Premier League 22,23,24 Aug

Boring 0-0 to start the weekend

I thought it was ok, very fast paced, which was why Pigclimber had to be hauled off. Rooney doesn't cut it as a striker, and Colback and Obertan don't cut it as footballers. Januzaj did nothing but try and get players booked, I suppose the hype will disappear again for 6 months.

Also BT Sports coverage was horrendous, it was basically MUTV. People associated with Man U seem to be pigheaded enough to look at a replay of an offside decision, see their man is on the wrong side, and disagree with the laws of the universe.

love Grealish. great to have him back in team - just need to get him on the ball as much as poss. I'm still a bit unsure who's going to put the ball in the net, but we've got the players to make a pretty decent team now.

West Ham's BUBBLE burst quickly enough.

Well, Newcastle were very luck it seems.

Fey wrote:Well, Newcastle were very luck it seems.

That Man U can't breakdown a defence? I suppose so. Krul only had to make 1 or 2 good saves. Then again Thauvin was a gnats pube away from a winner at the end. Maybe spend another 100 mil before the deadline, watch out for Chelsea and Man City though.

Kimbo wrote:

Fey wrote:Well, Newcastle were very luck it seems.

That Man U can't breakdown a defence? I suppose so. Krul only had to make 1 or 2 good saves. Then again Thauvin was a gnats pube away from a winner at the end. Maybe spend another 100 mil before the deadline, watch out for Chelsea and Man City though.

Congrats for your point Kimmy... Hope that helps you to sleep well tonight

That was the longest offside decision I've ever seen. Took 2 mins and then they decide Palace goal was offside. pretty funny.

Marc Pugh, another ex-Shrew in the Premier League

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f**k 1-0 down. very poor this half and took waaaaaaaaaaaaay to long to make a change, just let Palace build momentum.

Traore - what a fucking start. lucky deflection but we'll take it!

Anyone remembers Kane? He used to score for Spurs a lot!

OMG heartbreak hotel for Deb, Sako 2-1...Pardew for captainleaderlegend!

Mahrez in my opinion was below his usual level today, but still scored a very impressive goal

frustrating match. Not sure why it is that all Villa managers always seem so scared of making proactive substitutions. We were absolutely crying out for changes by 60 minute mark as Palace took control of match straight from start of 2nd half. finally brought on Adama 10 mins later and that worked well in a way (in that he had personal impact on the game) but it was too late to shift momentum and we went behind shortly after he came on. We had 2 more subs to use, perfectly reasonable options on bench (Ayew, Sinclair, Hutton to go RB & push Bacuna forward) but left on Gabby who was terrible first half & didn't touch ball 2nd half, Gestede who is really not looking full fitness and Grealish who was great first half but faded after break as he's had no pre-season. Baffling.

Palace were poor first half but made 2 changes at half time which strengthened their midfield and gave them more threat up front. We didn't respond and that lost the match.

Fey wrote:Anyone remembers Kane? He used to score for Spurs a lot!

Obviously teletext fans will claim he's a MASSIVE FLOP (already seen a telegraph article claiming as much) and go on about how they told you he was a flash in the pan. Anyone who actually watches the games though will see he has still been incredibly useful in attack by coming deep to feed runners going past him into the space created, given he is now being routinely doubled up on by defenders who are following to man mark him. Against United Eriksen should have scored from his lobbed pass in the 5th minute, against Stoke same thing again Mason had perfect one on one from his pass which he wasted. Today he put Chadli through but Man bun cut back instead of taking a shot when bearing down on the keeper. There is a reason he wears the number 10 shirt and not the number 9. Fully expect he won't score anywhere near the same number of goals, but he should get a considerable number of assists if the midfielders in our team start burying their chances.

Today I would say Kane and Alli when he came on were the only two players who really tested their defence. Leicester are a solid team and its not surprising they've picked up so many points, they play a very simple yet effective style overloading in the middle. We simply don't have good enough wide men to capitalise - Rose being injured has been a big blow as Davies is considerably inferior going forward. Meanwhile Lamela is possibly the worst wide player in the league since Gabriel Obertan, and it's utterly bizarre why Poch thinks he's better than Lennon or Townsend - neither of whom are ripping up any trees but at least they know how to not turnover the ball almost every single time it comes to them.

Rumors are that we are in for Wanyama and Berahino. Assuming we get those two we may just finish 7th. This team is clearly being primed for the long term, but it's a dangerous game as don't have a decent season this year and we will probably lose Lloris, possibly Kane and Vertonghen.

Silver lining - Dele Alli looks a proper baller. In less than 10 minutes he showed more awareness than Lamela and Dembele have in 2 seasons in terms of making actual late runs into the box from midfield. 19 years old and will probably be our top scoring midfielder.

As for Leicester, they will probably finish comfortably in midtable. Plenty of pace on the break, Varny and Mahrez excel on the break playing to their quick long balls into the channels. I do think they will get found out by teams more capable of taking them on in wide positions as they look to suffocate the central areas. Spurs aren't good enough in those areas to have taken advantage. Rose would've helped given how he is basically the fulcrum of anything good we do in wide positions these days - destroyed Chelsea and Arsenal at the Lane last year playing through him on the break. Needs to get back in the team quickly.

