Football (Soccer)

[admin]

So it looks like Vieira is off, some 2 weeks and 3 pages of posts after I mentioned that he was off. He will go for a low price of 23m because of his lack of re-sale value (he's 28 years old), and his dogdy knee.

Although this will seem silly if Vieira doesn't leave, I would like to thank Vieira for all that he's done for the club in the past 8 years. Very few players these days stay with the same club for so long, and although I feel he is making a mistake in going to Madrid, he has the right to do so.

When Anelka left for Madrid, we got the best training facility in Europe from his transfer fee. When Overmars and Petit left, we got Henry and Pires (and also Wiltord, Kanu). The question now is how will this 23m be used.

Reports suggest Maniche is the likely replacement, although many Arsenal fans are not thrilled about it. Most would prefer Ballacks, Xabi Alonso or Baraja (or Alonso plus Baraja, as some has suggested). But considering the average number of games Vieira actually plays for us per season (and that Ray Parlour was his replacement, as great a player as he is, Ray is not what you would call world class), I don't mind who we get as long as they don't get injured all the time. Stats show that we won and lost exactly the same percentage of games with and without Vieira, so he's not as important as some in the media (and at Chelski) make out. I would much rather lose him than Campbell, Henry, Pires, Ashley Cole or even Kolo Toure.

And I trust whomever Wenger picks. There is only one irreplaceable person at Arsenal, and his name is Wenger. Arsene Knows!!

[Oriphus]

No im not home, im still in Portugal, but i have found an internet cafe to use sometimes

Just one wee point. Who has the best training facility in Europe? I thought that was us and our infamous Carrington, however, i could be wrong lol.

Itsn a sad day that Nicky Butt has eventually left the club he started at after 13 years of service. He will get a great reception when he comes back to Old Trafford as he left in good terms with the fans. I doubt that Vieira will get the same treatment at Arsenal as a lot of fans feel bitter to his departing. However, I think it is a great move for Arsenal, the money generated will go to improve the club more than Vieira could have done by staying.

Its great out here in Portugal. Not only does our house we rented look over the sea, but it has skysports and all the other sports channels. I've been aqble to see all the United matches and the Amsterdam Tournament as well. I loved watching River Plate play, a great team they have, though im still not sure what has happened to D'Alesandro.....

Also, can anyone tell me what this coca cola competition is all about? I aint got a clue.....

Arsenal are nearly a cert to sign Porto's Maniche when Vieira goes. In my books thats a good move. United are claiming that levante or whatever thety are called, are not getting Diego Forlan. Hopefully he will stay at the club, sometimes he does pull off a spectacular. I also think its quite sad that Scholes has left international football at only 29. Its great for United though cuz he will be a better player for us.

Gotta shoot, suns beckoning.......

[SEGAbhoy]

"The Football Association of Ireland and the Irish Football Association will officially launch an All Ireland Club Tournament on Wednesday morning, August 4, in Dublin.

It is understood that the competition will be sponsored to the tune of €300,000 with six clubs (three from the eircom League and three from the Irish League) being invited to participate.

The competition was first revealed at the FAI's AGM in Derry early last month when Fran Rooney indicated he had secured a significant sponsorship deal for the eight team event subject to agreement from the Northern authorities.

There has been some specualtion as to who the sponsor is but to date there has been nothing concrete confirming the party involved but it is not believed to be a financial institution. "


Just heard about the Setanta League agreed by the FAI and IFA, what a joke, maybe the seniors in the FAI and the "IFA" should get together and decide what to do with windsor park, the tunnels used to be great with all the UDA and UYM (ulster youth militants) grafiti on it but now that they are painted blue they should be even more inviting. You know how intimidating it is going to be when Bohs take on Linfield at windsor park? All I know is that noone in their right mind is going to pay setanta sports tv to watch this "lets make peace" league. Setanta really backed the wrong horse there.

