Sport Football Thread 2011/2012

[ckny]

I have such a hard time convincing my mates Neville is a brilliant pundit. None of them watch the hour preceding the game on MNF and all of them judge him for his past with United. One of my mates tonight said "he goes into so much detail it's boring". I told him never to watch football again.

[BigShimmeryWall]

[Naysonymous]

Villa fans must be shitting themselves. One win would see them safe, probably, but they do have the air of a club that is on its holidays already.

I still think we will stay up by the skin of our teeth. Wolves are gone, and Wigan's revival has coincided with Blackburn's slump. We have a six point cushion and a game in hand but are in worse form than everybody except for Blackburn and Wolves. Our game in hand is against Bolton (at home) though, and if we avoid defeat there then we will almost certainly be okay. However, if we lose against Bolton I'd say we are fucked.

Relegation might do us good though, because it would be a huge fucking wake up call for Randy Lerner and Paul Faulkner. The appointment of McLeish has to be one of the worst decisions in the 138 year history of the club. His unpopularity with the fans was dismissed by the board and a lot of people in the media as being a simple case of us not liking him because of where he came from. The facts that he had two relegations with Birmingham, finished 3rd with Rangers (how the fuck do you manage that in a two horse race? They are still second this year despite the points deduction and crippling debt!) and a reputation for the most awful, negative boring football imaginable were all neatly glossed over. It cost the club an absolute fortune in lost season ticket sales this year and they will decline further next year unless McLeish is sacked. I fear it will take a relegation for that to happen, and I am part of a growing number of people who look at how Newcastle reacted to going down with a bit of envy. I'd swap that for two more years of the turgid shit we have had to put up with this season.

[Rocafella]

I agree with Neville there. What can you do? It's so widespread that it would be almost impossible to implement bans consistently. I guess it depends if they hypothetically were to introduce retroactive bans for diving, would players really stop?

[Art Vandelay]

They half heartedly tried that before though, noteably with Eduardo. Unless they go through every game and punish every incident then the agenda of who will be punished will always be set by Sky and the Sun. I think video technology will only work properly for the majority of things if it's used in-game, pretty much like line calls in tennis. There's also no reason players can't be retroactively punished even if the referee sees it now, it's just the FA hiding behind non-existent regations. Those two things could be done tomorrow and would improve the state of football immeasurably, but they won't.

[LaParka]

The in-depth Neville section is brilliant. Its probably such a huge culture shock for people used to the wisdom of Townsend, Shearer and Lawro et al!

I watch a lot of NFL shows where they go through the game and break down certain sections, and its just fascinating. American Football is built for it as it can come down to offense play this way defense play this way and see what happens. But yeah, not sure what my point is other than I hope Neville time becomes standard for all the football channels.

[Dudley]

I might be completely wrong on this, but I don't think they're allowed to show replays of anything potentially deemed to be controversial in the ground for fear of it sparking trouble.

Yep, that's why we were suspicious of it

[bradigor]

I have such a hard time convincing my mates Neville is a brilliant pundit. None of them watch the hour preceding the game on MNF and all of them judge him for his past with United. One of my mates tonight said "he goes into so much detail it's boring". I told him never to watch football again.

I really like Neville, something I thought I would never say. It is great to hear someone knowledgeable about the game, not just go over sound bites all the time.

[John0]

The in-depth Neville section is brilliant. Its probably such a huge culture shock for people used to the wisdom of Townsend, Shearer and Lawro et al!

I watch a lot of NFL shows where they go through the game and break down certain sections, and its just fascinating. American Football is built for it as it can come down to offense play this way defense play this way and see what happens. But yeah, not sure what my point is other than I hope Neville time becomes standard for all the football channels.

I've always thought Neville was a cut above in terms of his football nous. I told everyone who'd listen at uni that I thought he'd be England manager one day. Bit far fetched I suppose, but still, kind of redeemed... a bit...

I know what you mean about American punditry. I used to watch a bit of Ice Hockey and the coverage in terms of analysis and statistics was an eye opener when compared to football coverage in this country. Moneyball is an awesome film as well, if you like statistics and intelligent takes on sport.

Edit: Damn that Neville on diving clip is awesome. Almost makes me wonder if watching football on TV doesn't have to be quite so unbearable.

