Moyes is definitely a risk but, besides being very close to Fergie, I think he fits the owners requirements. He won't rock the boat and will look at things long term, neither of which would be the case with Mourinho. I agree that it really could be disastrous for Everton, though. Besides the likelihood of them losing key players, who will replace Moyes? I bet Martinez will be one of the first in the frame, and I can see O'Neil being mentioned, too. I like Everton so I hope they don't go for either. And (sit down and take a deep breath before reading this next bit) what if, as we expect, Stoke parts company with Pulis this summer?!?!?!? But who instead? I dunno. Maybe look abroad? But Kenwright just doesn't have the money to attract a replacement of Moyes' calibre.

No way would MU go for Rafa. He's probably even less popular there than he is at Chelsea, and with Fergie still sticking around in the back room, there's no way would they work together. Benitez at Everton would be interesting but would an ex Liverpool manager ever be accepted at Goodison? And again, I doubt Kenwright has enough money to tempt him anyway.

You know who he could afford, though, and he's currently 'between jobs' ...
































(sorry)

Martinez can suck my hairy balls. I honestly cannot stand that guy and what has he done? Spent the last few seasons trying to keep Wigan out of relegation and he looks set to fail on that one.
I don't get this hatred (yes call me a hypocrite given my *ahem* dislike of Suarez) for Benitez. So what if he managed Liverpool? He's a great manager and I'd have him in a flash, but that's obviously a pipe dream. I could see Martin O'Neill doing alright though.

On the Everton forum I go on there's talk of Pereia who's supposedly out of contract soon. I'll admit to having never heard of the guy so can't make a comment on him.

The thing is, Moyes is one of the highest paid managers in the Premier League, the only problem is that he gets no money to spend. So they could spend a bit on a new manager. The question is which manager would want to go to a team where he'd be painfully constrained financially?

My personal (realistic) dream? Neil Lennon or Ian Holloway;)

aaaannnnddd breathe.

And McClaren? Give us some credit!

Haha. I was joking about McLaren. Pereia would be an interesting one. As you say, it's not the wages that are the issue but the transfer budget and I'm not sure what he's used to at Porto. I can't stand Martinez, either. Can't put my finger on why but he just irritates the fuck out of me. O'Neil, too. The media love him but he plays the most boring football and seems to alienate half the squad of any side he manages.

I really like Rafa, I just wasn't sure how his Liverpool connection would go down with most Everton fans. But as you say, he'll be looking for a club with serious money anyway.

Palace Brighton in the championship playoff semi final first leg
Bricking it

God this whole Moyes thing is doing my nut in. At work the football fans are eith Liverpool, Everton or Man Utd. followers and all I've heard all day is them throwing names around and speculating. Everything right now is just guesses and it's getting boring.

Best names thrown around? Mark Hughes (puke), Sven (hmmm) and best of all Graham Souness! Fantastic.

oh shit so man u stole your coach? fuck! i'm glad they didn't get klopp (i had read rumo(u)rs)

(that "u" was for you ingleses cuz it's not used here in 'merica)

okay. so very sorry about that.

Yeah they did. It had been rumored for months and speculated but never believed for years.

And with all that what did the chairman of Everton Bill Kenwright say? That he had no idea that Moyes might've ended up going. How far do you have to have your head in the sand to not realise that? Pillock.

Fuck. 0-0 at home. Gonna be tough at their place and Murray looks like he'll be out too

I really want Palace to go up. Losing Murray is massive, though.


And I thought mentioning McLaren was cruel. Can't see either Sven or Souness but Hughes is frighteningly possible. Martinez still seems favourite but isn't Phil Neville in the frame now too? God, what a horrible set of options. I hope for your sake it's Pereira or Laudrup but it does increasingly look like it's between Hughes and Martinez.

Phil Neville really needs to start at the bottom and work his way up.There's no way he should be allowed to barely finish his managing course then manage a premier league team. As for Martinez, we'll see.

Martinez would be ok. You could do alot worse (see above)

I'd take Holloway!

Im not convinced by him. Our form has been pretty poor since he came, which may not be entirely his fault but some of his decisions have been a bit baffling.
And we havent been playing the flowing attacking football his reputation carries

Yeah, I never know what to think of Holloway. But the media love him so he gets cut a lot of slack. Still hope Palace go up, though. They've become 1000 times more likeable for me since Simon Jordan left.

On another note, I still can't believe the FA Cup is being played a week before the end of the season. It's bad enough a league game is being played on the same day but the possibility of Wigan resting players so they're fit for their final league games is an embarrassment.

EDIT: Malaga's Pelegrina being named as Mancini's replacement at Man City!!! At last.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2...anchester-city

Yeah it's pretty shit to be honest. I was in complete denial about the F.A cup's draw decreasing but it's clearly there. Still don't understand why it's been scheduled like this.

As for Wigan, well I think they've no chance of winning what with their defence being lamer than topshop selling Sonic Youth t-shirts, so I suspect they're gonna put their all into staying up.

So Mancini is actually gonna go? Jeez. He wins he premier league last season, he's likely to win the F.A Cup (faded lustre aside) and they still kick him out? What's a man gotta do! It's just bullshit how managers are expected to win everything every season. And honestly it's down to the players' shocking lack of drive this season not Mancini.

I have to disagree about Mancini. He can't take all the blame but with that squad he should've walked the Prem this season and, given their opponents in this year's FA Cup are on the cusp of relegation, we can hardly treat that making the final, or even winning it, as any real gauge of overall success. And City's showing in the CL has been terrible for a team of that size and standard of players.

