The "do they mean us?" thread

[Bilo]

2010 called, it wants its derivative hunour back.

 

I was bored.

[john ridley]

To be fair to them after the post slagging us off ,he got slapped down by all of em , fair play.

[Fennec-Fox]

Good Video from French TV Canal+... (if u r ok with the language)

[Aus Fox]

You see this is what I don't understand about the Abramovich's, Glazer's, Henry's (That's the Liverpool owner right?) of the world.

If I had a load of cash, enough the buy a football club as a toy, I don't think i'd buy a club that is already somewhat successful, i'd buy a club that is lower Prem, Championship at a push League One, that has had abit of history with potential and i'd aim to build it up and turn it into a competitive side at a high level.

I mean don't get me wrong, no-one expected this, certainly this soon, and it's easy to say in hindsight, but i've always had that opinion.

Our owners must have had much more of a thrill and got a great deal more for their money compared to the likes of the people i've listed above.

I've always thought this, so many lower league clubs now with huge fan bases waiting to become big success stories.

Leeds, Wolves, the two Sheffield clubs they all have the potential to attract huge crowds and with the right investment could easily be where we are now.

[st albans fox]

You see this is what I don't understand about the Abramovich's, Glazer's, Henry's (That's the Liverpool owner right?) of the world.

 

If I had a load of cash, enough the buy a football club as a toy, I don't think i'd buy a club that is already somewhat successful, i'd buy a club that is lower Prem, Championship at a push League One, that has had abit of history with potential and i'd aim to build it up and turn it into a competitive side at a high level.

 

I mean don't get me wrong, no-one expected this, certainly this soon, and it's easy to say in hindsight, but i've always had that opinion.

 

Our owners must have had much more of a thrill and got a great deal more for their money compared to the likes of the people i've listed above.

RA enjoyed the ride I think. He wasn't in it for the money.

The others (plus kronke) are yanks and in it purely for the dosh. that's where these clubs go wrong. If you really want to win and are already a club doing well in the PL then a yank is not someone you want to see coming in.

A Russian, s e Asian or Arab is far more likely to invest enough dough to get a result for you. But often its less easy to see what they actually have behind them (remember the list at Portsmouth) so the established PL clubs go for the American buyer.

[Claridge]

I've always thought this, so many lower league clubs now with huge fan bases waiting to become big success stories.

Leeds, Wolves, the two Sheffield clubs they all have the potential to attract huge crowds and with the right investment could easily be where we are now.

Easily?

[Haydos]

Well informed post by a Manchester City fan on our game against Palace.

http://forums.bluemoon-mcfc.co.uk/threads/the-leicester-city-thread-2015-16.317944/page-56

Just watched Leicester/Palace from last weekend Leicester are such an effective team.

Kante pressing the opposition into submission with Drinkwater controlling the game from behind is a great midfield two. Easily the best centre midfield two in the league. I can't believe how good Drinkwater's passing is, it was excellent during this game. Long, short, left foot, right foot. The build-up to their goal came almost entirely from Drinkwater; playing one-twos with the defenders, then plays a great 30 yard pass (brilliant vision) into Albrighton which leads to a cross. Once the cross is cleared, Drinkwater is there to instantly play it straight into Vardy's feet out wide and the goal comes from there. I love seeing that - the midfielder giving it to an attacker in a dangerous position really early. Seriously impressive play from Drinkwater.

No nonsense centre backs too. Morgan and Huth just defend correctly, nothing fancy, nothing glamorous, just defending. Otamendi and Mangala should be made to watch these two all week.

Vardy and Okazaki are such a handful. Okazaki's workrate is incredible, him and Kante are easily the two hardest workers in the league. Okazaki presses the centre backs intensely, then drops back into midfield making it a 4-4-1-1. He does this all game, so impressive to watch. Watch Bony lumber about up front for us then watch Okazaki put absolutely everything into every game. It's night and day really.

The most impressive thing about Leicester is that they're not a team of individuals, they're a team and the team comes first. Everything they do is for the benefit of the team. We could learn a hell of a lot from them. Well deserved winners of the league this season.

