General Football Banter

Well we have one of the saves of the season already. Wouldn't be surprised if come the end of the season it is the best. You'd have put money on Benteke scoring from there, was a truly fantastic save from Cech. That right there was why Arsenal signed him instead of putting their trust in their existing keepers.

What's black and white, and shit all over?

Two managers left this weekend. One left on his own accord, the other sacked. The Dick has left Sunderland and actually told the board that he was resigning a few days before the West Ham game, but they persuaded him to stay on for his final match. Rodgers has been sacked as Liverpool manager - not much of a surprise, as there was speculation that he would be sacked in the summer.

Just when you think things can't get worse for Newcastle... Krul has torn his ACL whilst playing for Holland and is out for the season. Second choice is Darlow who played for Nottingham Forest last season and is injured, although hopefully not for long. So we're down to our third choice keeper. Soon enough we'll be in the same situation as last season where we had our under 18 keeper playing as there was no one else, and you could tell that he wasn't ready.

Once again though, the only league we're top of is the injury table. Can't help players getting injured on international duty, but the rest are mainly training ground ones... always been a problem. One good thing Sam Allardyce did for us was move us away from our training ground as he identified that as a problem, then we sacked him and training was back at the usual training ground where injured ensure. We must have the worst fitness coaches in the league.

I don't see Newcastle surviving this season unless they have an amazingly successful January transfer window. Too many injuries and too many bad results - I just don't think McClaren has what it takes to pull this off either.

Sunderland are in a similar situation but if anyone can keep them up it's Allardyce.  Although he has a hell of a job ahead of him because the Sunderland squad is just falling apart.

Carlisle Utd's ground is doubling up as a swimming pool this week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swcAECeLVds

Ireland's kit-man celebrates Euro 2016 qualification. He's happier than the players.

Carlisle Utd's ground flooded again. Is anywhere in the north not flooded this weekend?

I saw that picture, but wasn't sure what ground it was. I guess that they're going to have to play a few games at someone else's ground for a bit, as that stadium, and pitch, are fucked.

Monk has been sacked as Swansea boss, which I think is a mistake. From what I've seen as well, a lot of Swansea fans aren't too happy about it and are instead blaming certain players for him getting sacked - namely Williams and Shelvey. If that's true, it's quite sad that a small group of players have done that to a clearly talented young British manager but nothing seems like it will happen to them. Hopefully he'll find a new job soon enough in the Prem.

Funny news regarding it though - Avram Grant is apparently the favourite to replace Monk, according to Sky Sports. I know he's more experienced, but from what I've seen of both managers, there's no way that's a step up. Glad I don't support Swansea as I don't think I would be happy right now.

It's ridiculous that he got sacked.

I'll admit I've been wrong about Jenkins sacking managers before, since he's always done a good job replacing them and in hindsight made the right decision but Monk was doing a great job. We had one win in eleven sure, but we've also beaten Man Utd this season and gotten draws with Chelsea and Spurs, which is pretty good going.

He should have been given a chance to turn it around. All of the names that are being mentioned to replace him don't fill me with confidence (Avram Grant, Gus Poyet, Brendan Rogers, Ryan Giggs) and I don't know who could do well enough to warrant replacing Monk.

If Monk had been given til January, he could have bought a better striker and I'm sure he would have pulled us out of the rut.

BTW, I highly doubt there's any truth to Williams or Shelvey campaigning against Monk. Monk was known to be well liked by the squad and Williams has worked with Monk since 2007 as both player and manager.

Last edited by rhys (Fri-11-Dec-2015 01:16:27)

One of the front runners is meant to be Poyet. I really hope not, as I like Swansea... but Poyet is a twat - he looks like one, then he opens his mouth and you know for sure that he is one. They can do better than him.

I would have sacked Monk months ago because of his dress sense. It was always a bad habit....

Mourinho has been sacked. A shame really... there's no doubt that he's one of the best managers in the game - I'd argue that he's the best manager in the Premiership for sure - but something has gone wrong this season. I have no concerns at all that Chelsea would be relegated, and from what I can see, Chelsea fans feel the same in thinking that he should have been given the time to turn things around. Mourinho is used to success - one of the few things he can do to improve himself is to go through something like this (a team in such poor form) that he's never experienced before, and to come out of it okay. So it's a shame that he hasn't had the chance to get Chelsea out of this mess.

Looks like Huddink will replace him with his second spell in temporary charge of Chelsea. The Australian FA (he's the Australian national team manager) announced that he's off back to Chelsea before removing the post, and their official Twitter page posted that he's off and joined Chelsea again... which was also shortly removed.

I think he lost the players after publicly bashing the Dr when she came on the pitch & took Hazard off for a precaution.

Bit strange why Hiddink is in the frame for the job. He left last time because he told the players they could self-manage themselves.

Massimo Maccarone has a swig of beer after scoring twice for Empoli yesterday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWDJCHJJ7m4

Wow, Swansea are sticking with Alan Curtis until the end of the season after failing to get the managers they wanted. Kinda like Newcastle last season and look how that turned out... stayed up on the last day after what can only be described as an atrocious run of form. I do like Swansea so hope they can do better than that... just not at the expense of Newcastle obviously.

To be fair, Curtis knows the club better than most. I'm confident he can keep us up.

To be fair, Curtis knows the club better than most. I'm confident he can keep us up.

That's how I felt with Carver. That was a huge mistake.

All I'm hoping for this season is to survive. As long as he keeps us up I'll be happy.

Last edited by rhys (Fri-8-Jan-2016 01:44:39)

Great post match interview with Jurgen Klopp from last nights game,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dud_MJ_GJFA

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang won the African player of the year because of his outstanding goal record for Dortmund. Yaya Toure who's won it for the past four years had a tantrum because he thinks he should have won it, as he captained Ivory Coast to their Africa Cup of Nations win.

“I’m very, very disappointed. It’s sad to see Africa react this way, that they don’t think African achievements are important.

“I think this is what brings shame to Africa, because to act in that way is indecent. But what can we do about it? Us Africans, we don’t show that Africa is important in our eyes. We favour more what’s abroad than our own continent. That is pathetic.

“As I’ve been told many times, you can’t take care of Africa too much because Africa will be the first to let you down.”

Not only is he a massive baby, he's a massive hypocrite because the four previous times he won it were because of his good performances for Man City. Nothing to do with his international credentials. But this is a guy who earns 200k a week and said he was going to leave Man City because they didn't buy him a birthday cake.

I know, I had a good laugh at that. As many people I've seen have pointed out... Mikel won the AFC as captain with Nigeria and yet he was runner up to Toure - funnily enough he didn't complain then. See loads of City fans as well saying that he won it previously because of his great form with Man City and his performances in 2015 show that he doesn't deserve it this year. The guy is a huge baby who can't accept defeat gracefully.

Monaco have rejected the chance to take Falcao back from his Chelsea loan. Not a surprise there considering Chelsea are paying his wages of over £200k a week and are apparently paying the same as Man United were last season for the loan - £6m a month. Has to be the biggest rip-off going and it's no wonder Monaco don't want him back this season with what they're raking in from it.