Comparing Dzeko to Ibra is sinful. God, for all the grief that Ibra gets from fans who say "oh, he can't do it on a Wednesday night", the kid is sheer class is showing it again this season.

Andy Carroll, Darren Bent. I do wonder if these English clubs looked into players like Fabiano, Cavani, Pazzini and Forlan.

It's quite handy that we now don't have to deal with Carroll when we go to Tyneside on Saturday.

I doubt we would've dealt with him regardless. I suspect he's still injured.

Might be right, he was slated to be back though. Either way, no matter, we won't see him (if at all) until we take on Pool at the Emirates later in the season.

Adebayor gets his first goal for Real Madrid. Controls a cross from Dolphinhead with his chest and blasts it in from close range.

Real win 2-0 against Sevilla, and are through to the final of the Copa Del Rey I think.

First goal was another well taken goal by Mesut Ozil.

Being on loan might actually suit Adebayor - he doesn't seem to like his options being shut down. Though I expect him to agitate for a permanent transfer with huge potential for embarrassment if he's moderately successful at Madrid.

Light a candle for Ugly Rat-Face - he'll never darken our doors again.

😆 I hope they've got good security in the kit room of the Bernabeu.

And stadium attendances?

I've never brought the stadium attendance argument. How would you quantify it? Attendances are down all over except for the biggest clubs; is the Blackburn season ticket holder really going to give it up because Arsenal are on in the pub? The Orient fan?

I genuinely don't know, but personally I just can't see what difference it would make if they were permitted to show one 3 o'clock per week. The fact a match is on tv has never come into my thinking when deciding if I should attend or not; anyone else?

I find it difficult to comment myself not having lived there at all but tickets are costly and these are tough times. If matches are on TV i can foresee a number of people considering giving up their tickets especially if the club isn't doing very well.

I could be wrong as last year we commissioned an agency to do a qualitative survery on cricket fans and what came out was that someone going to the stadium isn't anymore of a fan than someone watching it on TV but just an adrenaline junkie.

Again the nature of the survey was different, the cultures are different and so is the sport which is why i don't want to apply this same thesis to football fans in England.

But isn't there this feeling that broadcasting matches may impact attendances?

Rohit wrote:

I find it difficult to comment myself not having lived there at all but tickets are costly and these are tough times. If matches are on TV i can foresee a number of people considering giving up their tickets especially if the club isn't doing very well.

I could be wrong as last year we commissioned an agency to do a qualitative survery on cricket fans and what came out was that someone going to the stadium isn't anymore of a fan than someone watching it on TV but just an adrenaline junkie.

Again the nature of the survey was different, the cultures are different and so is the sport which is why i don't want to apply this same thesis to football fans in England.

But isn't there this feeling that broadcasting matches may impact attendances?

Well for a lot of fans a year's subscription of Sky would be the same price as a season ticket.

But in any case your team won't be showing every week even for 3 o'clock kick offs. They can't show every game at 3 O'clock. The reason why we have so many different kick-off times is so that Sky can televise them. There's a law that no 3 0'clock kick off can be shown on TV. Back in the day everyone used to kick off at the same time.

Tony Montana wrote:
Rohit wrote:

I find it difficult to comment myself not having lived there at all but tickets are costly and these are tough times. If matches are on TV i can foresee a number of people considering giving up their tickets especially if the club isn't doing very well.

I could be wrong as last year we commissioned an agency to do a qualitative survery on cricket fans and what came out was that someone going to the stadium isn't anymore of a fan than someone watching it on TV but just an adrenaline junkie.

Again the nature of the survey was different, the cultures are different and so is the sport which is why i don't want to apply this same thesis to football fans in England.

But isn't there this feeling that broadcasting matches may impact attendances?

Well for a lot of fans a year's subscription of Sky would be the same price as a season ticket.

But in any case your team won't be showing every week even for 3 o'clock kick offs. They can't show every game at 3 O'clock. The reason why we have so many different kick-off times is so that Sky can televise them. There's a law that no 3 0'clock kick off can be shown on TV. Back in the day everyone used to kick off at the same time.

Fair enough, but by your logic, ESPN and Sky could both show a 3 o'clock game, but choose not to.

It's illegal for them to show 3 O'clock games. There's a law saying that companies here can't show them.

5 Live just announced that Roberto Di Matteo has been sacked. What a ridiculous reaction to an away loss to City.

Edit: He's been put on gardening leave, apparently.

Who are they going to get?

Curbishley? Allardyce? FFS. 😆

Curbishley was the first name that came up in my head too. Would be such a waste to revert back to kicking and screaming after a genuinely good attempt to play football under Di Matteo. He had a better shot at keeping them in Premier League than anyone else in that end of the table.

I wonder what this means for Vela, by the way. He obviously went there to play. If a Curbishley/Pardew type comes in and decides that the only way to stay up is to play like Stoke then he won't get many minutes.

Curbishley employs hoof football? He's english but he's not really a hoof manager.

Were Charlton like that? Can't remember them being so.

WBA were just losing game after game. Perhaps the board got too scared that Di Matteo could not turn it around.

No, I don't think he does either. It wasn't a very thought-through sentence. I do think he's poor, though.

They played a bit of football but they largely played route one through Darren Bent.

In my opinion, he's been out of the game for too long and probably has nothing to offer.

Klaus wrote:

No, I don't think he does either. It wasn't a very thought-through sentence. I do think he's poor, though.

Yeah he's not that great.

Anyone got the stomach to watch Chelsea?
I think i may just to see Torres. If they start winning big though i'll do something else.

They aren't going to win big against Liverpool.

Captain wrote:

They played a bit of football but they largely played route one through Darren Bent.

That's how I remember it too. Curbishley loves a player with good workrate more than he loves a player with good skills. He stuck Bent up front and the rest of the team turned into ball-carriers and crossers. It's not exactly Stoke tactics but it's not a very dynamic type of football either.

Did you see Stoke yesterday? Wow. I mean it worked but flippin heck.

It keeps them up. And to be fair they've never looked like going down since they came up to the Premiership.

Haha, I saw the highlights later on. All of the goals were scored from two yards out, weren't they? All preceded by setpieces. I've got nothing against it personally, but it makes it a bit pointless to watch unless you're a Stoke fan.

Tony Montana wrote:

Anyone got the stomach to watch Chelsea?
I think i may just to see Torres. If they start winning big though i'll do something else.

Yeah, I'll watch it. I think it's going to end 2-2, something like that. One of the teams might edge it but the gut feeling is that both of them have had their attacks invigorated in the transfer window while the rest of the problems remains.

Captain wrote:

They aren't going to win big against Liverpool.

If Liverpool win i'd be ecstatic.

A suarez screamer.

What a goal from Bellamy! Ramsey with the assist.

Liverpool do not want to win this game. Wow.

Some would say he's been paid by Chelsea :-)

waiting for that move to a big club...

What's that about? I only have one eye on the game.

Looked like Ivanovic wanted to clear the ball but Cech wanted to pick it up, and Cech had a go as Ivanovic tried to kick it away.

Cech was about to pick up the ball when Ivanovic came storming in and tried to clear it. They clashed and both fell to the ground. As Cech was making another attempt to grab the ball Ivanovic kicked him across his gloves. I would've been mad too. Poor awareness from the serbian.

Maxi is a fucking spanner, by the way.

Torres off after about 65 minutes. Poor performance from him.

And just as I type that, Meireles nicks one in 😆

😆 What on earth are Chelsea doing?