Wot? No footy threads?

[The afterburner]

Chelsea played, on balance, about equal, probably worse, but considering the half they dominated was the second of the two, good mental effort on their part.

They hit the wood work twice (or three times ), Man U had 4 GOLDEN opportunites to get a second goal, and though in all but one of them it was ultimately Chelsea last ditch defending that kept them out it would be stupid to suggest that Chelsea weren't as lucky not to concede a second as Man U were.

Man U played better football in the first half than Chelsea did in the second, yes chelsea had a lot of shots, but they were pretty speculative. For instance ballack had the mosts shots for them, and he never really tested the keeper if he even got the shots on target.

Tevez got away with a probable red card offence on makelele, drogba didn't, can't remember who it was but one of the chelsea players got away with a shin breaker on Ronaldo.

In most repects it was pretty much as much of a draw as a match can be when someone has to be declared a winner.

And finally John Terry, yes, Afterburner, he's a twat. Top ten culprit in the Premier League for aggressively hounding the ref whenever a decision goes against him or then, even when he's blatantly wrong and knows it. Gets right up in the refs face screaming every single match he plays, I just wish once a ref would give him a straight red for dissent, give him something to really feel outraged about. Or that just once he'd pratfall during a penalty losing his team any season silverware and the one trophy they're most keen on getting and have never won in their entire history... oh, hang on... yes... there is a god

Fair enough.....but if he applied the rule to all, then Hargreaves would have been the first off last night. He was hounding the ref all game, swearing at him too

[Count Steer]

Who do you think owns Utd, who by the way are the richest football team in the world, followed by Real Madrid so the obsession with Chelsea's wealth is misplaced

To be fair, MUFC's wealth/brand has been built over many years on the back of their successes. (As has Liverpool's). It's not like the investors bought in cheap and threw vast amounts of money in.

If you took Abramovich's money away from Chelsea, while they do, still, have a sellable brand, you could hardly say that he took over a hugely successful club and put a little icing on the cake. While I sympathise with long term Chelsea supporters I don't really admire the way that the club has become a gazillionaire's hobby.

The current state of the game with the top 4 (and echoed down the premiership) also means that buying success, or even staying in the top flight, rather than developing it has made the national team pretty useless.
Lots of the top players do well at national level....but not for us. Even though Italy imports top players they still seem to manage to put out a half decent national side. France seems to manage but their club teams aren't great, Germany does too.

Having said that, it was a good game when it could have been a real grind.

[Dingbat]

To be fair, MUFC's wealth/brand has been built over many years on the back of their successes. (As has Liverpool's). It's not like the investors bought in cheap and threw vast amounts of money in.

If you took Abramovich's money away from Chelsea, while they do, still, have a sellable brand, you could hardly say that he took over a hugely successful club and put a little icing on the cake. While I sympathise with long term Chelsea supporters I don't really admire the way that the club has become a gazillionaire's hobby.

The current state of the game with the top 4 (and echoed down the premiership) also means that buying success, or even staying in the top flight, rather than developing it has made the national team pretty useless.
Lots of the top players do well at national level....but not for us. Even though Italy imports top players they still seem to manage to put out a half decent national side. France seems to manage but their club teams aren't great, Germany does too.

Having said that, it was a good game when it could have been a real grind.

Careful, you're straying into Slogger's territory.

http://www.therevcounter.com/motorbi...er-league.html

FWIW, my view is that we should have some kind of cap on the number of foreign players each team is allowed to put on the pitch at any one time. While Italian and Spanish sides do buy-in talent, they also field a far higher proportion of players from their own countries than some English Premier League teams could manage without raiding their own youth teams.

[trogggy]

FWIW, my view is that we should have some kind of cap on the number of foreign players each team is allowed to put on the pitch at any one time.

I agree, but I'm fairly sure the EU don't.

[Dingbat]

I agree, but I'm fairly sure the EU don't.

So does Sepp Blatter.

FIFA boss Sepp Blatter has reiterated his call for a curb on the number of foreign players appearing for club sides.The head of world football said he would be asking the next FIFA congress to adopt his controversial 'six homegrown players per team' plan.
.
.

Blatter though faces an uphill struggle given that on May 8 the European Parliament voted against his '6+5' plan with European football president Platini declaring the concept "a good idea" but "completely illegal".

