scotland, it was never shown on telly.

Actually United-Arsenal or United-Liverpool might be a bigger game in terms of sheer number of viewers. I watched United-Arsenal in a bar in Uganda a few years back and everywhere was absolutely rammed for it, and the game was being hyped and trailered on the radio for days beforehand.

But I have no idea really.

The Utd-Chelsea was a big enough draw in the US to be shown live on some variety of normal telly, which was a first aiui. Torres could've picked better games to rosenthal one wide.

That's what I was thinking, these days anyway, a big Premiership game would surely trounce the FA Cup Final - unless the final was United-Arsenal or United-Liverpool etc

thought Torres picked every game to do that now

FA Cup final here in Holland isn't that big a deal. Pales in comparison to games like ManU-ManC, Chelsea-Arsenal at least. It all depends on who the finalists are tbh. But that could also be because the cup on Holland hardly has any status.

Is English footy as a whole *the* big league/culture in the Netherlands, or does local football (or elsewhere) still take precedence?

Jesus, the latter hopefully

I mean, fair enough in Uganda and, uh, Ireland

Dutch football comes first obv. After that the English league is the biggest. Spain's big but mostly because of Barca/Madrid. Both those teams individually are bigger than any English team though.

Oh and there's Schalke that has shed loads of Dutch fans.

I can't believe you're arguing if the EPL is followed at all outside of the UK. Of course it is. I see ppl in EPL club jerseys all the time and I live in Asia. Half of the cabs have a little Arsenal/Liv/ManU/Chelsea flag or something, ppl wake up at 3am to watch the games... they even sell ManU deodorant at the supermarket !!

nobody uses it within 10km of manchester city centre iirc

i think only one person argued that jibe? and was shot down pretty quickly

To be fair, I don't really know beyond our own press hype - which I obviously distrust on things like this. Certainly whenever I travelled abroad regularly there was never much interest in our clubs (that I could perceive) beyond what they did in Europe, but things were different then.

Union Jacks were a thing among a certain type of ultra for a while, that's the one undisputable to the contrary. But the brand-awareness guys keep quiet about that.

it would only be a mild exaggeration to say everyone i know is an arsenal fan.

know irl that is. could be they're just the loudest and proudest for some reason though.

I thought up there was Liverpool country?

yeah, liverpool is probably more popular overall but more so among the older generation i'd say.

Hughes in, Bent top target (huh?)

I know this Villa team are bad but surely they aren't that bad?

McLeish, innit. Big haddy.

If Bent does leave, surely it'll be to Liverpool?

Though thinking about it, is a return to Spurs at all feasible?

Can we please not sign any more English strikers.

^^^ Cosign.

Given that Redknapp sold Bent I can't see him going in for him again, and I don't think he's the player we want if Adebayor gets injured. Don't think he'd suit the way we play now, and I'm not sure Bent would want to go back himself.

Can see Newcastle going in for Bent if they have to sell Ba in the transfer window.

Sunderland need a striker

mark hughes will prolly sign bent

oh i should learn to read

newcastle, yeah

He doesn't rly suit a passing/possession team, so spurs/arsenal out, not sure lfc is any fit, utd intriguing but no point they've already got three good strikers and rooney, chelsea play too high and compressed.

Villa a good fit for him, personnel-wise, mcleish notwithcunting

This is moot as Villa have already paid insane money for him and will only sell if someone offers even more insane money, and by the time you're in that territory you can probably get a much better forward than Darren Bent.

that has always been true, and yet

Btw when I said no-one cared about the premiership, I obviously was talking about in terms of award giving and not in terms of popularity. It is like comedies come Oscar season. Doesn't mean people haven't spent all year talking quoting jokes when Daniel Day Lewis ends up winning Best Actor.

I was wondering: when was the last time the best player in the world (the actual one) was playing in the English league?

Ronaldo doesn't qualify?

I know this has been done on the 'players of the 00s' thread but the case for Henry c. 2003 is pretty strong.

Yeah Ronaldo was head and shoulders above the pack for two years there.

both cases p strong, as is case for keane and or vieira were dm position ever to be counted, or stephen carr if rb were in the running

xp if you mean ronaldo was aller than messi, then yeah sure, otherwise he was in the mix don't push it

I don't think Vieira or Keane could ever be picked because of Fatty Ronaldo and Zizou playing at the same time. Before that... Lineker?

Paul McGrath

gazza since lineker