Football (Soccer)

[admin]

i really hope United doesnt become a business orientated club

I think it became more of a business when it became a PLC, to be honest, which is the only reason why Glazer now owns your club. Having one owner isn't so bad, but if it's someone like Glazer, then it's hard to say what direction your club will go. Trying to make the club a successful business isn't totally incompatible with football these days, but the problem is where does the money go? If it goes straight to Glazer, then it's a bad situation. If most of it goes back into the club, then it's a good situation.

The other thing is the massive debt. I know, Arsenal fans shouldn't complain about other club's debts, but our loan is strictly temporary, since we will get money from Emirates/Nike (100m), Granada (50m), Highbury redevelopment (50m to 100m) and new housing around the new stadium - it should cover the loan quite easily, not to mention the increase in ticket revenue.

As for the FA Cup, it will be a well fought game, probably not very flowing. The one thing Arsenal have learnt this season is to deal with defensive 4-5-1 formations and teams that try to unsettle us physically (and no teams does it better than Bolton and Blackburn). We'll do okay without Henry - I think the last 3 times we beat you we did it without Henry (or at least without Henry doing much on the pitch), and Henry has never scored in the FA Cup final I don't think. Reyes should be fit, and he's been one of our best players recently. Should be a good match.

[lfcrule1972]

Nike Trafford - I like that, howabout "United Highbury Emirates" if you get enought Arabs in the team you can always drop the Highbury at a later date.....

Looking forward to the match tomorrow - will probably miss the start as am taking my son to see Star Wars Episode III tomorrow but will Sky+, that way its guaranteed NOT to be a classic....

Good luck to both your teams - no offence but I hope the Arsenal do it Especially since Mourinho came out in favour of Ferguson....

[Oriphus]

Good luck to both your teams - no offence but I hope the Arsenal do it

Typical Liverpudlian lol....

Just bee watching our great 2-0 victory of Arsenal at home this season/last season (now the season is over). I do love watching us beating Arsenal Admin will of course come a long and say that Rio Ferdinand should have been sent off for his late challenge being last man back in the first half, and that that changed the whole game....However, even if that may well be the case, we had a penalty given, an even stronger one not given, and a lot more chances than Arsenal in that match. It could have esaily been 4-0, 4-2, 3-1 all to us.....

Bring on tomorrow, cuz we're gonna hammer the Arsenal

Chris

[admin]

we had a penalty given

We were well in control and looking like scoring up to the point Rooney "fell over" to "earn" that penalty.

no offence but I hope the Arsenal do it

It's never an offence to want Arsenal to win, especially on this forum

[Oriphus]

lol - yeah - for some reason this forum seems biased towards Arsenal....hmmm...

Also, why does it say "Theres no Soccer thread in the Off-Topic Forum" whenever i logged on to the website. Normally it says something like "The MPAA is knocking on your door", or other such things - this time it said in the title bar what i mentioned above....Kinda strange - it did it twice and now its gone...

Looking forward to match - only 1 hour 30 mins to go...

Chris

[admin]

"Theres no Soccer thread in the Off-Topic Forum"

That would be the forum random titles:

http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?threadid=10286

It's the most recent one I added (a few months ago). Just trying to poke fun at what is possibly the longest running thread on this forum.

Only half an hour to go now - can't wait.

[admin]

Man United 0 - 0 Luck (Luck wins 5-4 on penalties)

That was, without doubt, the worse Arsenal performance I have ever seen in the years I have supported Arsenal. We lost every 50-50 ball, we couldn't run to save our lives, and when we had the ball, all we could do was pass it around (very slowly, and inaccurately). It was like we were drugged or something. A shameful performance.

However, Lehmann showed why he is still playing for us as the number one goalie, and basically single handedly saved our season and got us the cup. Lady luck was on our side on the day (afterall, we were wearing the lucky home shirt, plus the lucky dressing room), and that was the only thing that kept Man U from scoring 3 or 4 past us. Lauren was pants - perhaps not fully recovered from the food poisoning, but poor positioning and basically most of your chances came from his side.

