club vs country

[Guest mother]

It saddens me to see the Premier League fixture list being dogged by international games. Am I alone here? If I am, you should think again. Instead of watching LFC, instead I can get right behind Rooney etc and watch England vs amateurs. Sure. I propose that all international games be played close season as to not disrupt domestic fixtures. The qualifying is dull, the headlines are dull and the football is even worse. The only hint of happiness I hold onto in watching England is that Rooney or the likes gets seriously injured thus removing him from the domestic campaign. "Mclaren is sweating on the fitnes of etc" ----zzzzzzzzzz- play your games at the end of the season, who cares? I disagree with El Tel's view: "It was never part of our plans not to play well, it just happened that way" - liar.

[DalyanPete]

i personally love the internationals,i love to watch crouch anf kuyt cos they are boss liverpool players

[Guest mother]

ha ha - you are catching on my friend, or should i say, deliberately proviking mother. Mother does not like either of them. Mother would prefer to see them across the park being equally useless there.

[DalyanPete]

ha ha - you are catching on my friend, or should i say, deliberately proviking mother. Mother does not like either of them. Mother would prefer to see them across the park being equally useless there.

were you the fat fucker in the new avengers?i have never proviked anyone!

[Guest mother]

i didnt watch the new avengers

[DalyanPete]

i didnt watch the new avengers

strange,you remind me of gareth hunt,just can't put my finger on it.

[Guest mother]

who is gareth hunt?

[DalyanPete]

who is gareth hunt?

he was a suave,good looking(not gay) hard fucker who banged joanna lumley in the new avengers,was also in a coffee ad i think.

bugger,off to work now

[SoMuch4Gravity]

this thread rules

[Guest mother]

who is joanna lumley?

[DalyanPete]

who is joanna lumley?

you have never lived if you need to ask this question.

she is a posh bint who got banged by gareth hunt.

i really am off to work now.

i will return in the wee small hours

[DalyanPete]

this thread rules

why?do you like coffee?

[SoMuch4Gravity]

No no no, just pretend i'm not even here...go on...

[AngryOfTuebrook]

I'm looking forward to the internationals - a week away from real football, so Agger and Alonso can get closer to fitness.

[Guest mother]

ok, there are two things to hope for : mancs get injured, injured reds get back fitness. Both of these do not outweigh the discomrt i feel of a disrupted fixture list. it makes me weak at the knees when they announce england games. it makes my bowels weak when they paly.

[Guest mother]

is it me, or does mclaren have a permanent smile on his face - like the joker?

[AngryOfTuebrook]

[Guest mother]

i dont know how the perma-smile stuck, but i'll bet it has something to do with Stuart Downing.

[thisisanfield]

Are these both our number 22?

[ali]

12.10.2007 - 20:15 pm. Marca

 

IS WITHDRAWN OF TRAINING WITH STRONG DOLORES

Torres, K.O.

 

The last training for selection in Aarhus has been unable to bring worse news. Shortly after the meeting started, Fernando Torres threw hand to the right and left abductor denying the head and with obvious signs of pain. Aragones made Tamudo instead.

[ali]

Mali beat Togo away 0-2 they're through to the ACN in January, Momo will be chuffed :party:

[SoMuch4Gravity]

12.10.2007 - 20:15 pm. Marca

 

IS WITHDRAWN OF TRAINING WITH STRONG DOLORES

Torres, K.O.

 

The last training for selection in Aarhus has been unable to bring worse news. Shortly after the meeting started, Fernando Torres threw hand to the right and left abductor denying the head and with obvious signs of pain. Aragones made Tamudo instead.

 

 

ali, does this mean torres had a bad sandwich or is he injured?

[DT]

Mother, do you think they'll drop the bomb?

[ali]

From The Times

October 13, 2007

Pressure falls on Steven Gerrard to prove he is the man for every occasion

Martin Samuel Chief Football Correspondent

 

For a man who will lead out his country today, who captains his club each week and whose personal CV includes a starring role in a victorious Champions League campaign and perhaps the most personally attributable FA Cup Final victory since the days of Stanley Matthews, it would at first appear that Steven Gerrard has very little to prove. Not so. This is a huge season for him, and not just because there is an international tournament at the end of it and increased transfer revenue giving his club, Liverpool, their best chance of finishing as champions in the modern, Premier League, era.

