Official Football Thread

Eddies Wingman said:
A big round of applause for Andy "in offside 90% of the time, wasted loads of chances and still scored a lot" Cole  :applause:
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Applause indeed. He scored a lot for Man U in the league, in Europe, everywhere - but he could not score for England for toffee. I still liked the guy though. :D
 
Manchester United 1
Queen's Park Rangers 0

Pretty much as expected, considering Ferguson mainly used regulars (that is, players that are usually either starting or on the bench in league matches). Possebon, Wellbeck and Gibson were the only three "real" reserves who played. But of course, Kuszczak, O'Shea, Evans and Park are also outside the ordinary first 11. Still, pretty strong side and according to www.united.no (the website of the Norwegian supporters club) the home team were in control most of the time.

Better luck next year, QPR. Then you're going to get Chelsea at home, and hammer them  :D
 
No, Kuszczak played yesterday. That was expected - Edwin van der Sar is one of the players who usually gets rested in the League Cup, and in Champions League matches when United are either playing weaker opposition or are already through. Remember, he's not young anymore and there are two good reasons for resting him in some matches:

- He has been bothered by small injuries from time to time the last season, so Ferguson won't risk him in "low-priority" matches
- Kuszczak and Foster need to get some match practice, and they need to show that they're ready to take over when Edwin retires.
 
Eddies Wingman said:
- Kuszczak and Foster need to get some match practice, and they need to show that they're ready to take over when Edwin retires.
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Here's hoping Foster becomes United's first choice keeper - from a selfish point of view, that is, as he is English and we need some more first choice English keepers in the top flight.
 
Albie said:
Here's hoping Foster becomes United's first choice keeper - from a selfish point of view, that is, as he is English and we need some more first choice English keepers in the top flight.
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I'd also like to see Foster coming through, as I think it's good having a United team containing many English players who have gone through the ranks at the club. However, he isn't yet on the level required for a 1st choice goalkeeper at Old Trafford. If he has a good development this and next season, he might be.
 
Of course. When Edwin retires, Ferguson will have made up his mind about whether to use Kuszczak, Foster or get a new 1st keeper. My guess is, however, that if Foster improves enough to be considered for the role as 1st keeper, he will have an advantage in being English as Ferguson has a history of preferring British players (when they're good enough to strengthen the team, of course). If you look at the top teams every season since the "foreigner invasion" started with the Bosman verdict, United have always been one of the teams with most British players in their 16-man squad. I can't imagine Alex Ferguson picking a team without British players (like a certain Frenchman has done on occasions).
 
Speaking purely of goalkeepers, the foreigners have brought most of the success, especially since the nineties.

I think that Fergie will get a(nother) foreign goalkeeper, unless Foster really has it.
 
And say hello to :
captainobviouslb4.jpg
 
Alright, then I'll also put it in a less diplomatic way, if you prefer it that way:

Eddies Wingman said:
I'd also like to see Foster coming through, as I think it's good having a United team containing many English players who have gone through the ranks at the club. However, he isn't yet on the level required for a 1st choice goalkeeper at Old Trafford. If he has a good development this and next season, he might be.
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Forget it.
 
:D

Time will show. At the moment, I think you're right. Foster has already been at the club for three years (most of the time he's been loaned out to Watford) and he has only had a couple of first team appearances. Of course, the keeper position is the one where the average "breakthrough age" is highest, but as I say - I think you're right.
 
Eddies Wingman said:
If you look at the top teams every season since the "foreigner invasion" started with the Bosman verdict, United have always been one of the teams with most British players in their 16-man squad.
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And Man U are one of the few successful Premiership teams to have a British manager.

Eddies Wingman said:
(like a certain Frenchman has done on occasions).
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Capello was at the Arsenal/Wigan game and saw a very young Arsenal side beat Wigan quite convincingly and the side was made up of quite a few local lads (Jay Simpson, for example). Now, time will tell if Wenger brings these players through to the full team. Read this.

I still don't trust Wenger to not pack his side with even more foreigners, though.
 
Ok, I'm sorry, but I don't follow this much.  However, I have seen a few articles on line lately about players dropping their pants to block the goalies view, so they can score goals.  I really have no opinion on this, but does this bother anyone?  Or is it just an inventive way to score goals?

