Premier League & London Marathon discussion 16th-17th April

S4P wrote:

COTR wrote:Misleading stats S4P

Go fetch the leagues points tally under both and you'll see the variation

Dalglish will of course continue to be judged throughout his time as manager but he has done little wrong so far, especially after what came before. He has also had to deal with an injury crisis Roy did not experience so it's also misleading to say there are now better players at his disposal

Not really. I would say that Premier league points are a more useful indicator of performance than one person (or a group of people's) opinion. The holy grail for Liverpool fans is the top 4 and although performances have been much improved under Dalglish, they are likely to have lost ground on the top 4 once the games-in-hand have been factored in.

Who is injured? Gerrard? While this may have had some significance, Liverpool fans have been repeatedly saying that his performances have been a shadow of what they have been in previous seasons. Let's also not overlook the fact that Dalglish has had the fortune of being reprieved of the out-of-form nuisance that was Torres and acquired a very good partnership in Suarez and Carrol. That too has some significance.

That's what I said

Points under Dalglish - 24 from 13 games
Points under Hodgson - 25 from 20 games

Pretty big difference there

Gerrard, Agger, Johnson, Kelly, Shelvey, Carroll and Aurelio have all been injured for sustained period since he took over, so no not just Gerrard.

S4P wrote:

COTR wrote:Misleading stats S4P

Go fetch the leagues points tally under both and you'll see the variation

Dalglish will of course continue to be judged throughout his time as manager but he has done little wrong so far, especially after what came before. He has also had to deal with an injury crisis Roy did not experience so it's also misleading to say there are now better players at his disposal

Not really. I would say that Premier league points are a more useful indicator of performance than one person (or a group of people's) opinion. The holy grail for Liverpool fans is the top 4 and although performances have been much improved under Dalglish, they are likely to have lost ground on the top 4 once the games-in-hand have been factored in.

Who is injured? Gerrard? While this may have had some significance, Liverpool fans have been repeatedly saying that his performances have been a shadow of what they have been in previous seasons. Let's also not overlook the fact that Dalglish has had the fortune of being reprieved of the out-of-form nuisance that was Torres and acquired a very good partnership in Suarez and Carrol. That too has some significance.

The out of form Torres still scored more then your very good partnership, they have what, 2 goals now?

You cant deny that Liverpool are playing much better under Dalglish and taking more points, perhaps it has to do with Gerrard not being there, or with the fact that Kuyt is in such an amazing form lately.

Jesus Christ. Are people on here really still trying to defend Hodgson and make out that Dalglish hasn't done a great job since joining in January? I don't know where all this bitterness stems from either. Everyone keeps banging on about Liverpool fans saying we expect a top 4 finish when in actual fact all we ever said this season was we expected to be performing a lot better than we were under Hodgson and now we are doing so.

No one can say shit until we see what happens in the summer. I for one would be amazed if Dalglish wasn't given at least another season - he certainly wont step away from the job so it would be a pretty big fucking call from the owners if they decided he wasn't the man to take us forward.

football-previews.blogspot.com

Newcastle - MU

match preview

Nani never fails to entertain

Stephen Ireland

Didn't see first half. Giggs just missed an great chance. Newcastle should've had a pen not long back. Remains nils.

Come on United dont give Arsenal the chance to get back into again, as we will only fuck it up tomorrow night

The pea booked for diving for a pen in the 91st min :cheer:

back in the title race for 24 hours

Rosicky wrote:The pea booked for diving for a pen in the 91st min :cheer:

I've got to laugh at fat Sam, thinking Hernandez's theatrics were a pen but not the stonewaller against Lovenkrands.

Anyway, good point.

Our record against the big 3 so far this season.

Manchester United 3 - 0 Newcastle United
Newcastle United 0 - 0 Manchester United
Newcastle United 1 - 1 Chelsea
Arsenal 0 - 1 Newcastle United
Newcastle United 4 - 4 Arsenal

Not bad.

According to SKY the penalty not given to United is the big talking point but curiously the earlier one at the other end (more contact) isn't

Brave and brilliant stuff from Newcastle, good work. Kimbonator and Bashmeister

Against an admittedly drab United side, but it's more about bottle than quality as we've seen.

Huge balls from the ref. I wonder if that late penalty decision would have been sanctioned by the Freemasons if United weren't so far ahead on points already.

I also wonder what Newcastle's season might have been like if Ben Arfa and Hughton had similarly capacious testicles. With $50m+ to spend in the summer they should be thinking about a top 6 place next season.

Didn't see the game. Heard Newcastle got lucky. I blame the London Media of course. It's a massive anti-Geordie conspiracy

I went to the match last night and was pleased with the way we played. I don't think highly of the current Man Utd team, but we have such a poor recent record against the club and such a dearth of attacking options at the moment that I didn't see us getting anything out of the game - however, in the end we certainly deserved our point. We had the better of the first half thanks to an excellent opening fifteen minutes, in which we really took the game to Man Utd and scrambled a number of chances; whilst Man Utd gradually began to dominate possession, it wasn't until the last ten minutes of the second half that they put us under real pressure, and even then the only save Krul had to make all game was the excellent hand he got to stop Hernandez early on; and for our part, though we started to sit back, we still had our chances with Lovenkrands having a few headers and Ireland turning to shoot just wide with his second or third touch after coming on.