 

It is significant because this is the year Gerrard has been given his head. He has been elevated and indulged more than any other English or Premier League player and to the exclusion of several, his preferences dictating policy from Anfield to Wembley. And with that acquiescence on the part of Steve McClaren and Rafael BenÍtez comes responsibility. This season, Gerrard has to show he is a player around which a winning team can be built. In the next five days, particularly with John Terry, the captain, injured and Gerrard wearing the armband for the first time in his competitive England career, he has to be the man that powers England to next summer’s European Championship finals. If the team return from Russia defeated, just as it will be the beginning of the end of the McClaren era, perhaps it will be the end for Gerrard as kingpin, too.

 

The match against Estonia today may be a formality to some but for the England captain it has to be the springboard to a further justification of McClaren’s faith, which has been absolute since the victory over Andorra last season. That was the turning point in this campaign; and the turning point for Gerrard, too. Preferred to Frank Lampard in central midfield, he inspired a second-half revival that ended in the first of a quartet of 3-0 victories for England. Lampard returned against Estonia last season and the pair worked well in tandem, but he was injured for the wins over Israel and Russia, when Gareth Barry starred in his place. With Owen Hargreaves still injured, suddenly all members of England’s central midfield are interchangeable and potentially expendable: save one. It is much the same at Liverpool, where Xabi Alonso, Mohamed Sissoko and Javier Mascherano are in orbit around planet Gerrard, moved inside from the berth on the right that he occupied and disliked for much of last season. Results have been mixed.

 

Gerrard scored the winning goal away to Aston Villa on the first day of this season and was the best player on the pitch against Chelsea, despite playing with a broken toe, but his form dipped alarmingly against Birmingham City, Marseilles and Tottenham Hotspur, and Liverpool have hardly been stricken without him. In the six games that Gerrard has not started this season, Liverpool have won four, drawn two and have scored 17 goals.

 

The words that have been obsessing McClaren, the England head coach, since he saw Gerrard and Barry together against Israel – blend and balance - will no doubt have been floating around BenÍtez’s head, too, although for differing reasons. He may feel that Liverpool’s equilibrium was better served when Gerrard started wide. It is now the task of the player to prove that is not the case. “I like to play under that pressure,” Gerrard said. “I like to have the responsibility of trying to run the game.”

 

Gerrard is a fantastic footballer and that much is beyond doubt. His display in the 2006 FA Cup Final was definitive, using his right boot the way a fighter’s trainer would smelling salts, to revive a floundering champion and send him into the ring one last time. Whenever Liverpool looked beaten, Gerrard patched them up and sent them out again, with a perfect cross, an equalising goal or the sublime shot that took the game into injury time. He even scored a penalty in the shoot-out.

 

So it is not that Gerrard does not possess the talent, the temperament, or the resolve for the role, more that only in the pages of comic books does Roy of the Rovers win the game every week. In real life, craft, discipline and the ability to serve the team with something other than heroics are equally vital, and in those areas he still needs to show he can sustain. It is not simply that Gerrard may not be as effective as a central midfield playmaker as some of his rivals, most specifically Cesc Fàbregas, of Arsenal, the league leaders, more that the calibre of the player that has to be excluded to accommodate him can give a manager an awkward decision. Ideally, Gerrard is used in a midfield three, allowing a holding player and one other attacking central figure to be selected. As McClaren and BenÍtez favour width and two strikers, however, he is often deployed as part of a 4-4-2 formation, meaning his presence comes at a cost.

 

For England, Gerrard’s selection at present means no place for Lampard, the most prolific goalscorer from midfield in the country. For Liverpool, it could lead to the exclusion of Alonso, the best passer at the club. This is not too high a price, providing Gerrard is performing. For England, of late, he has lived up to expectations; for Liverpool, not so much. It could also be argued that great players, greater than Gerrard even, have found no hardship in operating from wide. Zinédine Zidane was often deployed on the left for Real Madrid and France, but gravitated towards the centre to impact on games; the same is true of Ronaldinho for Barcelona and Brazil.

 

Gerrard’s frustration at being required to start right for Liverpool and England usually coincides with a dip in fortune for the team; he has no problem when there is a victory to celebrate. Footballers are fickle like that, certainly English ones. David Beckham also fought a battle to be considered a central midfield player, oblivious to the fact that his best performances, his best seasons, were invariably delivered from wide. All of which makes this a crucial few days for Gerrard, particularly when the real test comes in Moscow on Wednesday.

 

Having got what he wants, he must give the country what it wants, too.

[LiverpoolFreak]

Uefa have to do what Asia does. The minors play off in a group and the top two of each group go play in another group where the bigger country come into play. This would definetly cut down the internationals.