Weekend Football

[leon]

Liverpool lose and Spurs win.

Commiserations to one half of HNA? and congratulations to the other half.

[Silver Fox]

Leon on seeing the Liverpool result

[Whore Jackie]

Now 3-2 down at HT v Port Vale.

Off the top of the table for the first time in 4 months. The shambles has finally caught up with them.

What's changed? I'm normally very disparaging of teams at the top sacking a manager, but that collapse has to prompt questions.

Have got an injury crisis? Key layer sold? Manager jump ship to go to a bigger club?

Stoke recalling Nathan Lowe early in January from a season-long loan has massively hit them. 17 goals, 6 assists, 12 points clear. Now they're struggling for 3rd spot.

[Snowflake Royal]

Off the top of the table for the first time in 4 months. The shambles has finally caught up with them.

What's changed? I'm normally very disparaging of teams at the top sacking a manager, but that collapse has to prompt questions.

Have got an injury crisis? Key layer sold? Manager jump ship to go to a bigger club?

Stoke recalling Nathan Lowe early in January from a season-long loan has massively hit them. 17 goals, 6 assists, 12 points clear. Now they're struggling for 3rd spot.

Ahh, that would make a difference

[Whore Jackie]

American student becomes Southend fan after boarding wrong boat on Saturday. Beautiful

[Winston Biscuit]

Just read that Bradford have dropped ticket prices for the last 2 home games to get the crowd up as much as possible to help with their promotion push.

Both matches sold out. Bradford won and went top.

Nice.

[leon]

American student becomes Southend fan after boarding wrong boat on Saturday. Beautiful

Fantastic stuff

[Sutekh]

Just read that Bradford have dropped ticket prices for the last 2 home games to get the crowd up as much as possible to help with their promotion push.

Both matches sold out. Bradford won and went top.

Nice.

Should try that at Reading for the last home game - try and go out on a high.

[Royal Rother]

Anyway, worst season in memory in the top league?

I think so.

Just so little to get excited about and so lacking in real quality.

Yes, Liverpool have been quality at times but no other team has come close to pushing them, so even they have dropped off massively.

It comes to something when the only games worth watching are the ones featuring Forest, Brighton and Bournemouth (and Spurs for the absolute unpredictability).

I think Neville's rant was absolutely spot on.

[Sutekh]

Anyway, worst season in memory in the top league?

I think so.

Just so little to get excited about and so lacking in real quality.

Yes, Liverpool have been quality at times but no other team has come close to pushing them, so even they have dropped off massively.

It comes to something when the only games worth watching are the ones featuring Forest, Brighton and Bournemouth (and Spurs for the absolute unpredictability).

I think Neville's rant was absolutely spot on.

And the last two seasons were hardly exciting. Arsenal managed to make more of a go of it by not having so many injuries but everyone knew they were going to bottle it as soon as the new year arrived. If anything this season has been better as the likes of Brighton, Forest, Fulham, Bournemouth have closed the gap more so the chase for 5th is more exciting than ever.

The worst thing about this season though is the 3 utterly cr@p sides that have stunk the place out ever since the season started so we don’t even have that “chase” to wonder about.

But at the end of the day the top division title race has been absolutely dire since 2021 when Liverpool and City were properly battling each other, shame that the diabolical refereeing standards have contributed so much to who actually wins things in the last 5 years.

To top it all we then find a certain club has 115 charges levied against it…

[BRO_BOT]

Arsenal seem to have been in second since 2020

[6ft Kerplunk]

Beautiful assist from Schar last night. Not many have the vision to ping a pass off the crossbar from halfway straight into the path of Murphy's run.

[Winston Biscuit]

Beautiful assist from Schar last night. Not many have the vision to ping a pass off the crossbar from halfway straight into the path of Murphy's run.

I kept rewinding it to watch it. 3 Leicester defenders just gave up chasing back which allowed Murphy to be on his own 1V1, and also the goalkeeper did a little dive back into his own goal as the ball hit the bar, which was pointless and odd, and gave the advantage to the attacker

cracking shot though!

[Royal Rother]

Anyway, worst season in memory in the top league?

I think so.

Just so little to get excited about and so lacking in real quality.

Yes, Liverpool have been quality at times but no other team has come close to pushing them, so even they have dropped off massively.

It comes to something when the only games worth watching are the ones featuring Forest, Brighton and Bournemouth (and Spurs for the absolute unpredictability).