[MPS]

i think any attempt to make peace between irish and n. irish people is a good thing...

anyway, u heard about heathrow al quaida plans? luckily they caught the bastard leader.

this whole iraqi thing got me wondering today... this war causes more and more casualties, so how much will the population of Iraq decrease in the end???

back to football:
real madrid is coming to play wisla cracow next week and later for the CL spot. wisla trashed Georgia Tbilisi in the previous round 11-2 in the aggregate. i bet they cant repeat that with real, or can they? all tickets are sold for the cracow game, but unfortunately there are only 10K seats ... and guess how many for the spanish supporters? 0.5K
when the ticket sale started the tickets dissapearing at an interesting pace: 3 tickets per minute

[admin]

I hope Wisla Kraków knocks Madrid out of the CL. But I wonder what will happen to the Vieira transfer though...

Community Shield coming up - no Henry, Vieira (obviously, but he has an injury anyway) and Campbell. A good chance to see some of our new recruits and youth. It's just a friendly, so I doubt either team will treat it that seriously.

[MPS]

yeah, would be nice to finally see a polish team in CL after a few years... real would be really pi$$ed off anyway, it's a great opportunity esp. for young fans over here to see beckham, zidane ronaldo and others in action, so "up-close". maybe our government will finally figure that there is a demand for sporting facilities and will f*cking invest something in sports... all football experts point out that, realistically speaking, we are able to follow the example of Turkey, where government's investments in early 1990's paid back a few years later with galatasarays sucesses, and the turkey's 3rd WC place. but to listen to people's experts, our politics should be based on democracy. and there is no f*cking democracy if 83% of population is against our military presence in Iraq, and still the governments continues to send our troops there... btw, the word "troop" sounds exactly like polish word for "corpse"... go figure :|

[admin]

Community Shield 2004: Manchester United 1 - Arsenal 3

A good outing for Reyes, Francesc (Cesc) Fabregas and Pennant. It was Henry's first game since Euro 2004, and he looked quite good too.

[MPS]

go ahead, enjoy the shield, mu's taking the premiership title this season

[admin]

I think it's about time a team that wins the shield wins the league - we broke the Millennium Stadium unlucky dressing room curse two seasons ago, so anything's possible

To be honest, United were poor last season for a reason (creativity in midfield - Ronaldo can't do everything by himself), and I don't see anything significant being done to address these problems. If Arsenal won't win the title, then I am tipping Liverpool to do it!!

[Oriphus]

I dont think that creativity was our problem in the match. We just seemed to want to concede goals. Have you ever seen a poorer defense, bar when Real Madrid went 4 nil down against Real Majorca last season inside 18 minutes.

We have creative players, but we have dumb-ass players like Diego Forlan, David Bellion and Djemba Djemba, who are not creative and really shouldnt be on the tea. An extremely poor performance from all mentioned as well as John O'Shea and particularly Silvestre.

Ah, well....the Omens are now with us to lift the premiership. ATo make it worse its feckin raining in Portugal.

Good old Sentana - i aint paying them thats for sure

[SEGAbhoy]

I watched the motherwell match on Setanta, didn't pay for it though, the boys with the "maic cable" sure know how to get me free tv

[Oriphus]

Nice one lol. How did they look without our Hero Larsson? I know Petrov is injured as well. 2-0 isnt a bad result in any game, but did they look like a team who is going to hammer the rest of them, or a team that will struggle to beat Rangers. I feel that Rangers have a very strong team this year compared to the one they had last year, though of course, they still need to improve.

[MPS]

without larrsson, celtic and rasngers may finally be on the same level this seaason, i ope someone else gets the title this year. come on hearts of midlothian!

[MPS]

well, well, well...
what an upset at olympics.
Iraq 4 Portugal 2

MU too narrowly won their cup game. i wish they performed better.

upset at juventus.

wisla - real madrid 0-2 both by Morientes, the second in 91st minute and real wanted to get rid of fernando again. how stupid of them. moriented came for ronaldo in the 2nd half and did his job too well.
so... all wisla has to do now is score 3 goals more than real at bernabeu

[admin]

Barcelona have made some very good signings this summer. They may still need some more defensive players, but their attack looks very good.

And reports suggest Vieira's move to Madrid may be off, although I personally hope this is just another part of Madrid's ploy to get Arsenal to lower the price (I certainly don't wish Vieira to stay if he is not fully committed). With Owen going to Madrid, perhaps even they have run out of money for Vieira (and Owen is more of a "Galactico" than Vieira as well), although for 10m + Morientes, I think Liverpool are getting the better deal.