Football 16-17

[pink_triangle]

1 hour ago, eFestivals said:

Oh c'mon. he was the stand out player in his league. 

I think that's very debatable, I don't think he ever made the team of the year. Not that I would expect a teenager to be the standout player in the championship. You must pay more attention to the league than me, I'm not ashamed to admit I had never heard of him.

[pink_triangle]

4 hours ago, comfortablynumb1910 said:

Going my the number of players Scotland has produced recently I'm not sure this is proving to be a good idea.

How much of this do you think is cyclical and smallish European countries are likely to have peaks and troughs.

I have to admit when I saw an SPL game a couple of years ago I was a little surprised how many league 2/conference standard journeyman were getting games and therefore blocking opportunities for young Scottish players. I don't know how widespread this is, or if it was just specific to Inverness at the time?

[eFestivals]

7 minutes ago, pink_triangle said:

I think that's very debatable, I don't think he ever made the team of the year.

he made league young player of the year for his one full season of playing for MK.

He was all over the press from that start of that season because he was banging them in - enough for spurs to sign him midseason.

[Comfy Bean]

3 minutes ago, pink_triangle said:

How much of this do you think is cyclical and smallish European countries are likely to have peaks and troughs.

I have to admit when I saw an SPL game a couple of years ago I was a little surprised how many league 2/conference standard journeyman were getting games and therefore blocking opportunities for young Scottish players. I don't know how widespread this is, or if it was just specific to Inverness at the time?

Suppose I can't say with any certainty that we will never see a return to the days when decent Scottish players were at most EPL sides but it doesn't look likely.

I hate the thought of my youngest kids never seeing Scotland in a major tournament. Well jealous of what your guys enjoyed last summer :-)

Kids have so many other distractions of course so even less coming through. Your spot on with the Inverness thing. The fear of relegation means clubs will chuck money at the journeyman types to stay up. I'm all for a bigger top league up here to ease the fear but it won't happen because playing each other twice in a bigger league doesn't suit the old firm or Sky. We currently have 4 guaranteed old firm games with a cup game as well this season.

[lost]

Kelvin MacKenzie at the sun seems to want to double down on Liverpool with his Barkley article. Pure click bait.

[pink_triangle]

36 minutes ago, lost said:

Kelvin MacKenzie at the sun seems to want to double down on Liverpool with his Barkley article. Pure click bait.

I wouldn't expect anything different. Am I right in thinking that a few of the scouse players have had links with gangsters in the past?

[CRW5252]

5 hours ago, eFestivals said:

there's few who make the kind of immediate impact Alli did.

 

Sorry, didn't realise we had an expert about everything in the house. You must clearly be right and there's no luck involved anywhere. Spurs are only 2nd now because they planned to have a player as good as Alli, and they couldn't be bothered to plan for that in earlier years. 

Nick Powell made a massive impact. He scored the goal that got Crewe promoted in 2012. 

I thought I was the one putting words in your mouth. I'm not an expert but I do know a lot about football as I've watched it and played it all my life. Of course that doesn't mean all my opinions are correct but it does mean they are well informed. I never said there was no luck involved. Spurs have produced/signed plenty of young talent before Alli and Kane. A player called Gareth Bale springs to mind (he might be a bit too niche for you ;)). The way you talk makes me think you haven't followed football for very long. 

[CRW5252]

5 hours ago, pink_triangle said:

I think putting it at the end of the season would result in widespread withdrawals as players think about their holiday. I agree with the principle, but would have the window much earlier in the calender. I also am one of the few I'm favour of Qatar moving the world cup earlier as I think it will be interesting seeing an international tournament without all the players knackered.

That could work as well. I hadn't really considered it. There may be some issues with it clashing with the winter break some leagues have though.

[pink_triangle]

41 minutes ago, CRW5252 said:

. A player called Gareth Bale springs to mind

From memory spurs did get a bit lucky. I seem to remember arry thinking he was a left back and loaning him (or nearly loaned ) to a championship team.

[pink_triangle]

39 minutes ago, CRW5252 said:

That could work as well. I hadn't really considered it. There may be some issues with it clashing with the winter break some leagues have though.

I agree you will never find a time that suits everyone. As someone who prefers world cup to champions league I'm thinking purely what would suit me the most.

[CRW5252]

14 minutes ago, pink_triangle said:

From memory spurs did get a bit lucky. I seem to remember arry thinking he was a left back and loaning him (or nearly loaned ) to a championship team.

He was a left back when he joined Spurs. He was terrible for the first 25 games (that must be the period where they thought about loaning him out) then he eventually started to pick up some form. After a few more games he was moved to left wing by Harry where he excelled. I would argue that is not luck in the slightest. In fact it was a ingenious move by Spurs which was the making of Bale.

