Jay Glover

He said a couple of hundred, sorry mate but this is more a case of you exemplifying your lack of intelligence and wasting your time. That said I agree with the sentiments of the thread title.

25 man squad to be submitted to Premier League by teatime Friday so watch out for an announcement on the offal tomorrow evening

Article from M.E.N. which details some of the leasing details of the stadium. Also some propper bullshit from James Hogan, CEO of Etihad Airways. Live: Manchester City announce deal to rename Eastlands as the Etihad Stadium | Manchester Evening News - menmedia.co.uk Manchester City will rename Eastlands as the Etihad Stadium after signing a deal worth 'several hundred million pounds' with the club's sponsors. The City of Manchester Stadium – the Blues' ground since 2003 – will be renamed with immediate effect. The 10-year agreement, with Etihad Airways, is the most expensive football sponsorship deal ever and includes naming rights to the stadium and surrounding redevelopment campus which is set to include a new training ground for the Blues. To see live coverage of the announcement , scroll down to our live blog Exclusive video of Manchester City jet arriving at Manchester Airport The airline will also extend its shirt sponsorship as part of the landmark deal. The deal was signed today by Manchester City CEO, Garry Cook, and James Hogan, CEO of Etihad Airways, before the the Blues' first team squad departed on a pre-season tour of the United States. The club said the newly-named Etihad Stadium would form the 'centrepiece' of an Etihad Campus including City Square and a large part of the adjacent Sportcity site. Up to two million visitors are expected a year following City's qualification for the Champions League. The club and their sponsors will also expand co-operation on business, hospitality and media projects, including increased MCFC content and match coverage included in Etihad's in-flight entertainment. They will also partner on youth and community projects both locally, throughout Britain and internationally. The club will shortly launch a public consultation on a new youth training and football development complex at Eastlands, they said today. City's CEO, Garry Cook, said: "We are delighted to be expanding our relationship with Etihad Airways through this comprehensive partnership agreement. Most importantly, in addition to delivering significant revenue at a key stage in the Club's evolution, the agreement creates exciting opportunities for our two organisations to cooperate more deeply commercially and on media and community initiatives in the future." James Hogan, CEO of Etihad Airways, said: “This is a game-changing partnership agreement that redefines the traditional sports sponsorship paradigm. It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for two iconic brands that share the same vision to promote far-reaching global awareness and business growth. “Etihad's work with MCFC has already yielded a significant return on our investment and we are thrilled to build on our relationship. Their well-established name and loyal fan base have allowed us to tap into a new and increasing global audience. In addition to being a sensible alignment for our brand from a business perspective, it is also one that we can get very excited about, especially at a time when MCFC's winning attitude is bringing increased success for the team on the national and international stage." The M.E.N. revealed in March that Blues officials had struck a deal with town hall bosses to sell the rights to the council-owned stadium, built for the Commonwealth Games in 2002 and nicknamed Eastlands by fans. The club moved there from Maine Road in 2003, signing a 250-year agreement which saw a percentage of match-day income paid into the town hall coffers. City and the council reached a new agreement last year which sees the town hall receive a set amount, regardless of attendances at the 47,500 capacity stadium. It is understood the council will also benefit from the naming rights deal. Council leader, Sir Richard Leese, said: "The relationship between Etihad Airways and Manchester City Football Club further supports Manchester’s international profile and global connectivity and the city’s ability to attract leading brands to invest and create job opportunities. It is great news for Manchester, reinforcing our sporting, transport and economic growth priorities and is particularly welcome news for east Manchester.” Charles Johnston, Property Director at Sport England, added: "This announcement is positive for grassroots sport and people in Manchester. The re-negotiated stadium agreement will generate further investment in community sport and sports facilities in the local area.” City are not the first Premier League club to sell naming rights to their stadium. Arsenal sold the rights to their ground to the Emirates airline, Etihad’s main rival, in 2006. The Gunners netted £100m in a 15-year deal which also included shirt sponsorship. But the Blues' Etihad deal is understood to dwarf that, standing at 'several hundred million pounds' over the ten years, officials said. The cash injection will provide a major boost for the Blues, as they look to comply with Uefa’s Financial Fair Play rules. They stipulate clubs must not post aggregate losses of more than £40.5m over the following three-year period. In March the M.E.N. revealed City are at the heart of plans to transform land around the east Manchester stadium into a global sporting capital. It could see world-class facilities change the lives of people in one of Britain’s most deprived neighbourhoods, in the shadow of the ground. Community football pitches will be built on the 80 acres in Openshaw West bought by City’s Abu Dhabi owners last year – alongside a training complex for the club’s professional players. A bridge is expected to connect the site to the stadium.

