Official European Football 2012 Regular Season Thread

[VideoKilledThe]

Of all the Bale dives that went uncarded this season that looked a legit shout for a pk, but that's what happens when you get a rep for trying to deceive the ref...

[Vlad Analogue]

[Req]

scintillating defending from United as usual

tara Fergie

CHAMPIONS

[stupidregister]

Suck it Spurs. Suck it all summer.

[Comedy Quaddafi]

I think I will be having lasagna tonight

http://msn.foxsports.com/foxsoccer/prem ... rge-030213

Power shift in North London looms

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/sport/foo ... 704757.ece

Tottenham in the ascendancy as local power shifts

http://www.talksport.co.uk/radio/press- ... don-192857

Graham Roberts believe that there has been a shift of power in north London after Tottenham beat Arsenal 2-1, to move to third in the Premier League

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/footba ... power.html

Tottenham Hotspur v Arsenal: Ledley King believes victory for Spurs will signify long-term shift in power

http://www.islingtongazette.co.uk/arsen ... _1_1692478

Tottenham coach eyes power shift in rivalry with Arsenal

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/6253 ... nal-in-epl

Power Shift in North London: Spurs Finally Have a Squad To Beat Arsenal in EPL

[Comedy Quaddafi]

Still the same delusions. Remember this?



10 points ahead and what happened?

Don't do it to yourself, guys.

Remember this guy?



Yeah, he's gone now, and was the only reason you finished ahead of Tottenham last season. If you pick up a big name player or two in the window that could change, but you're not finishing ahead of Spurs as your team is currently constituted.

[mud]

Tell me there was some avatar bets for this season...

[Positive A]

Great season. Love this team.

[Positive A]

Suck it Spurs. Suck it all summer.

Gunners earned it. They were clutch for months.

[Dan]

Crazy to think that the teams that finished 1, 2, and 3 will all have new managers next season.

[Comedy Quaddafi]

[Req]

[Comedy Quaddafi]

[jamrage]

You knew that Comedy would be as a big an insufferable jerkoff as his team, but fair enough. I would have lorded it over him if Arsenal had lost today. Hats off to Arsenal, they always seem to save their best football for when it matters most. 8-2-0 in their last ten games was clutch. Cunts.

That said, the Spurs not getting those penalty chances early in the game really prevented them from being able to put pressure on Arsenal. Instead, Arsenal scored first and essentially coasted to victory over an awful Newcastle team.

We said it last season, but Spurs need a fucking striker something fierce. I'd love Suarez, I don't give a fuck about his bullshit. Adebayor is an okay third striker, but that's it.

Watching Bale destroy teams singlehandedly was something to behold.

Still got the Champions League final and the Championship final to go. This off-season is going to be very interesting indeed.

[Positive A]

[Positive A]

#calssy

[jamrage]

[stupidregister]

Word floating around is that Bale is resigning with Spurs but has a 50m buyout clause after 1 year. As much as I don't like Spurs, I'm kinda glad to hear this partly because it will keep the rivalry semi-interesting and partly because it's nice that a guy doesn't jump ship when he's still young despite the lure of big money elsewhere. Maybe if they could have gotten a decent forward instead of another midfielder...although I'm reading something about David Villa???

[jamrage]

Word floating around is that Bale is resigning with Spurs but has a 50m buyout clause after 1 year. As much as I don't like Spurs, I'm kinda glad to hear this partly because it will keep the rivalry semi-interesting and partly because it's nice that a guy doesn't jump ship when he's still young despite the lure of big money elsewhere. Maybe if they could have gotten a decent forward instead of another midfielder...although I'm reading something about David Villa???

If true, Spurs better buy a top tier striker like now. He's making an effort and Spurs need to continue to show that they're committed to being at least a top four club.

