Moneyball won't win the Premiership 2012-13

U WILL NEVER SCORE!

Maybe the ref will award us one goal for every three times we hit the woodwork

Somewhere a Malaysian betting syndicate is rubbing its hands in glee

(for the benefit of non-viewers, the lights have mysteriously gone out)

glow in the dark ball?

Jesus, ESPN. "Has this *ever* happened before?" Quite apart from the really famous incident I was alluding too, it happened to United *this season* away in Europe.

Wow that's shitty defending. Good finish.

jol out

This is nerve-shredding stuff

oh well. a pleasing performance though...

Evans bossed that

Lol rafas4u.stfu

got to admit I feared the worst when Rafa took over

Ah ffs who's that meant to be marking fellaini there

Wtf valentines day makeover rte studio

i do love that there are conspiracy theories about rafa intentionally tanking chelsea... like he is secretly a competent manager and this didn't need to happen if he applied himself.

i know, it's beautiful

may emperor benitez live & reign for ten thousand years

i pray his final flourish on the last day of the season will be a meaningless tactical substitution taking fat frank off needing one goal to break the record

http://www.sportsmole.co.uk/football/qpr/relegation-battle/news/dalglish-backs-qprs-spending-spree_67371.html

http://i.imgur.com/QmzPc.gif

MOTD commentator on the Villa game describing 3-1 as "an unassailable lead" lol

Ian Harte's left peg still in full effect, then.

Underrated additions to the Premier League this season: Brian McDermott peering over the top of his glasses.

The entire rest of Harte was spent even when he was still at Leeds. Yet he's the finest free-kick taker I can recall, I reckon.

other juninho ffs

<3 Luke Shaw tearing shit up on the left but Pochettino is still not my real dad.

http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/saints/news/10174367.The_facts_about_Mauricio_Pochettino/

Jus been reading this from the Guardian site, has greatly softened me a little towards the new Saints boss. Basically the only team even remotely involved in the relegation battle with the Villa that I'd be sorry to see go down really, even post-Adkins-sacking

greatly softened me a little. lol. sorry guys, it's saturday night y'know

Off top of my head

beckham (stop challopin)
juninho
assuncao
prob baines tbr

all notably better than harte at the thing harte was good at

Read some stat-heavy blog post recently that said Seb Larsson had the highest conversion rate from free kicks in the Premier League era, I just can't recall whether that was direct FKs only or included assists from indirects.

juninho pernambucano was way better than beckham or any other wasteman

http://thepowerofgoals.blogspot.com/2012/08/ranking-free-kick-experts-pitfalls.html

I found it, it looked at direct free-kicks only. Highest scoring %: Larsson, Nobby Solano, Henry, N'Zogbia, Hasselbaink. Lowest: Rooney, Pennant, Barton, Downing, Petrov (M? S? not sure).

There's some interesting stuff if you look closely - Hasselbaink, Arteta, Fabio Rochemback all sent a relatively high % of their attempts into the wall or off-target, but still scored quite a bit. Larsson and Henry put most of their shots on target, as did David Bentley, but he didn't score nearly as many, I guess his approach was too conservative.

wau @ sissoko, going by these highlights at any rate

£2.5 mil though? Does anyone know why he was going so cheap? Toulouse in money troubles?

he's racist

he went for so cheap because his contract ends this summer, even though toulouse tried for the past year to get him to renew it so they could sell him for more. also, during the whole proceedings, it was revealed that he'd agreed to play for newcastle starting this summer, on a free. toulouse suspended him for the next 6months and then decided they'd rather let him go now and get at least a little bit of money rather than nothing.

Gah! Defoe injured, no strikers left.

5 attacking midfielders on the pitch mind you, worked for barcelona

Dodge streaming program et my broadband

irony is i've got sky go but it's fucking shit

High line lol walker lol vertonghen, who's gone all vermaelen lately imo

would be interested in seeing a spurs eleven as follows

-------------------lloris-----------------

-walker-------dawson---v'hen-------bae----

-------------------sandro-----------------
-------------dembele---holtby-------------

----lennon------------------------bale----
-----------CF bought in summer-------------

Thats p much pickin itself tbph, adebayor in form picks himself too

wait theres been a red card

Thats a penalty surely btw

there it is

never been so certain an impending shot was going in

walcott and bale in a fight to the st totteringham's day

Oooooh

xp otm, peak gerrard inevitability

Tasty game

Amazing liu kang tackle from holtby there, amazing

So stupid dawson

pandemic's lineup looks good, kaboul ahead of dawson though. striker is a weird situation. if your formation only has one, squad doesn't really need more than 2, and i can't see them selling defoe or adebayor really.

Yikes, Carragher vs Tevez, Dzeko & Aguero