Edited April 14, 2017 by CRW5252

[pink_triangle]

27 minutes ago, CRW5252 said:

He was a left back when he joined Spurs. He was terrible for the first 25 games (that must be the period where they thought about loaning him out) then he eventually started to pick up some form. After a few more games he was moved to left wing by Harry where he excelled. I would argue that is not luck in the slightest. In fact it was a ingenious move by Spurs which was the making of Bale.

Ingenious move? I remember there was a significant proportion of Wales fans who wanted him moved for Wales before Arry did for Spurs. He was never going to be a left back, he couldn't defend!

[CRW5252]

1 hour ago, pink_triangle said:

Ingenious move? I remember there was a significant proportion of Wales fans who wanted him moved for Wales before Arry did for Spurs. He was never going to be a left back, he couldn't defend!

That's not how I remember it but I could be wrong. Regardless it was at Spurs where he made a name for himself as a left winger. What was lucky about him being a better left winger than left back?

Edited April 14, 2017 by CRW5252

[pink_triangle]

7 hours ago, CRW5252 said:

That's not how I remember it but I could be wrong. Regardless it was at Spurs where he made a name for himself as a left winger. What was lucky about him being a better left winger than left back?

I used to go to every Wales home game and there was constant calls to move him forwards as he could attack, but not defend. The idea that Arry was the first person ever to consider this may suit his tabloid chums, but is far from reality.

To me the luck was that Bale only got back into the spurs team initially due to injury to Assou Akouto and then got moved when he was back. I suspect if AA had never been injured, Arry would have shipped Bale out.

[CRW5252]

4 hours ago, pink_triangle said:

I used to go to every Wales home game and there was constant calls to move him forwards as he could attack, but not defend. The idea that Arry was the first person ever to consider this may suit his tabloid chums, but is far from reality.

To me the luck was that Bale only got back into the spurs team initially due to injury to Assou Akouto and then got moved when he was back. I suspect if AA had never been injured, Arry would have shipped Bale out.

Fair enough, I'm happy to not give Arry credit anyway

That may well be true but at the end of the day it is just speculation. I see what you mean though and there clearly was some luck involved. Although Spurs still did so much for Bale. Restoring his confidence after a poor start must have been tough.

 

[zahidf]

Kelvin Mckenzie has been suspended by the Sun. Unfortunately, its not by his neck from the nearest lampost. He really is an odious c**t.

[pink_triangle]

2 minutes ago, zahidf said:

Kelvin Mckenzie has been suspended by the Sun. Unfortunately, its not by his neck from the nearest lampost. He really is an odious c**t.

Everton banned the sun as well, which I assume is a cumulative thing, rather than just this.

While I won't stretch to sympathy for McKenzie, I don't think it's impossible that he didn't know his background. I personally didn't know myself 

[zahidf]

21 minutes ago, pink_triangle said:

Everton banned the sun as well, which I assume is a cumulative thing, rather than just this.

While I won't stretch to sympathy for McKenzie, I don't think it's impossible that he didn't know his background. I personally didn't know myself 

Probably should have researched the man before he attacked him in a national paper and compared him to a gorilla

[pink_triangle]

No sympathy here, I doubt that there were racial undertones to his comments, but he has got away with plenty before.

[Wooderson]

Is the S*n's money and influence still so important that the likes of Wednesday/Forest/Utd couldn't ban them too if fan opinion leaned that direction?

[kaosmark2]

Worth pointing out that the editor okayed the article before it got published.

Suspending Mckenzie is just PR.

Edited April 15, 2017 by kaosmark2

[eFestivals]

7 hours ago, kaosmark2 said:

Worth pointing out that the editor okayed the article before it got published.

Suspending Mckenzie is just PR.

also worth pointing out that the editor doesn't have the authority to sack McKenzie, and has to refer it upwards to Rupert personally.

So, given McKenzie's past as editor, i don't think it's unreasonable to think the article wasn't put thru the normal editorial process - either it was never looked at, or it was waved thru without consideration of what it said, or everything of what it said was recognised but the editorial team didn't think it could be challenged because of who McKenzie is.

So actually, I'm going to give the editor mostly a free pass on this. He/she could have done better, but when the editor doesn't have control or authority over all staff it's not the normal thing.

It's not like what happened in this particular instance  is the decider for whether the sun is a fair and reasonable newspaper, anyway.

 

Edited April 16, 2017 by eFestivals

[JSmurphy]

Perhaps a little biased since he's my all-time favourite player, but I really enjoyed Frank Lampard on MOTD. 

[ThomThomDrum]

Chelski making hard work of this league they should have wrapped up

[DareToDibble]

Rashford was fantastic today. I've never really got the deal with him before but today he was the difference.

Still think Chelsea will win the league but you're right - they're certainly making hard work of it!