Bluto10 Posted August 28, 2014 Share Posted August 28, 2014 You keep saying that. Name a better one. I'm aging devils and here; I actually think there insn any such thing as a stand out league Link to comment
Dynamo Posted August 28, 2014 Share Posted August 28, 2014 Spanish league best quality.English league best for drama. Italian league for general nut jobs on and off the pitch. German league for fans.Dutch league for goals. Scottish league for boredom. French league is boring too actually. Link to comment
minijc Posted August 28, 2014 Share Posted August 28, 2014 "It's the pace of the premier league""These new players really struggle with the speed of the game here in England""Most exciting league in the world" usually after some team tries to score a goal to make it 1-1"Only happens in the EPL""Best league in the world" as Man u and Chelsea stink the place out after a dull as fuck 0-0 If they shout loud enough thick cunts will believe that it only happens there and no where else. 2 Link to comment
Bluto10 Posted August 28, 2014 Share Posted August 28, 2014 Its pretty easyJust cause journos say it doesn't mean you need to get upset about it Link to comment
minijc Posted August 28, 2014 Share Posted August 28, 2014 Its pretty easyJust cause journos say it doesn't mean you need to get upset about itIt's forced on you though, you can't really escape it and over the course of a season it just really annoys me and many others. Link to comment
Bluto10 Posted August 28, 2014 Share Posted August 28, 2014 You can ignore it minij min, you're a grown adult ffs. At home I put on music. And in the boozer there's no sound. Be proactive min. Link to comment
Bluto10 Posted August 28, 2014 Share Posted August 28, 2014 Although on the same theme..... Why are all journos describing di Maria's 59m quid transfer as toomuch.?"Alarmingly expensive" is the latest I've seen. Compared to many other transfers its a good price for a 26year old(Bale, James, Suarez for example) Strange. I would expect at least one of them to say the price is favourable when compared to the world record and others. Link to comment
Dynamo Posted August 28, 2014 Share Posted August 28, 2014 People are just getting confused with the price for the player and players that Man United need. Link to comment
Bluto10 Posted August 28, 2014 Share Posted August 28, 2014 I'd say the definitely need di maria. Good business for a year or two from Bayern for Alonso. 8m apparently. Despite crazy sums for folk like bale and James there's still good cheap deals out there Link to comment
Henry Posted August 29, 2014 Share Posted August 29, 2014 I'm aging devils and here Great stuff, keep it up.And in the boozer there's no sound. Certainly not any conversation in your corner anyway, maybe the tapping of keys if your phone isn't on silent. 1 Link to comment
Henry Posted September 16, 2014 Share Posted September 16, 2014 And so it begins again. The familial midweek gatherings of football’s galácticos. The hairs-up-on-nape anthem, with violins jinking up and down the scale and a choir of Uefa-approved angels exhorting Ce sont les meilleures équipes! Sie sind die allerbesten Mannschaften! The main event! – even when it is Maribor v Sporting. The gripes that the Champions League is a misnomer, given this year’s edition contains 17 domestic title winners out of 32 teams. And – inevitably – those hazy, apparently lazy, wasn’t as good in my day laments: that the group stages are more predictable than ever. Such comments are not new. Little in football is. We have heard them since the 1999-2000 season, when the Champions League swelled to 32 teams and Uefa stretched the definition of “champions” to allow up to four clubs from one country. But the gripes have strengthening justification. There are several ways to show this. One is to examine how teams from Europe’s biggest five leagues – Spain, England, Germany, Italy and France – have performed against other leagues in the group and knockout stages. Here the evidence is clear. The top teams are winning more often. Between 1999-2000 and 2004-05, teams from the Big Five leagues won 117 of 215 games, a win rate of 54%. The next five seasons, between 2005-06 and 2009-10, that figure climbed to 60%. And for the last five years it has been higher again – 64%. Shocks still occur. Chelsea lost to Basel home and away before reaching the semi-finals last season, while Copenhagen held Juventus and Anderlecht clung on against Paris Saint-Germain but there is less resistance and fewer surprises. What is supposed to be a competition too often resembles a procession. Bookies odds show a similar pattern historically. According to data from Oddsportal.com, there were 25 matches in the 2004-05 Champions League during which the favourite started at odds of 1-2 or shorter, implying they had at least a 67% chance of victory. By 2009-10 that figure had climbed to 36. Last season it was 41. Incidentally, there are five matches with short-priced favourites this week: Juventus v Malmo, Liverpool v Ludogorets Razgrad, Real Madrid v Basel, Porto v Bate Borisov, and Barcelona v Apoel Nicosia. A £100 bet on Barcelona would win just £7. Unsurprisingly, the richest leagues dominate the knockout stages more than before, too. Last season was the first in European Cup history in which no team from outside the Big Five leagues reached the quarter-finals. We have journeyed a long way from the first Champions League group stages in 1992-93 – when the last eight featured Marseille, Rangers, CSKA Moscow and Bruges in one pot and Milan, Gothenburg, Porto and PSVEindhoven in the other. Along with predictability of the group stages comes another problem: over-familiarity. Arsenal’s trip to Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday is their third in four seasons. So is Manchester City’s visit to Bayern Munich on Wednesday. The Westfalenstadion is one of the finest in Europe; but part