Football Topic

[ECG]

Wooo!
FCA won 3-1 at Gladbach today to lock up 5th place and an automatic place in the European Group phase next season!
VfB also managed to get a win at Paderborn to stay up. Terrible year for Stuttgart, but at least they managed to avoid relegation thanks to Huub Stevens.

 

[Pierre]

So we're only a few days away and the hysteria is kicking in, Sky Sports are killing a full day on their news channel by visiting all 92 league clubs in a day.

What are your hopes and expectations for the season?

Personally we have to go one better than last year and just go for automatic promotion, I can't bear the torture of playoffs again. As much as a good day out it was, and a great experience, it was torturous. The signing of Downing is massive for us, we're also expected to announced Uruguay international Christian Stuani soon (played in the Copa America recently!). The Jordan Rhodes thing is becoming one of my most hated aspects of football, a 'transfer saga' - either way we need a good striker.

Anything else standing out in football in general for you? I like the progress Louis Van Gaal is making in the transfer window and Man Utd could become serious challengers again this season. Arsenal had a strong finish to last season and have continued that with the Charity Shield win over Chelsea a couple days ago. Cech is also a fantastic signing, I feel Arsenal have severely lacked a decent keeper for years.

Any kits that stand out? Chelsea will take a bit of getting used to without Samsung on the front! Likewise Man Utd with Adidas. Norwich third kit looks like a McDonalds uniform lol...

Boro have gone for a bright yellow and Navy away kit which has divided the fans here.

Also lastly, Iain has renewed the Coasterforce league on fantasy.premierleague.com and I think he'll need to post the code here so more people can join, I actually won it last year taking the crown of Harvey which he has held for some considerable time!

 

[Smithy]

I reckon you and Derby are the favourites to go up, both have very strong squads and did well last season.

Think we'll actually have a title challenge this year but still fall way short. Hoping United fail massively and Van Gaal is exposed as a fraud.

 

[ECG]

Not expecting much, but you never know with the Spurs. I'm mostly interested in seeing if Harry Kane can repeat what he produced last year.

 

[ATTACKHAMMER]

Cambridge have gone from strength to strength, bringing in some exciting new players. League 1 here we come!

 

[caffeine_demon]

"Norwich third kit looks like a McDonalds uniform lol..."

It's pretty hideous isn't it?

 

[Colossus]

So we're back in the Premier League after a few years and I think it is obvious what the target is, survival.
Not many people are giving us any hope of achieving this, I have been reading a lot of predictions over the last week and probably 9 out of 10 pundits have predicted us to go straight back down.

However I'm reasonably positive we can stay up, we have a few advantages that some other promoted club over the years don't, for a start our owners, the Pozzo's understand the business of football vary well, they have taken Udinese in to Europe over the last few years and turned Granada into a La Liga BBVA regular staple.
Now factor in the Watford can make more money than both of these teams can dream of just by finishing 17th, you could say that Watford may well be the priority in the Pozzo empire?
Perhaps if we are bottom at Christmas we might get Antonio Di Natalie in January? Seriously though they're understanding of football and they're scouting network are a help, being part of this empire definitely gives us a slight boost.

We also have plenty of goals in us, yes it will be harder than last season, but we will get goals as long as Troy Deeney is on it.
It will be really difficult for sure, but I think it is possible.

Whatever happens Vicarage Road is now on FIFA 16 and that is all the really matters


As for the rest of football I'll drop in some predictions...

Premier League
1 - Chelsea
2 - Manchester City
3 - Arsenal
4 - Manchester United
5 - Spurs
6 - Liverpool
18 - Aston Villa
19 - Leicester City
20 - Bournemouth

Championship
1 - Derby County
2 - Middlesbrough
3 - QPR (P)
4 - Nottingham Forest
5 - Hull City
6 - Bristol City
22 - Birmingham City
23 - Preston NE
24 - Rotherham United

League 1
1 - Wigan Athletic
2 - Swindon Town
3 - Sheffield United
4 - Bradford City
5 - Peterborough United (P)
6 - Millwall
21 - Crewe
22 - S(badword)orpe: United
23 - Walsall
24 - Blackpool


League 2
1 - Portsmouth
2 - Wycombe Wanderers
3 - Northampton Town
4 - Stevenage (P)
5 - L*t*n Town
6 - Yeovil Town
7 - Notts county
23 - Hartlepool United
24 - York City

FA Cup - Arsenal
League Cup - Tottenham
Champions League - Bayern Munich
Europa League - Borussia Dortmund
La Liga - Barcelona
Bundesliga - Bayern Munich
Serie A - Juventus
Lique 1 - PSG

 

[Nemesis Inferno]

Personally I think Watford will go down, mostly because of the mass amount of players brought in with zero experience of the league with the need to gel together... It's what nearly hot Palace relegated when we first came up too...

