Re: Football Chat Thread - Euro 2012 edition : Mon Oct 08, 2012 2:39 pm  

Lord God Jose Mourinho wrote:

I dislike Tottenham about half as much as I dislike Liverpool, so that's still quite a lot.

what has THFC done to upset you as a matter of interest ?

Re: Football Chat Thread - Euro 2012 edition : Mon Oct 08, 2012 2:41 pm  

The thing with Balotelli is he's too inconsistent to be relied upon. He invests far, far too much energy into being cool, mysterious and eccentric. If he just concentrated on football for a spell he'd do okay, but as it is now, City can't throw start him in a big match and be confident he'll perform like they can with Aguero and Tevez. He'll never be a regular starter for City, so one wonders why they bother with him? Guidetti that couldn't get a game for them scored 20 in Holland last season and could do the bench job and minor cup rotation just as well. Why pay a 6 figure salary to a ticking timebomb?

Re: Football Chat Thread - Euro 2012 edition : Mon Oct 08, 2012 2:58 pm  

carl_spackler wrote:

I don't see how any of that is at all relevant to my post, did you quote the right one?

You said players should stay on their feet at all times to maximise their chances of a crack at goal. Torres did that, but in doing so was massively off balance and the incident resulted in the ball being cleared off the line.

If Torres had not fought to stay on his feet and gone down then he'd have had a free kick or pen and the defender would have been at risk of a red card. Torres did what he was supposed to do, and because he did he lost out because of it.

The truth is that both defenders and attackers are pushing the rules as far as they can to gain advantage. If a striker attempts to stay on his feet whenever he can defenders will just know that they can push him far more without risking a pen or a booking. A defender who knows the slightest contact on a striker will be risking a pen will be a lot more wary of shoving him off the ball.

Re: Football Chat Thread - Euro 2012 edition : Mon Oct 08, 2012 3:06 pm  

sanjunien wrote:

what has THFC done to upset you as a matter of interest ?

Nothing really. In fact, Tottenham have been pretty generous to us in my time.

On reflection, I'd say that my dislike of Tottenham is actually about 10% of my dislike of Liverpool.

Re: Football Chat Thread - Euro 2012 edition : Mon Oct 08, 2012 3:29 pm  

Lord God Jose Mourinho wrote:

You said players should stay on their feet at all times to maximise their chances of a crack at goal. Torres did that, but in doing so was massively off balance and the incident resulted in the ball being cleared off the line.

If Torres had not fought to stay on his feet and gone down then he'd have had a free kick or pen and the defender would have been at risk of a red card. Torres did what he was supposed to do, and because he did he lost out because of it.

The truth is that both defenders and attackers are pushing the rules as far as they can to gain advantage. If a striker attempts to stay on his feet whenever he can defenders will just know that they can push him far more without risking a pen or a booking. A defender who knows the slightest contact on a striker will be risking a pen will be a lot more wary of shoving him off the ball.

Have a look at the context of why I said it. I was specifically replying to the claim that you can't blame Suarez for diving because he's not being awarded penalties when he is legitimately fouled because of his reputation. That makes no sense. If a player genuinely believes he is being victimised and will not be awarded a penalty even when he is fouled, then in those specific circumstances the only sane solution to come up with is to try and make sure you stay upright as much as possible and get your shot/pass off, not to throw yourself at the ground regularly in the hope that you get a dodgy one to balance things out.

At no point was I debating the validity of penalty claims or whether or not a player should need to be upended before they get one.

Re: Football Chat Thread - Euro 2012 edition : Mon Oct 08, 2012 3:31 pm  

Lord God Jose Mourinho wrote: Nothing really. In fact, Tottenham have been pretty generous to us in my time. On reflection, I'd say that my dislike of Tottenham is actually about 10% of my dislike of Liverpool. strangely enough, although I love seeing The Gooners getting well and truly stuffed the team I really don't like is Villa ! I think it goes back to the time of Doug Ellis who always came over as a smarmy git ! a totally irrational reason to dislike a team when you think of it ? he was knighted for his services to charity recently and if you read the wiki page he was actually a remarkable man so maybe I should not bear grudges and respect The Villa like the other teams ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doug_Ellis even more irrational is my respect for Mr Wenger - Houston, I have a problem !

