Football (Soccer)

[Oriphus]

Yes, true, my mistake. Have been watching Dutch football replies and got it in my head he was from Ajax.

Yeah, Arjen Robben was over at Old Traffords Carrington training facilities last week to have a look around. A top quality player in my opinion, though he is still young. Don't know if that will go ahead with Louis Saha on his way.

Arsenal were beaten 1-0 tonight by Middlesborough, though really it shouldve been 3-0 considering the terrible mis-opportunites caused by the big idiot Job. Juniho, although scoring the goal, wasnt very good and kept giving the ball away.

[admin]

Robin van Persie is talented, but his personality problems may be what's holding Wenger back from making the deal. I suspect Wenger is looking for a player that can replace Pires and can also play up front, and Robin van Persie looks good in this department.

And just finished watching the League Cup (first ever live game I've watched), and we lost 1-0. Still, there was enough in it to justify Wenger's selection of a youth and experienced mix (considering Aliadiere and Cesc, our best youth prospects, are injured). I suspect he will go with the same lineup in the second leg, perhaps with Henry and Pires on the bench just in case or Vieira starting. This reserve team is capable of beating Wolves 5-1, unlike this other team I know

[Oriphus]

hmmm....wonder what time that would be you are referring to. I am so looking forward to the game between Arsenal and Man Utd, then we'll see who are the better side, bar there are no real injury crisis. The second leg of the League Cup should be interesting, but i do feel that Arsenal will side a much stronger team. I do believe that Vieri will start it with Henry and Pires and Bergkamp coming on if they are needed.

When you say that Persie has personality problems, what do u mean? I watched a game that he played a few weeks back and he blasted a ball square at his own player knocking him out. Everyone else ran over to the player down except Persie. Even the other teams goalkeeper ran over and held his head for a while till the physios/doctors came out. The commentators commented that it was strange he didnt go over to see his team mate was ok. He looked like he couldnt care....

[admin]

I do believe that Vieri will start it with Henry and Pires and Bergkamp coming on if they are needed.

Transfer scoop of the season

(Vieri would actually be a good player to have, especially with our current striker situation)

Robin van Persie is demanding a lot from Feyenoord, and refusing to sign a new contract. He once pushed van Hoiijdonk, who was going to take a freekick because he wanted to take it himself (but he's very good at it though). He also has trouble getting along with his teammates, apparently.

Unless Wenger is confident of re-adjusting his attitude, and if he is available on the cheap (Wenger has already stated he wants to save up 20 million for the summer), we won't get him.

[Oriphus]

My heads away in the clouds. Was reading the transfer speculation on Christian and his name came into my head. they are so similar anyway lol. Stick that i before the r and add an a to the end and we're sorted lol

Everyone knows that the summer is the far better time to buy players. I dont honestly believe that Arsenal need to buy any more players in this transfer window, but as you said, to wait till the summer to purchase some big guns. United, however could really do with another striker (louis Saha will have to do) and a star defender like Puyol or someone to replace Ferdinand. Im just not sure that we should rely so heavily on a young Wes Brown.

It will be great for us when we eventually get back our gifted Baby face assassin from his 4 months of injury. We have missed him so much i feel, though we are still doing exceptionally well. Someone like him would have been needed big time for wolves. Also, we really lack a good right-sided winger. I know Darren Fletcher and C.Ronaldo can play there and mostly pull of pretty decent to sometimes excellent performances, but they both lack experience and it shows. On the left we should be looking for a replacement for Ryan Giggs when he eventually leaves. I dont see one at the club yet. Again young Ronaldo can play there, but i think he is better suited to the right. he cause Arsenal all sorts of problems when we drew 0-0 with you at Old Trafford this season. I dont understand why Alex Ferguson said that we werent interested in Damien Duff (who was holding out to see if United bidded for him). He was an ideal candidtate for United, someone we really really needed. Again, i cant understand why we didnt attempt to go for Claude Makelele since he is the obvious replacement for Roy Keane who will at best be at our club for another two seasons.

I do dispair sometimes about the wit of the management and staff at United in their purchases. What they seem to do is look at someone who is currently performing well and go and spend far too much in getting them. Take Ronaldo for instance. they say that they were following him for a good few months before spending a fortune on him??? Does anyone actually believe that?? He had one good game against us in the pre-season friendlies and out comes the big cheque book for a ridiculous sum. Take Rio Ferdinand. Has an ok club performance, but does really well for his country in a few internationals. What do United do?? Run out with the big cheque book and pay far too much for him. And still elads manage to get into a load of debt...the chairman should be shot fro leeds.

Another more current example: Louis Saha - has had an excellent start to the season, but did he play well aslt season - NO. Biut what do we do - we get out our cheque book and pay atleast £5 million more for him than what he is worth. We do it all the time. It really does bug me. Now i know we have made some great buys, such as Rudd and Solskjaer, and Roy Keane was the greatest buy form Nottingham Forrest ever in the history of great buys lol.

All i can say is that Liam Miller is a good buy, Arjen Robben would be a good buy, Joaquin Sanchez Rodriguez would be a great buy, Damien Duff wouldve had been an excellent buy,even at £15 million. But hey...im no football chairman....lol

[admin]

United has loadsa money, and everyone knows this. So whenever United express interest in a player, that player's value suddenly goes up. The same (but even more so) with Chelsea.