 

There's a lot of sensible posters on there as a whole. The guy that's acting like billy big bollocks is instantly called out by several posters, one even advising any lurkers from other teams that he's an idiot.

 

http://forums.bluemoon-mcfc.co.uk/threads/the-leicester-city-thread-2015-16.317944/page-56

"I prefer Forest's story it was back when football was still a working man's sport, and there was more romance in football, more characters."

The irony of this statement coming from a fan of the most modern football club of the era.

He talks about spending money equating to a right to win the league and the juxtapositions that with how he prefers a working mans sport

 

While we have Jamie ****ing Vardy representing us, can't get much more working class than that.

Man city fans forget where they came from and how they got there. They used their money to get into the top 5, breaking ffp, paying off huge fines, loopholes naming their stadium to help ffp and fudge the figures. They have been an embarrassment this season and need to look at their own club and the money wasted on players rather than slating other teams.

 

The proper ones don't, they're one of the better sets of fans on the whole.

[davieG]

Tottenham fans fed up with Leicester fairytale as Prem title race hots up

0:00

/ 1:01

The ESPN FC crew discuss whether it's just Leicester and Tottenham fighting for the title.

Nearly everyone wants Leicester to win the Premier League.

Claudio Ranieri's fearless side are the neutrals' choice to pull off one of the biggest shocks in British sporting history, and fans from Cheltenham Town to Chelsea are rallying behind them. Even most Arsenal fans, who until a month ago were willing Leicester to slip-up, have joined the masses now that their own title challenge appears to have fallen flat.

Everyone except Tottenham, that is.

"In all the seasons in the history of English football, Leicester City had to walk into this one," says Martin Cloake, co-chair of the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters' Trust.

Spurs were written off before the start of the season, condemned to another sixth-placed finish, but with seven matches remaining they're second: 10 points ahead of Manchester City.

But it's difficult to detract from the Foxes' fairytale. Ranieri's redemption after he was sacked as Greece manager for losing to the lowly Faroe Islands is something to behold.

"I can't bring myself to hate Leicester," says Jack Hussey, host of Spurs podcast, Rule The Roost. "But I hate the fact they're doing it this season, when we should be doing it -- when we are doing it! I hate the fact that our own fairytale is being overlooked."

In any other season, Spurs would be the romantic story. Mauricio Pochettino boasts a young, exciting squad with the likes of Harry Kane and Dele Alli leading the charge. The head coach has maximised his resources to create a likeable team that is far greater than the sum of its parts and led by two remarkable English talents in Kane and Alli.

Were it not for Leicester, who were still bottom of the league at this stage last season, Spurs would be David. Instead, they're Goliath. Cloake feels that Spurs' detractors and Leicester's supporters are trying to have it both ways.

"Either we're the big Tottenham bastards, threatening to wreck the Leicester dream," he says. "Or we're big-time Charlies with an over-inflated sense of our own importance, who haven't won the league for over 50 years."

While everyone else is reveling in the overthrowing of the established order, for Tottenham it could prove particularly galling to finish second to Leicester.

As runner-up to Manchester City, for example, Spurs could point to the winners' extraordinary resources but Leicester have no advantages -- financial or otherwise -- over Tottenham.

"It'd be worse to finish second to Leicester," says Spurs blogger Chris Miller. "With City, you can take the moral high ground. Look at their wage bill, look at their transfer fees. With Leicester, you can't do that. You just have to say they've done really well on a fairly limited budget. It's come from nowhere."

0:00

/ 1:17

Mauricio Pochettino insists Tottenham still have belief they can win the Premier League.

Hussey disagrees: "It's easy to say we're only disappointed because it's Leicester but that's a fallacy -- it's disappointing to finish second, regardless of who wins the league."

If this season does end with a bittersweet second-place finish, it would be the first time since the 1994-95 season Spurs have finished above rivals Arsenal and the first time in 35 years that a team has finished above the so-called "big five" [and Blackburn Rovers] but failed to win the title. But it's not their only chance to win a title.

"I think we've got more chance of challenging next season than Leicester have but that could easily turn out to be famous last words. I don't think Leicester are a one-season wonder but I think we've got firmer foundations. I'm confident about the long-term future," says Cloake.

