Football Focus

[Ladygooner]

I have never been so cold in my life! Thank God for Mr Green Boots Bendtner

[Annasfield]

I'm still hungover.

Stoke ain't half a peculiar place. The only people we saw were the bizzies when we arrived and then supporters outside the ground. Have had the specials "ghost town" song in my head all day.

Can hardly being myself to talk about the game. What a shower of shite! Not good enough. :-(

[????]

Stoke's old place used to be a scary place

[Annasfield]

Found Preston last week a lot more intimidating. If you don't wear colours though you generally don't get any problems.

Think half the fellas I go with are pleased to have me with them as I suppose having a girl with you generally means you're not going to be looking for any aggro.

[Mick Mac]

Annasfield Wrote:

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> Found Preston last week a lot more intimidating.

> If you don't wear colours though you generally

> don't get any problems.

>

> Think half the fellas I go with are pleased to

> have me with them as I suppose having a girl with

> you generally means you're not going to be looking

> for any aggro.

Yes Anna - you probably make a good impression on them. I'm impressed that you go to the Liverpool away games, thats very committed. It seems most prople I know who are into football are Liverpool fans and I guess that comes from Liverpool being successful when some people were growing up - what was the reason for your support?, are you from Liverpool? Growing up in Ireland in the 70s it was all Liverpool (most popular as regular champions) followed by MU (George Best etc) and Arsenal (having a large Irish contingent - Brady, Stapleton jennings etc) and Leeds!.

I'm not sure who young people support these days. It was good to see Robbie Keane on MOTD having 2 nominations on goal of the month, but do you think he should have played today? Is Alan Green right that Rafa is too cautious - are Liverpool fans in general happy?

It seems the most interesting EPL for years with a number of teams that could win it and also Villa mixing in too. Apart from a few quid on MU, Im neutral, but its certainly fascinating this year and hopefully it will stay close into spring. Arsenal could do with a change of manager though - the voyeur has had his time.

[matthew123]

Pathetic tactics by Rafa at Stoke - you do not win games simply by keeping a clean sheet. You cannot keep with a defensive formation and then expect to switch it on to play attacking football when you need to score. Robbie Keane should have been on that pitch at some point to bolster the attack.

My personal take on the Rafa outburst is that he wants to put pressure on Referees taking charge of United - whether Ferguson was chuckling yesterday or not (btw I doubt it) the Referees in charge of United will be put firmly under the spotlight. A secondary reason for the timing is to try and deflect attention away from the looming Gerrard court case and the two Merseyside derbies, also it boosts morale in the Liverpool ranks particularly amongst the supporters.

[Sandperson]

I think that's a fair point Matthew. I guess the refs will be under a little more scrutiny in the next few games and tomorrow is huge. I know a couple of Liverpool fans who had lost patience with Rafa before this seasons good form (and those lucky late goals at the beginning of the campaign ;-)) and it seems to me that it won't take many more games where he makes those sort of choices for them to come round to that kind of thinking again.

[Annasfield]

My Mum's side of the family are from Liverpool.

Not sure about Keane. I think that something has gone on behind the scenes as I've no idea why Rafa isn't using him. Rafa baffles me sometimes, yet I was worried about his selection at Newcastle but he got it spot on. Who knows!? In Rafa we trust. I do believe he can bring the league title back to Anfield.

We really missed Alonso in midfield today and it was evident when he went off injured last week how much he does in the middle. Nothing seemed to go our way today, but we really should have played better! No excuses.

P.S MM, when I said you were patronising the other night it was tongue in cheek. I was told off for it last night, so sorry if was taken the wrong way.

[Mick Mac]

Anna - it was not taken the wrong way at all - I love a bit of banter, you should definately not worry - I made a provoking comment (which was intended to be funny) and your reply was spot on and funny too with a smily after so I knew it was in good grace - I actually don't have much time for diplomatic people and like to have a good argument. Although I'm new to EDF I have been reading it for years and think the best posts are the ones that provkoe a response, good or bad, although over time you get to know who will make nice friendly comments and who will not, so you get an idea of the personailites.

On a related point - Although I was double booked last night I do also think that its good fun not knowing the people on EDF too well. I quite like the anonimity. I have in my mind these fantastically interesting/funny people and I think sometimes it might be best to keep their cyber identities in my head - I find it fascintaing wondering what the people behind the posts might be like, what do others think, once you have been to these EDF drinks do you start to recognise people everywhere in ED?

ps: Is there any easy way to spell check entries entiries before sending - i have this facitily at work and it always picks up my spelling of immediatley and definately (both wrong probably)

[????]

