Moneyball won't win the Premiership 2012-13

aw man i've gotta be travelling when el clasico is on. fml.

theres only gonna be like 11 more of them this season. boo.

Picque and Pujul both out, not sure Barca will survive this one.

wba continuing to seem a bit withdrawn, playing a risky game indulging our vanity. still not confident though

ruh roh here comes lukaku

adel really starting to play the piper now

heh strangely appropriate misremembered phrase there

granero should have done better there

oh you watching this

yeah, pass was a bit sharp in fairness

much improved but still not particularly penetrative

seen the last 20 mins, mostly qpr until that morisson blaster

Thanks pandemic xps. I'm most hyped for OM right now after seeing this for the first time since the night it happened:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPE0WYt0UYg

ah shit r/t/c. good goal if ineptly defending.

i remember the floodlight thing!

yeah neat goal but reverted to dozy type, expected as much

hoilett is not a supersub, useless without games and the mental space to settle

That floodlight clip xp is like the zenith of my love for fancy continental fare, maybe eclipsed since only by Redondo's backheel at Old Trafford. Oh, and Ronaldo's second a couple of years later - good team, that was.

blimey granero that was pure class

ooh granero absolute class, so casual, so smooth. too late.

non cha fucking lant

aargh chance!

lol and that really should have been 3-3

whole game absolutely us in a nutshell

don't like hughes, don't want a new manager

seriously can the arrogant cunt not just put a tiny bit of work in on the training ground

fucking hell, genuine lols at burley and keegan talking about zonal marking. and these guys get paid!

in the same sentence, keegan explains how his newcastle team marked zones and moans about it and says he doesn't like it.

with hughes it's almost as if the better standard of player he has the less inclined he is to actually work on shape/positioning/defending set plays etc. Blackburn were limited and thuggish under him but were also organised and disciplined. Wonder if he puts in the work now that he might have done back then?

xp

I figured most teams marked both zonally and limited man to man these days.

they're the same people who moan whenever teams don't put men on the posts.

anyone read rory smith's interview with falcao today? don't have a times subscription and can't be bothered going out for a paper.

I'm in favour of zonal marking and limited man marking and men on the posts and leaving two men upfield. Not sure I have enough players for that but if I did that would be how I'd set up.

any thoughts on today's Wanyama to Utd rumours onimo?

Cazorla looks at home wearing yellow.

so the Shearer to venkys thing, is it just a rumour or have my dreams come true?

another game theo's not starting, he's going in jan to sit on city's reserve team bench or something.

Ramsey's in good form and West Ham are sitting deep, I think Walcott might not have started anyway.

Wenger was in the paper saying something about expecting Theo to chip in to make up for rvp's goals, so I don't think he's out entirely (yet)

News to me. I think he's been one of our best signings in recent years and looks more than capable of playing at EPL level. Our business model is to find young promising guys like this before anyone spots them and get them on telly and get some money for them from the cash-rich south but I'd rather they stayed a wee bit longer. His agent's been making noises about moving as he signed on relatively low wages given his profile at the time - these rumours might be true or might be part of a Get Victor More Money strategy. We're fairly flush with central midfielders atm but he would be missed.

xxxp

Upton Park looks like a very pretty stadium, aside from the ugliness of the football played there.

It's a slightly odd ground in that the west and south stands are absolutely enormous, while the east stand (the one facing the cameras) is tiny.

Hmm, I wrote that comment about Ramsey above because I thought it was Arteta Coquelin - Ramsey Cazorla Podolski - Giroud. Had no iea til just now Gervinho was on the pitch. A bad sign.

nice finish

Yeah that was very nice.

fanny defending but yeah

that was amazing. also fuck.

xps to self: I was down low behind the goal once, facing towards those big stands - it was like swimming in the sea, looking up at massive cliffs. Very odd.

I'm not a connoisseur of stadia, but I do like when you can catch a glimpse of the surrounding neighborhood in the corners between stands, Highbury (the only one I've been to) was nice that way.

carroll v efficiently murdering four arsenal players with one leap.

zonal merking

There it is, great move. lol at the steward on the far sideline celebrating.

finish

Well now i've taken him out of my ff team, of course Giroud starts scoring.

andre santos has the footballing nous of someone who learned what football was five minutes before coming onto the pitch.

He's a bit impulsive, yeah. I wouldn't want to be near him operating a car at 45mph much less 145.