Miller adds: "It would feel like an opportunity lost but it's not like we've been building to this year and it's our big chance. Actually this season has come out of the blue for us and we weren't expecting it. In a way, we're a Leicester too but we've come from a higher starting point.

"It still feels dreamlike that Leicester could win the league. It's bizarre. It's sort of lovely as well. To be honest, it's just nice to have a change."

Dan is ESPN FC's Tottenham correspondent. Follow him @@Dan_KP or on Facebook.

[Simmo86]

Decent interview with Fergie on Sky Sports on demand.

 

Reckons we'll win it!

[newparker76]

"

Leicester City: The fairytale with rough edges

 

The international break is over, so we can all stop getting a bit giddy about England’s prospects for the summer on the basis of one result/getting a bit gloomy about England’s prospects for the summer on the basis of one result. It’s time to get back to the more workaday business of domestic affairs, the undulating ‘narrative’ of the Premier League and the unlikely, implausible, completely ridiculous and fairytale story of Leicester, five points clear and odds on to win the whole bloody thing.

What a tale it is, too. A manager, universally acknowledged to be a delightful avuncular old soul, plucked from the scrapheap fresh from being hosed by the Faroe Islands. A collection of players who had literally never played football before last August (check this – Ed). A famous fan who hasn’t looked this happy since his agent rang and said “Walkers have been on the phone, how do you fancy selling some crisps?”

This is the ultimate underdog story, a team who more or less everyone thought would get relegated, pulling down the pants of every team in the world’s richest league, smacking their bottoms red raw and running away giggling like schoolboys who’ve just egged the headteacher’s house. David has taken on several Goliaths, and has somehow managed to construct a slingshot that takes out them all. They are ultimate feel-good story in a game that has precious few feel-good stories.

And yet, and yet, and yet. Leicester are winning this title with a few rather unpalatable characters in their team. Last summer Jamie Vardy was fined and reprimanded by the club after racially abusing a Japanese man in a casino, for which he later apologised. Bill Murray – sorry), Sean Connery…we could go on; your CD racks and bookshelves might start looking pretty empty. Therefore separating the art from the artist, so you can still enjoy ‘Abbey Road’, or ‘The White Room’, or ‘Ghostbusters’, or ‘Dr No’, is not exactly ideal but is a useful compromise.

It is, after all, perfectly possible to hold both views simultaneously; to be thrilled at English football’s most unlikely title win since Ipswich managed it in their first ever top-flight season back in 1962, while at the same time expressing distaste for the actions of their players.

But even if you can hold both of those opinions, it still remains that at least some of the joy this Leicester side bring is worn away by the other sins of a few. The fairytale is not quite as idyllic as it could be.

 

Nick Miller"

 

Top notch investigative journalism from F365.  If only someone had mentioned all this before....constantly....in nearly every article they write about City. 

 

 

[EnderbyFox]

[Foxymcoxy]

Oh so Fergie thinks we deserve to win it! What does he know though, eh? Obviously hasn't checked the possession stats. Maybe he's overlooked the fact that spurs have scored a couple of goals more than we have in the last few weeks.

[Babylon]

 

"

Leicester City: The fairytale with rough edges

 

The international break is over, so we can all stop getting a bit giddy about England’s prospects for the summer on the basis of one result/getting a bit gloomy about England’s prospects for the summer on the basis of one result. It’s time to get back to the more workaday business of domestic affairs, the undulating ‘narrative’ of the Premier League and the unlikely, implausible, completely ridiculous and fairytale story of Leicester, five points clear and odds on to win the whole bloody thing.

What a tale it is, too. A manager, universally acknowledged to be a delightful avuncular old soul, plucked from the scrapheap fresh from being hosed by the Faroe Islands. A collection of players who had literally never played football before last August (check this – Ed). A famous fan who hasn’t looked this happy since his agent rang and said “Walkers have been on the phone, how do you fancy selling some crisps?”