So when is United going to bid for Cygan? We'll let him go for a bargain price of 15 million

(To be fair, Cygan has been great lately, and dare I say, more consistent than Sol - he's part of the reason for the unbeaten run, and for having the best defensive record)

I think United's current problems are due to Beckham leaving, and having to readjust your play a little (no more nice crosses for RVN, and goals from free kicks). RVN needs a provider for his goals, and you seem to be lacking that a little. Our problem is just the opposite, in that we have no one to finish off the easy chances. If we had someone like RVN, we'd score half a dozen goals every match. But the problem with having a great finisher like RVN is that you end up trying to knock all the balls to him - it's the same with Arsenal and Ian Wright, and when teams figured out how to defend against us, we looked uninspired. It's happening a little with Henry, expect he provides a lot as well.

[admin]

Bad new for Solskjaer:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/m/man_utd/3390197.stm

Hope he gets back to playing soon - I've always rated him.

[admin]

And we've apparently signed Kluivert, although no one has yet informed Arsenal FC, Barcelona or Kluivert of this piece of "news"

http://www.98fm.ie/news/sport/sport_details.asp?story_id=97342

[Oriphus]

Thats interesting about Kluivert. Strange that an Irish radio station is able to broadcast to the world that Arsenal have bought him and he will be joining them in the summer for £2million, yet no one else like Sky Sports knows anything about it??? lol

I thin that ole will be back within a month if his key hole examination goes ok. I was doing some might hard training at football today. We had to sprint up a 35 degrees incline for 200 yards and then jog back down it. We did that 8 times after we jogged 2KM, then we jogged another 2KM and played a 30min 6 a-side match. Im well nackered. Headin to the bath for an hour to relax lol. Big match for me on Saturday...ohhh...the pain....lol

Looks like United may be interested, along with others, in a new Ferrari lol - check the link:

http://www.skysports.com/skysports/article/0,,7-1120156,00.html

[Oriphus]

A pretty decent scoreline for Arsenal today. A few promising young stars, especially that fella David Bentley, who took an amazing sot on goal with his weaker left foot and scored. Chelsea were lucky to win 1-0, it couldve have easily been more for them as well as Scar.. scoring a few themselves. Definite penalty though, referee was a fool.

On a lighter note, my soccer club in the second division played today and we beat Bangor F.C. 6-2. An amazing first half performance from us, great passing with 5-1 scorline. We were on the back foot the most of the second half but only conceded pone and scored one. Did anyone see it?? lol

[admin]

Another match with Boro, another 4-1 scoreline ... it's all getting boring really quickly

Bently is a future star, there is no doubt about it. He has a similar game to Bergkamp, and wants to be the next Beckham (incidentally, all 3 players' initials are D.B). I watched the match using a live Internet stream from Hungaria, well worth the effort.

On a lighter note, my soccer club in the second division played today and we beat Bangor F.C. 6-2

Congrats. Got an online match report I can read?

[Oriphus]

Im afraid i wouldnt know where to look for one - Its Division 2 in the Irish Amatuer League. It goes Premiership, Div 1, Div 2, Amatuer Div 1, Div 2a, Div2b, Div2c, Div2d, Div2e, Div3a-e, Div4 a-e, etc...

We are in Div 2C at the min. A quick match report would be that we dominated play in the first half. passed the ball well, didnt come under much pressure and scored 5 goals and conceding only a 1 whcih was an OG (headed supposedly off the line, but instead into the top of the net). Unfortunately, i didnt play the first half due to injuries im struggling with. I cam on after bout 10 mins in the 2nd half. Our play had broken down a bit, and our passing was a bit poorer. We were under an awful lot of pressure the whole time, but lucky for us, their strikers kept hoofing it from 25 yards over the bar. I played as a striker and got no chances to even take a shot from 35 yards out. I wouldve loved a chance to power blast it from well out cuz usually i can get it to dip when i hit it.

Anyway, on that Hungarian stream, any clues to where i can do that? Also, do you or anyone else know where to find channel DFS, or DSF it might be, on Sky UK. Its a German Channel but it shows all the Premiership games at 3.00pm when sky doesnt.

Also, does DVDRDigest want to sponsor out football team uz our sponsor, Spar / Centra have pulled out and Budweiser are pulling out too

[admin]

Got the streaming link off an Arsenal forum, but all this hunt for streaming video is a bit of a hit and miss really. This was the link, BTW :

http://www.hinet.hr/TV/TVdalmacija.ram

It's actually Croatian (thought the link was .hu, not .hr). The quality is bad, but watched the whole second half without the need for further buffering.

Also, does DVDRDigest want to sponsor out football team uz our sponsor, Spar / Centra have pulled out and Budweiser are pulling out too

And Bentley is apparently an United fan

[Oriphus]

lol on the sponsorship

Bentley - a united fan. Hmmm...that could be very interesting. Might be easy to coax away the young striker from the grasps of the large Arse, sorry Arsenal. Match time kick-off - 2 hours away. Im suspecting 245-0 in Uniteds favour - wonder what the bookies will give me on that

[Oriphus]

Looks like i was well off on my predicitons. Only 3-0, though it shouldve been a lot lot more. Also, Northanpton couldve scored a few themselves.