haaa haa haaa. don't get me started on "goal line technology" or i'll start foaming at the mouth. the pricks on fox sports are always crying for it and i scream back NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! at the tv.

I'm not sure where I stand on that issue. A device for proving whether a ball has crossed the line seems fine and would have minimal impact on the flow of the game but I'm less convinced by arguments for other applications, such as replays being used to determine if a player is offside or handled the ball. Fans moaning about bad refereeing decisions is a fundamental part of the game, for me. But that wears thin if a team are relegated or fail to qualify for a major tournament or lose a final because of a decision that could've easily been overturned by an off-pitch official with a tv monitor. I'm still undecided.

i'm cool with extra refs, but why turn what is basically a street game with computers and shit. like, is a buzzer supposed to sound when the ball "officially" enters the goal? anyway, what i'd hate hate hate for it to become is something like american hand-ovoid in which after every play there is a meeting of lawyers who try to interpret the footage of the game so that they can make a public decision before the audience-- fucking preposterous.

anyway, hm, juventus, oh, gotta love'em.

I'm for goal line technology. It'd take less than a minute for a decision to be made and it'll make a big difference. Too many games have been ruined by a goal being dis/allowed.

As for extra refs there have been games where a linesman has been pretty much next to the goal post and they've made the wrong decision.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPYNpo0FFd4

This being a perfect example.

problem is, after that, it's gonna be for offsides, fouls, handballs, throw-ins, and if they took off their shirt or not after the goal. once the door opens there is no way to close it and you end up with a fucking disaster.

but yeah i see your point. i do. i just think the potential for harm to the game is much greater than the potential for redress of deficient calls.

Spurs Vs West Ham - View from the opposition.

Courtesy of my friend Vinny, and me. Im the one who writes more than 4 sentences for each answer by the way

Haha, great piece! Very fair. And I'm glad someone from another side is finally noticing Noble. For me, he's our player of the season so far, arguably even more than Nolan. And yeah, if Big Sam wasn't in charge I don't think we'd be being described as a long ball team any more than most other clubs at the moment. Our defence is pretty solid, though, making us one of the few genuinely difficult teams to beat in the Prem right now.

And couldn't agree more about the press focusing on AVB when the real blow was you losing Modric. And yet I have to say, it isn't just the press or rival fans. Football phone ins are full of Spurs fans complaining about AVB. I just think he's one of those managers whose personality will always wind fans up the moment things aren't going too well.

Thanks. I wanted to make it as fun as i could...
I cant fucking stand 606 too. All Spurs fans sound like squealing ids with no conception of the wider world, slagging AVB off like he's just walked into a jacuzzi with Scarlett Johansson and failed to get a hardon.

I hate 606 but can't not listen to it. Did you hear it when they had Johnny Vaughn co host it with Robbie Savage, about a month ago? Even I was on the brink with that. The worst radio ever. And West Ham fans are no better on it. Misty eyed recollections of the 'West Ham Way', etc. Alan Green's the worst though. Totally contradicts himself and then comes off all super defensive when anyone calls him out on it. Danny Baker's the only one I have time for. And the Football Ramble podcast. I listen to most of the podcasts to be fair. I used to like The Game until the insufferable Gab Marcotti took over as host. That man can single handedly set my blood pressure soaring.

hot fucking dam gomez finally returns to the bundesliga and scores after 26 seconds. FUCK YES.

Just fuck off. Fucking twats.

is that for the man u / qpr game or what?

--

meanwhile, dortmund/mainz is shaping up nicely by halftime. sweet lil' match. mmm-mmm-mmm!

ps- how come aston villa and west ham have the same uniforms? CONFUSING.

Nah the bloody everton game. Three games we've conceded in the last 10 minutes and caused a draw. Crock of shit.

Roll on Arsenal on Wednesday :s

oh man. sorry.

just watched the arsenal/west ham-- i mean, aston villa game, ha ha, and i can't believe how much arsenal fucking sucks. SUCKS!

i'm trying to figure out why and i can't understand why they suck so much. aston villa should have won. but anyway, looking good for you next week!

