Moneyball won't win the Premiership 2012-13

honestly lost count of the number of teams I've wanted to be relegated this calendar yr for quote-unquote moral reasons. six or seven I think. a record in the modern game!

tbf Man U were never in any danger

Margaret Thatcher's former sports minister, Richard Tracey, shared that view and told 5 live: "Frankly I think it's rather cheap that they decided not to show any sort of respect for her, because, to be honest, she did really deliver what football is today, particularly with the Taylor report, and the all-seater stadia. Football was in a bad way when she was prime minister, and we saw all the changes in her time, and they should pay tribute to that."

Quite apart from whether it's necessarily a good thing that most football matches nowadays take place in identikit atmosphere-free stadia where silent fans pay a fortune to sit down, what does he mean "we saw all the changes in her time"? The changes he's mentioned happened in the years after she'd gone. And it's not like she could take any credit for the Taylor report - she didn't write it and it wouldn't have happened without a disaster ten years into her eleven years in the job.

minute's silence before reading-Liverpool

Really?

ah, it's for Hillsborough I believe. was gonna say 'good luck' if it's supposed to be for thatcher!

They'll sing thatcher songs throughout surely

I guess she'd've relished it if it was for her

announce it's for Hillsborough and Thatcher, sit back, enjoy

http://i.imgur.com/EpOytlg.jpg

we can go full-on photo story with this one. above shot shows the signing in full, carefree flow, and here we have the tense preamble:

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/04/12/yhyvyzu4.jpg

and the redemptive finale:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BHmPhPFCUAEFmyt.jpg

might have to make an inspirational collage of all of these over the summer.

That big shiny desk is reminding me of daunting trips to Whitehall as a very young civil servant. All the top bananas had huge dark shiny desks. That modern monstrosity on the wall kind of ruins it imo - should be a portrait of a formerly important nobleman now consigned to a footnote on someone else's Wikipedia page.

Earl of Østenstad

#askdowning going predictably well today

Chase Failey ‏@ChaseFailey 11 Apr
#AskDowning True your ex girlfriend dresses as a full back to avoid you beating her?

He's been good lately.

He has but kudos for the takedown tbh

http://i.imgur.com/UWkncoQ.jpg

There are now more managers from overseas in the Premier League than ever before. What I want to know is do all these foreign managers have the same coaching badges as British managers? Do they go through the same processes when they come over? What credentials do
they have?

Nolan knows foreign managers arent going to tolerate a club captain whose face strongly suggests he spends much of each day consuming large amounts of alcohol. Pre-emptive strike.

xp. is that an actual Nolan quote?

yeah

coming over here, winning our leagues

The coaching badges are a lot of work outside football. You always think, ‘I’ll do it next year’. I certainly believe footballers should be fast-tracked through. It’s something the FA have got to look at – to encourage the players to move into the coaching and management side.

That’s maybe why we have only got 10 British managers in the Premier League. You’ve got to take time out of your scheduled six weeks at the end of the season to do the badges – it’s not as if you can get off work for a couple of weeks.

have to say i can only admire the sheer brass

http://www.sheffieldtelegraph.co.uk/webimage/1.5573185.1365674514!/image/3623708998.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_595/3623708998.jpg

I think we might have missed one:

http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/cms_images/news/morgan-contract148-678908_478x359.jpg

Morgan Schneiderlin is left-handed, because there's nothing he can't do.

hope qpr do picture specials like these every time someone signs off a mutual termination

You’ve got to take time out of your scheduled six weeks at the end of the season to do the badges

I realise that I've been beating this drum a bit recently with my whining about Adebayor last night and it's all fairly obvious and naive to criticise footballers for this shit; but srsly, what planet do these guys live on? ffs

Manchester City’s attempts to make their players more road safety conscious appear to be failing after a third star was banned from driving for six months.

Sportsmail has learned the FA Cup semi-finalists regularly organise motoring clinics for all their players, but defender Micah Richards was penalised by magistrates on Friday after he failed to respond to speeding notices sent to his home.

Last week Samir Nasri and Carlos Tevez were also banned for motoring offences, while 18-year-old defender Courtney Meppen-Walter was jailed for 16 months and banned from driving for three years in February.

Utd: 'OT is always full'; Police: 'no it isn't' is a a bit strange. Ime there're always a few empty seats within range at any game, even full ones, but it's hard to imagine them adding up to many thousands on the reg.

Dear FSG, please do not under any circumstances sanction the purchase of Ashley Williams. Thank you.

A more detailed breakdown of the empty seats. They've made FOI requests to get the figures for other clubs (City, Arsenal, Liverpool, etc.) as well. I'm not at all surprised by the figures for the cup and CL games (when you can clearly see loads and loads of empty seats on the TV), but 5,000 missing for the Liverpool home game is odd. There's no doubt that they could actually fill the stadium (easily) for that match, so it looks like lots of season ticket holders just didn't show up (though far fewer than the number that regularly don't turn up). Officially you're not allowed to pass on season tickets to anyone else, but thousands do every week.

Link not working to the seat breakdown.

Have any football clubs ever declared actual attendances? In the old days of cash-on-the-turnstile they would massively underdeclare to evade tax.

They had to share gate receipts as well in THE OLD DAYS.

In the lower leagues hardly any teams report true attendances, most figures are based on all season ticket holders attending. I don't know what the incentive to artificially inflate attendances is, but they are all at it.

make it look like you are more successful than you are, attract more investors/create aura of competence?

so as if the prospect of watching 90 mins of this wasnt pleasant enough already i also have the unbiased commentary insight of barry horne to enjoy

My stream just died after 21 minutes of this game, not sure I can be bothered finding another. Neither side with a proper attempt on goal yet

this is probably the weakest choice of 3pm streams in living memory

is it weird that i'm edging towards soton - west ham?

gibson 1-0, deflected in

everton pretty lumpen and blunt but we deserve to be behind just for being so terminally lifeless, townsend aside

game over today on this evidence

Get behind me, Soton (xp)

any chance we can just end the season at half time?

^^^scared of everton

eh maybe end it all after i watch big dan boot jordi gomez into orbit later

looks like liverpool should be at least four up

Could be any Liverpool 0-0 tbh.

Norwich lead, free header.

2-0 anichebe header, no marking, no effort, absolutely begging to be put out of our misery

this half has been a disgrace, they're done

Kenny Orr Hall Gabbidon Connolly Derry Taarabt Faurlin Buzsaky Agyemang (Bothroyd - 55' ) Smith (Ephraim - 66' )

Subs: Murphy Gorkss Perone Moen Ephraim Andrade Bothroyd

this motley lot won 1-0 here working their socks off last season

so, Arry next season? or will he get the boot? or will he walk?