giblinho

Count me in

Surprised Eto'o isn't on your list. He might have gone out to Dagestan, but the man is lethal. Also, Soldado for Valencia is on fire right now. I don't know, I feel like a few years ago there were several teams with strikers that you absolutely shit your pants over, but I feel like most of them have aged/regressed (Drogba, Torres, Villa) and now the scariest players tend to be forwards and wingers like Messi and Ronaldo. On this list, he's not fully fit often enough but van Persie always seems to get big goals for Arsenal.

As it's been said a million times on this thread, no one thought we were going to win the title. Fourth is still very realistic because it's either us, spurs or arsenal. Arsenal have had a worse start than us, and we all remember how shitty a run Spurs had second half of last year. It's not like we have to be perfect to get fourth, and sure we sucked yesterday, but it's still just 3 fucking points.

The Rooney Rule is a total farce, and it's constantly being argued about over here. As everyone said, it doesn't mean you have to hire anyone, so if someone actually has racist leanings and is passing over overqualified black candidates, they just have to sit through an interview. Besides, as in all things, if black managers are discriminated against and are undervalued, the shrewd owners will hire them, reap the rewards until the whole system figures it out and does the same. Just like with black players.

Hahaha, in effect, yes that is what I'm saying. I'm not saying I didn't think any of this was stupid or that I agreed with anything that was going on, just saying how it might play out.

At the end of the day, this is a very taboo thing to say in the US, and Liverpool is really trying to expand its American fanbase, so I can't imagine this being tolerated unless they think not enough American soccer fans noticed. Liverpool is showing all of their matches on NESN (the Red Sox TV channel in New England) and if you're trying to recruit American fans, hearing that a player for Liverpool thinks that 9/11 was an accident and/or inside job would really hurt that. BTW, that's how it will get condensed if it ever gets coverage over here, not that a youth player and not the whole quote. Sometimes random stories from sports and players Americans don't generally care about (Eccleston definitely qualifies for that) get large coverage just because it'll get a rise out of Americans, so seeing as it was on the anniversary, Eccleston better hope it's not one of those random stories that blow up over here or he'll probably be toast.

I think there needs to proper regulation to create some sense of balance. It's not right that clubs that are running massive losses are able to be the best teams in the world because some billionaire decides to eat the losses. It doesn't reward proper management or running of a club. I don't have an issue with clubs that make more money spending more money but it's clubs that are deep in the red financially being the most successful that makes no sense to me. The comparisons to American sports, which a few people have done, are interesting but I just don't think it's really comparable in a lot of ways. First off, you'll never have a "town" team win anything in the US, because the smallest cities that have clubs in the US are still very large cities/metro areas. One could see that Green Bay won the SuperBowl and that the city only has about 100k, but the fact is Milwaukee and Madison don't have NFL teams so it's the de facto team for all of Wisconsin (pop: 5.7 million). Since there is no relegation/promotion, the only hope of a city that doesn't have a team in a certain sport is that another team moves there (abandoning another city in the process) or there is an expansion team (no more than a few a decade and at this point more leagues are talking about contracting teams). In terms of revenue, there's either a salary cap (NBA, NFL, NHL), revenue sharing (all) and/or a luxury tax (NBA, MLB maybe NHL?) which tries to keep teams in check. Finally, we have a draft system so all the best players typically go to the shittiest teams. The most extreme example of this is the Florida Marlins, a team with basically no fans that makes money by having such a low payroll that it breaks even before the season starts off of revenue sharing. They naturally accumulate high draft picks and talented players and the won the World Series in 1997 and 2003 and promptly sold their whole team for huge profit the next year. With no relegation to worry about, they just suck and suck until they reach a critical mass of talent and compete for a couple years (the Tampa Rays also did this but to their credit sustained the success). This is my long-winded way of saying that the American way isn't a whole lot better when all things are considered. We have 30 team leagues of teams that can compete for anything, with some teams consistently more favored than others, but the group stage for the CL is 32 teams and with similar populations, it's not as if there's a much bigger difference in teams competing. We just don't allow the provincial teams to ever get on the field. PS One other major reason we have a greater diversity of champions is the best 1/3 to 1/2 of the league plays a tournament to decide the champion, making the league totally meaningless once they're in. So that's always going to be more of a wildcard, i.e. the Giants were not the best team in baseball last year, just the team in best form in October.

------------------Gulasci---------------- Konchesky-----Degen-----Soto------Insua Joe Cole----Aquilani----Poulsen----Jovanovic -----------------Meireles---------------- ------------------N'Gog----------------- No doubt about it.

It's been fantastic. Henry has far too much of my happiness in his hands by owning both Liverpool and the Red Sox, but thankfully my happiness is in good hands.

If you guys ever find yourselves in Rochester, NY (why would you though), you should really try the garbage plate. It is a touch on the unhealthy side but if you mix it all together it is surprisingly delicious. I think the picture and description on wikipedia fill it in better.... Nick Tahou Hots - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I seem to remember a thread on this forum (which I will not bother finding) cheekily suggesting he should be our center-forward as he was the only one getting goals for a few games under Hodgson. It feels great to be gone from there. But fair play to Soto, I loved watching his intensity and he always gave everything in every game. I never expected him to be great and he wasn't, but he had a great attitude and played pretty damn well in plenty of games. And jesus could he head the ball.

Talk about a bitch of an away leg, they're on the Caspian for God's sake! In all seriousness, if your choices in living are Milan or Makhachkala...does a few extra million matter that much?

It really is all about morals. I grew up relatively well-off in the USA going to private school where I was surrounded by some unbelievably wealthy people, and I know plenty who would be full on in these riots. I knew kids whose parents were multimillionaires who were selling drugs or vandalizing property just for the thrill of it. Wealth isn't the issue, morals are.

Look, Parker has been unbelievable, but speaking of Holden, why isn't he put in the same esteem as Parker as before his injury I would have said he was clearly Bolton's best player and they're currently in 7th, not 17th

I present to you....Juninho Juninho - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia