zequist

I already saw one last week, before Strachan officially quit. However, the one I saw was an article debunking the rumor that Moyes would take the job, which was funny because I hadn't even heard the rumor yet!

That's a bit of a surprise! Good luck to them, though. Will be interesting to see how they do. On a side note, does it seem to anyone else like the EPL is becoming more and more concentrated in certain parts of the country every year? With Burnley going up, that means next year 17 of the 20 clubs are going to be based either in Greater London, Greater Manchester, Liverpool, Lancashire, or the West Midlands. The Sunderland, Hull, and Portsmouth fans are going to be logging a ton of miles if they plan to travel with their teams next season.

Of course it's not real. The guy who posted it even said so later on in the same thread. That still doesn't make it any less funny, though!

Louis Van Gaal - For winning with flair and always being an entertaining character Arsene Wenger - For putting out one of the most enjoyable EPL teams for a neutral to watch (usually) and still building his teams the right way even in the era of big money Thomas Schaaf - Because he knows the meaning of loyalty; this guy's been at Werder Bremen for almost 40 years, as a youth teamer, player, coach, and now 10 years as manager. Plus his teams are (again) usually pretty easy to watch as a neutral.

That's hilarious! Altho I think my favorite part was referring to Blackpool as a "Northern Giant." Who knows, in the SPL maybe they would be.

If he does, then IMO they're fools. Beyond improving their talent level, they need to evolve their tactics and they need a manager the players can respect if they're to have any hope of survival next year, and I don't think either of those last two will happen if Brown stays.

Funny that we finally break the Fulham away hex, and it's against maybe the best team that Fulham's ever had. Course that just makes it even sweeter.

Ball game. Bye-bye Newcastle!

Ok, just have to chime in here for a second. That is WAY too many Ronaldos in a row without a break. Anyway, I'm happy if things stand as they are now, i.e. Newcastle and Boro getting demoted on their own merits, with no excuses. Unfortunately we're stuck with the ManU-Hull game here Stateside, which isn't the one I would've picked (altho Gibson's goal was a thing of beauty). I'd rather be watching the Villa-Newcs game if ours isn't on.

Thanks, this is a good one! I've got everything now except the flower (the same one as was tripping you up), and the guys with the painting. No hints, though. I'm still working on it.

I would third that one; it is extraordinary. And if you want to read more of Markus Zusak, I also really enjoyed his earlier novel "I am the Messenger." It's definitely not a masterpiece on The Book Thief's level, but it's still very good. Another excellent book that you might find in either teens or adults is Tamar, by Mal Peet. That one's about two British special ops who are snuck into Holland in 1944 to aid the Dutch resistance. It won the Carnegie Medal a few years ago for best UK novel of the year for children or (in this case) teens. I have never been a Steinbeck fan - I'm surprised he's required reading in the UK. I always thought of him as writing from a purely American perspective. Anyway, my experience is that most people are either seriously Steinbeck fans, or they're seriously not. There's not much middle ground. Me, I'm definitely not a fan. I had to read probably six or seven Steinbeck novels all through my years in middle school and high school (including OMAM), and the only one out of the whole lot that I really liked was "The Winter of Our Discontent." The rest I could've happily skipped.

Some clubs are starting to have their end-of-season awards banquets, so I thought I'd start a thread for posting the results (and discussing the more interesting winners) as they come out. Here's the first few that I've run across. Aston Villa: Supporters’ player of the year: Stiliyan Petrov Players’ player of the year: Stiliyan Petrov Supporters’ young player of the year: Nathan Delfouneso Players’ young player of the year: Nathan Delfouneso Goal of the season: John Carew vs. Stoke Hull: Player of the year: Michael Turner Players’ player of the year: Michael Turner Young player of the year: Tom Cairney Goal of the season: Geovanni vs. Arsenal Manchester City: Supporters' Club player of the year: Stephen Ireland Young player of the year: Danny Sturridge Wigan: Media’s player of the year: Titus Bramble Supporters’ player of the year: Titus Bramble Players’ player of the year: Titus Bramble Young player of the year: Lee Cattermole

That is really funny. It's totally inaccurate if you look at the real zodiac calendar, but it's still funny!

I enjoyed this final. In fact, I'm feeling quite vindicated right now, after the flak I took from some Spurs fans a few months ago for telling them that Donetsk was good enough to win this competition. I didn't think they actually would, mind you, but I was kinda pulling for them after we went out, just to make those Spurs fans eat crow.

My first thought when I read the original post was the old saying that there is no honour among thieves. However, all three clubs have issued statements denying the report: http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id...and&cc=5901 We'll see how sincere they are about that if things don't go their way.

Kenwright says he doesn't see Moyes going anywhere anytime soon: http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id...and&cc=5901

Also some belated congrats to AZ Alkmaar, who won the Dutch league for the first time in club history.

Boro's all but done. Their only chance of survival now is to win next week, then hope that Newcastle, West Brom, and Hull all lose, and that Hull's loss is lopsided enough for Boro to make up a 4-goal deficit in goal differential.

Big f'n deal. That's like coaches who have the most wins AND the most losses in their sport because they coached it for like fifty years. Absolute numbers mean nothing when you're comparing two teams over radically different spans of time. Try looking at each team's average number of losses per EPL season or their overall won-loss percentage...that'll provide a much more accurate picture of where we stand relative to everyone else.

It's actually normal in American sports, especially baseball and basketball. Some contracts have an "opt-out" clause, where the total length of the deal is 4 or 6 or 8 years, but the player has a chance to opt out of the deal after a shorter period of time if he wants to, usually 2 or 3 years. If he opts out, then he's free to either leave immediately or sign a new (presumably higher-paying) deal with his current club. If he chooses not to opt out, then he simply sees out the rest of his current contract like normal. There are also "options", which are similar but not exactly the same. Options are more like preliminary contract extensions. Like you might hear of a player signing a two year deal with options for years 3 and 4. That would mean he's there for at least two years, then at the end of year two a decision is made whether to exercise his option, and (if he stays) the same decision would be made again at the end of year three. The contract always spells out whether the choice to exercise the next option belongs to the player or the team, or if both have to agree, and it's not always the same from one option to the next. So you could see for instance a deal where year 3 is a player-only option, and year 4 is a mutual option. It does have its benefits. If we'd signed VDM to a contract with club options for years 3 and 4, rather than a straight-up 4-year deal, we could have gotten rid of him a long time ago!

I notice he didn't mention West Ham. Anyway, no denying he's a talent, but probably too pricey for our budget.

Here's another reason to root for United: Liverpool's next game is against West Brom next weekend. If Man U wins tomorrow and wins their makeup game against Wigan on Wednesday, then they'll effectively clinch the league and Liverpool will have nothing to play for (especially if Arsenal beat Chelsea tomorrow). That would mean a better chance of West Brom getting a result against them and putting more pressure on Newcastle and Boro at the bottom (especially since Hull is doing everything in their power to bail those two out).

It's almost like you read my mind. :thumbsup_anim:

Don't think they're in a very good position right now. Supposedly West Ham's chairman/owner is something like $450 million dollars (US) in debt at this point. That's personal debt, not club debt, but it's hard to run a club when you're hurting that badly. Just another reminder (on top of Newcastle) that being taken over isn't always what it's cracked up to be.

You want to start Jo at right back?