If Wigan win today then Spurs will slip back into the relegation zone.......just a thought

[SeanMacGabhann]

Mick Mac

I use Firefox at home and that picks up on my spelling by highlighting each mis-spell with a red underline. When I use Internet Explorer at work it doesn't have that function - but Firefox is miiiiles better all 'round anyway

Sean Mac

Back on football - Stoke are dreadful to watch aren't they?? I like to see the smaller teams do well but I have a choice of smaller teams now and I prefer Hull!

From an Arsenal perspective the weekend has been mostly decent. We didn't drop points, Liverpool did, and at least one of Chelsea or Man U will today. Of course we need villa to drop points as well. And we played badly. Again.. but as long as there is hope...

[Ladygooner]

Sean - I disagree that we played badly - Bolton defended very well and we had 73% possession. At the end of the day, its the 3 points that are important

[????]

I had AV at 250/1 on Betfair on day one as I was sure they'd do well this year, this morning They are 50s so I've laid it off for a reasonable profit with still some potential for a big win if the unimaginable happens. I've also had a lump on chelsea for this afternoon as they were over 3-1 which is a good price...pity I didn't bet on my predicted scores yesterday though :(

[Keef]

I think we were shite yesterday, the commentator on Setanta pointed out that after Torres had been on the pitch a good 20 minutes, he'd only touched the ball 7 times, he just got no service, and Gerrard couldn't get forward enough. As they said, we need other players to take hold of a game if Gerrard isn't having his best day, we can't always rely on "captain fantastic"!

That said, I thought Stoke did very well at getting straight on to us, and not letting us play at all.

Was hoping for a draw today, but if anything, I am leaning towards a Chelsea win... If Man U win their 3 games in hand, they are top!

[matthew123]

Nothing wrong with Rafa putting out an experimental line-up, as it worked a treat against Newcastle, but when it doesn't work and clearly wasn't working at Stoke it has to be changed sooner rather than later.

When you break it down, Liverpool started with 3 "stoppers" in defense and 2 defensive midfielders against a Stoke team who put everyone behind the ball. Gerrard barely touched the ball and when he did he had no support.

But if that was bad, what about the repetitive questioning by Kelly Dalglish after the game on Fergie-gate.. surely she had time to ask about bad team selection, negative tactics and wrong substitutions... but no it ended up with Rafa trying to keep a straight face out of respect for her Father.

[Keef]

Maybe after the draw at Anfield he gave them too much respect.

Anyway, what's done is done, I just wish we could help ourselves a bit, because we can't keep relying on everyone to slip up when we do!

[Jah Lush]

Right! This is it...Spurs might be doing well in the Cups but this is the real nitty gritty today - winning in the Premiership. Up the table you must go. Defoe is back and we've scored seven goals in our last two matches including a 3-1 win against today's opponents Wigan. Nothing less than three points will do. Come On You Spurs!

[Keef]

Normally I'd be right behind Spurs, but I can't bring myself to wish Defoe a good debut... Spurs win, but red card for him will do nicely ;-)

[Jah Lush]

I must say had to laugh at Defoe trying to get his ?200,000 loyalty bonus out of Portsmouth. Greedy little fecker he may be but he usually scores on his debut for any club he's played for so I'm hoping he sticks one in today (preferably the winner) and keeps his record.

[Mick Mac]

SeanMacGabhann Wrote:

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> >

> Mick Mac

>

> I use Firefox at home and that picks up on my

> spelling by highlighting each mis-spell with a red

> underline.

Thanks Sean - If my spelling improves you will know I have managed to get it to work.

[Mick Mac]

???? Wrote:

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> I had AV at 250/1 on Betfair on day one

???? - I bet on them recently at 66/1 and who knows, they are playing well and the form team at the moment. Most pundits say they will fall away but I think they will make the champions league places (possibly at the expense of Arsenal - sorry Arsenal fans). I also have backed MU from near the start of the season at 10/3 and added a recent saver on Liverpool!

[Jah Lush]

Typical Tottenham, conceding a goal in the last minute. Not good enough, must try harder.

[Kells]

I give up with them! Glad I stayed in and listened to it on the radio now, saves being laughed out of a pub! It's absurd though, had we won we could have been 11th. So I'm telling myself not to give up just yet............

PS Poor Pompey, being nagged for a loyalty bonus as well. Have to admire Defoe's cheek though!

[????]

Seriously, I think that this is the season you guys will break into the top 4 ..........bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[Annasfield]

Jamie Carragher "Should have listened to Rafa and gone zonal" >:D<

How Rooney didn't get a booking there I will never know. Come on Chelsea.