I guess Man United fans are used to this by now, since no game summed up your season better than this one - a billion chances, but no goals. I don't know if it's bad luck, or just bad finishing - probably a little of both - but had we lost the game, it would have been very embarrassing indeed. So yes, we robbed you of the cup, and you lost it in the worst possible way. If I didn't know better, it was as if this was our game plan all along - to make you lose it in the worse possible way. But I didn't think we had a game plan today (other than pass it around slowly, lose the ball but don't chase after it, and try to let them score as many goals as possible).

Don't let this match fool you into thinking you don't need better players - we were utter utter crap. Our midfield was up high, but didn't bother to tackle, leaving huge gaps between the defence and midfield. Our wing play was non existent, and defensively a nightmare (if Lauren knows he can't catch Ronaldo, then why does he play so far up the pitch). For some strange reason, Bergkamp was playing as the sole striker, and Reyes the support striker from midfield, even though it should have been exactly the opposite. We only bothered to make a tackle when it was near our penalty area, and then every tackle we tried to make was a foul anyway. The ref was crap as well, giving away so many needless freekicks to both sides.

But it's just one game. I would like to think it was an off day for Arsenal, and we are psychologically affected when we play Man U (hopefully never again after this time). And we still won.

I guess Lehmann was right when he said that "If you play football like us, you will lose". And you did play football like us in the final.

[Oriphus]

I guess Man United fans are used to this by now, since no game summed up your season better than this one - a billion chances, but no goals. I don't know if it's bad luck, or just bad finishing - probably a little of both

Starting to get used to it....

Well, it was a disappointing result from our persepctive, but as i said to most of my mates before the game, ill be very happy if we win, but not too disappointed if we loose, considering the season we had. First off, how we didnt manage to knock in atleast one goal, let a lone 3 or 4 or 5, is completely beyond me. Rooney came very close a few times and was unlucky not to score. Ronaldo even came close twice, as did Rudd Van Nistelrooy. How he didnt score is amazing. He seemed, to me anyway, to not quite have is goal scoring boots on today. He must some chances that he would normally score. Unmarked in the centre of the box and headers over twice? Instead of a simple tap in, tries to side foot a ball into the back of the net with his rear placed foot? Disappointing from him.

All-in-all, United absolutely hammered Arsenal from about 20mins into the match. There was only one team in it most of the time. You sorely missed henry as he would have definitely cause us some trouble. You passed the ball well i thought when you had it safe in your own half or around about the centre of the pitch. Even though your passing wasnt that poor when entering our half, it was penetrating us at all. Once you get to our last line of defence, the committed back four delt with it pretty easily every time.

I have to say that young Ronaldo demolished both your left side and right side. I lost count of the number of times he took the ball around 2 or sometimes 3 Arsenal players and then was brought down. There were a few calls for penalties from United players as well, all of them though turned out to be more ball-to-hand than hand-ball and i think the referee did a good decision with them.

Possibly couldve been more yellow cards dished out and a red card or two, even though Reyes eventually went at a rediculous time lol.

Yes, im disappointed slightly not to have won the FA Cup, but ill put it down to the poor year we've been having. We played very well and im very happy about that. We do maybe need to look at buying a strong midfielder, and possibly a strong defender.

John O'Shea wasnt really in the game for us, Darren Fletcher wasnt attacking enough and i think we should have had Giggs on instead from the start, and Paul Scholes....was he even on the pitch? It was fitting that it was he that missed the penalty after the poor enough performance, by his standards, that he displayed.

Im looking forward to hearing what Glazers plans are for United and hopefully we can bring in one or two more talents into the club, maybe a goalkeeper. We need to start making a mark on the Premiership next year. Ok, its unlikely we'll ever finish less than 4th, but for Man United, we need to win atleast one of the four competitions every year.

Roll on the Transfer window...

Oh, one other point, why is it that Roy Carroll never looks like saving a penalty, when Lahmann tends to look like he nearly always will.....is it his height? Unlucky for Carroll though because he got a hand to Vieira's free kick...