I think Neville's rant was absolutely spot on.

And the last two seasons were hardly exciting. Arsenal managed to make more of a go of it by not having so many injuries but everyone knew they were going to bottle it as soon as the new year arrived. If anything this season has been better as the likes of Brighton, Forest, Fulham, Bournemouth have closed the gap more so the chase for 5th is more exciting than ever.

The worst thing about this season though is the 3 utterly cr@p sides that have stunk the place out ever since the season started so we don’t even have that “chase” to wonder about.

But at the end of the day the top division title race has been absolutely dire since 2021 when Liverpool and City were properly battling each other, shame that the diabolical refereeing standards have contributed so much to who actually wins things in the last 5 years.

To top it all we then find a certain club has 115 charges levied against it…

I don't think Arsenal have bottled it, they just don't have enough quality in the squad and have become very predictable. They thought they'd found a recipe to win games from corner kicks so put too many eggs in that basket, then found PL defences could actually combat that given enough time, then they lost Saka, failed to sign a top striker who would actually help them win games (so what's new?), and thought they had to keep playing Trossard.

It says something that their 2 best players in the 2nd half of the season are a 17 yo and an 18 yo. And if they'd actually realised they had a couple of other teenage gems in Heaven and Chido Obi and had the balls to integrate them properly rather than letting them go to Man Utd they could have had a real chance to push on with a vibrant young team next season. As it is they'll probably carry on with the likes of Martinelli, Trossard, Kiwior, Zinchenko, Sterling, Havertz et al. (And wait for Jesus to return from injury to add that "quality" up front!)

[6ft Kerplunk]

3 Leicester defenders just gave up chasing back which allowed Murphy to be on his own 1V1, and also the goalkeeper did a little dive back into his own goal as the ball hit the bar, which was pointless and odd, and gave the advantage to the attacker

Murphy's second touch off his shin was absolutely awful too and if any defender had bothered to run back they'd have been able to clear it easily.

[Royal Rother]

Anyway, worst season in memory in the top league?

I think so.

Just so little to get excited about and so lacking in real quality.

Yes, Liverpool have been quality at times but no other team has come close to pushing them, so even they have dropped off massively.

It comes to something when the only games worth watching are the ones featuring Forest, Brighton and Bournemouth (and Spurs for the absolute unpredictability).

I think Neville's rant was absolutely spot on.

And the last two seasons were hardly exciting. Arsenal managed to make more of a go of it by not having so many injuries but everyone knew they were going to bottle it as soon as the new year arrived. If anything this season has been better as the likes of Brighton, Forest, Fulham, Bournemouth have closed the gap more so the chase for 5th is more exciting than ever.

The worst thing about this season though is the 3 utterly cr@p sides that have stunk the place out ever since the season started so we don’t even have that “chase” to wonder about.

But at the end of the day the top division title race has been absolutely dire since 2021 when Liverpool and City were properly battling each other, shame that the diabolical refereeing standards have contributed so much to who actually wins things in the last 5 years.

To top it all we then find a certain club has 115 charges levied against it…

I don't think Arsenal have bottled it, they just don't have enough quality in the squad and have become very predictable. They thought they'd found a recipe to win games from corner kicks so put too many eggs in that basket, then found PL defences could actually combat that given enough time, then they lost Saka, failed to sign a top striker who would actually help them win games (so what's new?), and thought they had to keep playing Trossard.

It says something that their 2 best players in the 2nd half of the season are a 17 yo and an 18 yo. And if they'd actually realised they had a couple of other teenage gems in Heaven and Chido Obi and had the balls to integrate them properly rather than letting them go to Man Utd they could have had a real chance to push on with a vibrant young team next season. As it is they'll probably carry on with the likes of Martinelli, Trossard, Kiwior, Zinchenko, Sterling, Havertz et al. (And wait for Jesus to return from injury to add that "quality" up front!)

Umm…

Fantastic performance tonight!

[Winston Biscuit]

If Chelsea beat Ipswich tomorrow then Forest not finishing in the top 5 is a real possibility

[Sutekh]

Shades of one time Reading loanee David Lee at Pompey yesterday. Rob Atkinson (loan from Bristol City) equalised for Portsmouth 4 minutes later but put Derby ahead before saving the day with another goal at the right end in the 91st minute.