Premier League 2011/12 Season

Mother of Gold.

How old is that shit.

Look at the yellow Ford Transit down the back.

 

Looks early 70s to me. Love it. Young Celtic fans had unusually good fashion sense for the time. :Thumbs:

 

Yeah, check Mr Dedicated Follower on the far-left in his pale slacks and mustard geansai.

 

Yeah I've jetisoned it, its a fucking eye sore. Liked seeing it though, I know that street well.

 

His voice dripped with disdain. It was the sneering disapproval of a man who has stood side-by-side with some of the great central defenders of the modern era. A man who has seen Gerry Taggart in the shower, who has heard Darren Purse swear, who was once called a flaming galah by Lucas Neill.

"I don't rate [Per] Mertesacker," said Robbie Savage, the Sony Award-winning disc jockey and midfield irritant, when asked on Radio 5 Live whether he thought Arsenal's new defensive colossus would be a success at the Emirates. "He didn't do very well at Real Madrid."

The former Leicester and Blackburn midfielder is right, of course. Mertesacker did fail to impress at the Santiago Bernabeu, mainly by virtue of never having played for Real and emphatically not being Christoph Metzelder, who did.

It is easy, and cheap, to laugh at Savage. There are times when it is impossible to avoid the nagging suspicion that he wants nothing more, that his buffoonery is his ticket to enormous wealth. He knows he's a fool, but he's a box office fool. We laugh, and he guffaws, all the way to the bank, or the pink Bentley showroom, or wherever he spends his money.

But in his ignorance lies a kernel of wisdom; in his clowning a window into reality. It is contorted, and fleeting, and is masked by presumptuous arrogance and a startling lack of research that makes Alan Shearer – "nobody's really heard of Hatem Ben Arfa" – look like Jacques Derrida. But it is still wisdom.

It is the wisdom of the mob. Ignore the fact that Savage mixed up his German international centre backs. Whether he thinks Metzelder is Mertesacker or vice versa – or, indeed, whether it was just a slip of the brain – he is dismissing two defenders of immense experience, almost peerless pedigree. Mertesacker has 75 caps for Germany, and is just 26. Metzelder, at 30 a little older, has 47, including a World Cup final.

What is he dismissing them for? The notion that what Arsenal needed was an English centre back to steer them through the difficulty of their first post-Fabregas season. A warrior, already prepared for the pitched battle of the Premier League. A foot soldier, born equipped to deal with England's boggy trenches. He is dismissing them for Gary Cahill, rated at £17 million by his contract – though Bolton would have accepted less – or Phil Jagielka, who would have cost £15 million or so to extricate from Everton. Two players who have 13 international caps between them, neither especially young, who have won precisely no honours at all.

This is the English tax, and this is the English burden: the belief that only English players know how to cope in the Premier League, that "Englishness," like "technique," "pace" and "tactical acumen" is something all successful teams must have. It is the mantra that courage and heart and spirit are the equal of ability. It is wet-Wednesday-in-Stoke syndrome. And it is a curse that is costing the English game dear. It drives up local prices in an international market, preventing cost-effective managers buying domestic goods. Why should Wenger pay £12 million for Cahill when he can get more bang for his buck in Bremen?

There is a trickle-down effect: the Super Six do not buy English because it costs so much, meaning the Cahills and Jagielkas do not get their chance to move on and up. In turn, other Premier League clubs see that Cahill is worth £17 million and inflate the price of their players, meaning Championship players cost more and so on and so forth. No wonder the Premier League is full of cheap imports: it is the simple law of supply and demand, and the English price themselves out of the market. And there is a bubble effect, too: England will take to the field against Wales tonight with a squad of players whose price-tags are so high that they should be considered among the best in the world.

Andy Carroll cost more than David Villa, Gareth Barry more than Mesut Ozil. We see the sums domestic players are touted around for and we assume they are worth that money. It is the illusion of luxury. They are not worth their valuations. And when it is proven they are not – every two years, on foreign soil – we are disappointed.

It is then that the bubble bursts. It is then, in that moment of piquant tragedy, that the tax is collected.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/sport/...-footballs-english-tax-is-no-laughing-matter/

 

Chelsea fans do themselves proud yet again

 

The tweets? They could be anyone.

Read the article I posted and then thank me for posting it. Sound.

 

The chants yesterday at Genk, Irish

 

I missed that, I went out Power Walking.

All the fat-arses are doing it now.

 

Easy win for citeh. Won't 'ave it that easy come saturday evening.

 

::

Massive win for Citeh.

All hail midfielder genius and wine expert Wayne Gooney.

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Wayne should go into acting.

 

:: Wayne should go into Space, and stay there.

 

Sounded like he already had a bottle of that casillero del diablo before doing that ::

 

This you Irish?

http://touch.adverts.ie/bikes/manly-bike-for-sale/1070699

 

:laugh11: ::

No, thats not me, but I got a good laugh out of that.

That bike is worth £20 at best.

Christ :laughing: Manly spokes and metal.:notallthere:

 

Lennon playing Samaras and Loovens again and still persisting with zonal marking at set pieces.

Hands. Wrung. Can't take it any more, can't take it any more, can't take it any more. I'm taking a break for a year or so.

 

Fuck it 2-1 now, Im back in the game. If we can play Samaras on left wing, leave our best player & best striker on the bench for reasons nobody will explain, make Glen 'fucking' Loovens captain, refuse to bother defending set pieces as if in a show of Mayorga like bravado and still beat the 3rd best team in France? Clearly the greatest team in the world.

 

What a fairweather!!!!

I see Spurs lost.

It's going to be fun seeing Stoke ANNIHILATED at some point in Europe.

 

Well done celtic

 

incapable of actually wringing my hands of them. Maybe for 24 hrs. It's just nice to fantasize about it sometimes.

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Only 35k there, hopefully be a full house for the Athletico game and we can put the wind up them a bit.

 

I tell you what, we've played way, way below what we're capable of this year, but I don't think we should have lost any of our 4 Europa leauge games yet, and we've only lost one of 'em. So I think A) there's more to come from this group of players if we can get them all fit and get their shit together and B) the standard of the Europa is now way below the CL

Ladbrook have us at 150-1 - and I'm telling you, on last seasons form we'd win this group easily. I'm sticking 2 or 3 quid on.

 

From retiring from football supporting to betting on a European trophy in an hour. :: Football fandom is like a serious head injury.

 

:dancingBaby:

 

Forever and ever, we'll follow the Bhoys!
The Glasga Celtic, the Tim Malloys!
For we won't be mastered (by no)
By no orange bastards!
We'll keep the green flag, flying high!

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After making a very fair point about the Troubles on youtube, I received a comment on my page from a Loyalist telling me how glad he was 3000 died on 9/11 ... very bright, these people

but, what do I know? I'm not even Irish, I'm part of the famous ancient tribe of whites called "Americans"

 

Scary demographic on youtube comments. You'd be as well trying to play pontoon with a flock of fucking pigeons.

 

Cdogg, Hut. Do any of you guys follow the Boston Celtics?

 

I picked up an old Bostons Celtics top to train boxing with, years ago.....i figured it said 'Celtic'(s) and had a shamrock on it, but was better to sweat through without sleeves :: But that's as far as I go with 'em. How bout you Jimmy?

 

No, but that has more to do with my hatred of Boston as a region and a population as much as anything

I'm a New York person through and through, that's where my family comes from. Boston is filled with the Irish-American version of Guidos