Chris

[admin]

For some strange reason, we played 4-5-1 or 4-3-3 formation, something we've rarely done in the past, and not with any success. None of our players (and Pires admitted it after the match) knew how to play in this system, since they only had about an hour of training with this formation. The formation was more like 4-2-1-2-1, which explains why Ronaldo and Rooney got so much room on the left and right flanks. Man U also defended very deep when Arsenal had the ball so we had to play it forward, and this made sure United were able to counter attack at will. It might all still have worked if Bergkamp wasn't made to play in the sole striker role (which is perfect for van Persie), and Reyes in the Bergkamp role. Why van Persie was sitting on the bench, I just don't know - he was clearly our best attacking player when he came on. Anyway, we just don't know how to play this system (yet), so it was a bit of a gamble for Wenger to go with it in the final. Did it pay off? Hard to say, really.

Lehmann can be world class one minute, and a mad clown the next. If he just cut out the mad bit, even if at the expense of losing some of his world class attributes, then he would be one of the best in the world. He is a bit unpredictable, which is not a quality you want in a goalkeeper (especially at his age). That's why I think we should be looking for a new keeper regardless of how good he was in the final, and he is 36 already. I'm not so sure about Lehmann's penalty saving record, but I believe the Scholes save is only his second ever in his Arsenal career. The first was against van Nistelrooy in the Community Shield two seasons ago. van Nistelrooy also missed again during the Battle of Old Trafford match, but it wasn't a Lehmann save (but perhaps a bit of psychological effect there though).

I think with Rooney and Ronaldo, you have what it needed to build a good team. Ronaldo sometimes still need to look up and direct his crosses with more purpose, and Rooney's temperament can be a problem if not probably controlled, but they will get better as they both mature. You do need a replacement for Roy Keane and at least one player to replace Giggs or Scholes (I remember saying the same thing a season ago in this thread). Both of these players will have to be quality players. Replacing Roy Keane will be like us replacing Tony Adams - almost impossible really, and we're still suffering from it. Defensively, I think if Rio Ferdinand stays, then you don't need to invest too much there other than a 'keeper. If he goes, then you will have big problems there, since I don't think it's easy to find a defender that is better than Rio Ferdinand, at least not one that is available. Pay the man what he wants, although with Glazer the main man now, I'm not sure he will agree to Rio's demands.

For us, I still say a quality young goalkeeper, a senior strike partner for Henry and maybe a good (not necessarily class) experienced central defender that can also play right-back if Cygan is to leave. If Ashley Cole goes, then an experienced left back is needed as backup so Clichy can come in as a starter. I really rate Clichy - he's much better than Cole when he was at this age.

[lfcrule1972]

Mmmm as a (almost) neutral I can honestly say I don't know how Man Utd didn't win that !!

Arsenal were pants, reminded me of watching LFC at times this season (please no jokes about Juventus away !), if they had played like that all season they would be lucky to be second from bottom.....

Still it gives me hope for Wednesday night and proves the old addage that its a funny old game......

Ferguson looked fit to burst at the end and I (almost) felt sorry for him, Man Utd were all over Arsenal but on Sat Pm I don't believe Van Nistelrooy could have scored in a brothel with £50 taped to his pants.....

If Arsenal want a senior strike partner for Henry - they could pick up Peter Crouch from the Scummers for next to nothing, he loves heading goals - to be fair thats about all he can do

[admin]

If Arsenal want a senior strike partner for Henry - they could pick up Peter Crouch from the Scummers for next to nothing, he loves heading goals - to be fair thats about all he can do

He can also scare the opposition with his looks:

[lfcrule1972]

Thing is thats an old photo when he used to look like "Rodney" from Only Fools and Horses...... here is a more recent one - he would be right at home alongside your modelling players

[blutach]

For my 1st post in this monumentally long thread, I will simply wish your lot (good) luck tonite LFC.

But as I said at DDSF, who know who the REAL champion is? Chelsea (EPL), Arsenal (FA) or perhaps LFC (CL)? I guess the UK system gives you all a chance to be some sort of winner.

Regards

[lfcrule1972]

Cheers blutach I think volvo tried to answer you over at the DDSF but if LFC do win it tonight that will make our season and quite probably our last couple as well !!!

Just so your clear....

Premiership Champions - Chelsea
Carling Cup Winners - Chelsea
FA Cup Winners - Arsenal

Champions League (European Cup) - Liverpool or AC Milan....

Fingers crossed its the former - well nervous now...

[blutach]

Seems like there's a lotta chance to win something, isn't there?

There's only one Ashes (for cricket anyway!)

Regards