[ian e]

Very interesting interview with Klopp about the finals, tactics and the loss of players like Kagawa and Goetze (from today's Guardian): http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013 ... ons-league

He hits his head with his palm. "Shinji Kagawa is one of the best players in the world and he now plays 20 minutes at Manchester United – on the left wing! My heart breaks. Really, I have tears in my eyes. Central midfield is Shinji's best role. He's an offensive midfielder with one of the best noses for goal I ever saw. But for most Japanese people it means more to play for Man United than Dortmund. If players are patient enough we can develop the team into one of the biggest in the world."

[...]

Some Dortmund players were so affected they could not sleep after hearing Götze's news. "That's the truth," Klopp concedes. "I called six or seven players who I knew were damaged in the heart. They thought they were not good enough – and they wanted to win together. That's the reason it hurt them so much. But Bayern told Mario: 'It's now or never.' I told him they will come next year. They will come in two years, and then three years. But he's 20 and he thought: 'I must go.' I know how difficult it will be to find a player to replace Götze but, next year, we will play differently. It just takes time."

[...]

"I got more in life than I was ever supposed to get – family, money, football. None of my teachers, or my parents, ever believed this would happen to me. So how can this perfect life of mine be spoilt because they take our players? It's better if they stay but I'm not sure we'd be stronger. You need change to make the next step in the team's development. If all these players had stayed I would have to go because there'd be nothing new. If I say 'Go left', they would say: 'You've told us that 200 times – we don't want to hear your voice any more.' That's life – so you need new players. It's not an easy situation but I can handle it. I am an absolutely normal guy but it's not so difficult to find a moment to be their friend or, well, [he grins] teacher."

[...]

After he has praised Lionel Messi as "the most unbelievable player because there's no weapon against him when he is fit – no tactic will work", Klopp offers a startling insight. Rather than showing his team videos of Barça at their best, for displays of tika-taka are scarcely relevant to Marco Reus, the hugely energetic standard-bearer of Dortmund's lightning transitions, Klopp offers them photographs. He highlights the way in which Messi and his team-mates celebrate every goal "like it's the first they've ever scored. It's the perfect thing to show my team. I do it very often. I show them photographs of how Barcelona celebrate. I don't use videos because I don't copy Barça's style. But you see them celebrate goal number 5,868 like they've never scored before. This is what you should always feel – until you die."

Klopp has always been interested in ways of unifying his teams for, as he says: "You can speak about spirit – or you can live it." At Mainz, after he'd led the club to promotion in 2004, he settled on an unlikely pre-season trip. "We took the team to a lake in Sweden where there was no electricity. We went for five days without food. They had to do this [he whistles and, using an imaginary fishing rod, casts off]. The other coaches said: 'Don't you think it's better to train playing football?' No. I wanted the team to feel that they can survive everything. My assistant coach thinks I'm an idiot. He asks if we can train there. No. Can we run there? No. But we can swim and fish!

"When I meet one of those players now, from our 'Special Forces', they tell me what happened in the first and last minute and every story in between. Each night in a fucking tent, lying on the roots, you don't forget that. We had to find the next island. The first one there had to make a fire and boil some water. The whole time it was raining. Only five hours it was not and then [Klopp slaps his cheek] … a mosquito! How can they live in Sweden? You see the sun and [he slaps his cheek again] you feel mosquitos! But it was brilliant. We were like Bravehearts. You can stick a knife in me here – no problem. We went to the Bundesliga and people could not believe how strong we were."

[...]

As he approaches the biggest game of his life, Klopp talks merrily of "a fairytale." But he also points out calmly that, last season, Dortmund did the league-and-cup double over Bayern, as he predicted. It was their second Bundesliga title in a row. At the start of this season Klopp insisted Dortmund were ready to win the Champions League.

Bayern will be favourites but Dortmund have the support of most neutrals – for it is difficult to resist such an exuberant team and their riveting coach.

"We are a club, not a company," Klopp says, "but it depends on which kind of story the neutral fan wants to hear. If he respects the story of Bayern, and how much they have won since the 1970s, he can support them. But if he wants the new story, the special story, it must be Dortmund. I think, in this moment in the football world, you have to be on our side."