On the way back from 5aside on monday nights we listen to stan colleymore on some bonkers phone in. Theres not many calls to be fair, just alot of stan being a prick. It can be hilarious and infuriating at the same time

Villa had the strip first. The legend goes that one of West Ham's players bet a Villa player he could beat him in a race, which he did. The Villa player had no money so gave him his shirt, which the West Ham player brought back to West Ham with him, where it was seen by the owners, who liked it and decided to copy it. One of those useless bits of information that I'm so glad I at last have a reason to share.

I actually quite like Johnny Vaughn, he's not the leering laddish idiot that Tim Lovejoy is, i guess because he's actually been through real struggles in his life - he was in prison for a time when he was younger.

As for me, i went to see the mighty Brentford claim a strong 2-0 win over Sheffield United today. £23 for League One football is bloody steep, but i saw a very impressive first half performance and a great goal from Harry Forrester.

￡23 is ridiculous! Palace cost less than that!

Thats leafy West London for you. I only went cos my friend's a season ticket holder and it was his birthday. Its a nice place to watch a game, and it was a good match so im pretty happy all things considered. Altogether i spent about £35 on that today, but the entertainment was pretty good.

The pricing at a lot of lower league clubs is even more scandalous than it is for some in the Prem. AFC Wimbledon charge £22, and they're struggling to stay in div 2, ffs!!!

That is West London prices though, AFC are a very middle class club

Hats off to Spurs today. Besides everything else, Bale simply tore us apart. I'm just glad Carroll managed to convert all his past efforts into finally getting on the score sheet but, team for team, West Ham just weren't able to stop this Spurs side going forward. So now it's Man U on Wednesday then Chelsea on Saturday. A single point from those two is all I can possibly hope for, optimistically.

And anyone hear the boos Rafa got at Chelsea? I expected some show of annoyance from the fans but I'm actually surprised at just how loud and sustained it was. That and the "only one Di Matteo" chant that seemed to last for the whole match.

i feel sorry for chelsea fans. their club is so fucked up that they must have forgoten what its like to support a normal, sensible club.


on that note (!) Palace's 14 game unbeaten run came to an end against the dirty leeds on saturday. I knew we had a tough few games coming up and i knew we weren't gonna win every game for the rest of the season so its all good. Really interested to see how we bounce back from this. we need to get back to winning ways and keep the pressure on Cardif

over the past few years we have tended to be at one end of the table at christmas, only to get to the other end pretty quickly. only to end up mid table at the end

Yeah, there's something very classless about Chelsea now. Not just the Di Matteo thing but the Terry situation, the Clattenburg accusations, the way Abramovich is chasing Guardiola like some love struck teenager. No club is whiter than white (least of all West Ham) but Chelsea are now nothing more than an embarrassment to the Prem. I'll be amazed if Guardiola goes anywhere near them and will lose any respect I had for him if he does.

not to rub it in, but...

http://dasbootblog.wordpress.com/201...ticket-prices/

okay, YES to rub it in, haaa haaa haa. hm. eh. sorry!

season ticket price:
http://bundesligafootball.co.uk/2012...ticket-prices/

fan strike???

I can't see a strike. Most fans are now resigned to the fact that they simply can't afford to watch football other than on TV, which is obviously great news for Sky.

And yes, the Bundesliga may lack the glamour of some other leagues but as a business model it has to be the future.

i don't know about glamour-- the bundesliga matches are great. i really enjoy them more than the prem. i know you've spoken of the "intensity" of the prem but when the german fans chant i hear another story. and look at how all 3 german teams made it to the next round of the champions.

and of course no need for strikes-- the market self-regulates in the form of empty stadiums when people can't/won't afford tickets. "glamour" teams are also up to their nostrils in debt, and the bubble has to eventually burst. maybe tv revenue is enough to pay for the extravagance, maybe it's a money-laundering scheme where it doesn't matter if teams lose money as long as the mafioso owners can legitimize their wealth.

