Moneyball won't win the Premiership 2012-13

RVP cracker

nonchalant half volley on the rise. BOOM. 1-1

twp, welbeck and hernandez sat glumly in a line

valencia has been bang on it today

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2f1kUG4SPY&feature=player_embedded

kacaniklic. sometimes i just like saying kacaniklic.

Kagawa!

shinji , i do love him. simple as you like. 2-1

kagawa off the post now

ugh terrible pass there from diarra

utd looking sorta swag here. god help me rafael has been excellent.

lol right on cue he scores!

petric off the bar

Hi dere. Just enjoying my final day of sunshine in Tuscanny before returning to the grim grey grind. I understand from my Dad's texts that Rafael has just made it three. :-)

young's just opened up his ligaments

villa getting a shoeing by the looks of things.

Rodgers's approach sets him apart in England, Suárez says. "There are lots of teams here that aren't very well set up tactically. He's a coach that can see that if you can work tactically you can derive a lot of benefit from that; you can be different. If you're well organised, and you can play the ball, you can be successful."

What does he mean by tactically poor? "Well," he says, starting to signal positions on the table with his fingers. "If I am playing centre forward here and I drop off the front into this area, both centre backs might come with me in England. And then a team-mate can go into the space and be one on one with the goalkeeper."

Signalling to the right-back position, he says: "Or, if you look at their line of four at the back and this guy always goes up the pitch and never comes back, then you can exploit that. Or if both full-backs go up, then you isolate the two centre-backs. When one full-back goes the other should stay and a midfielder drops in, but there are teams where that doesn't happen and you can take advantage. There are coaches who see that and coaches who don't. He sees it."

wow, who knew the standard of defending in the Prem was shit?

idk if it's that bad, there are certainly more good central defenders here than anywhere else

tactically some of the lower teams are just awful though

blaze a blaze brede hang-ga-lan-ge-land
purple haze brede-hang-ga-lan-ga-land

great back heel own goal from vidic there

Golazo!

Lukaku looks a real handful in the 2 minutes he's been on

Villa getting properly clobbered by Everton. Thing is, Villa doesn't look hideously bad, but Everton look in late season form.

which is weird for them

BAE scores!

and jenas comes on!

Weird for both Villa and Everton to not look horrible. Nice to not hear "Why do Moyes' teams always start slow?"

ah, spurs will never change

Arouna Koné plays for Wigan now?! Wow, missed that one when on holiday.

FFS Spurs.

owww!!!

was that the ball that cut rooney's leg open??!

wayne van injury here.

rodallega fell on him

no trodden on. was gonna say.

xp

ruiz should've scored there.

dembele may be the best dribbler of the ball in the prem

Feels like there's a "not the first time Rooney's been associated with a horrific gash" joke to be made somewhere.

what an odd game. Surely Utd could come up with a bit more than 5m for Dembele

was strange in that at no stage did it look like utd were particularly interested in closing the game down. They played pretty much the same way from minute 1 to 90.

4.57pm: We're into injury time at Old Trafford where Fulham have been pushing and pushing for an equaliser. Wayne Rooney is stretchered off with a dreadful gash in his knee. More extra time to come.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cock_and_Bull#Bull

He's out for a month apparently

twrvp

Villa perked up a little towards the end but tbh they looked fucking awful. Struggled to create a single proper chance on goal for the second week running, looked bereft of both confidence and ideas on the ball. Unfortunately Bent, our best player, brings nothing to the table unless those around him are up to scratch. N'Zogbia is worse than useless. We need to bring in a creative presence and a good winger to feed Bent. Otherwise it's gonna be a relegation fight all over again.

how come the first search result for ivanovic is ana, 12th best on the wta right now, rather than branislav who must be at least the sixth or seventh best footballer in the world

or even the third best given that he is now scoring more often than daniel alves, previous 3rd best player in the world (c) sid lowe 2009

interesting to see what sources close to frank lampard will be saying if chelsea don't win this

Woah Lukaku looked a fucking handful, we just couldn't cope with West Brom after he came on at all.

Spurs were all over West Brom for 60mins or so of that game and then they caused complete chaos. Taking VDV off and depriving our midfield of some passing composure probably did it. Definitely more threat needed upfront but Vertonghen looks quality already.

I dunno, weirdly encouraging signs despite the equaliser. We definitely need more competition upfront and more everything in midfield.

Is Old Trafford located on a ship? Never noticed how much Jol moves about when interviewed, he's making me seasick watching the video here http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/19304316