gordoncharles

I appreciate the sentiment. When I watch any televised game at all these days I switch on at kick off time and switch off at the final whistle, avoiding as much informed pundit comment as I can in the middle. But wasn't it always like this. Who. like me, is old enough to remember when BBC1 used to make an entire day out of the F.A. Cup Final. Special editions of programmes like It's A Knockout (oops, better brush that under the carpet), Meet the Players, Interviews with "celebrities" at Wembley, Community singing, and invariably the teams would be waiting around after half time for the band of the Grenadier Guards to get off the damned pitch. This is just the 21st century version of the same old crap. And I'm firmly in a minority. I like Ramos.

I think I might have to revise my opinion of Las Palmas' desire to give a **** going into the season's end.

The only thing we can say with any degree of confidence about Raheem Sterling is that he's unlikely to be as good as Theo Walcott.

Barcelona also have Espanyol and Las Palmas away from home. I don't know why anyone would think those are foregone conclusions?

So.... who has fixed it, and what is their motive?

Real Sociedad give a job to a homeless man who has been living outside their stadium. http://www.marca.com/en/football/spanish-football/2016/10/27/581207d4468aebd1718b4627.html

How exactly? 2 of those games weren't even against English clubs, for example. Last night's was a de-facto shadow side, not to mention they only drew with Everton because they managed to miss two penalties. It's not about "England", because there is definitely the relative strength of the squad to take into account. Guardiola's team for his first match in charge of Barcelona (which ended in defeat) contained Puyol, Dani Alves, Abidal, Iniesta, Xavi, Eto'o, Henry, Yaya Toure and Messi. Unless it's the general belief that he's so arrogant and delusional that he thinks he can coax the same level of performances out of Kolarov, Fernando, Iheanacho, Navas and the rest.

When Carles Gil left Elche he was replaced by Victor Rodriguez, who proved himself to be a more effective player tbqh. Victor Rodriguez has just signed for Sporting Gijon, so if that's the level for someone who in my view at least, is a better player, I'm not sure where the interest amongst Spanish clubs for Carles will come from. None of the few clubs that might be interested in him are going to be offering him anything close to his current salary. Spanish clubs are not short of midfield targets, like everyone else they need reliable strikers. A year-long loan is the most likely outcome for him.

I love the way he was getting so much stick off the pundits. No agenda there, naturally. The first goal, of course. Gameiro then had two big chances to score, the first when he walked straight through the gap between Lovren and Clyne (eventually rescued by Toure), and another when Toure was the only Liverpool player who didn't push up following a flicked-on long throw and played him onside (saved by Mignolet) (Hargreaves blamed Moreno for that even though he was in a line with every other Liverpool defender) The second goal was an 8-pass move covering three quarters the length of the pitch - on the right hand side of Liverpool's defence - if anyone could be blamed for that (not that they should be) it would be Clyne for not tracking the scorer, and the third goal came firstly when Lovren and Can gave the ball away on the right, but ultimately it was the slide rule pass to Coke from Coutinho, who may as well be given the assist for it. If Moreno was so bad then Klopp had no need to select him, and he certainly could have hooked him. But he took three others off instead. But it was all Moreno's fault.

For Manchester United?

That is a throughly miserablist reading of the situation. And I agree with practically all of it.

As tempting as it must be for you to blame some tories, Coe wasn't even on the committee that came up with that deal. It did, however, include the Labour Mayors of Tower Hamlets, Newham and Hackney, and the Labour Leader of Waltham Forest Council. It's similar to all those who have that earnest belief that Real Madrid is funded by the Spanish State / Madrid Council / The Ghost of the Generalisimo. However, I agree with villa4europe. The EU has investigated clubs in other countries for a lot less than this.

Me, for one, Chris, and I still say it. He has 1 league goal from a free kick this season (from I think 1,223 attempts, though that is just my estimate) and he scored only 2 league goals that way last season. A corner is twice as dangerous as a Ronaldo free kick, except to anyone sitting in Row H.