Here's the link to yahoo's site about it:

http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/news?slug=a ... &type=lgns
 
Unsportsmanlike conduct is the official term for this kind of behaviour - if I'd been the ref I'd give the first player who dropped his pants a yellow card, and ordered the free kick to be retaken. If the same was repeated - yellow card to the offender (that would mean a sending-off if the same player did it) and an indirect free kick to the other team. Anyone with refereeing experience who can tell me if that's correct?
 
A Wasted post in the footie thread. Almost as rare as a post of mine in the hockey thread (and yes, I have posted there).

Straightforward un-sportsmanlike behaviour, if you ask me. Trouble is, I don't think there is anything in the rules to prevent them from doing that - so, EW, I don't know if the ref can book the player. I could be wrong, though.
 
Albie said:
A Wasted post in the footie thread. Almost as rare as a post of mine in the hockey thread (and yes, I have posted there).
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Ha!  I just don't know enough about it yet...

Anyway, the way I read the article, it has happened more than once, and the refs didn't do anything to stop it.  At first I thought it was a shock tactic, but then I realized that it was to actually block the view of the goalie.  I am wondering if they (who ever the governing body is) are going to make or adjust a rule for the this.  I know in hockey, they had some interesting issues going on, and included that specific play to include 'goalie interference'. 
 
Albie said:
Trouble is, I don't think there is anything in the rules to prevent them from doing that - so, EW, I don't know if the ref can book the player. I could be wrong, though.
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Remember, the term "unsportsmanlike behaviour" is a bit up to the interpretation of the ref. I don't think all possible eventualities are covered by the rules. For example I don't think the rules say anything about what should be done when a player is obstructing a throw-in, and the player who is taking the throw-in headbutts him in the same movement  :D However, I think I could predict what the ref would do if he thought it was not purely accidental  :innocent:

On a Norwegian footy forum I frequent, the Catania situation was discussed yesterday and one of the forum members, who is also a ref (not at the highest level, though) said he would've booked the player.
 
Or for Norway, the last opportunity for consolation. We've had a true annus horribilis, starting with some poor friendlies in the spring and summer, and continuing with no wins in the first three qualifiers  :mad: I have read that we are probably going to field a few fresh players tonight against Ukraine. As is common for these November friendlies, Premiership players are getting injured just a few days before, so no Carew, in his place we might see the youngest of the two cup final heroes, Mohammed Abdellaoue, who was outstanding with two goals and one assist for Vålerenga in the final. He's been linked to several clubs lately, among these Groningen. If he goes there, he will be the second Norwegian player with a Moroccan background to move to Holland in one season  :D. Rumours have stated that Manchester United are also interested, but seriously - with two young strikers just about to establish themselves in the A squad and three top class strikers (Rooney, Tevez, Berbatov, I consider Ronaldo a wing player), why would they want him? He's 23 already.

Honestly, I believe tonight's match is going to be a half-hearted 0-0 story, with our coach saying afterwards that "it wasn't a half bad performance from us".

Update, November 20th: Ukraine 1 Norway 0. A half-hearted match all right, both teams with some regulars missing, and the home team better from 15 minutes onwards. Norway started OK, won the ball often in midfield, put a little pressure on the opposition, but couldn't create clear scoring chances. When Ukraine took over, they managed to do that. However, their only goal came after a very harsh ref decision - a penalty that in my eyes looked very, very easy. I don't think it would be unfair to call it a dive.

After half time, it took left back John Arne Riise only two minutes to be sent of - again a highly questionable decision if we believe his own words. According to Riise, he disagreed with an offside decision and yelled something like "that's SHIT" to the linesman. For this, he was given a direct red card - he wasn't booked before.

The rest of the match was rather dull. The Norwegian team were even less threatening with 10 men, and Ukraine didn't seem to bother too much. They created a few good chances, and forced our keeper Jon Knudsen to make a couple of really good saves, but overall they seemed to be quite comfortable with being 1-0 up.

This match finishes a horrible year for the Norwegian A team:

February 6th: Wales-Norway 3-0
March 23rd: Montenegro-Norway 3-1
May 28th: Norway-Uruguay 2-2
August 20th: Norway-Rep. of Ireland 1-1
September 6th: Norway-Iceland 2-2
October 11th: Scotland-Norway 0-0
October 15th: Norway-Netherlands 0-1
November 19th: Ukraine-Norway 1-0

Not a single win! Of course, the first two are just plain embarrassing. However, the sad fact is that all the results are telling the truth about the matches. We can't blame them on bad luck. The only good match we've played this year was against Scotland away ...
 
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