[Plissken]

I know what you mean about American punditry. I used to watch a bit of Ice Hockey and the coverage in terms of analysis and statistics was an eye opener when compared to football coverage in this country. Moneyball is an awesome film as well, if you like statistics and intelligent takes on sport.

Agreed, some of the sport analysis can be amazing. However, they can go too far in depth on some things, "this goalie wins three out of four on a Thursday, but that drops to 1 in 5 if the game starts at 7.30pm".

Che Neville has been a revelation. I keep hoping MOTD will take the lesson on board, they've tried to be more tactical but when it is Shearer doing the analysis, then even if it was any good (which it isn't) it is horribly presented.

(Didn't Strachan do some good stuff on MOTD2? Or possibly Lee Dixon?)

[Rev]

Agreed, some of the sport analysis can be amazing. However, they can go too far in depth on some things, "this goalie wins three out of four on a Thursday, but that drops to 1 in 5 if the game starts at 7.30pm".

Che Neville has been a revelation. I keep hoping MOTD will take the lesson on board, they've tried to be more tactical but when it is Shearer doing the analysis, then even if it was any good (which it isn't) it is horribly presented.

(Didn't Strachan do some good stuff on MOTD2? Or possibly Lee Dixon?)

Lee Dixon and Martin Keown are both fairly good, but only really in comparison to the rest of the BBC/ITV crowd.

[PaB]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/17728281

There is no honest association in the game. Every commitee and body looks after thier own.

[John0]

Lee Dixon I don't mind yeah. And from what I've heard of Stan Collymore on 5 he seems alright. But when the best you can hope for is for people to not drift into hyper-cliché mode then it's a pretty sorry state of affairs.

[Rev]

Emmanuel Adebayor was good at the World Cup as well. Doubly so as it was fairly clear that for some reason none of the other pundits could understand what he was saying.

[DC Lemon]

As good as Nev is as a TV pundit, he only says what you'll hear in pubs across the land. Everyone bends the rules and you can't ban everyone. The cheats are only cheating other cheats.

The punishment comes the next time Ashley Young is fouled in the box and gets a yellow card for it.

[BlinkyBear]

You have to bear in mind though, that the desire for more tactical analysis and professional insight comes from a vocal minority. I'd love to see more along the lines of Neville and Dixon during MotD2, but as the Producer for the show has pointed out several times this year, the majority of the audience tune in to see the goals and the highlights. Occasionally the big talking points get a post-game discussion, but the show doesn't have the run-time to cope with in-depth analysis of all of the major talking points of the day. That's why MNF is 3 and half hours long, it's why Goals on Sunday lasts most of the day, it's why Revista La Liga is on during the mid-week at a fairly unobtrusive time; most people tune in for the goals and want nothing else. I do however, think there the rise of tactical analysis in the last couple of years now warrants at least 1 show that looks at the key points of the last 7 days. Give Neville his own show? Maybe.

[Art Vandelay]

If most people just want the goals then why don't the BBC just give us that rather than the awkward middle ground between a goals show and proper analysis we have now? I've said before, but if it was up to me I'd just ditch the studio part and have whoever was commentating on the match to give us a quick report at the end of the highlights. Hansen and that might watch all the games on a telly during the day, but going to the match gives a proper, first hand insight into the events. What we have now is the equivalent of watching the news presented by someone who's been catching up with things off a little TV monitor and is now the undisputed authority on the subject. I've been tempted to send off this million dollar suggestion but the Beeb don't seem to respond to letters properly anymore.

[Rsdio]

I also think Lee Dixon's a cut above the rest on the BBC (maybe it's a right-back thing?) but it does feel a bit harsh to compare him with the (admittedly few) bits I've seen of Neville since no-one's giving him 15 minutes of screen time to go totally in-depth with something. They've pretty much said what Neville's said about diving on the BBC loads of times but it's just done in passing as that's obviously the format.

Does anyone remember Andy Gray's Boot Room from probably around the mid/late 90s? Something like that with Gary Neville and his fancy dan touchscreen would be great but sadly I can't see it potentially pulling in much in the way of viewers.

[Ork1927]

Former Cardiff manager, Eddie May died at the week-end of a heart attack. Probably not a name that most of you recognise, but he remains my favourite City manager and was manager of what remain my two favourite seasons watching Cardiff.

The only manager to ever win a league title for Cardiff, but also a great and passionate (occasionally sent to the stands for getting wound up) bloke who remained close to the club (he was living in Barry when he died).

