The English Football Thread

[Fulham Broadway 17,299]

At least Sky and the BBC are showing old Chels games

Sp*rs v Chels 2008 

Essien, Maka, Kalou, Joe Cole all superb. 

Cudicinis point blank save from Berbatov when it 4-4 !!

[Special Juan 28,089]

The FA have advised Step 5 and 6 leagues in the UK that the 2019/20 season is over! No decision made yet whether the season will be declared void or if promotions/relegations could still apply.

[BlueLyon 9,359]

Considering plenty of clubs will face quite a few financial burdens because of corona, is it possible that fifa/uefa allows club owners to pay the club debts/losses from their own pockets? You know because of extraordinary circumstances...

[Vesper 30,083]

There will be NO football this summer. Not a chance in hell.

Any planning for the rest of the 2019-20 season is delusional at best.

The season will be null and void, unless they do something insane like extend the season to a two year window with like 60 games en toto between 2019 and 2021.

That cannot happen, as teams bring in transfers, so it would be a false conjoining.

Sorry, but that is the way the corona cookie crumbles.

At least the Scouse vermin will not get their title and we make the CL for next season, whenever that is able to start.

It is quite possible that NEXT season is shot too, at least partially.

Go read up on the Spanish Flu pandemic of 2017-18 to see how long shit can last.

Only a vaccine can sort this.

Do not shoot the messenger.

Stay safe all!!!

We are in for a ROUGH fucking ride.

[Jase 43,479]

 

[Jase 43,479]

Just now, Jason said:

 

 

[Fernando 6,585]

On 3/26/2020 at 3:48 AM, Vesper said:

There will be NO football this summer. Not a chance in hell.

Any planning for the rest of the 2019-20 season is delusional at best.

The season will be null and void, unless they do something insane like extend the season to a two year window with like 60 games en toto between 2019 and 2021.

That cannot happen, as teams bring in transfers, so it would be a false conjoining.

Sorry, but that is the way the corona cookie crumbles.

At least the Scouse vermin will not get their title and we make the CL for next season, whenever that is able to start.

It is quite possible that NEXT season is shot too, at least partially.

Go read up on the Spanish Flu pandemic of 2017-18 to see how long shit can last.

Only a vaccine can sort this.

Do not shoot the messenger.

Stay safe all!!!

We are in for a ROUGH fucking ride.

I would not mind if the season is null and void. I find it hard to believe that will happen but it will be great to see, just for the fact that Liverpool will not get the title. 😀

[Fernando 6,585]

My favourite game: Chelsea v Napoli, Champions League last 16, 2012

 (Left to right) Didier Drogba, John Terry and Frank Lampard celebrate Terry’s goal against Napoli in 2012. There was plenty more drama to come on an emotional night. Photograph: Glyn Kirk/AFP/Getty Images

As this unforgettable night wore on, the teams abandoned their tactical systems and went for the jugular

Eamon Dunphy once described a hectic, high-scoring Premier League encounter as “like watching two drunks fighting in an alley”. He wasn’t being wholly complimentary about that spectacle, but still acknowledged the thrill of seeing two sides cast off any pretence of tactical discipline and go for broke. Dunphy’s phrase came back to me at Stamford Bridge in March 2012. Trailing 3-1 from the first leg in Naples, a 2-0 victory would have sent Chelsea into the Champions League last eight. Walter Mazzarri’s Napoli, playing 3-4-3, arrived aiming to hit on the break.

The context was fascinating. Chelsea’s first-leg defeat hastened the dismissal of André Villa-Boas, lured from Porto less than a year earlier. Roberto Di Matteo took caretaker charge of a battle-hardened team who had hated Villas-Boas’s methods: John Terry, Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba among them. They had an unhappy recent history in the competition, often crashing out in controversial circumstances, complaining bitterly over perceived refereeing injustices.

 

The first thing I remember is the Napoli fans. Bunched in the opposite corner from where I sat, they were like nothing I’d ever seen or heard. As they sang, chanted and gesticulated in perfect unison, the noise filled the arena. Forced to respond, Chelsea’s fans lifted the energy further, creating an electrifying cacophony that was football’s tribalism at its most thrilling.

Napoli began in the ascendancy. Ezequiel Lavezzi and Marek Hamsik operated in a front three alongside the all-action Edinson Cavani, who should have ended Chelsea’s hopes inside 25 minutes. The Uruguayan hit the side netting after Chelsea were cut open with a lightning counterattack, and wasted a three-on-two soon after. Danger was everywhere for Chelsea but they did not lack determination. Against the run of play, Drogba glanced in Ramires’s whipped cross to send Stamford Bridge into delirium. The Blues believed, even more so after half-time when Terry’s header made it 2-0: 3-3 on aggregate. Advantage Chelsea.

