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

I'm not defending the brain dead QPR fans who refused to give the ball back

i am. best wind-up.

pienaar not a rw, natural inclination is to cut inside

Hope qpr get fined/points deducted for only having one ball (one more than our squad arf)

I was at Arsenal-Chelsea yesterday. I should've known I was pushing my luck ever attending another game after the 5-2, because this was a bit terrible. Still enjoyed it though! A few thoughts:

• Arsenal's whole style is very frustrating. They kept taking the ball backwards and working it man-by-man from side to side. All this achieves is to allow the opposition to get set. The desire for the team to speed up and attack space was tangible. Eventually they mounted a quick break just before halftime and the cry of relief around the ground was overwhelming.
• They're not good enough to do the quick-passing-in-tight-spaces thing. It always ended in Walcott running into a blind alley, or Sing or Ramsay being caught in possession. No movement basically. Rosicky realised the problem after a bit and provided movement and urgency, but few followed him.
• It all looked kind of old-fashioned really. Having seen how Real, Bayern, Bilbao, Schalke and Sporting play superquickly recently, this was like watching 90s Serie A in comparison.
• Rosicky did well. The Ox is clearly good too but often makes the wrong decision on delivery at this stage. Santos and Gervinho looked good and urgent, though the game was old by the time they were unleashed. The defence looks pretty good, but did get carved open a few times. I blame lack of tracking back, it was that sort of game.
• Ramsay - awful. He doesn't anticipate anything and looks very laboured and slow. This might be the high vantage point because everyone looks slow. In fact the whole game looked like it was played at half-speed, maybe because it was. Song got caught in possession by Torres a number of times - it was so obvious as a spectator that nobody was giving him a shout.

• Chelsea - meh.
• That said, if they were at all clinical they would've won easily. At least three times they had openings where I felt they ought to've been gutted not to score. But they were clearly after the draw, and celebrated it accordingly.
• There was a magnificent display of leadership by John Terry at the end. He marched over to the Chelsea end, Cech and Cole in tow, and gave as fine a show of badge-thumping as you'll see. And then he did the pointing-and-scanning the horizon thing round their quadrant, which he probably didn't intend to look like a fascist salute, before going on to point out individual members of the crowd. Seriously, Bill Clinton couldn't've worked that crowd better. Would follow.

My word, that pass from Cabaye for Cisse's goal yesterday

alright ray, settle down

manu look awful. this could be interesting

<3 Jelavic

furious if that's not in the goals of the month, more technique in that header than most 25-yard thundercunts

stonewall penalty not given

outside the box I think

Rooney 1-1

The Roonster!

It was on the line, but i think i can move on

the phrase 'stonewall penalty' is worse than about fifteen unplayables, will of been disappointeds and not that type of players put together

I really like it, it's got such an unlikely etymology

what if it was awarded because of a bunch of players wearing dresses throwing bricks at the officials

there it is

ha this is from 2000 and someone claims that the correspondent asking abt the phrase has surely misheard it....

Mark Power claims: "Chambers is right: "stonewall" is a verb, as in "to block obdurately, or Defensively". I suspect what Seamus or Ron have seen is a stone-cold penalty, as in "dead obvious", or "a no-brainer".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2000/dec/13/newsstory.sport5

I don't disagree with much of what Darragh said in that post upthread but really the problem is that Redknapp got so drunk on the good times that he convinced himself he didn't need the likes of Pienaar, Corluka, Pavlyuchenko, even Bassong. On a season-long or week-by-week basis. And then complaining about having a small squad when everyone gets knackered and it all starts to go wrong. I suppose the equivalent would have been United of the last couple of seasons offloading someone like Park Ji-Sung and then missing out on the crucial goals he's tended to score near the end of the season.

And yeah, not signing a RW when it's been obvious for ages that Lennon is prone to injury and lapses of form and then having to overhaul the whole system to accommodate him. And not having the will or managerial ability to get Bale to play in position.

I have a feeling that, give or take a centreback here or there, a better manager could have won the league with the squad we had at the start of the season, but Redknapp was never brought in to win titles or even qualify for the CL, he was brought in to stave off relegation. I doubt Levy expected what happened next and I'd love to know what the's thinking right now.

great finish ffs

Great goal. I've just been told "stop making a noise, daddy".

Quite right

yeah, i let out an unusually high-pitched scream

balls

was lovely though

oh well this was quite enjoyable while it was a contest

Nani really makes a difference to this team

James McFadden?!

It really wasn't looking promising earlier

Ah, jesus

gtfi

my reverse psychology does the trick again

maybe try a bit more now?

Just about any result seems plausi- ROONEY! Scrub that.

oh well this was quite enjoyable while it was a contest

maybe try a bit more now?

― Ismael Klata, Sunday, April 22, 2012 12:58 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

<3 Jelavic

― W. E. B. Du Bois Goals Panel (DJ Mencap), Sunday, April 22, 2012 12:03 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

gtfiN

Just about any result seems plausible at the moment

remember that time Everton scored twice v Utd in injury time?

fuck

fuck!

shit, still 5 mins left

Shit shit shit shit

well it's not going to finish 4-4

i cant remember a game getting up to 4-4 in this league.

lol 5 minutes

5 mins huh

utd throwing away title imo

gah I switched to the (pish) Celtic game at 4-2

lose against wigan and conceding 4 goals at home.

Yeah I'll take that