1992/93 - where we won, what is now, League 2 with a great team of players in a 4 way rivalry with Barnet, Wrexham and York. Upper Mid table before Christmas and knocked out of the FA Cup by non-league Bath, we started to fly up the league helped by the signings of Falklands veteran, Phil Stant and, in a major coup, Kevin Ratcliffe. They joined goal machine, Carl Dale. The lazy, but brilliant Nathan Blake and the late, great, Robbie James as some of our main players.

Some great away days, taking a massive away following nearly everywhere, we first went top at Colcehster on a Friday night with a 4-2 win and then battled away at the top. We won promotion at home on the penultimate week-end beating Shrewsbury 2-1 in front of 17,500 fans (in the dungeon, remember) - the only time I've been on the pitch during play, as everyone jumped the fences ready to celebrate the win, the ref blew the whistle for a foul and half the crowd were on there way to the halfway line until we realised the game hadn't finished. Very surreal to walk back to the sidelines, wait a 2 minutes and then run back on.

Then, 6,000 City fans took over Scunthorpe to watch us win 3-0 and win the title. We followed that up by winning the Welsh Cup at the Arms Park a week later as well. My first full season watching football, but pretty much everyone's favourite season who was there to experience it despite all the wembley trips and the odd promotion since.

1993/94 - a crazy season for any club - cup upsets (good and bad), trouble on the terraces, Europe. We played more games than any other club in the 4 divisions (thanks to numerous cup runs) by the end of it.

Our first away game saw another pitch invasion, but unfortuantly it was at the start of the game at Craven Cottage as it all kicked off in the Fulham end where some Cardiff fans were - strangely Neil Kinnock walked around the pitch before the game and later claimed he didn't see all the trouble! From there, Nathan Blake had a scrap with Port Vale fans, we travelled to Leige in the Cup Winners Cup and came back from 1-0 down, to go 2-1 up. Didn't last long (we lost 5-2), but it was amazing while it lasted (especially as I was 16 and on my first p*ss up abroad).

We began our FA Cup run beating Enfield and Brentford, before a league game against Swansea changed the South Wales derby permenantly. The game was on a Tuesday night, just before Christmas, and it was raining. For some reason the Swansea fans were put in the Grandstand next to the family section so they wouldn't get wet. They started throwing seats, another pitch invasion followed and away fans of the two clubs have never been able to travel independently to each others grounds since which lead ot the creation of the first bubble trip for any teams fixtures a few years later (you had to travel on coaches run by the club and escorted by all the Police in Wales). We won 1-0 BTW.

We then beat Middlesbrough in a replay away from home in the 3rd round of the FA CUP (who were a division above) and got Man City at home in the 4th round.

Our biggest cup opponents for years as 20,000 crammed into Ninian for a famous 1-0 upset with Nathan Blake scoring a stunning goal followed by a Mark Grew penalty save in the 2nd half. It all went downhill from there though – we faced Luton in the 5th round at home and lost 2-1 with John Hartson scoring a very dodgy off-side goal.

From there we narrowly avoided relegation with a bad run that included a 7-1 home loss to Cambridge and then finished off playing Barry Town at the Arms Park in the Welsh Cup Final. We somehow lost 2-1. Another oddity of the season, was our final league game at Bradford was used for footage for an episode of a Touch of Frost and if you listen you can hear a load of anti-England chants in the background while they film outside during the game (which makes no sense in terms of the story). While there was a lot of bad, the club will never have such a varied, exciting season and its hard to recall one that has come close since with stuff happening all the way from August to May.

Anyway, I’ll shut up now and I’ll probably be tearing up a bit at tonight’s game.

Eddie May’s Barmy Army!!!!

[Marlowe]

You have to bear in mind though, that the desire for more tactical analysis and professional insight comes from a vocal minority. I'd love to see more along the lines of Neville and Dixon during MotD2, but as the Producer for the show has pointed out several times this year, the majority of the audience tune in to see the goals and the highlights. Occasionally the big talking points get a post-game discussion, but the show doesn't have the run-time to cope with in-depth analysis of all of the major talking points of the day.