The referee had a good game, in the sense that he didn't hand Man Utd anything, and remained resolute and fairly consistent throughout. He simply couldn't have justified giving Man Utd their late penalty, considering that he turned down Lovenkrands's similar but stronger appeal; and Man Utd had already attempted a few dives earlier in the game, with Nani escaping a booking for a blatant dive on the edge of the box even though the referee seemed to acknowledge that he had dived, and went to Vidic, Man Utd's captain, to lecture him about the state of affairs. From where I was sitting, I thought Lovenkrands should have had a penalty, though I'm not sure the referee even saw that incident fully because he was checking on Ameobi, who was on the ground after an aerial tussle; and I also thought that Simpson had caught Hernandez, though you could tell he'd exaggerated his tumble.

Jose Enrique got the better of Nani until Nani switched sides late on, but I'd expect Jose to better Nani nine times out of ten at least, and in truth I think he's a better player in so far as you can compare a winger with his opposition full-back.

Ferguson turns nearly all of his players into nasty and cynical cheats. Smalling fouled Ameobi on a regular basis in the air and Hernandez dived; but the old masters are masters after all, and O'Shea fouled Gutierrez a few times and got away with that and with kneeing him in the back when he was on the ground, whereas Giggs, who is one of the most cynical and disgusting cheats I've ever seen, as he always has done whenever I've seen him at St. James', shouted at and belittled the referee and his assistants all game, and liked to play tricks like tripping or kicking our players from behind before storming off on counter attacks, which constituted the occasions where Man Utd looked most threatening.

Still, though I don't normally like thuggish and essentially dishonest behaviour on the pitch, I'd have taken Joey Barton to my heart if he'd kicked, punched, somehow wounded or disfigured Michael Owen last night; and someone should have done that especially considering all the noise he's made since the game about the obviously warranted booing he received.

Noah und der Bale wrote:Didn't see the game. Heard Newcastle got lucky. I blame the London Media of course. It's a massive anti-Geordie conspiracy

Listen, you don't need to be a paranoid Geordie to see the bias of Sky's coverage last night.

Noah und der Bale wrote:Didn't see the game. Heard Newcastle got lucky. I blame the London Media of course. It's a massive anti-Geordie conspiracy

You appear to have been chatting to a few too many Man U fans Pele

Bashmachkin wrote:I went to the match last night and was pleased with the way we played. I don't think highly of the current Man Utd team, but we have such a poor recent record against the club and such a dearth of attacking options at the moment that I didn't see us getting anything out of the game - however, in the end we certainly deserved our point. We had the better of the first half thanks to an excellent opening fifteen minutes, in which we really took the game to Man Utd and scrambled a number of chances; whilst Man Utd gradually began to dominate possession, it wasn't until the last ten minutes of the second half that they put us under real pressure, and even then the only save Krul had to make all game was the excellent hand he got to stop Hernandez early on; and for our part, though we started to sit back, we still had our chances with Lovenkrands having a few headers and Ireland turning to shoot just wide with his second or third touch after coming on.

The referee had a good game, in the sense that he didn't hand Man Utd anything, and remained resolute and fairly consistent throughout. He simply couldn't have justified giving Man Utd their late penalty, considering that he turned down Lovenkrands's similar but stronger appeal; and Man Utd had already attempted a few dives earlier in the game, with Nani escaping a booking for a blatant dive on the edge of the box even though the referee seemed to acknowledge that he had dived, and went to Vidic, Man Utd's captain, to lecture him about the state of affairs. From where I was sitting, I thought Lovenkrands should have had a penalty, though I'm not sure the referee even saw that incident fully because he was checking on Ameobi, who was on the ground after an aerial tussle; and I also thought that Simpson had caught Hernandez, though you could tell he'd exaggerated his tumble.

Jose Enrique got the better of Nani until Nani switched sides late on, but I'd expect Jose to better Nani nine times out of ten at least, and in truth I think he's a better player in so far as you can compare a winger with his opposition full-back.

Ferguson turns nearly all of his players into nasty and cynical cheats. Smalling fouled Ameobi on a regular basis in the air and Hernandez dived; but the old masters are masters after all, and O'Shea fouled Gutierrez a few times and got away with that and with kneeing him in the back when he was on the ground, whereas Giggs, who is one of the most cynical and disgusting cheats I've ever seen, as he always has done whenever I've seen him at St. James', shouted at and belittled the referee and his assistants all game, and liked to play tricks like tripping or kicking our players from behind before storming off on counter attacks, which constituted the occasions where Man Utd looked most threatening.

Still, though I don't normally like thuggish and essentially dishonest behaviour on the pitch, I'd have taken Joey Barton to my heart if he'd kicked, punched, somehow wounded or disfigured Michael Owen last night; and someone should have done that especially considering all the noise he's made since the game about the obviously warranted booing he received.

This is brilliant