Dear Liverpool Fans,
Please use the comments section to delight me with your fanciful and “homerist” (I just made that up) explanations of how David Ngog & Co. didn’t steal two points from Birmingham City today?
Or, if you’re up for a bit more of a challenge, use this opportunity to explain to me how David Ngog’s actions were actually caused by Manchester United and Sir Alex Ferguson?
Yours truly,
thefuseproject
Posted in English Premier League, Homerism, Matchday is for Homerism, Whimsy | 8 Comments »
Sir Alex Ferguson engages in his favorite hobby
Manchester United was beaten 1-0 by Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Sunday. Those are the facts. The rest, as is usually the case when Manchester United loses a game, is completely open to the interpretative powers of a half-crazed Scotsman.
See, if there’s one thing that you need to understand about Manchester United, it’s that they never lose. Their record might have losses on it, of course, but those aren’t really losses: those are matches that the dirty lying cheating bastards that officiate the games stole from Manchester United via their complete incompetence and/or unawareness of the rules and/or the overarching conspiracy that’s ended up with them only winning three straight titles.
Posted in English Premier League | Tagged Manchester United, Referees, Sir Alex Ferguson | 2 Comments »
Posted in About Last Night | Tagged MLS, David Beckham, Landon Donovan, Manchester United, Chelsea, AC Milan, LA Galaxy, Olympique de Marseille, English National Team, Cristiano Ronaldo, Lazio, Fernando Torres, Spanish National Team, Arsene Wenger, Chivas USA, Eredivisie, Darren Bent, FC Twente, Samuel Eto'o, Steve McClaren, Darren Fletcher, Olympique Lyonnais, Portuguese National Team, KILLER JELLYFISH!, MLS Playoffs, Mallorca, Thiago Silva | 3 Comments »
It’s Manchester United traveling to West London today to visit Chelsea at the Bridge. I often find these matches to be overly technical and cautious, almost as if neither is willing to take a chance for fear of the counter. It makes for tense, tight matches where mistakes are amplified. However, I don’t think it will be that way today.
Chelsea come into this match with a two point lead on United, and currently stand top of the table in the Barclay’s Premier League. The Blues hold a perfect record in five home matches, having only conceded one time while scoring fifteen times. In United’s five away contests thus far, they have three victories and two losses, falling to Burnley and Liverpool, and scoring ten goals whilst conceding four. Both teams are in decent fettle, with Chelsea’s main injury concern being Jose Bosingwa and United’s being Rio Ferdinand. Ji-Sung Park and Owen Hargreaves are still missing for Sir Alex, but neither looked to have a big role in a match like this, although when healthy (which is never) Hargreaves is a difference-maker against players like Ballack and Lampard.
Posted in Weekend Open Thread | Tagged Chelsea, Manchester United, Sunday open thread, Television | 1 Comment »
Just what Liverpool needs: More Americans
I was mowing the lawn about fifteen minutes ago, listening to last night’s “World Football Phone-In” on my iPod. As usual, it was with Tim Vickery and Sean Wheelock; it’s a fun little show, good to listen to, with the occasional interesting tidbit, but it’s more what I’d call background info: I rarely come away from it thinking, “Wow, I need to write about that.”
This episode was somewhat different. First question for Sean, from Dan in Gloucester: “Landon Donovan has been linked to Liverpool in the January window. Would he be any good in the Premiership?”
I’m sorry, what?
Posted in English Premier League, MLS, Transfer Rumors | Tagged LA Galaxy, Landon Donovan, Liverpool | 4 Comments »
Harry Redknapp's worst nightmare this afternoon - D. Bent prowling
Happy Saturday, everyone. A fantastic weekend of football is upon us and honestly, I cannot wait to throw myself into some matches. The MLS playoffs continue on Fox Soccer Channel tonight as the New England Revolution travel to Chicago to take on the Fire, holding a 2-1 aggregate lead. They’ve never won a playoff match in Chicago, though, so it should be a cracker. I know Fuse will be wound up, and that’s always a good thing.
The Wales derby, Swansea City v. Cardiff City, is on Setanta at 7:45 AM this morning, and if you’ve never seen that atmosphere (and have the channel) it’s worth checking out. The Championship has had an interesting start to the season as the typical predicted “bounceback” of the clubs just relegated that usually never unfolds is actually unfolding this season. Newcastle currently stands first and West Bromwich Albion holds second. Middlesbrough, who recently sacked manager Gareth Southgate and replaced him with ex-Celtic manager Gordon Strachan, are in 8th position, but are only four points behind WBA. Much can change in that league on a weekly basis.
