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Football Thread |OT11| Campaign: Save a donkey in Colombia

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Yen

Member
Angel Rangel has been driving around Swansea giving food to homeless people.
Joey Barton is declaring that he is smarter and superior to 97% of the population.
 
jHyYo0Bl5eRm2.jpg



My best sad face.
Link to your fb page :p
Nice.

I don't see this happening to be honest. Unless both Schieber and Lewandowski get injured at the same time, Klopp won't try that stuff out, we only have important matches. So, not before pre-season, and we won't start into the season with just Schieber/Ducksch and hope for the best.
We kinda did play that way in CL and vs. Bayern (at times with KGK in CM). I think Sahin could change everything, seriously. We wouldn't need the long balls to a Lewa-like target man anymore. The striker or false 9 would simply need to be a good scorer and be able to participate in passing without hold ups.
If Sahin makes a glorious return then I could really imagine us not trying to substitute Lewa.
But maybe I'm wrong...we'll see.
 

K1LLER7

Member
Some of dat Zaha Hype

I'll never forget the day, walking off the Crystal Palace training ground in Beckenham, having witnessed Victor Moses embarrass senior players in training.
It wasn't the first time the 17-year-old had done it, but Victor's laid-back approach and attitude at the time, years before he made it to Chelsea, was holding him back from hitting the heights his team-mates, coaches and manager wanted him to reach. One of the great aspects of watching a young player arrive on the scene is the total uncertainty about whether the individual you see playing at 15 will make it or not.
"Vic will either be playing on Hackney Marshes or the Champions League in 10 years' time," I said to one of the youth coaches, Adam Sells, as we left the pitch. "No," he replied. "It will definitely be Champions League. But wait until you see the lad coming through who's even better. He's two years younger than Victor. He's called Wilfried Zaha. His potential's staggering."
Potential. The big word for any young player coming through. Will they? Won't they? How far could they go? Well, on Tuesday night Zaha gave a 45-minute performance against a very experienced Premier League back four at Stoke that told us his rise through the ranks is about more than just potential. It told us why Manchester United and Arsenal are so interested in him.
The performance has so far gone virtually under the radar, partly due to Ian Holloway's amazing, classic post-match outburst about someone's suggestion he'd dived. It took Zaha five or 10 minutes to get into that FA Cup third-round replay, but the big change happened when Holloway switched him from the right wing to the left. The move allowed Zaha to play in his favourite position: to pick the ball up deep and start running at the Premier League's third meanest defence.
Zaha has wonderful ball manipulation skills, especially his ability to swap the ball from either foot, in a blink of an eye, while keeping perfect balance. This allows him to go past players at will, in the tightest of spaces. I've watched him very closely over the past 18 months and the experience he's gathered playing in a very competitive Championship – in front of crowds of up to 30,000 – has proved invaluable.
It's better than being watched by a handful of people in the new under-21 league, at a non-league ground. He's now clocked up more than 100 senior first-team appearances, making the step up to the next level easier for him when it happens. He's ready to step straight into United's first team.
The last time Zaha played against Premier League opposition it was at Old Trafford, against United in last season's Carling Cup quarter-final, and he gave Rafael da Silva a difficult time. But he's actually a very different player from the one we saw in December 2011 and he's come a long way since then. Back then, he was still at the stage where he wasn't always able to make the right decision about when to use his ability to manipulate the ball at speed and take his man on – and when to look for the other options which a team-mate might provide.
That's the ability he has developed in the past 13 months. It's a big comparison to make, but he's not too dissimilar to the way Cristiano Ronaldo started out at Old Trafford. Ronaldo had to learn quickly, about when to have the awareness not to take his opponent on but to release the ball, when defenders doubled up on him.
At the Britannia, we saw Zaha's wonderful knack of running at defenders, slowing them down, getting them on the back foot, then bursting past them at pace. He earned one penalty in the first half, but could easily have been three as he slipped like an eel. His second penalty appeal earned Zaha the yellow card that so incensed Holloway.
Stoke manager Tony Pulis reacted by man-marking Zaha – something that is now common every week in the Championship. But in the confines of Beckenham, Holloway has been preparing the 20-year-old for this. He's been having him man-marked in training every day.
Zaha didn't appear for the second half at Stoke – Palace have bigger fish to fry as they try to reach the promised land of the Premier League. They currently sit fourth in the Championship, two points off automatic promotion. While every player does have a price, the club would be crazy to sell him now, in such a strong position. There will be some soul-searching going on.
Palace poser: To sell or push for promotion
Crystal Palace's quandary about whether to sell Wilfried Zaha and jeopardise their promotion prospects has intensified because the only bid, from Manchester United, is £5m plus £5m add-ons, a figure well short of the £12m asking price.
Though Arsène Wenger said today that Arsenal "are looking at him", he said they had not yet made a bid. The lack of other suitors for the 20-year-old has limited the price Palace can command – a worry for a club which must balance the potential income with supporters' expectations of a promotion push. "I don't know if Manchester United are in for him," Wenger said. "Anyway, if you call any club for any player, they will tell you Man United, Milan, Real Madrid are in for him."
Ian Herbert
 