Napoli’s midfield schemer Gökhan Inler soon hit back with a masterpiece of a goal, silkily controlling Terry’s half-clearance on his chest, before drilling a measured half-volley beyond the motionless Petr Cech. The volume emanating from those Napoli ultras rocketed off the charts as the hosts, now needing two, contemplated another painful European departure.

 

 

Of course there was more. Andrea Dossena’s handball 15 minutes from time gave Lampard the chance to thump in a penalty, locking the tie at 4-4 overall. Things became increasingly ragged as the players battled to full time in what now resembled a school-playground epic: win possession, attack in numbers, rinse and repeat. Skill levels were high, while defending had become a distant memory as extra time beckoned.

An insanely sharp piece of work by Drogba set up the winner, the Ivorian’s quicksilver turn and cut-back finding the iron-buttocked Branislav Ivanovic – nominally a defender – to deliver the knockout blow. Fittingly, Ivanovic’s shot was all power and little precision, crashing centrally into the roof of the net, leaving Napoli flat on the canvas. “Get in!” yelled Andy Townsend in the commentary box. It was that kind of night.

On several subsequent visits to Naples I’ve come to believe the warmth of the people, the history, and the food and wine combine to create Europe’s greatest city. On their way to the trophy, meanwhile, Chelsea somehow billed themselves as plucky have-a-go heroes rather than the lavishly-funded plaything of a Russian oligarch. They saw off Benfica before Terry’s kick at Alexis Sánchez left them with 10 men at Camp Nou in the semi-finals. They still won. In the final they trailed Bayern Munich, in Munich, before that monstrous Drogba header. The same man slotted the spot-kick that clinched their first European Cup.

 

 

But none of it would have been possible without that mad, attritional, punch-drunk night in London. As an elderly Italian fan remarked to me on the walk to the tube station, it had been “molto emozionante”.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/mar/27/my-favourite-game-chelsea-v-napoli-champions-league-2012

[Vesper 30,083]

Growing appetite for Premier League season to be abandoned on moral grounds

https://theathletic.com/1702521/2020/03/27/coronavirus-premier-league-null-void-abandon/

A number of Premier League clubs want to end the current season with immediate effect and replay it in full once it is deemed safe to do so — even if that means Liverpool being denied a first title in 30 years.

One senior figure told The Athletic it is morally wrong for football to even be discussing playing behind closed doors while the coronavirus crisis is at its peak.

“You look at the people sitting around the Premier League table by Skype; their egos cannot sustain a mirror being held up to them,” they said. “The fact is they are not as important as a Tesco delivery driver at this time. We run a game. No more, no less. There is no place for sport at the moment.”

At a meeting of all 20 top-flight teams last week, there was a “100 per cent” commitment to completing the 2019-20 campaign whatever that may take, including the prospect of staging matches behind closed doors, and the idea of declaring it “null and void” was off the table. That was largely motivated by the possibility of having to pay back £762 million in broadcast revenue which has already been distributed, in addition to issues around competitive integrity.

But privately, some clubs have developed strong reservations about resuming football during the coronavirus crisis and are leaning towards the season being re-run regardless of the consequences.

This was a view initially raised by West Ham United vice-chair Karren Brady on March 14 and in the subsequent Premier League video call, she and Brighton & Hove Albion chief executive Paul Barber sounded a note of caution on the realities of finishing the matches, though there were no dissenting voices.

Yet behind the scenes, it appears there are more who do not share the collective message, with the chairman of another club telling The Athletic he finds the existing position “insulting”. Any decision on what comes next needs 14 of the 20 clubs to agree in a vote.

Despite European football’s governing body UEFA stating its aim of concluding all domestic and European club competitions by June 30, as things stand, the men’s and women’s seasons in England have been “extended indefinitely” with fixtures recommencing “no earlier than April 30”.

One chairman is furious that the sport is even considering a return in the midst of such societal turmoil, describing it as “embarrassing” and adding: “What we are doing is wrong.”

Several teams are said to be of the opinion that April 30 should not be viewed as a chance to play, rather to buy time for the authorities to negotiate with broadcasters over the size of any rebate.

The next Premier League shareholders meeting is scheduled for April 3 and one high-ranking club official said: “I’m hoping the situation changes by then but unfortunately, the world is changing and it’s changing for the worse every day.