Posted in Weekend Open Thread | Tagged Saturday open thread, Television | 12 Comments »
Today we present the first in a multipart series of articles focused on some of the financial problems facing football leagues across the world- especially those in smaller countries. By the end of the series it will become clear that many of these financial problems are the result of a century and a half old organizational model that simply cannot cope with the realities of the modern football and the modern financial world. Having highlighted the ways in which this model has increasingly come up short when faced with the unique problems presented by the sporting and financial landscape of the twenty-first century, we will offer a number of possible solutions which will help to ensure the future stability of the game, both on and off the pitch. As always, we here at Avoiding the Drop look forward to your comments, questions, and criticisms.
Continue Reading »
Posted in Commentary, Financials, General, News, Off the Pitch, Ross County, Scottish Football League, Scottish Premier League, Television Rights | 10 Comments »
New England Revolution v. Chicago Fire S.C. (Saturday)
I’ve been saying for a week that if the Revolution made the playoffs, I wasn’t going to burden them with any further expectations. I haven’t changed my mind, but knowing that all that New England needs to progress to the next round is a draw against the Fire, can anyone blame me if I’ve started to feel a little…hopeful? The fact is, however, that in beating Chicago last week the Revolution did not stray from their regular season approach to each match- want it more than the opponent, follow the captain, and expect a contribution from an unexpected player. There’s no reason that this can’t or won’t happen again. Chicago has too much talent not to make a game out of it on Saturday, but with the exception of Brian McBride, do they have the heart?
Posted in English Premier League, FA Cup, General, League One, Ligue 1, MLS, Ross County, Scottish Football League, Scottish Premier League, The Football League, Weekend Preview | 6 Comments »
Posted in About Last Night | Tagged Aaron Mokoena, Benfica, CAS, Chad Marshall, Chelsea, Columbus Crew, Cristiano Ronaldo, Edwin van der Sar, Europa League, Everton, Fernando Torres, FIFA, Frank Lampard, Fulham, KILLER JELLYFISH!, Liverpool, Manchester United, MLS Defender of the Year, MLS Playoffs, Portsmouth, Portuguese National Team, Real Madrid, Real Salt Lake, Roma, Sir Alex Ferguson, Spanish National Team, Tomasz Kuszczak, Transfer Ban | 2 Comments »
Is This the Future of Football? Part Two
November 9, 2009 by thefuseproject
Today we present the second in a multipart series of articles focused on some of the financial problems facing football leagues across the world- especially those in smaller countries. By the end of the series it will become clear that many of these financial problems are the result of a century and a half old organizational model that simply cannot cope with the realities of the modern football and the modern financial world. Having highlighted the ways in which this model has increasingly come up short when faced with the unique problems presented by the sporting and financial landscape of the twenty-first century, we will offer a number of possible solutions which will help to ensure the future stability of the game, both on and off the pitch. As always, we here at Avoiding the Drop look forward to your comments, questions, and criticisms.
Part One of the series can be found here.
UPDATE: Stirling Albion F.C. were able to pay the £48,000 in back taxes owed to HM Revenue and Customs by the Friday deadline, thereby avoiding the possibility of legal actions which could have led to the club being shut down.
UPDATE: Clachnacuddin F.C. (Inverness) of the Highland League have gone into administration after receiving a letter from the Highland Council informing them that their monthly payments to the Inverness Common Good Fund for the rental of Grant Street Park will be rising form £400/month to £3,800/month, a small increase of 850%.
In the first installment of this series we looked at the overall financial landscape of Scottish football and suggested that the financial problems facing the Scottish game were not only the result of poor economic decision-making (overspending on players, becoming overly dependent on money from television rights, etc.), but also of an outdated organizational model which has proven unable to cope with the financial, demographic, and indeed, sporting realities of football in the 21st century. In this, the second installment in the series, we shall take a more detailed look at these “realities” as well as what changes might be made to address them. It is, after all, one thing to identify problems, but it is quite another thing to put forward solutions to those problems. Continue Reading »
Posted in Commentary, Financials, General, News, Off the Pitch, Ross County, Scottish Football League, Scottish Premier League, Television Rights | 1 Comment »