This is the ultimate underdog story, a team who more or less everyone thought would get relegated, pulling down the pants of every team in the world’s richest league, smacking their bottoms red raw and running away giggling like schoolboys who’ve just egged the headteacher’s house. David has taken on several Goliaths, and has somehow managed to construct a slingshot that takes out them all. They are ultimate feel-good story in a game that has precious few feel-good stories.

And yet, and yet, and yet. Leicester are winning this title with a few rather unpalatable characters in their team. Last summer Jamie Vardy was fined and reprimanded by the club after racially abusing a Japanese man in a casino, for which he later apologised. Bill Murray – sorry), Sean Connery…we could go on; your CD racks and bookshelves might start looking pretty empty. Therefore separating the art from the artist, so you can still enjoy ‘Abbey Road’, or ‘The White Room’, or ‘Ghostbusters’, or ‘Dr No’, is not exactly ideal but is a useful compromise.

It is, after all, perfectly possible to hold both views simultaneously; to be thrilled at English football’s most unlikely title win since Ipswich managed it in their first ever top-flight season back in 1962, while at the same time expressing distaste for the actions of their players.

But even if you can hold both of those opinions, it still remains that at least some of the joy this Leicester side bring is worn away by the other sins of a few. The fairytale is not quite as idyllic as it could be.

 

Nick Miller"

 

Top notch investigative journalism from F365.  If only someone had mentioned all this before....constantly....in nearly every article they write about City. 

 

 

 

 

Yawn...

[Carl the Llama]

 

"

Leicester City: The fairytale with rough edges

 

The international break is over, so we can all stop getting a bit giddy about England’s prospects for the summer on the basis of one result/getting a bit gloomy about England’s prospects for the summer on the basis of one result. It’s time to get back to the more workaday business of domestic affairs, the undulating ‘narrative’ of the Premier League and the unlikely, implausible, completely ridiculous and fairytale story of Leicester, five points clear and odds on to win the whole bloody thing.

What a tale it is, too. A manager, universally acknowledged to be a delightful avuncular old soul, plucked from the scrapheap fresh from being hosed by the Faroe Islands. A collection of players who had literally never played football before last August (check this – Ed). A famous fan who hasn’t looked this happy since his agent rang and said “Walkers have been on the phone, how do you fancy selling some crisps?”

This is the ultimate underdog story, a team who more or less everyone thought would get relegated, pulling down the pants of every team in the world’s richest league, smacking their bottoms red raw and running away giggling like schoolboys who’ve just egged the headteacher’s house. David has taken on several Goliaths, and has somehow managed to construct a slingshot that takes out them all. They are ultimate feel-good story in a game that has precious few feel-good stories.

And yet, and yet, and yet. Leicester are winning this title with a few rather unpalatable characters in their team. Last summer Jamie Vardy was fined and reprimanded by the club after racially abusing a Japanese man in a casino, for which he later apologised. Bill Murray – sorry), Sean Connery…we could go on; your CD racks and bookshelves might start looking pretty empty. Therefore separating the art from the artist, so you can still enjoy ‘Abbey Road’, or ‘The White Room’, or ‘Ghostbusters’, or ‘Dr No’, is not exactly ideal but is a useful compromise.

It is, after all, perfectly possible to hold both views simultaneously; to be thrilled at English football’s most unlikely title win since Ipswich managed it in their first ever top-flight season back in 1962, while at the same time expressing distaste for the actions of their players.

But even if you can hold both of those opinions, it still remains that at least some of the joy this Leicester side bring is worn away by the other sins of a few. The fairytale is not quite as idyllic as it could be.

 

Nick Miller"

 

Top notch investigative journalism from F365.  If only someone had mentioned all this before....constantly....in nearly every article they write about City. 

Ha, thanks for posting that.  I'm really tempted to re-send them that admonishing email I sent them a while back much to their sarcastic disdain and attach this article but that's too easy and I'm not going to help them gain more traffic.

[ScouseFox]

 

"

Leicester City: The fairytale with rough edges

 

Simpson winning praise for his attacking runs down the right flank, the instinctive reaction is to be momentarily thrilled at what they have achieved and are achieving, only for a few minutes later to remember and think ‘Yeah, but…’

 

yeah he's never watched us play 

[Captain...]