There is a great sense of optimism in South London this season, probably helped by some rather decent signings, meaning we've gone from a solid first eleven that picks itself to a solid squad... I don't envy Pardew at all with the decisions this season, but its a great problem to have, especially in midfield...

Hopefully a cup run is on the books for this season too...

 

[Chris Brown]

Not sure if there is a CF PL Fantasy Football league so I've gone and made one anyway!

Here's the PIN; 244978-458017

Also Colossus are you a Spurs fan? No way they'll get 5th above Saints + Liverpool

 

[Colossus]

Haha no I'm a Watford fan, but I think Spurs will finish above Liverpool and easily above Southampton.

 

[Dave]

Well after another disappointing season (lowest league position ever in our history) hoping we can get promoted at least, whether that's champions, 2nd or 3rd of playoffs.
Optimism is high around Portsmouth with new manager, new squad, new crest, new look to the ground. Hard to see why the bookies are carried away thinking we're going to walk the title, but it won't be the Pompey way if we're not dished out disappointment!

 

[Pierre]

Not sure if there is a CF PL Fantasy Football league so I've gone and made one anyway!

Here's the PIN; 244978-458017

Also Colossus are you a Spurs fan? No way they'll get 5th above Saints + Liverpool

There already is one... 248407-66979.

 

[jj23w]

Happy that West Ham one their first official game against Arsenal. COYI

 

[Colossus]

Vary happy with a point at Goodison, looks like we played well and deserved it.
Nearly had all 3 but a point up there is solid, great start.

 

[caffeine_demon]

We wuz robbed - Bloomin' ref!

 

[Nemesis Inferno]

Was a dreadful decision, but I think everyone tends to forget in a lot of cases that the refs get one shot at making the decision... We can analyse every incident for 45 minutes (plus adverts) from pretty much every single angle, the ref gets one angle, and I think from his angle, it looked like Ward's head was a lot closer to Jerome's foot than realised...

That Chris Sutton said "it's the worst decision you'll see all season" however, is somewhat of an over-reaction slightly... Because it was arguably dangerous as Jerome wasn't in control of the ball, especially as everyone compared it to Pelle's effort last season, where he had full control... Add heads and other limbs flying in and any contact between Jerome's foot would cause injury...

It was a similar situation in the Chelsea game, where the ref's angle meant that he (correctly) gave the penalty and red card, sure there was another incident too but I've forgotten it... Jamie Redknapp's bollocks about how "it wasn't a goal-scoring chance" made me laugh, given that Gomis was pretty much through with only potentially Cahill to knock the ball past...

 

[ECG]

Where's Smithy? Wanted to hear about the great start and the fantastic goalkeeping on display.
Just kidding bud! Not what anyone expected and I'm sure that was a one off for Petr Cech. I think pundits have got it right however - they do need to adapt their playing style when needed.
As for Spurs - about what I expected. :roll:

 

[Chris Brown]

As for Spurs - about what I expected. :roll:

Watched most of that game and thought spurs deserved to come away with something at least. Only other game I watched was Liverpool - stoke which proved a good result (im a Liverpool fan) however I still feel that Liverpool have a habit of playing like England. Back passes and almost too much possession that leads to nothing. Coutinho's moment of magic really did save our skin. Excited to see how Benteke plays with good service against Bournemouth next week.

As for tonight's game I can see Pulis' men getting a good result. My money would probably be on them to win actually. An aging city squad with Aguero and silva unlikely to play which likely means sterling will start as a lone striker. Will certainly be interesting to watch anyway. I predict 1-0 to WBA.

 

[Smithy]

Where's Smithy? Wanted to hear about the great start and the fantastic goalkeeping on display.
Just kidding bud! Not what anyone expected and I'm sure that was a one off for Petr Cech. I think pundits have got it right however - they do need to adapt their playing style when needed.
As for Spurs - about what I expected. :roll:

I've not bought into the mostly media driven hype that we've somehow favourites for the league solely because we've signed Cech, and what happened yesterday was what's happened to us time and time again. If we concede the first goal we're so easy to play against because you just pack the middle, force us to either play through you and out number us or force us to play it out wide and then cross it where you can outnumber Giroud. Ferguson used to be the master at employing this tactic against us and it's a shame we've not learnt from it.

Cech's first was a shocking error for any top level keeper to make, I'm still trying to understand the second.

But yeah, I expected better

 

[DelPiero]

Ferguson used to be the master at employing this tactic against us and it's a shame we've not learnt from it.
Cech's first was a shocking error for any top level keeper to make, I'm still trying to understand the second.
But yeah, I expected better

So delicious.