Moneyball won't win the Premiership 2012-13

they played pretty well against man u and city earlier this year. against chelsea they got a point despite playing a lot worse than in either of those two games. i'm still largely happy enough with them. i'll judge next year.

fair

actually think reina is a bigger problem than most fans would like to let on.

thought he'd held it together a bit better lately?

he was poor enough yesterday, though made a few good saves near the end. he had his own defence in a state of terror before the second goal, just seemed to cause confusion by whatever he was shouting at them. two very poor clearances in the first half as well.

#LFC vs top half #EPL (rank 18th): W0 D5 L6 F9 A19 Clean Sheets 2, Failed to Score 4 | vs bottom half (rank 3rd) W8 D2 L1 F26 A9 CS 6 FtS 0
Last season #lfc ranked 6th vs top half and 14th vs bottom half

you know stats like these, these "top and second half" do they use the teams' rankings as of those matches being played or just what the teams' rankings are as of now?

surely an element of cause/effect there?

I think they are as of now otherwise it's something of a moving target and you're not comparing like for like - some teams might not get to play e.g. a top half West Ham.

Might be more informative to look at how they compare against 1-9 and 10-17 from last season idk.

yes rangers, throw that money in the air like u just don't care

LET IT BURN

These guys who get linked and linked and linked to top clubs, and then end up signing for your QPRs - do they ever turn out well?

aw bless Arry's dog will be getting a new bank account

It is understood Rangers offered double Newcastle’s wages to put together an £80,000-a-week package for the striker It is understood Rangers offered double Newcastle’s wages to put together an £80,000-a-week package for the striker It is understood Rangers offered double Newcastle’s wages to put together an £80,000-a-week package for the striker It is understood Rangers offered double Newcastle’s wages to put together an £80,000-a-week package for the striker It is understood Rangers offered double Newcastle’s wages to put together an £80,000-a-week package for the striker It is understood Rangers offered double Newcastle’s wages to put together an £80,000-a-week package for the striker It is understood Rangers offered double Newcastle’s wages to put together an £80,000-a-week package for the striker It is understood Rangers offered double Newcastle’s wages to put together an £80,000-a-week package for the striker It is understood Rangers offered double Newcastle’s wages to put together an £80,000-a-week package for the striker It is understood Rangers offered double Newcastle’s wages to put together an £80,000-a-week package for the striker It is understood Rangers offered double Newcastle’s wages to put together an £80,000-a-week package for the striker It is understood Rangers offered double Newcastle’s wages to put together an £80,000-a-week package for the striker It is understood Rangers offered double Newcastle’s wages to put together an £80,000-a-week package for the striker It is understood Rangers offered double Newcastle’s wages to put together an £80,000-a-week package for the striker It is understood Rangers offered double Newcastle’s wages to put together an £80,000-a-week package for the striker It is understood Rangers offered double Newcastle’s wages to put together an £80,000-a-week package for the striker

£80,000-a-week and not a penny more

These guys who get linked and linked and linked to top clubs, and then end up signing for your QPRs - do they ever turn out well?

i'd say quite often?

You might be right, I just can't think of any right now; whereas there's a bit of a queue of Remys, M'Vilas and Eriksens building up.

newcastle did p well out of a gang of these lads last year

don't forget modric

xpost exactly

ah hey now ffs!

Modric wasn't really linked with anyone pre-Spurs, same goes for most of the Newcastle players, whereas Remy has been linked with seemingly everyone over the last ear.

I'm not sure I've seen Remy play, does he really not have better options out there or is he just not that good?

just messing, mostly. though i remember him being linked to everyone before spurs, and at that stage your lot weren't CL. it always seemed really dumb to me that liverpool or man u or chelsea didn't sign him, it wasn't as if he hadn't done it on a major stage in recent memory. and the price was low too. great business.

xpost - modric was linked to EVERYONE, all season long, before spurs. and cabaye was linked to tons of clubs too.

Also lol this was from like three weeks ago:

Asked about his plans for the January transfer window, Redknapp said: "I don't want to spend their (the club's) money, to be honest with you.

"There are a lot of players at this club who earn far too much money for what they are; far, far, far too much money for their ability and what they give to the club.

"There are a lot of players at this club who earn far too much money for what they are."

"I don't really want to see the owners have their pants taken down like they have in the past. There's a lot of agents made money out of them.

"I fined a player last week and he was earning more than any player earned at Tottenham.

"You shouldn't be paying massive wages when you've got a stadium that holds 18,000 people.