of European football’s attraction is wanderlust, not just wandering down familiar paths and into familiar pubs. What should be done depends on how worrisome you perceive the problem to be. But however much Uefa attempted to level the playing field by increasing the rewards for the likes of, say, Ajax or Apoel for making the Champions League, they would still find it impossible to compete with Europe’s biggest sides without a sugar daddy. Even if Uefa wanted to redistribute wealth from rich to poor, it would never renew the risk of a breakaway European League. And what is good for the Champions League isn’t necessarily good for domestic competition. All clubs in the last 32 get a participation payment of £7m and an added £396,000 for every group match. That is chicken feed for Premier League clubs but it can ruin the ecosystem of smaller leagues because one club is so much richer than everyone else. I have sympathy for those romantics who hark back to the old European Cup, but it is never going to happen. BT Sport will pay £897m to show live coverage of the Champions League. It, like all Uefa’s broadcast partners, wants the big clubs to survive as long as possible. A wider knockout tournament is just too risky. At least Uefa’s plan to reserve the first pot of seeds for champions, which would have ensured Manchester City and Juventus – seeded second – had better prospects this season is welcome. But it is a half-turn of the spanner, not a radical tinkering. It is unlikely to help smaller clubs progress deeper. There is a counter-argument: that the current set-up, for all its faults, is made worth it by the unfiltered thrills of the knockout stages. Remember that in the past 10 years there have been eight different winners of the Champions League – while in that time in England, Spain and Italy, there have been three title winners, and the Bundesliga four. Meanwhile Dortmund and Atlético Madrid show it is possible to go from domestic mediocrity to a European Cup final within three years. In some respects, then, the Champions League resembles a Hollywood blockbuster that makes you forget its formulaic early stages with a few unforgettable set pieces in its final stages. But is it wrong to wish that we did not have to wait until February for the highest quality drama? Yes Bluto, it's the Guardian. Link to comment
NorthernLights24 Posted September 16, 2014 Share Posted September 16, 2014 Arsenal taken a bit of a hiding from Dortmund tonight so far. Lucky their only 2-0 down as the Germans have come very, very close a couple of times. Link to comment
The Cockney Don Posted September 16, 2014 Share Posted September 16, 2014 YaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasYaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaas 1 Link to comment
boboisared Posted September 16, 2014 Share Posted September 16, 2014 Arsenal taken a bit of a hiding from Dortmund tonight so far. Lucky their only 2-0 down as the Germans have come very, very close a couple of times.Coincidentally Arsenal missed two great chances at 1-0. EDIT: The first was actually at 0-0. Link to comment
King Street Loon Posted September 16, 2014 Share Posted September 16, 2014 Liverpool and Arsenal both shite tonight. Link to comment
Bluto10 Posted September 17, 2014 Share Posted September 17, 2014 Big European nights are always special at an field. Good to see Stevie G get on the score sheet on an emotional return to the CL for bin Link to comment
Dynamo Posted September 17, 2014 Share Posted September 17, 2014 Ludogorets last couple of mins, fuck me Link to comment
Bluto10 Posted September 17, 2014 Share Posted September 17, 2014 Fuckin hell Roberto. Link to comment
Bluto10 Posted September 17, 2014 Share Posted September 17, 2014 Real looking potent. And bale worth every penny.Theres a New Rinaldo in town. Link to comment
Dynamo Posted September 17, 2014 Share Posted September 17, 2014 Bale is awesome. Madrid won't win it this year though. If I was to put money on anyone it would be Chelsea. Link to comment
Bluto10 Posted September 17, 2014 Share Posted September 17, 2014 Check glory hunter Roberto plumping for the galacticos. If barca couldn't retain it then there's not a hope in hell of RM managing that. I'm with dynamo.Chelsea look the best all round side. Maybe Munich but Peppy seems like too much of an idealist. Up against Jose's win at all costs he might struggle. Link to comment
Bluto10 Posted September 17, 2014 Share Posted September 17, 2014 Oh aye. Forgot about that. Real are worse than chelsea. Scum club. Followed by scum. Link to comment
Dynamo Posted September 17, 2014 Share Posted September 17, 2014 Not sure how Rodriguez is gonna fit at Real. Stupid signing should have kept Di Maria. Link to comment
dave_min Posted September 17, 2014 Share Posted September 17, 2014 I agree - Jimmy is an absolute joy to watch. Link to comment
Dynamo Posted September 17, 2014 Share Posted September 17, 2014 Fitted in 'not too badly' yesterday. I think he's brilliant. Basel are cannon fodder for Real at home though. Talking about the big big games. Link to comment
Bluto10 Posted September 17, 2014 Share Posted September 17, 2014 Pfaf.Nah min Bertrand.He is decent ish but not as good as the two two big players they've sold. Link to comment
tightbreeks Posted September 17, 2014 Share Posted September 17, 2014 when/if man utd get back in, they'll be a totally new package and could have the element of surprise. phil jones and jonny evans are still bit shit though. Link to comment
Bluto10 Posted September 17, 2014 Share Posted September 17, 2014 Group stages only exciting for pot 3 teams. Latter stages predictable Uefa know this.But people keep watching. Link to comment
Bluto10 Posted September 17, 2014 Share Posted September 17, 2014 Joe hatts playing well. Bayern will be good.Alonso is a step up from kroos. Link to comment
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