Does anyone else get unreasonably annoyed when watching a film and people are playing games but clearly not playing?

Role models drove me mad there was a scene at a party were they were playing pro evo and a guy was rubbing it in that he was about to score but it was clearly a replay
 
In the post-game interviews:

- Holtby said he doesn't know if he's leaving for Spurs in winter, only his agent would do
- But Heldt, their sporting director or whatever, admitted that Spurs indeed asked for winter transfer and that they'd just have to agree on a transfer fee.

So time to get hard, Spurs fans.
 

Ushojax

Should probably not trust the 7-11 security cameras quite so much
In the post-game interviews:

- Holtby said he doesn't know if he's leaving for Spurs in winter, only his agent would do
- But Heldt, their sporting director or whatever, admitted that Spurs indeed asked for winter transfer and that they'd just have to agree on a transfer fee.

So time to get hard, Spurs fans.

He did a nice farewell performance today. We'll be stacked in the CAM position with Holtby, Dempsey and Sigurdsson but they give us good options. We needed more quality in midfield and he brings that.

A front 6 of:

Parker Dembele
Lennon Holtby Bale
Adebayor/Defoe

looks good even without my sweet Sandro.
 
Spurs have impressive depth now. If they could add a top striker and CM I think they'd comfortably be a lock for top 4.

Those are two pretty major signings that need to be made, but yeah, if they get CL this year and are willing to spend in the summer then Arsenal and Liverpool might get left behind.
 

TrueBlue

Member
Spurs have impressive depth now. If they could add a top striker and CM I think they'd comfortably be a lock for top 4.

Those are two pretty major signings that need to be made, but yeah, if they get CL this year and are willing to spend in the summer then Arsenal and Liverpool might get left behind.

They have a very good shout for third imo.
 

Scum

Junior Member
Spurs have impressive depth now. If they could add a top striker and CM I think they'd comfortably be a lock for top 4.

Those are two pretty major signings that need to be made, but yeah, if they get CL this year and are willing to spend in the summer then Arsenal and Liverpool might get left behind.

Falcao - £35m plus add-ons
Moutinho - straight swap with Jenas.
 

Kyoufu

Member
Oh shit.

Le10sport saying we're about to sign Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa for 8 million Euros.

PLEASE

Also Pardew said at a Charity dinner that we're about to sign 2 players that cost 8 million each.......

PLEASE

PLEASE

PLEASE
 
Apparently agreed a £8M fee for Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa. Of course I won't believe it until I see him in a Newcastle shirt on the pitch.


Even then I'll have my doubts.
 

Wes

venison crêpe
When did Adkins get sacked? Blimey. The footballing world sure does seem to move fast when you cut yourself off completely.
 

Scum

Junior Member
When did Adkins get sacked? Blimey. The footballing world sure does seem to move fast when you cut yourself off completely.

Late this morning, I believe. Apparently, back-to-back promotions, 15th in the PL and 2 losses out of the last 11 games just doesn't cut it anymore.
 

Wes

venison crêpe
Late this morning, I believe. Apparently, back-to-back promotions, 15th in the PL and 2 losses out of the last 11 games just doesn't cut it anymore.

The Adkins sacking is terrible. But hey, when Villa go down maybe he'll be our new manager when we wrongly get rif od Lambert.

Southampton signed Forren too? I'm dizzy.
 
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