Sneijder's become one of these too, if it really is true that his move boils down to a Liverpool-Fenerbahce tug-of-war.

modric looked a player but eastern european hype names who do well in the national side are hardly uncommon... at 17m there was an element of risk and big clubs will always rather spend twice as much on a sure thing later down the line

only have to look as far as rebrov for the alternate story

Arshavin

“He [Remy] didn’t want to come to us. He didn’t even want to speak about coming.

“I went over last week to watch him play, not that I needed to as I watched him about seven times when I was at Tottenham.

“I couldn’t even get a meeting with him. I was hoping to talk to him to encourage him to come.

“I think he was in a position where, when I was at Tottenham, he was interested in coming and I got on well with the lad so he would have felt embarrassed coming to say he didn’t want to come to QPR.

“He wasn’t being disrespectful. He was just in a position he didn’t know how to handle, so I’ve got no problems with him.

“He may change his mind, you don’t know. I wouldn’t write him off completely. I’d like to get him if possible but it’s not going to be easy.”

"non, non, desolee ... COMBIEN?"

It'll be interesting to see how many players are coming in with relegation release clauses. If QPR do go down, they could lost £20m worth of players for nothing.

Thinking about how prolific Heidar Helguson was for QPR last season only to be suddenly dropped and their subsequent expenditure on strikers feels ridiculous. I know he's about 90 but it was working.

lol rtc

ever since the day we signed hill and derry three years ago the club have liked to think themselves above such hearty riff raff and every time we've had to come crawling back for them to save our bewildered asses

i give m'vila three weeks

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2262486/Michael-Johnson-picture--Manchester-City-youngster-takeaway.html

blimey

amazing goal though eh

how does it get to a stage where a club just let a guy rot under contract, it's bizarre

maybe sheikh whoever is a feederist and michael johnson spends his days trussed up in a dark room being forcefed honey and lard

he visits deansgate chicken shops while the sheikh is away in an attempt to reconnect with his native culture, but he is horribly lost to the world and exists only as the plaything of a depraved potentate

he looks a bit like a thinner wayne rooney in that pic.

What does 'abdominal injury' mean? Joeks aside sounds nasty.

they should do a carroll/nolan big brother rehab thing. drop him off at david silva's house

balotelli will get him into shape.

The next season he began in Mark Hughes's first-team plans, signing a five-year deal.

king midas does it again

maybe sheikh whoever is a feederist and michael johnson spends his days trussed up in a dark room being forcefed honey and lard

Exotic MiJo Liver Pate on next season's hospitality menu.

£6,500,000 over 5 years for getting fat. Dude is living the dream, imho. I guess that's the trouble if you let yourself get that out of form after injury while on a ridiculous contract at a club that's spending hundred's of millions signing the best players from around the world. You're not a sellable asset, and you're never going to make the first team. Might as well just enjoy the cash, and maybe get yourself an NVQ in painting and decorating for when the contract ends.

so you can wallpaper your own penthouse with money

i've been looking at the citeh forums (jesus) and nobody seems to know anything, there are posts from when he was actually playing saying his attitude then was shit, and there's suggestion of serious difficulties with alcohol/depression/gambling

apparently he doesn't have to report to casa del etihad and they are just waiting for the contract to expire

he was seriously talented though, other than wilshere the most talented young english central midfield prospect, nick powell reminds me of him a bit (not trying to curse him)

it's quite striking how cursory glances at different forums for the big clubs reveal them to be dreadful in quite distinctive ways

rawk is obviously special but citeh fans seem to have notably low levels of literacy and patience (see also manchester evening news commentboxes) and ars5n4l m4ni4 is every bit as petty, indignant and precious as it ought to be

villatalk is quite fun these days watching them struggle to comprehend new realities

transfer threads where arturo vidal and karl henry nudge shoulders

newcastle fora are obviously a hilarious treasure right now as they take to arsenal's ineffable higher grounds, they'll have no mercenaries sullying the good toon name no sir

Michael Johnson, once tipped as an England international and one of the best young players to emerge through Manchester City's academy in the past decade, has been paid off from his contract after the club finally ran out of patience with him.

Johnson, convicted of two drink-driving offences last September, was offered a severance package from his £40,000-a-week contract just before Christmas, after several years of decline. The club decided not to announced it publicly but it has come to light now after a photograph of the 24-year-old appeared on the internet looking bloated and unfit.

is he salavageable at any other club?

I'm sure if he can skinny down for the summer someone will take a misguided punt on him at half the wage.

like for like Lampard replacement