I disagree. Every time I watch MotD it seems like they have too much time and not enough to say. Where there could be some quick tactical analysis you just get Shearer or Hansen filling time by laboriously describing the footage that you've already seen: "As you can see, Rooney picks the ball up on the right here. It's a good pass to Valencia. And that's a great finish. And here again we've circled Valencia. He passes it. Makes a run... that must be 20 yards he's run. He receives the ball. And it's a goal." etc.

Their editing of the actual highlights is little better, especially since they insist on showing you a slow-motion replay of just about every shot or foul that they show. I can understand showing a single replay of a goal or a red card challenge, perhaps two replays if it's special, but outside of that it's pointless; that volume of replays makes sense for a live game because it fills time during goal kicks, injuries, substitutions etc., but not for a highlights show that is apparently strapped for time. If they cut out a lot of those replays they could probably show something like a third more of the game. And of course they usually end up looking at many of those same replays for a third or fourth time during the "analysis" anyway.

[Naysonymous]

My big problem with MotD, and especially Shearer is that it seems that they are just reading a line which a researcher handed to them on a bit of paper five minutes before the show went on air. The lack of insight is glaring when you consider these people played the game at the highest level.

[DeadRussian]

I agree with Neville there. What can you do? It's so widespread that it would be almost impossible to implement bans consistently. I guess it depends if they hypothetically were to introduce retroactive bans for diving, would players really stop?

MLS has recently introduced retroactive bans and fines for diving. It's not a league where you get a huge amount of diving, but the league has been keen to clamp down on it quickly. Same goes for reckless challenges, which the league is giving out lengthy bans for retroactively as well.

Last season Brian Mullan got a 12 game ban and a $5000 fine for this tackle on Steve Zakuani. The severity of the punishment was probably due to the fact he snapped the players leg in half.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32O6fDvaoT0

Unrelated, the league also recently gave Colin Clark a chunky fine and a suspension for calling a ballboy a "fucking faggot", which everyone on telly could hear quite clearly.

[Dude Ranch]

Good God, that broken leg .

[Daley]

Ashley Young gets the Taiwan TV treatment.

[Art Vandelay]

12 games is incredibly lenient I reckon. That's nothing more than assault when you boil it down. 12 games is what, like a month out or something? Piss poor, but still worlds away from the 3 games you can expect over here. Fuck diving for 5 minutes, this type of shit should be the number one priority. No-one's career has ended over a dive.

[DeadRussian]

Aye. The midfielder who did it actually had to have counseling himself, his tackle was that shit. I like the idea that if you injure a player due to serious foul play, you're banned for as long as they're out injured. Obviously, impossible to implement, but y'know, MLS likes these wacky ideas. They should run with it.

[Charliemouse]

Villa wont go down, they still have Spurs to play who are on such a spiralling free fall right now , I think anyone including Villa could beat them.

[ryodi]

My big problem with MotD, and especially Shearer is that it seems that they are just reading a line which a researcher handed to them on a bit of paper five minutes before the show went on air. The lack of insight is glaring when you consider these people played the game at the highest level.

Sometimes it's not even that much preparation. Shearer was surprised that Haten Ben Arfa was actually a decent player and joked with the rest of the idiots on the BBC during the World Cup he had no idea about any of the players in the Slovenia squad. Considering how they are paid for these 'insights' is appalling

[redbloodcell]

Players have also been banned retrospectively in Italy for diving to win penalties. Was a little surprised Zlatan didn't cop one earlier this season actually.

That leg break video needs a Not Safe For Ears tag too

[Oh Danny Boy]

If most people just want the goals then why don't the BBC just give us that rather than the awkward middle ground between a goals show and proper analysis we have now? I've said before, but if it was up to me I'd just ditch the studio part and have whoever was commentating on the match to give us a quick report at the end of the highlights. Hansen and that might watch all the games on a telly during the day, but going to the match gives a proper, first hand insight into the events. What we have now is the equivalent of watching the news presented by someone who's been catching up with things off a little TV monitor and is now the undisputed authority on the subject. I've been tempted to send off this million dollar suggestion but the Beeb don't seem to respond to letters properly anymore.

i hope not. this is why i never watch the Football league show after MOTD, its just highlights of goals which become awfully tedious and boring very quickly. As a fan like to see the meat of the game, the highlights should be a summery of the game; basically the game with all the boring bits inbetween taken out, and of course some good punditry and discussion on the game afterwards. Of course the beeb are failing on the latter. But it doesn't have to be indepth you can have good punditry without going too deep that you put off the average viewer.