“It’s absolutely clear what is going to happen. It’s a worldwide pandemic. You just start (the Premier League season) again and there are very few losers. Liverpool, I know. But in the grand scheme of things, honestly, it really doesn’t matter. You’ve just got to start again.

“This (COVID-19) is going to get worse here (in Britain), so it’s not about players returning to training. If we all stay at home and self-isolate for the next two, three months, we’re going to get through this quite simply. But even then, there’s going to be a period of slow reintegration into normality, otherwise the virus will spike again. So, if we’re lucky, the new season will start in September.

“If they want to say, ‘This season is over and it will be recommencing with the final nine games being played out in September’, fantastic. But if that’s not feasible. Just end this league with whatever consequences that has. End it and say the new league will start in September.

“We look like petulant, ridiculous children now. I passionately believe what we’re doing is wrong. And I would like to think my colleagues now believe that as well, that the world has changed. It’s a scary place at the moment and we’ve got to treat it seriously.”

Professional Footballers’ Association deputy chief executive Bobby Barnes told The Athletic earlier this week that an initial reluctance among players he is speaking to over staging matches in empty stadiums has started to shift because they realise there may be no other option.

This concept is opposed by one chairman, who said: “How can you play a contact sport that could result in injury and a highly-paid, highly-privileged individual having to go to hospital to be fixed, placing an even greater burden on the hospital system at a time when the virus is escalating? I just find it so insulting that we’re even talking this way; it’s just not important.

“If we start playing behind closed doors, can you guarantee you’re not going to have thousands of people turning up outside (the stadiums)? It’s absurd. Forget the practicalities of it. I just find the whole proposition insulting. That people are on ventilators dying and yet we’re playing a game. I’m baffled by it. Even in good times, what we do is full of self-importance. It’s just a game of football.”

With Liverpool 25 points above second-placed Manchester City and two wins from securing the Premier League trophy, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Sheffield United perceived to be overachieving in sixth and seventh respectively, and Leeds United and West Bromwich Albion in the Championship’s automatic promotion places, such views will not be universal.

But one club director feels football has its priorities wrong: “The position we’re taking is ridiculous. There are such bigger issues to deal with yet every question is, ‘Will Liverpool be champions?’.

“It really just doesn’t matter. In world history, this will be recorded as a very challenging time. There is a place for football and entertainment but that’s in a time when there are no troubles and there are no major issues that need to be dealt with.

“At a recent meeting, one club said, ‘Listen, I’m going to let my players go on holiday but if they get stuck because the situation changes, do you think the government will send private planes over to get them so they can play football?’. This is how disconnected and ludicrous they are.”

[NikkiCFC 8,286]

James McClean is fined two weeks' wages by Stoke City and deletes his Instagram account after posting an image of his home school 'history lesson' while wearing a balaclava to mimic the IRA

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-8160247/James-McLean-fined-two-weeks-wages-Stoke-City-home-school-history-lesson-mimicking-IRA.html#comments

[NikkiCFC 8,286]

Chelsea assistant manager Jody Morris names his ultimate Premier League XI... and picks five former Blues but NO Liverpool or Manchester City stars make the cut

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-8159799/Chelsea-assistant-coach-Jody-Morris-names-ultimate-Premier-League-XI-picks-FIVE-former-Blues.html#comments

JODY MORRIS' TEAM

GOALKEEPER - PETR CECH 

LEFT BACK - ASHLEY COLE

CENTRE BACK - JOHN TERRY

CENTRE BACK - RIO FERDINAND

RIGHT BACK - GARY NEVILLE

MIDFIELD - PATRICK VIERA 

MIDFIELD - FRANK LAMPARD

MIDFIELD - PAUL SCHOLES

LEFT WING - EDEN HAZARD

RIGHT WING - CRISTIANO RONALDO 

STRIKER - THIERRY HENRY 

Finally a team I can agree with.

[Vesper 30,083]

I agree with it all except one

Claude Makélélé replaces Viera

that team is so loaded offensively and Makélélé provides a better defensive spine, but it is close and I can so see why he went with Viera, who was far more versatile

in fact those two are arguably the two most underrated players in EPL history, as both were easily all world XI quality for ages

Makélélé being allowed to leave Real Madrid was probably the stupidest thing they have done in the past 25 years

 'Why put another layer of gold paint on the Bentley when you are losing the entire engine?'

- Zinedine Zidane, August 31, 2003

the rest are perfect