If im not mistaken that is exactly how this award shortlist works, I think to be on the shortlist for this award you need to have been voted PFA fans player of the month earlier in the season

Why the fuck start a thread if your gonna predict a defeat, you may as well go support someone else. I can't stand that type of defeatest mentality, imagine our players going out onto the pitch thinking like that, not even worth turning up if you don't even think you can win!

Dunno if that worked, here's the link

They've done a few others too, here's a compilation [YOUTUBE]vW7__LqrXSA[/YOUTUBE]

I really like to watch these press confrences and I'm greatful for you posting them, if your not going to bother anymore could you tell me where I can get them from. Thanks in advance.

No point in forcing him to stay, if he doesnt wanna be here then fuck him off. Nobody is bigger than the club but selling to a rival is not an option, make him aware he is free to move abroad if we get the right offer for the club.

An intresting article i read a few weeks back which looks at the 2 playing styles mentioned above, I know which style i would prefer to watch and which one our players would be more suited to. In this instance we should be muggers. Left Back In The Changing Room: Shepherds and Muggers Shepherds and Muggers Yesterday, Crispin O'Brien wrote this piece. I enjoyed it massively and it got me thinking. He rightly points out that more and more what teams do when they don't have the ball is just as important as what they do when they do have it. My view is that there are two schools of thought when it comes to what to do when you don’t have the ball. On the one hand, you have Barcelona’s high pressure pressing game which revolves around getting possession back as quickly as possible (as the game is based entirely around maximising possession). I’ll call them ‘ muggers’. When you have the ball, one, two or three players will surround you and want the ball back as quickly as possible. On the other hand, you have Inter Milan’s modern take on catenaccio which is almost entirely the opposite and doesn’t involve pressing at all (bar in and around the area). The tactic doesn’t rely on having the ball. It challenges the other team to break you down, and allows you to attack on the break. I’ll call them ‘shepherds’. When you have the ball, the other team make sure you have the ball in areas they want you to have it. So, should we be shepherds or should we be muggers? To back his thesis, Cric sites Internazionale often having small percentages of possession in big games. In games against Barcelona and Bayern Munich, Inter Milan had under 40% (and in one case under 30%) of possession. Conventional wisdom would tell you that a team that had 34% of possession in a game shouldn’t win (or, if they do so, it is down to a freak goal). Against Barcelona, in the second leg, Inter played a massively defensive line-up: Maicon, Samuel, Lucio, Zanetti, Cambiasso, Motta, Chivu. Of the 10 outfield players, 7 would be described as defensive. In the second leg, with Barcelona needing a win, the most gifted team in world football could not find a way though the best defence in world football. Barcelona, who in Xavi, have a fantastic football brain who can unlock almost any defence with his passing couldn’t find a way though. Why not? Well, for five reasons: Barcelona were not used to not pressing. They were allowed to be in almost total control. The hugely influential Barcelona full-backs were up against two lines of defence (Alves was confronting both Chivu and Zanetti, Milito and Pedro were up against Maicon). When they tried to get forward, they couldn’t attack on the inside due to overcrowding or get behind the full-backs. Barcelona are at their most dangerous attacking the inside right and inside left channels. Inter’s mix of discipline, ultra-strict zonal marking and pressing intensively around the box meant that Barcelona couldn’t get through. Inter Milan sat very deep which meant that even if the full-backs could get forward they could not attack the inside channel due to over-crowding and nor could they get behind the full-back. This sitting back meant that there was no space between the defensive lines. This meant Xavi could not get his usual grip on the game (he still passed a lot but nowhere near as effectively) nor could Messi. Messi is at his most destructive when pulling defenders