Yeah, Vitor Pereira is the worst manager Porto has had in a long time. After Villas-Boas he had big shoes to fill in and from the beginning there never was much empathy with the fans. There's a chance that might change if they overtake Benfica tonight, but in all likelihood he'll leave at the end of the season.

The Liga title match is tonight at 20:30. Should be a good one with a chance of nastiness.

oh mang, bayern munich played its first team today vs. augsburg, who are fighting relegation. augsburg put up a good fight, but in the end got clocked 3-0 in the 2nd half.

If you were Wigan would you rather win the cup or stay up?

Stay up, but as they look pretty nailed on to go down I'm glad they've had something to celebrate, even if I can't stand Martinez. I don't dislike him as much as Mancini, though, so I take double delight in seeing him walk away with nothing.

Wow. Wigan totally deserved that. Now Arsenal and Aston Villa to stay up. They don't make it easy for themselves!

That squad have acted like they don't give a shit for pretty much half the season. They need to stop playing like they can just walk every game and show some drive. Prick

I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt by thinking you meant to put an 's' at the end of 'prick'

But yeah. I could accept that if it wasn't about players like Kompany, Hart, Tevez, Yaya Toure, who if nothing else are usually pretty driven, by anyone's standards. Just as happened at Chelsea with Villas-Boas, I think Mancini's completely demoralised that team. The way he dealt with Balotelli, and Tevez, showing clear favouratism and going back on his word, his undermining of Kompany. I think he'd pretty much lost the dressing room before the end of even last season.

Haha yeah I did sorry....prick :p

Don't worry. I once unconsciously put an x under my name on an email to a work colleague I barely knew. Very awkward.
x

Fuck me

Nnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggggggggggg

So glad Palace won and they're definitely the team I'll be supporting in the final.

Most of us City fans think he was due to go last year, before United's end-of-season collapse did so much to give us the title.

This season has been characterised by a seriously lame title defence, very poor Champions league campaign (admittedly in a tough group, but we are meant to be one of the tough teams now) and a host of summer signings that have done nothing.

Mancini has seemingly been unable to get tough performances out of the squad, last year's team spirit looking to often like a thing of the past. Not standing by players like Dzeko and Pantilimon (whose exclusion for the cup final was bizarre and hints at something wrong) hasn't helped.

Not sure about this Senor Pellegrini though.

Oh, and the clubs handling of the Tevez driving affair was, I think, entirely inappropriate.

City won the title last year despite five losses and five draws and despite being somewhat less than impressive this year, they will finish second. If I cared at all about the Premier League entity, I would be seriously worried about what that says about the other so-called contenders and the quality of the competition as a whole.

Most City fans I hear ringing up stations like Talksport seem gutted he's going but I agree with you. It may be simplistic but if proven top quality players suddenly stop performing the buck has to stop with the manager (just as they'll rightly take credit when they do perform).

as a spanish speaker, gotta say, that's one of the most awesome names ever.

comes out meaning something like "lemon panties"

i've found myself repeating that word often, in my head, after i first heard it: "pantilimón... pantilimón... pantilimón... pantilimón... "

great fucking name.

---

anyway the failure of mancini hadn't really sank in with me until recently but (i've said this before) with players like that to perform so poorly is a real shame. compare vs. klopp's ragtag team barely held by spit and bailing wire: 4 great players (2 still a bit green) and a decent enough supporting cast, and they are at the CL finals.

now, please don't take klopp away from dortmund.

I don't get. He won the league last year and came 2nd this year! You cant win everything every year, thats just not realistic

you can't win all, but don't you think he's underperforming given his awesome squad and deep bench though? he's got enough players for 2 good teams i reckon.

I don't think coming 2nd in both your countries major competitions is underperforming.

If it was to do with their shit CL form then why didn't they sack him months ago when they went out?

are they kicking him out now? i wasn't aware of this. i know demoño has been calling for his head since last year.

actually i liked them last year. this year watching them was zzzzzzzz, so i didn't do it much-- especially after balotelli left!

(here seen vs. weidenfeller)

I'm not a City supporter but they've always been my 'second' team (along with Everton - must be something about liking the more unfashionable big city clubs, which I suppose stems from supporting West Ham). Anyway, I was as happy as any non City fan could be about their new-found success so my anti-Mancini thing certainly isn't an anti Man City one. I'd love to see them topple Chelsea and MU so my frustration with Mancini is that he had all the resources to do it but not the necessary people skills.

I also noticed that he became increasingly 'eccentric' on a tactical level. Replacing Tevez for Rodwell in the final was just the latest example but his season-long tinkering with the defence was a big problem; really undermining what was one of their key strengths the season before.

I've heard good things about Pellegrini but it's always a lottery. There's certainly nothing to say they won't go backwards with him but I do think Mancini had taken them as far as he was capable of - which in fairness to him, given that he delivered them an FA Cup and a Prem title is pretty far. But I think it's his poor record in the CL that really did for him in the end.

It shouldn't be but if you compared City's squad with any other in the league, it ca't be seen as anything else.


I was under the impression they'd been sounding out managers all season. The owners were just waiting for the right guy to become available.

i just read a bbc article, it says it was due to "poor communications with the players".

which you've been saying since like forever! (yes, i am a witness).

you're hereby officially my premiere league oracle. 'zat cool?

can you help me pick a team to watch? i almost liked liverpool but they disappointed. you mentioned i might like spurs, should i follow spurs? i like attacking teams who win not bus-parkers. i like a bit of finesse, southamerican tikitaka style, but not pointless passing.

kindly recommend. fucking suarez! i could have liked liverpool... i really could have...

ps- i kinda like swansea too-- fuckers just can't finish!

Alleluia!! Sweet by and by we were waiting for you to finally stop apologizing for that dirty ass player!!