With all the useless stats that the likes of Opta produce, I can never understand why more attention isn't paid to direct attempts on goals from free kicks which are always considerably less dangerous than everyone thinks. The very best at free kicks have only ever managed 1 goal per 12 or 13 attempts, and sure enough that's the case now with Messi. His last 100 attempts have produced 8 goals. Stevo is right though. Cristiano Ronaldo is the most over-rated taker of free kicks since,,, well, Roberto Carlos. In his last 100 attempts he's only scored three. That's the same success rate you'd expect as scoring from a corner (obviously not directly), but even the best at free kicks can only make them twice as dangerous as corner.

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That's my point Paul, how you describe the matches against Las Palmas and Malaga is exactly the same as last night. However, in my view both the sides (and Levante for that matter) created more chances than Arsenal did. There seems to be a feeling in general amongst those that don't look very hard that Barcelona win all their games 4 or 5 nil. I remember last year Terry Gibson (who covers Spanish football for Sky) complaining about that in some-or-other radio discussion he'd had with the un-informed expert Pat Nevin.

Are we using the same logic to describe Arsenal's motivation? Prior to last weekend's round, Barcelona were 6 points clear. Had they lost in Las Palmas they would have expected only to be 3 points clear by the end of the weekend, so I don't entirely accept your premise.

I am saying they can be got at away from home far more than they can at home. If you don't think that's the case Stevo then I don't believe you have watching their games. Arsenal had an opportunity and I give due deference to the idea that some matches are bigger than others, but I sense the old "un-competitive league" fallacy lurking there in your post. They also had difficulty recently putting away a 9-man Atletico at the Camp Nou. Arsenal could have been ahead by two goals, yes, if they took both those two chances they made. Equally Barcelona could have scored five. Aunts, uncles and that sort of thing.

I'm at a bit of a loss regarding some of the comments about this game. Arsenal, of course, should be aspiring to engage with the continent's elite. Does anyone actually watch any of Barcelona's games? I'm not trying to be clever it's a straightforward question. I watch a lot of Spanish football but I doubt many do and that includes people who write on football for a living. This is a typical sort of comment from the Telegraph " The welcome was not the sort they often receive in Spain, with an open pitch and befuddled opponents." Note the terminology. Here's something you won't read; Barcelona away from home is a very different proposition from that which is presented on their own ground. This season Barcelona have only beaten a side on their travels by more than 2 goals once (ironically at Real Madrid). So Arsenal's result ties them for practically worst result of the season. They'd won their last four away games but very unconvincingly and in my view both Las Palmas and Levante, who are in both in the bottom three in Spain, put up a better showing and created a lot more chances than Arsenal did last night. Yet Arsenal are supposed to have done quite well? With a team that had been rested whilst Barcelona played their full first team last Saturday in a game that needed a 2,700 mile round trip (longer than the trip they then made to London). So much for fixture congestion. Yes, Barcelona wins games these days not by possession, but by relying on inevitable moments of quality that the world's three best players can provide, but both Celta Vigo and Athletic Bilbao have hammered them this season. Arsenal seemed to have the plucky underdog mentality. They were starstruck and beaten before kick off.

Behave. Zatman. I guess nobody's heard about Kubala?

What you described is how that deal is usually portayed but the training ground was not sold "to the local government for far more than it was worth". The Council re-zoned the land. In return for that Real Madrid had to cede some of the land to the Council (that being standard practice in Spain). Both then sold the re-zoned land to private investors - in other words for exactly what it was worth. Those private investors then built the Four Towers on the site. Madrid Council actually made a considerable amount of money out of it.

I am pretty sure The Rev was referring to the 2003 sale of the old training ground near the stadium from which Real Madrid realised 480 million euros. The transaction you're referring to is also under investigation, but let's be honest, 10 million or 20 million, it's chicken feed to them. Real Madrid's annual turnover is 660 million.

He doesn't get boo'ed, he gets the **** taken out of him. The reason why fans at other grounds make that noise can be seen on this short video:

I'm sorry Rev but even though I'm no fan of theirs, I can't let that pass. These myths continue to persist despite there being zero evidence of anything like that. Most people have no idea exactly what that training ground sale was all about, most who have heard about it think the club sold it to the Council. Not so.

That wasn't why he was criticised by Real Madrid's fans. That centred on his lack of application during games, especially towards defending, and I have to say there was a degree of validity to it. The stats don't reveal the whole truth of his time in Spain, it's been patchy and not an unqualified success