Woo-hoo, we won at Southampton! In the league! Mind, I watched it on Sky and it was one of the most scrappy and throw-in-filled matches I’ve seen in a while.
On one hand the side seemed more solid in an away match than it has for some time, but they still seemed to give away possession sloppily about every other minute, and they didn’t seem to have entirely learned from the Sakhnin experience when it came to reckless tackles, Bowyer!
Souness tried some new ideas out. Kluivert played so well in midweek that he couldn’t not be picked for the first team this time around, and to accomodate this and have Shearer on the pitch, Bellamy was stuck out wide. This kind of worked, though Bellamy’s crossing ability isn’t exactly on a par with Solano or Robert! Picking Jenas instead of Robert was an odd decision, but Robert rarely performs away from home anyway.
I wonder if he’ll try sticking Shearer in central defence alongside O’Brien next time. He seems to end up doing all the heading away anyway!
Everton are third in the league. WTF is going on? :eek:
David Moyes deserves some serious respect for getting that band of alehouse battlers in order.
Have people noticed that Jose Mourinho appears to be making a concerted effort to wrest the crown of second biggest twat currently in football management from the brow of Sir Alex Ferguson? [Obviously, unless Man City plan on making any changes at the top King Kevin will always reign supreme]. Every sentance he utters seems carefully designed to showcase how much of a c**t he is. Happily, you just know that every tabloid sports editor is happily biding their time, waiting for the perfect moment to dish him out a serious shoeing , with an added helping of child abuse allegations.
I am old enough to remember him in his heyday, and the teams that he put out.
He had a talent for getting phenomenal results out of apparently mediocre players (eg John Robertson) or a few more years out of apparent has beens (eg Dave McKay,). His teams played good attractive passing football, no long ball stuff.
Will a team like Notts Forest ever do well in Europe again? Obviously not. The league system is designed to make sure of that. When it was a knockout there was always a possibility.
Forest were our original bogie team, and they even had a song about it - we only really broke the hoodoo in the '91 “gazza” cup final. He should have called it a day then.
How many of the great old managers are there left? Bill Nicholson is still alive (just about - he’s very frail), who else is left?
ruadh, what would it take to make Celtic a top class team? More money, playing in the EPL. At the moment, they’ll wipe the floor with the opposition in Scotland but fall flat on their face wheneve they get into Europe, which is every year.
Could they develop more local players, as Manchester United have done? If Porto (under Jose Mourinho - hemm!) can win Europe’s premier competition, shouldn’t Glasgow Celtic be aspiring to greater things?
Hey. I don’t think making it to a UEFA Cup Final qualifies as falling flat on our face, TVM.
We’ve tried to develop local players, God knows we’ve tried. But you only need to look at the national team to realise there’s a serious problem with Scottish football, one that’s really beyond our ability to do much about.
I think Celtic** DO ** punch their weight - I just don’t think there as heavy as some other people do. A UEFA cup final and their “exploits” in the CL (Jealous? Me?) are about right for a team from Scotland (a small country with a small league - see also Rosenbourgh, Ajax, Kiev etc).
They will never win the CL again as the whole system has been set up to favour the big leagues.
As to them leaving Scotland: Where could they REASONABLY hope to go in the absence of a G14 league (and there is little chance of them getting into that IMHO)?
The SPL is a bag o’ shite, and no mistake ( I live in Scotland and get regular exposure to Dougie Donnelly presenting the highlights of Rangers v Inverness Caledonian Thistle). Rangers and Celtic have to get out of it if they are to be taken seriously as fitba giants, and everyone else needs to get shut of them so that they can play in a competitive league.
If Celtic and Rangers migrated to the premiership tomorrow, the results would be fairly mediocre as of this season (Rangers would probably get relegated to be honest ), but give it a season or two and they would easily establish themselves. Both clubs are too big (60 000 fans every home game) to fail in the premiership, once they figured out how to earn money from it.
Anyone wondered why Scotland are so shite? The Scots love football, there is no other sport that remotely comes close in terms of popularity, yet everytime you see the national side play you can’t help thinking that if you laid off the ale for six months and went jogging of a weekend, you’d probably lay claim to the centre-half spot. It is a small country, but so is New Zealand and the Kiwis have been the team to beat in rugby union for fifty years. Mass-lethargy brought on from collective deep-fried mars bar consumption? I guess all national teams just go through troughs of having shite players…
Firstly there doesn’t seem to be any committment by the clubs to English style academies. You need these, scouting isn’t enough anymore.
The main reason though is cheap foreign imports taking up team places that once would have gone to young local players. THus they don’t get the experience early on.
Also the fact that the English first and second divisions (or whatever they’re calling themselves this week) are also full of jam rolls and scandiwegians also means that they aren’t looking north of the border either, so the opportunity to come south isn’t there.
I think that football/sport should have some kind of exemption from Euro law to force teams to play at least half a team of players qualified to play for their relevant countries ie England in EPL, Germany in Bundeslega etc.
So how come there are so many paddies in the EPL? Two words - transfer fee. We by and large don’t pay transfer fees to irish league clubs. That makes Irish lads a worthwhile gamble. (that and the fact that most of the “Irish” team were born in County Luton!)
Given that it’s a premiership clash, I can only assume that the team that he will put out will be closer to the one that faced Arsenal than it is to the one that faced Yeovil.
I can’t see him underestimating Tottenham and fielding a load of reserves. It should be a good game. Im glad we have the home advantage, plus it means it’s easier for me to attend, living near the Reebok and all.
I don’t think what we ‘usually’ do comes into it this year. As last years defeated finalists, i think the expectations have been set for another good run. Sam really wants to be the first manager to take Bolton into Europe, and the Carling Cup is probably his best shot, so he’ll probably have expectations too. Not being at the foot of the table helps too. We don’t need to concentrate on getting out of the bottom 3 for once.
If he plays like he did last night he’s worth the money (It’s £20m with additions for various things I believe - still lots and lots if you consider that Defoe cost £7m and Bobby Zamora (oh how we laughed), and Owen went for £8m.
This football lark is all a bit much isn’t it? A few weeks ago we were third - now we’re in the bottom half of the table. We have three winnable games coming up (Everton (over reaching at the mo must come down to earth soon) Pompey (rubbish) and Bolton twice (in Carling cup too).
Any thing less than six points from that lot must be considered a failure.
p.s I can see the Wembley Arch from here - it’s very impressive.
), but give it a season or two and they would easily establish themselves. Both clubs are too big (60 000 fans every home game) to fail in the premiership, once they figured out how to earn money from it.
I guess all national teams just go through troughs of having shite players…