AFP: Blatter warns against boys from Brazil

[Zeph]

Yeah John Terry the model sportsman !
Cowardly spitting on Tevez as Drogba is sent off

John Terry spit on Tevez Video | Goalcentre.com - Soccer Highlights and Videos

But you still dont want to justify calling Terry the things you did, fair enough, if you want to airbrush over that ill considered opinion I will stop pushing the point

[Bonners]

Careful, you're straying into Slogger's territory.

http://www.therevcounter.com/motorbi...er-league.html

FWIW, my view is that we should have some kind of cap on the number of foreign players each team is allowed to put on the pitch at any one time. While Italian and Spanish sides do buy-in talent, they also field a far higher proportion of players from their own countries than some English Premier League teams could manage without raiding their own youth teams.

As mentioned up there, it would never work due to EU rules. However one thing they should be looking at is how we train age group players from this country. I hate to harp on about the sodding Reds again, but they will never have that many youth team players coming through in one go again. The reasons? Mainly due to the geographical limitations put in a couple of years back. Whilst the sentiment has been laudable, i.e. everybody gets a fair crack at taking on their local youth players, it has erred too much in the opposite direction. So much so that the big clubs find it difficult to recruit talented youth team players. Utd used to have a fairly extensive youth team scouting system, which is now totally redundant.

So what do the big clubs do instead? They now scour the continent for the best youngsters. So the big four now have age group players from all over Europe, thereby lessening the chances for our best youth team players to train with the best of their age group.

[Jasper]

Yeah John Terry the model sportsman !
Cowardly spitting on Tevez as Drogba is sent off

John Terry spit on Tevez Video | Goalcentre.com - Soccer Highlights and Videos

What a foul man.

Aboslutely no sympathy for his 'tears'.

[Indraneelan]

Fair enough.....but if he applied the rule to all, then Hargreaves would have been the first off last night. He was hounding the ref all game, swearing at him too

One game doesn't make him as big a culprit as Terry, but he does seem to be rather angry these days. Maybe someone at Man U will sort him out eventually. I saw Rooney smile at an opponent three times in three consecutive matches recently, if that's not progress then I don't know what is

Still JT remains the only premiership player i've seen to physically have a little go at pulling the referee's arm down when he's trying to card another chelsea player, and whilst hargreaves clearly doesn't like decisions going against him, the thing that really annoys me about Terry's protestations, and an area where Hargreaves just doesn't match him, is the fact that he screams at the referee so much even when he's nothing to do with the incident, and when the ref's clearly made the right decision.

Being a Spurs fan I still haven't forgotten the debacle over Ashley Cole's tackle in the 4-4 draw, but I think that even without that bias I'd say JT makes a mockery of the concept of a captain speaking to the referee for his entire team.

[moto748]

He should never captain England, either.

[Bonners]

Still, it won't come to that on Monday.

Quite right

They're famously the worst club in the league over the last 35 years.

Correct again, well done sir

[dodgy]

Have to say I was very chuffed with this weekend's results, all the right teams won

Hull? Check
Doncaster? Check
Stcokport? Check
England Cricket? Check

Most enjoyable

[Bonners]

Have to say I was very chuffed with this weekend's results, all the right teams won

Hull? Check
Doncaster? Check
Stcokport? Check
England Cricket? Check

Most enjoyable

Almost ended up going to the cricket, but a combination of wanting to watch the Stockport game, a comfy sofa and when I did switch the cricket on seeing how effing cold it looked in the stands, made me stick to the aforementioned sofa

[DefTrap]

I haven't been keeping up with the Hull story - 4 years from the depths of the 2nd division to the Premiership wasn't it? - there has to be a big-money investor behind that then?

I'm getting incresingly aggravated by the 'John Terry story'. You couldn't move in the Sports pages over the weekend for pictures of 'Captain Courageous' crying his little heart out and acres of column inches devoted to his personal heartbreak, his letter from the PM and his inspiration to other losers. What a fecking bellend. Hopefully he'll remember how sensitive he is next season when he's swearing at some poor referee.

[dodgy]

I haven't been keeping up with the Hull story - 4 years from the depths of the 2nd division to the Premiership wasn't it? - there has to be a big-money investor behind that then?

Nah, don't think so. A combination of picking up a few good-but-past-it players (they were fortunate in that Windass and Barmby were local boys and so wanted to play for the club) and a few decent loaners from Premier league clubs, plus a bit of spirit

The Championship has been ridiculous this season - there were only about 15 points between the play-offs and the third relegated club, and every team in it could have beaten any other team in it on their day. No Man U vs Derby style mismatches. Wednesday were third from bottom 2 weeks before the end of the season and ended practically mid-table through 2 late wins. So I'm not sure Hull were much better than most of the dross in that league

I'd like to believe they could stay up but I can't see it. You had to have watched a few Championship games this season to realise the gulf in class between that and the PL I think. Stoke are crap as well, fwiw, only WBA have a (slim) chance of staying up IMO