Lord God Jose Mourinho wrote: Nothing really. In fact, Tottenham have been pretty generous to us in my time. On reflection, I'd say that my dislike of Tottenham is actually about 10% of my dislike of Liverpool. strangely enough, although I love seeing The Gooners getting well and truly stuffed the team I really don't like is Villa ! I think it goes back to the time of Doug Ellis who always came over as a smarmy git ! a totally irrational reason to dislike a team when you think of it ? he was knighted for his services to charity recently and if you read the wiki page he was actually a remarkable man so maybe I should not bear grudges and respect The Villa like the other teams ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doug_Ellis even more irrational is my respect for Mr Wenger - Houston, I have a problem !

Re: Football Chat Thread - Euro 2012 edition : Mon Oct 08, 2012 3:57 pm  

sanjunien wrote: strangely enough, although I love seeing The Gooners getting well and truly stuffed the team I really don't like is Villa ! I think it goes back to the time of Doug Ellis who always came over as a smarmy git ! a totally irrational reason to dislike a team when you think of it ? he was knighted for his services to charity recently and if you read the wiki page he was actually a remarkable man so maybe I should not bear grudges and respect The Villa like the other teams ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doug_Ellis even more irrational is my respect for Mr Wenger - Houston, I have a problem ! I think the modern Doug Ellis is Dave Whelan. I can't stand Dave Whelan, but that doesn't really transfer itself onto Wigan like your dislike of Ellis crept onto Villa. While I think every word that Dave Whelan has ever uttered about football is complete horse manure, I actually have massive respect for him. He's an ex-pro footballer who built up a multi-million pound business, and then went and managed to get Wigan Athletic promoted to the PL and has kept them there. I'm just staggered after writing that what an awesome life and series of careers he's had. I think his achievements have been amazing. But I think I'd rather listen to Stan Collymore talk about respect for women than listen to Whelan talk about football. Wenger equally deserves huge respect. He's an excellent manager. But he's also deserving of derision for the way he whines about fouls against his players while being blind to his players butchering opponents. Pulis has been bad for this this last month, but it's been Wenger's standard way of operating for years.

sanjunien wrote: strangely enough, although I love seeing The Gooners getting well and truly stuffed the team I really don't like is Villa ! I think it goes back to the time of Doug Ellis who always came over as a smarmy git ! a totally irrational reason to dislike a team when you think of it ? he was knighted for his services to charity recently and if you read the wiki page he was actually a remarkable man so maybe I should not bear grudges and respect The Villa like the other teams ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doug_Ellis even more irrational is my respect for Mr Wenger - Houston, I have a problem ! I think the modern Doug Ellis is Dave Whelan. I can't stand Dave Whelan, but that doesn't really transfer itself onto Wigan like your dislike of Ellis crept onto Villa. While I think every word that Dave Whelan has ever uttered about football is complete horse manure, I actually have massive respect for him. He's an ex-pro footballer who built up a multi-million pound business, and then went and managed to get Wigan Athletic promoted to the PL and has kept them there. I'm just staggered after writing that what an awesome life and series of careers he's had. I think his achievements have been amazing. But I think I'd rather listen to Stan Collymore talk about respect for women than listen to Whelan talk about football. Wenger equally deserves huge respect. He's an excellent manager. But he's also deserving of derision for the way he whines about fouls against his players while being blind to his players butchering opponents. Pulis has been bad for this this last month, but it's been Wenger's standard way of operating for years.

Re: Football Chat Thread - Euro 2012 edition : Mon Oct 08, 2012 8:06 pm  

Durham Giant wrote:

After reading LGJM and RBs posts today i now understand them.

I thought they were just one eyed fans of their own team yet their comments on Bales dive are hilarious.