BTW speaking of that i posted in the movie thread that i had watched "the two escobars" on netflix. this is an ESPN film that might not be available outside of the US, but if you can catch it, have a look-- it was-- wow. i think the full movie is/might be on youtube.

oh yeah:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1VBawGN85Y

watch it. you'll be saying "daaaaaaamn!" or whatever is teh british equivalent of that expression. it's really fucking good, even though the word "soccer" is used way too often.

ps- watched "moneyball" the other day. maybe the germans have caught on w/ that scheme.

Thanks for the link. Football and druglords. Could a documentary have a better theme? What did you think of moneyball? Lots of debate about how football-friendly the whole idea is. I loved the movie, though.

As for the Bundesliga, I simply haven't seen enough to really compare it with the Prem. Saying that, the quality in the Prem has definitely taken a dip. It's amazing that Man C and Man U top the league playing the way they are so far this season. I wonder if the title winner this time will be nothing more than the least mediocre team. But all leagues have periods like that. Good thing for the Prem, when the off-pitch quality falls off the boil there's always the behind the scenes drama to fill in.

Yeah this season has been an odd season. Sorry to reference my team Everton but a few seasons ago they couldn't have drawn as many games as they have so far, and still be in 5th place.

And yeah I agree with you about City and United and Chelsea tbh with you. For all the money and incredible (well should be) they're hardly setting the world on fire like Barcelona, Athlectico Madrid or Dortmund are at the moment. Strange season.

Yeah I feel a bit bad. I've been boosting it to el Symbols and he sees it at its worst. It's like somebody convincing someone to listen to Sonic Youth by telling them all about Confusion is Sex, just as they release Rather Ripped.

And yeah, as with Everton, same with West Ham. Everton are capitalising on draws just as West Ham just as WH are doing OK by not trying to convince their defenders they're actually wingers in disguise.

moneyball was great---sorkin fucking rules. movie slowed down a bit near the end but the whole nerd approach was pretty great. have you watched sports night yet? it features another sports computer geek-- hilarious.

anyway i don't know if the idea can trasnfer so well to football cuz it's not so based on statistics the way baseball is, and has been, for over a century i think, but when you think about the "price per goal" of reus vs. cronaldo, you begin to wonder if dortmund at least is not using a similar approach. of course reus looks like a wet chicken and cronaldo looks like he waxes his chest, so madrid is probably paying a premium for his looks (something that came up in moneyball when the scouts discuss prospects).

speaking of dortmund, and tons of money (which theyd on't have), i haven't been able to watch a lot of man u games-- have they been using kagawa? i think dortmund misses him. i know they've been brilliant in the champions but they are about 4th place in the bundesliga-- they could easily climb back up though.

luckily there are people of good sense like gotze (his dad is an engineering professor so he prolly has intelligent genes) who value things other than raw money-- while the world was hyping him up he signed a contract with dortmund through (or till?) 2016. so at least he's safe and among friends.

meanwhile, arsenal wants to poach huntelaar from schalke. bah! from a rising team to a sinking one (but okay, cazorla is great)

Yeah, the first two thirds of Moneyball was definitely where it's at. I've got Sport's Night on my Lovefilm (Netflix equiv.) list so I'm just waiting for it to arrive.

And yeah, I think football's far too fluid for the moneyball idea to really apply. Unless, as you say, it's just about buying no frills value for money players, which has obviously been going on long before moneyball arrived. And in terms of price per goal, look no further than Torres who, at 50m, must've cost Chelsea close to 5 million a goal so far!!!

Kagawa's still injured but when I saw him he looked fantastic.

As for intelligent, non-money obsessed players, they're definitely at a premium in the Prem. I honestly can't think of a single one who wouldn't leave for a club willing to pay them far more than what they're already getting at their current club. Loyalty seems measurable only in terms of how much more they'd ask for before moving elsewhere.Prem footballers are like those Thai hookers who'll be your girlfriend only until someone else arrives willing to pay them more.

don't expect sports night to be some kind of awesome thing-- it did win plenty of critical acclaim in its day but it's still a 30-minute late-90s network tv sitcom (sitcom of sorts... not sure what's called)-- though it foreshadows the west wing in so many ways.