Yawn...

 

To be fair he is at least putting it into some context, and whilst it may take a  little bit of shine off any success he does go on to mention there are many flawed artists out there. It could be a lot worse, they are all discretions of varying degrees of severity, but all have been punished and all sentences now served (I think, has Simpson served his community service?)

 

He also didn't bring up the thai sex scandal, which is the most damaging of all, and use that to try and point to a lack of a moral core at the club. I've read much worse articles.

 

yeah he's never watched us play 

 

I thought the same thing.

[davieG]

Read

BY RICHARD JOLLY

ShareTweet0 about an hour ago

Leicester using Chelsea's title-winning blueprint to lead Premier League

0:00

/ 1:34

The ESPN FC panel examine the final run of fixtures that could see Leicester overcome odds of 5,000 to 1.

It is a title challenge like no other. It is a title challenge like the last.

Leicester City's surge toward the Premier League crown is rightly being celebrated because it is both utterly unexpected and unique. Never in the division's 24-year history has a team widely tipped for relegation threatened to top the table in May.

At a time when the same clubs have tended to dominate every year, the Foxes could become England's first new champions since Nottingham Forest in 1978. In an era when money has assumed a greater importance and the haves invariably prosper at the expense of the have-nots, Leicester acquired their top scorer and most creative players, Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez, for a combined total of £1.45 million. At a point when 4-4-2 had fallen out of fashion, Claudio Ranieri has revived the traditional English system.

So on the face of it, comparing them to Chelsea's Class of 2014-15 is absurd. They are as different as -- well, as Ranieri and Jose Mourinho; the amiable man smiling through every setback, and the serial winner with his conspiracy theories betraying hints of paranoia.

Chelsea featured a World Cup winner in Cesc Fabregas and eight Champions League finalists. Leicester's starting XI contains two uncapped Englishmen, a total that was higher before Danny Drinkwater took the field against the Netherlands on Tuesday.

Throughout this season, Chelsea fielded footballers who had cost them more than £300 million. Ranieri's preferred XI were acquired for just £22 million. Mourinho's two pivotal signings, Fabregas and Diego Costa, came from Barcelona and Atletico Madrid, respectively. Their Leicester counterparts, Mahrez and Vardy, were found in the French second division and non-league. Chelsea triumphed despite the burden of expectation and a packed programme that encompassed 54 competitive games. Leicester will play just 43 this season.

Yet there are certain similarities. It might be stretching it to brand it a title-winning formula, but there are common denominators. Both were the hardest team to beat in the division; Chelsea lost just three league games last season, while Leicester have been overcome only three times so far this term. That owed much to having the best defensive midfielder in the division, whether in Nemanja Matic or N'Golo Kante, and an old-fashioned centre-back in John Terry and Wes Morgan.

Nemanja Matic and N'Golo Kante

Nemanja Matic, left, and N'Golo Kante have been the Premier League's best defensive midfielders in each of the past two seasons.

Despite that defiance, their seasons began amid a flurry of goals. The temptation is to deem Mourinho a pragmatic master of efficient wins, but his side scored 15 goals in their first four games last season. Leicester struck 37 times in their first 17 matches of the current campaign. After those free-scoring starts, though, goals became rarities. Leicester have managed only 17 in their past 14 league games. Chelsea finished their campaign with 22 in 16.

Each can identify a turning point when they conceded five goals to opponents from North London. Chelsea's 5-3 defeat to Tottenham on New Year's Day 2015 convinced Mourinho to batten down the hatches. Leicester's 5-2 defeat to Arsenal in September prompted Ranieri to change his full-backs, bringing in Christian Fuchs and Danny Simpson for Jeffrey Schlupp and Ritchie de Laet. In both cases, the defensive record improved accordingly.

In each case, the first half of the season contained more high-scoring wins; thereafter, clean sheets assumed more of a significance. Leicester have nine in their past 13 games; after their White Hart Lane whipping, Chelsea kept eight in 14 matches. Their early prowess owed much to a prolific striker. Costa's first four games alone produced seven goals; Vardy set a divisional record by scoring in 11 consecutive matches.