They both think it was |OK for him to dive as he was preparing for contact.

If you are preparing for contact you check your run, jump up to avoid the tackle dont do something you would see tom Daley doing.


The pair of you are really clueless clowns. Your lengthy posts trying to explain or theorise on football related incidents is hilarious. You had no credibility after your posts on Suarez and on Terry and clearly show you have no credibility on any other football related incidents.

If Mourinho is the the special one it is clear both of you two are special in a different way.

It really isn't hard to grasp. I remember when we played Birmingham a few years back, David Ngog won us a penalty by 'diving'. He was running in the box, a defender was coming across, the defender slid and clearly got in Ngog's way, Ngog got to the ball, touched it forward then 'dove' over as though there was contact. There wasn't contact, but he wasn't getting to the ball because he would have been clattered by Carsley (I think it was Carsley), if Ngog planted his foot there was a good chance Carsley's outstretched boot would have gone right through it. It looked awful on Ngog's part, he wasn't touched but acted like he did, but if he didn't avoid the contact he would have been fouled and possibly injured. The bad moment in it all was Carsley's challenge which was rightly penalised, people seem to forget that.

I wasn't actually talking about Bale's situation precisely when saying contact isn't always required, but I can see why some players go down without contact.

Re: Football Chat Thread - Euro 2012 edition : Tue Oct 09, 2012 6:07 am  

still can't decide on the Bale incident but the question I would ask is - is diving considered as cheating or just gamesmanship ? I reckon the reason Rogers is defending his man is because he feels it's a part of he game nowadays and although it is wrong to try to deceive the officials it's fair-game to try to win by any means and if you get caught then so be it
We all recall many years ago the 'Hand of God ' incident but was that cheating or gamesmanship ? We also saw a few days ago the great Miroslav Close scoring with his hand for Lazio at Napoli but owning up to the ref after scoring that he actually pushed the ball in with his hand with the ref changing his decision and disallowing the goal - his team went on to lose that game but Maradonnas effort won them the game so who was right and who was wrong ?
Was Ireland robbed of a World Cup spot beacause of Henrys' cheating or gamesmanship ?

Re: Football Chat Thread - Euro 2012 edition : Tue Oct 09, 2012 1:56 pm  

Lord God Jose Mourinho wrote:

But the problem is in the huge grey area over fouls. If a defender impedes an attacker just enough to cause his team mate to make a clearance that is still a foul. But good luck finding refs that are strong enough to make that decision. They need the player to go down to force them to actually make a decision.

An honest striker is one that defenders will love. They'll just hang all over him all game, knowing that as long as they don't actually cause him to go to ground they'll be able to foul all the time and get away with it. Just look at the ludicrous situation over free kicks into the penalty area. If an attacker looks at a defender the wrong way the refs will instantly give a free kick against him. At the same time if a defender picks up an attacker and carries him into the stand the referee will fail to see anything wrong.

Then there's the issue of players going into challenges as though they are going to clatter into someone and then pulling out at the last minute. That's a foul according to the rules.

Managers then cause more problems with their mind games. Pulis has been on a roll over diving and bad tackles against his side. Don't think he was too bothered by Crouch's hand ball before he scored against Citeh though, and he's quick to defend his players after they've hospitalised another player.

Think you've hit the nail on the head there with how complex it is. Rightly or wrongly, it appears to me though that, as a society, we've decided that diving to gain a penalty is worse than, say, a defender tugging at a shirt i.e. that it's against the spirit of the game and sportsmanship. Technically they may be the same offence but over here, in the UK, that kind of niggle seems to be accepted as what we feel is okay as fans. I guess this is where the splits occur. When you're own player decides to dive it can force some fans to back him i.e. usually the ones for whom their club is bigger than the game (why would they defend it otherwise?). The social contract between players who take part is that you expect there to be a bit of niggle but not complete abandonment of all integrity to win. Some players push the latter and feel that's all that matters, but we have already decided as fans that we don't want those sort of shenanigans in our game. We don't want win at any cost anymore and that has to be a good thing.