out of position (out of their defensive lines). This requires astonishing concentration, discipline and fighting against instinct. Inter didn’t fall for the bait. So that’s how you beat Barca? Sit deep, stay disciplined, have two lines of four very closely together, block the inside channels and allow Xavi to pass as he pleases but not where he pleases. Well, possibly, but you need amazingly gifted players who are marshalled and disciplined to do it. Now, this is hardly news. As Jonathan Wilson has pointed out in his book Inverting The Pyramidthat Sacchi stated that ‘five organised players will beat 10 disorganised players’. To take that analogy further, 10 highly organised players will beat 11 slightly less well organised players. Some of the facts from Barcelona-Inter games and Inter-Bayern game are astonishing. In the Champions League Final, Bayern had 76% possession. In the second game against Barcelona, Barcelona had 86% possession. In the same game, Barcelona had 555 passes and Inter had 67 (sixty seven passes!). What we can learn from this is that possession in the right place matters and mental control, pressure in the right places, not focusing stopping Messi/Xavi getting the ball, using very strict zonal marking and pressing Barcelona when they did get in the 25 yard area around the goal. So, the shepherds have won? Not quite? Barcelona are built around pressing as much as they are built around their beautiful passing. Guardiola himself has said that ‘Without the ball, we are a disastrous team, a horrible team, so we need the ball’. If your play revolves around possession, it must also revolve around getting the ball back quickly. Barcelona snap into tackles, they close space very quickly, send a number of men around the opposition player with the ball and they do so all over the pitch. This does a number of things: opposition players are rushed and give away the ball (as that sage, Gary Neville says: interception and pressing are the new tackling) they become harried and hassled and are knocked off their stride generally (so they are less likely to play their natural game they give the ball away (and football's Harlem Globetrotters get it back) These three things couple together. As they dominate possession so majestically, are so unlikely to give away the ball and the pressure they exert so massively and so well: All this means that the moments when opponents have the ball become precious and filled with worried. You don't play the special ball because you are worried you won't see it again. Interestingly, both systems rely upon compaction. Mugging requires compaction between the forward line and defensive line. Shepherding also requires compaction between the forward line and defensive line. They both require similar (although different manipulations of space). So, which do you go with? Do you follow Inter or do you follow Barcelona? Both systems work very well. Both clubs are very successful in recent weeks. If it hadn’t been for Bojan’s (wrongly) disallowed goal, we’d be talking about the death of the Mourinho project. RCM

I've just moved into a new appartment and have this same problem. Did anyone find out what was needed?

That Alexis Sanchez from Chile played awesome the other night, you'd get quite a bit of change from 40 million quid as well. If he has another game like the other night then I can see one of Europes big teams in for him, he's at Udinese at the moment so maybe one of the bigger Italian teams but i suppose they will allready be aware of him before the world cup.

What if we were to win the first 2? If your gonna do well in the league it doesnt matter when you play who, youve gotta play the lot of them at some point and you need to beat them whenever that is

Ive done 10 Tounament bets then i will be doing daily bets as well. Outright Winner £5.00 England @ 10/1 To reach at least the Semi's £2.50 Serbia @ 8/1 £2.50 Ghana @ 12/1 To reach at least the last 16 £3.33 South Korea @ 9/4 £3.33 Slovakia @ 11/8 £3.33 Ivory Coast @ 15/8 Golden Boot £2 Fabiano @ 14/1 £1 e/w Santa Cruz @ 100/1 £1 e/w Jovanovic @ 100/1 £2 e/1 Crouch @ 40/1 My bet for today is a £1 double on Mexico and France

I think the Cameroon one on canigia is the most outrageous and it makes me laugh the most, he literally hurdles one guy then gets lucky the second one misses him but then the the third fella just clatters him. Didnt have a chance! hahaha!!!