Yet the pressure games in the second half tended to be determined by a wider cast of players. Each possessed men who displayed the character to contribute at key moments. In Leicester's past seven wins, the pivotal goal has been scored by Drinkwater, Vardy, Robert Huth, Leonardo Ulloa, Mahrez, Shinji Okazaki and Mahrez again. At a similar point, Chelsea's crucial goals were delivered by Oscar, Branislav Ivanovic, Willian, Eden Hazard, Loic Remy, Remy again and Fabregas.

Leicester had an 89th-minute winner, from Ulloa against Norwich. So did Chelsea, courtesy of Willian against Everton.

Ulloa and Remy underlined the difference a backup striker can have, while each had grounds to be grateful for the set-piece expertise of a goal-scoring defender. Ivanovic scored four times in six games in January and February 2015. Huth chipped in with three in five a year later -- which, as one was the goal at White Hart Lane and the other constituted a match-winning brace at Manchester City, were still more important.

Riyad Mahrez and Eden Hazard

Riyad Mahrez, left, has picked up Eden Hazard's player of the year mantle.

Yet in each case, one inventive inverted winger ranked first among equals. In Chelsea's case, it was Hazard. For Leicester, it is Mahrez, his putative successor as footballer of the year.

Their preeminence came in part because they sustained their form when others -- whether Costa, Fabregas or Vardy -- suffered a slight dip. These products of Ligue 1 have proved their mettle when it matters. Mahrez's past nine league games, when Leicester have been a low-scoring team, have yielded three goals and four assists. Hazard had a spell in spring 2015 when he scored four times and created three more goals in seven league games; in that run, he contributed to 70 percent of Chelsea's goals.

The remarkable element is that the Algerian has already outstripped the Belgian. Hazard finished last season with 14 goals and nine assists in the Premier League. Mahrez's personal tallies stand at 16 and 11.

In other respects, too, Leicester have followed the Chelsea model but taken it to another level. Squad rotation may be de rigeur nowadays, but Mourinho represented an antidote to other managers by pursuing a policy of continuity. Chelsea had 11 players who made 28 or more appearances, eight of them recording at least 32. Leicester have nine who have featured in at least 29 of their 31 games.

At both clubs, plans were scarcely altered by January signings: Juan Cuadrado made only four starts for Chelsea, three more than Daniel Amartey and Demarai Gray have been granted between them for Leicester. Both managers identified their preferred players early in the campaign and stuck with them. Neither, despite the Italian's nickname, has proved a Tinkerman. They had the sense to stick with a winning formula.

These Blues have had a similar blueprint. Perhaps, galling as it must be for Mourinho to see his old enemy prosper in such startling fashion, he may deem imitation the sincerest form of flattery. The difference is that Leicester's component parts are so cheap and their progress so unexpected that their assault on the title feels a complete one-off. And yet the paradox is that it is both unique and familiar.

Richard Jolly is a football writer for ESPN, The Guardian, The National, The Observer, the Straits Times and the Sunday Express.

[mozartfox]

Another bell end of the highest order.

[m4DD0gg]

 

He sounds pissed out of his face.

[Corky]

Virtually all the comments on the Football365 article have panned it for being boring or hypocritical in some way.

[johnny the fox]

He sounds pissed out of his face.

He has the same look  Brian Clough had towards the end..retiring ain't healthy for some people..

[Dan LCFC]

Are Spurs fans not slightly embarrassed by some of the stuff they come out with?

 

Most deluded fans in the country. Easily. I take it all back Forest fans.

[Gerard]

yeah he's never watched us play 

 

 (that deserved more than just a like)

[americanfox]

So this is old and I'm sure this may have been posted before, but my gosh, Jonathan Liew is a massive bellend!

 

http://thesetpieces.com/interviews/vox-in-the-box-jonathan-liew/

 

Read where he says he's both a Spurs and Arsenal fan. Glad the club banned him.

[Bob Weasel Fox]

https://twitter.com/SkyFootball/status/715299856273702914

Fantastic of Sir Alex to say we deserve to win the title

Best manager ever saying that is something special