Oh and good job Newcastle getting a point at Old Trafford. Van Gaal and United are nicking a living currently, when clubs who haven't shit 300million away on players barely create any chances in 3 games it's kind of understandable. These c**ts have no excuse. Really awful football to watch, there was a time when although United were somewhat detestable by default for winning everything, you kind of could secretly respect and admire them for how they did it through profiting from their youth team (well mostly the class of 92 who went on forever) or recruiting raw diamonds like Cristiano Ronaldo or Rooney and making them into top class players. They also played some good stuff to boot.

Looking through this current United team its about as likeable as Chelsea with Abramovic just buying every c**t as though a game of fantasy football. Loads of expensive players with big reputations, no youth players, and playing shite football. There is nothing left to respect or admire anymore. Club is now just like most of its plastic fans, devoid of anything romantic, a soulless rabble of wankers.

Isco Benny wrote:Oh and good job Newcastle getting a point at Old Trafford. Van Gaal and United are nicking a living currently, when clubs who haven't shit 300million away on players barely create any chances in 3 games it's kind of understandable. These c**ts have no excuse. Really awful football to watch, there was a time when although United were somewhat detestable by default for winning everything, you kind of could secretly respect and admire them for how they did it through profiting from their youth team (well mostly the class of 92 who went on forever) or recruiting raw diamonds like Cristiano Ronaldo or Rooney and making them into top class players. They also played some good stuff to boot.

Looking through this current United team its about as likeable as Chelsea with Abramovic just buying every c**t as though a game of fantasy football. Loads of expensive players with big reputations, no youth players, and playing shite football. There is nothing left to respect or admire anymore. Club is now just like most of its plastic fans, devoid of anything romantic, a soulless rabble of wankers.

There never was.

City Everton game is a good one so far. City's front 5 are a joy to watch, Aguero's movement up top is the best in the league by some distance.

Everton just about holding their own too. Nice mix of technical and direct quick Football so far. Howard's saves keeping things level.

Someone from LA calling me plastic and not a romantic... You think taking the misses to the pier and have an animalstyle 4×4 is having a romantic day out...well I tell you me beloved idiot abroad, its not!!! A shrimp sandwich while taking a stroll to Salford on the other hand..

Southampton is having their second season syndrome it appears..jeez. Well JC will return soon.

So he goes from starting 2 runners in midfield to 2 DM's (with a runner in front of them).

I don't care that we're playing Arsenal, I want to watch us play good football. Is that so much to ask after spending hundreds of millions?

Why I bother watching I don't know.

Neither side look impressive. So far only City looked good.

Ibe has a bad case of the N'Zogbias - whenever there are two choices, he picks the wrong one. Gomez looks promising.

Ibe was terrible. Just like Firmino, Oezil, Chambers, Cazorla, but latter two had it worse as they were losing ball constantly in deep areas and almost every time Liverpool had a promising situation because of it.

Good game for Skrtel, Lovren, Clyne, Gabriel and Cech. Can and Lucas were decent too, Can was covering a lot of ground tonight.

Benteke doesn't have prime Drogba skill of winning a header or collecting the ball via his chest to allow his teammates into play. In current Liverpool style he could really do with a partner to chase his flick ons (where he is great).

Very strange game.

I'd have snapped your hand off for a point before the game - the Emirates is a nightmare stadium for us; we've only won once in 12 games there or something. I was expecting a dismal, dull performance where Arsenal win 2-0 but I thought we were absolutely brilliant in the first half. We should have been at least 2 up at half time. Coutinho was inches away with both his fantastic individual efforts. Benteke has to score that chance - yes Cech did very well but you put your foot through it and it's 1-0. Arsenal looked so out of sorts; defensively frail, couldn't string passes together and couldn't work any magic against a solid defence.

I thought Benteke was brilliant. Once again he caused all sorts of problems - it was his run and cutback that allowed Coutinho to have a great effort off the bar just outside the box. He won every header almost once again, held the ball up well at times. I think him, Firmino and Coutinho can strike up a very good triumvirate for us.

The second half was much expected, there was no way Arsenal would be as poor or we would be as attacking. People say Rodgers bottled it but I see it as learning from mistakes. We got raped last season at Stoke and Arsenal conceding 9 goals. This season we're 1-0 up over those 2 games. Rodgers has taken a lot of stick for going with Lovren over Sakho (myself included) and for taking a gamble on Gomez and to some extent taking another gamble on a Southampton defender but it all looks to be paying off so far. I thought we were absolutely solid at the back for the third game running. Lucas and Milner played a large part in this - it seems a shame that Lucas looks to be leaving.

Arsenal were the better team in the second half but we played a clever game and got a valuable point - it's the kind of thing Chelsea and United have done over the years to win their titles.

My concerns are still a lack of goals though on another day we score at least 2 from the Coutinho and Benteke chances. And I'm still concerned we don't have much on the bench to win a match out of nothing. The subs last night were average - Ibe has disappointed so far; he definitely has potential but to make it in his position he has to be aspiring to be on a similar level to Sterling at least and then you look further at the likes of Bale, Hazard etc. I don't think he has the confidence in himself yet and defenders aren't scared by him.

But 7 points from the first 3 which included Stoke and Arsenal away is a very good start. We have West Ham at home then United away next - 4 points from them and we look in good shape for a crack at top 4 but it's still very early.