QuoteA liverpool lass, great and terrible oral skills........... I'll get my coat.Originally Posted by strangeirish
I dunno jebus. I used to date a bird from Liverpool and if she was there last night, I wouldn't doubt that possibility....
I dunno jebus. I used to date a bird from Liverpool and if she was there last night, I wouldn't doubt that possibility....
Did you ever notice that in every painting of Adam & Eve, they have belly buttons. Think about that...take as long as you want.
A liverpool lass, great and terrible oral skills........... I'll get my coat.I dunno jebus. I used to date a bird from Liverpool and if she was there last night, I wouldn't doubt that possibility....
The Hallion Battalion Molests football.:D
Although I've never been (well not when a game is on anyway), I always find it comes across well on TV noise wise, for all the matches they play, not just against the Madrid teams
The theatre can be enthralling with lots of reaction from the audience, especially the Windmill Theatre
Forget about the performance or entertainment. It's only the result that matters.
Anyone who expected end to end football like in the other semi was dreaming. What happened in the first leg at Old Trafford came about because United had no defence and because they possess Rooney and Ronaldo who are at the moment absolutely on fire. To criticise Liverpool and Chelsea for being able to defend well (which is a skill believe it or not) and for not having someone like Ronaldo in their team is being a bit silly.
But they do though. Chelsea have Cole, Robben, Wright-Philips.
so its 2005 all over again........3-3 anyone??!?!
Milan to get revenge. Like 2005 should have been!
TO TELL THE TRUTH IS REVOLUTIONARY
The ONLY foot.ie user with a type of logic named after them!
All of this has happened before. All of it will happen again.
I'd go 2-1 to Milan
Did anyone else think Utd were just tactically inept last nite? I couldnt understand Ferguson.....at 2-0 down he did nothing to change it until 15 mins to go then brought on an injury prone Saha who is no where near fit when Ole an Smith were on the bench? Giggs and Ronaldo were dire and Utd cant play this European formation with the 3 in the middle, 2 out wide and Rooney up on his own.....how long will it take him to see this!
Ages, hopefully.
I think what gets shown up time and again with Premiership teams in Europe is that technically they are not up to standard. People harp on about the kick and rush Premiership, but they never seem to understand that it stunts the growth of their footballers. For clinical passing, finishing etc. the Italians have always had that nailed, given the nature of Serie A football (getting a bit more time on the ball etc.), and the Spanish teams, well they're just blessed with naturally skilled players. As for the English teams, well if it's not a blood and guts, kick them around the park game they're just not up to it
Is that why there were 3 out of 4 in the semis and one in the Final? And by the way Man U don't play the blood and guts game and destroyed an Italian team (second or third the Italian league) last round.
Forget about the performance or entertainment. It's only the result that matters.
You're not seriously trying to say that those three players are anywhere near the standard that Ronaldo has achieved this year? Ronaldo has just cleaned up at the PFA Awards - none of the three you mention there even made the short-list!!!
In 2005 the EPL produced two semi-finalists and the eventual winners; in 2006 it produced the Runners-up; and in 2007 three semi-finalists and possibly the eventual winners. Like you say, time and again Premiership teams are really not up to standard
I think United play a style of football almost unique in England. It’s not as technical as you’d expect from Arsenal or a Spanish or Italian team, and not as direct or muscular as Chelsea and lesser teams like Bolton etc. They get the ball into the box repeatedly, from wide and from central positions from Scholes and Carrick. If it doesn’t bear fruit then they work their socks off to get the ball back and start again. Their work rate is phenomenal but it’s far from blood & guts.
It’s frequently good enough to beat the better continental teams and almost ironically, I actually think their CL campaign this year – in the knockout stages anyway – was far more impressive than when they won it. To this day I don’t know how Inter didn’t beat them comprehensively in the 1999 QF and they were twice the width of a post away from being beaten by Bayern in the final.
Given the defensive injuries they had last night’s result wasn’t that much of a surprise but with a fit Neville, Ferdinand & Vidic they’d have been more competitive.
In my opinion all 4 English clubs should get past the group stages and depending on the draw you’d expect at least 3 to make the QF. From then on it’s a bit of a lottery. You have a group of good teams in a knockout competition where the ties can go either way. Having 3 teams in this year’s SF reflects well on the “elite” teams in England but you can’t draw any conclusions beyond that about the strength of the league in general. I think there’s a parallel between the PL teams’ results in Europe and the English national team, especially under Sven. On balance you’d expect them to get to the latter stages of a tournament but making the final step just proves a bridge too far – there’s usually someone better. In England’s case I think their route to success lies in replicating United’s style as they can’t take the technical teams on, but this style of play just doesn’t work in late June heat. I don’t think they have the players to replicate the Chelsea approach.
Separately, it annoyed me all last week that almost everyone in the English media had pretty much assumed United were already in the final. On Tuesday 5 Live was asking whether it was stupid to have an all-English contested final in Greece. ITV virtually had United in the final, as did much of the print media.
Last edited by Stuttgart88; 03/05/2007 at 12:28 PM.
Since the inception of the Champions League the winners have come fromIn 2005 the EPL produced two semi-finalists and the eventual winners; in 2006 it produced the Runners-up; and in 2007 three semi-finalists and possibly the eventual winners. Like you say, time and again Premiership teams are really not up to standard
France 1
Holland 1
Portugal 1
England 2
Germany 2
Italy 3
Spain 4
and when you consider that United and Liverpool both stole their respective finals from better teams, then you might see that technically English teams, much like their national side, just aren't up to it technically
True, but it's not fair to say that it's all blood & guts either, nor is it fair to say that they're not competive against good teams. I think that winners of major tournaments tend to be the technically superior teams though, and those with real pace in the team too.
You can point to Spurs having a good run in UEFA Cup this year, Middlesboro last year and all the English clubs in the early & middle stages of UEFA Cup for that matter as an example of the strength of the mid-ranking English clubs versus their European peers, or you can look at Everton in Europe last year to take the opposite view.
Last edited by Stuttgart88; 03/05/2007 at 2:12 PM.
I hear Frank Lampard has emerged as the main suspect in the Reina burglary. Nobody can ascertain his whereabouts between 7.45pm and 10.15pm on Teusday.
Fergie got the tactics completely wrong. He went to Milan with the wrong gameplan. Regardless of what he said in the lead up to the game United set out to keep the game tight and nick a goal. As soon as I saw the line up I knew AC would win. Fergie has got this notion into his head about the way they should play away from home in Europe, by playing a more conservative game. FFS you can't tell players like Ronaldo, Rooney etc to be conservative. By holding them back like that they were unable to show their talents and as a result had poor games.
Trying to play through Milan was the wrong option- how many times did Scholes try and pick out a pass or run through Milan's midfield, who had set up in a line just in front of the penalty box. The only way Man Utd were to win this game was by trying to open it up by spreading the play as much as possible and by using the wings. Italian teams are comfortable with sitting back and letting teams to attempt to play through them- everybody knows that. The only way to beat them is to play with a style they are not comfortable or used to- the way Man Utd played against Roam and Milan at home. Fergie is overcomplicating things by trying to play a 'European' style of football.
The way he should have played was 4-4-2- take out Fletcher, put in Smith. With Smith constantly hounding the defenders Milan would have been uncomfortable with teams putting them under pressure as they are not used to that.
Also Fergie left it far too late to make the change, and made the wrong change. Smith should have come on, and any of the defenders, apart from O'Shea who was the best Utd defender on the night, should have gone off instead.
God no- I was responding to you're point where you said that people shouldn't be complaining that Chelsea are playing long ball football (or at least something along those lines, can't remember now).
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