[Y@k Bollocks]

#calssy

And why have they called them Holloway? Is that meant to be a diss? Oh deary deary me.

That's been done by the football equivalent of a bork hip hop fan.

TROPYLESS LOOOOL.

[Comedy Quaddafi]

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/46907 ... wenger.htm
Dawson: I Thought Newcastle had Equalised Against Arsenal
"Yeah, I thought that was it. didn't hear anything else, then towards the end after Gaz scored I sort of picked things up the fans weren't as lively as we would've liked if we'd been in the top four," he said.

[jamrage]

[Positive A]

Rumblings have Spurs linked with Luke Shaw (along with Chelsea, and no doubt a boat load of other clubs) and Freddy Guarin.

Arsenal linked with Stephan Ruffier which would be a nice signing. A good plan B since Ter Stegen turned them down.

[Positive A]

Truth.

If they get Jovetic AND Higuain (plus other pieces) its a wrap.

But the question I pose is: who on Arsenal (and other clubs) will be on the OUTS here in the off season?

I suspect Spurs will be without William Gallas, Assou Ekotto, Scott Parker, Huddlestone, Naughton...

[Positive A]

Also, reeeeeeeeeeeeeeaally not looking forward to another window of Damiao rumors.

[b0mbs_of_death]

I think Naughton might be kept as an emergency since Walker was suspect most of the season. Ade and Dempsey should go, even though I get the feeling Ade will be sitting around like old thanksgiving turkey for awhile. Either Levy spends the money or fucks off, in my opinion. I think Spurs are a decent midfielder and 2 strikers away from being consistently descent.

[Positive A]

Which strikers should we be looking at? We've needed ammo up front since Berbs left. Who are the candidates to come to Tottenham?

[Comedy Quaddafi]

Really?

http://www.haveyoueverseentottenhamwintheleague.com/

NO

52 years 1 month 4 days 20 hours 24 minutes 43 seconds and counting...

[Comedy Quaddafi]

Its going to be a miserable summer without footie. Or even the Olympics. All we got is the fucking Tour de France.

But in terms of transferactivity it will be absolutely crazy. Basically every manager in Europe is going to switch clubs and leave their imprint on the respective squads. And I mean, shit, just look at the number of forwards who look likely to change clubs this summer.

Ronaldo
Rooney
Falcao
Cavani
Higuain
Jovetic
Benteke
Ibrahimovic
Osvaldo
Negredo
Bale
Lewandowski
Reus
Gomez
Kiesling
Pierre Eric Aubemeyang (or whatever)
Damiao
Neymar
A Sanchez
Di Maria
Suarez
Bendtner (LOL)
Llorente (did he sign with Juve already?)
Vucinic / Quagliarella / Matri
Michu
Isco
Remy
Son

Thats just off the top of my head.

Who would go to Spurs? Probably one of them, but I think Spurs will have to wait and see who the bigger clubs go for and then scrounge for whoever is left.

My realistic wishlist for Arsenal: Begovic, Benteke, Jovetic, Gustavo + replacements if Vermaelen, Gervinho and/or Sagna leave.

Hope we can get rid of as many wage-leeches as possible, we have a lot of them. Arshavin, Fabianski and Squillaci will be released for free. That leaves us with Mannone, Djorou, Bendtner, Chamakh, Park, Denilson, Diaby (can't be sold probably), Coquelin, Frimpong ( ) + all of the not-so-young-anymore youngsters who won't make it here. Then we need to figure out what to do with Ryo, Gnabry, Campbell and Miquel. Basically an entire team's worth of shite and developing players. I'm probably forgetting someone too.

We already bought the new Drogba.



Also, can we talk about how Koscielny is probably one of the 5 best centrebacks in the world? Agression, concentration, anticipation, tackling, jumping, hes got it all. Just need to be more vocal and grow a bit more muscle. Him and Cazorla are tied for Arsenal POTY.