re: stats-- i've seen a rise of those in football, or maybe i didn't watch european football before but the display of miles traveled or passes completed etc. is new to me. this could open the door to a moneyball-style analysis. don't they have those shoes with microchips now? that's gotta change the way people look at teams. me i'm always noticing the defenders who score at corner kicks-- who keeps tabs on that?

in any case... loyalty in the prem... hm... gerrard? i suppose there are a few players who are connected to their teams/towns-- but loyalty has to go both ways, i.e., teams have to treat players like something other than mere commodities, otherwise it's like the battered wife who's afraid to leave the marriage. if a team treats you like a piece of meat with skills you should be entitled to treat it like an ATM in return.

There's been a rise in stat information relating to football in recent years. I'm not sure why. Most likely just the broadening of its appeal. English fans have traditionally not been that preoccupied with tactics, etc, and stats are still looked upon largely as an unwelcome import from US sports. Things like assists were never even recorded. I'm wary of the value of stats but a bit of a geek when it comes to tactics. I dunno. I'm in the minority, I think, but not as much as before. For me, though, it's just another aspect of the game to obsess over. My cousin, who's about as big a fan of West Ham as it's possible to be, couldn't tell one formation from another but can read a game better than anyone I know.

In terms of loyalty, Gerrard seems like an obvious one but even he nearly went to Chelsea a few years ago. Carragher might be a better example, but then I don't know if he was ever actually given a big money offer from another club. Loyalty's easy when it's never tested. In terms of current players with reputations that could've likely taken them anywhere, the best example I can think of is Paul Scholes. Still for me the best English player of his generation and he's never, to my knowledge, showed any sign of leaving Man Utd, even though just about every top side in Europe has wanted him at some point.

Just look at the praise heaped on him by his peers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzg6cR0lONw

i think with the Man Utd players (Giggs, Scoles and Gary Neville) they were fortunate enough to be "loyal" to a really successful club who could afford to pay them enough keep them loyal.
Gerrard was linked with Chelsea just before Liverpool won the Champions League. I'm guessing he thought the club would be on the brink of another succesfull period and decided to stay, and be a hero (they came close 2nd in the league a few seasons after i think?). Carragher was in the same boat and i think the way the club sucks his dick it would take alot of money to lure him away from that. he has a big ego. But i dont remember him being linked to another club?

Mat LeTissier is the definiton of loyalty. Anyone who hasn't come across this magician should YouTube him. one of the greatest players to ever play in the Premiership. His loyalty kept him at relegation battling Southampton, and many feel he sacrificed his International career by staying at the club

Rep and a double rep.

Is the right answer.

To El Symbols, watch the goal at 2:08 and imagine what would've been said about it had a Brazilian scored it. It wasn't even a one off. Le Tissier was doing things like that week after week in the 90s.

In fairness though, as well as being one of the most skillful English players, he was also one of the laziest. I don't ever remember seeing him tackle anybody. But as a pure goalscorer he was almost in Ronaldo's class. And he wasn't even a striker!!!

bayern just beat freiburg 2-0, first was a penalty kick, then tymoschuk scored from an awesome long ball by lahm. it wasn't a great game or anything but if i understood correctly bayern are now "fall champions" in the bundesliga with 3 game dates to go before the winter break.

best news though is that BAYERN/DORTMUND PLAY THIS SATURDAY. holy fuck that's gonna be good. try to catch it if you can.

--

ps just spent 2 hours off work so will reply later re: the math, loyalty, etc.

What a boring set of midweek games in the Prem. The only remotely impressive display seemed to be from Spurs. And if Benitez sticks with Torres up front for the remainder of the season (which I assume he's basically hired to do) they'll be lucky if they make the top four. They should just accept that he's never gonna find his form again, sell him for whatever they can get and move on. It's not the first time a big signing hasn't worked out (Ballack, Veron, Shevchenko, Forlan, Arshavin, Carroll, De Gea). Abramovich seems to be sacrificing an entire team's chances in the hope that Torres will eventually work out. He won't.

And that eight year contract for Pardew (stupid to begin with) looks even more miss-judged at the moment.