English Premier League - Fantasy Football VI

Arsenal's comeback!

Talk about living dangerously.

Ahhh Arsenal. The great pretenders. What a week they've had.

I mean as far as I'm concerned someone should be giving Adebayor a medal, not threatening him with a ban! He stood up for women and women's rights everywhere by stomping on serial rapist Robin Van Persie, and then showed how some Arsenal fans are completely nuts and can't control themselves or their tempers. Because expecting the Arsenal fans to act like responsible adults is totally unreasonable......

It's a pity too that UEFA figured out how tough it would be to enforce their "new" diving policy and gave Eduardo a pass. The guy flopped like a retarded salmon.

Of course the conspiracy theorist in me says the big reason Arsenal isn't able to make the big purchases in the transfer windows is the bribes they are paying out to the FA, UEFA and Rape Van Persie's "sexual conquests". Poor club must be next to broke!

Yeah, I really hate Arsenal in case you can't tell.

Liverpool are rolling now.
Benitez has stumbled on to a starting line-up that works.

Each of the English teams opened the group stage with a one goal win.
They should have no trouble advancing to the next round.

Tonight, Barcelona and Inter played to a 0-0 draw.
Inter left back Christian Chivu was named Man of the Match.
These are the two best teams in the world right now.

Bit of a scrappy win for Liverpool against a mediocre side. It only gets harder with games against Lyon and Fiorentina coming up.
Arsenal and ManUre both get nice, easy groups again.

Hey, at least you started off with a win, Liverpool normally lose or draw the first three and then scrape through.

You can usually tell Liverpool fans by the fourth game, they're the ones looking more nervous and stressed than a black waiter at the KKK's annual dinner dance.

4-5-1. Against Stoke. At home.

Ayup, Championship here we come

That was a derby match worth staying up for, don't know where all that extra time came from though!

FergieTime - City can feel a little harshly done by.

I watched in a local pub, and never again. Christ, it was like something from fucking Scum.

This is possibly the worst thing about the sport (extra time). In all of sports, is there a more corrupt rule? They add time arbitrarily and to make it even worse, it's just the minimum amount of extra time that will actually be played. So 3 minutes can turn into 4 minutes or more for no apparent reason. It's absolute bullshit. Here's a tip: Stop the fucking clock. If you need to add time to clock then do it RIGHT THEN AND THERE! This is how it is done in American Football and it works perfectly. There is no excuse for the players and coaches not knowing when the final whistle will blow.

Ash, you're not the only one who think stopping the clock would solve most of the arguments - we do it in rugby and it works fine.

Footys biggest problem are those who run it, the FA in particular is filled with people from a bygone age desperate to cling onto control of football in the face of the EPL. FIFA and UEFA on the other hand are filled with people playing politics.

So you have people not willing to change because they fear it, and others threatening/vetoing for personal gain. It's really fucked up.

I call for video evidence!!!!!!!!!!

Why not? If that happened in basketball, the basket would be disallowed and the ref would not be working any playoff games that year. 1 full second is an eternity. Basically, you're saying "According to MOTD2, Man U didn't actually win the game, but were credited with a win anyway. Nothing corrupt about that."

Yes, I understand what they do. My point is that it is stupid and the worst rule in sports.

Also, too bad for Chelsea today. Since there are no undefeated teams left, I'm officially rooting for Portsmouth to have a winless season.

Bullshit. All I have to do is talk to someone who's team just lost in extra time. Happens pretty often actually. That's why it's the worst rule in sports. You have a large amount of games decided every season based on a subjective ruling by the refs. That is bad.

I think the amount of time added has to be in the ref's hands, but these days there's no reason why his watch can't be sync'd up to a great big board for all to see.

Wish I'd had Bent as captain - and that he took the other penalty!

Torres is just wooooonderful. And so dreamy. I think he's turning me gay.

That happens sometimes in American sports, but usually fans just get louder as the clock approaches zero. Honestly, your view on this subject is completely alien to me. It is so opposite of what I consider to be good and pure that I find myself rereading it just to make sure I didn't miss anything. It makes no sense to me why a ref's subjective judgment can be trusted to add a secret amount of time to the clock, but they can't be trusted to stop the clock during play in accordance with a set of rules established for just that purpose. One system is entirely subjective and lacks any accountability. The other is transparent, sensible, and essentially foolproof.

I see Liverpool are back to ensuring their fans get to stress in the group stages again!

I don't think Rafa would have it any other way.
This is going to be another almighty struggle just to qualify from the group. But this group is harder than any other that I can recall Liverpool being in.
Liverpool can't afford any more slip ups now. Home wins against Fiorentina and Lyon are essential, as is a win away to the Hungarians and at least a draw away to Lyon. Otherwise we can kiss goodbye to the next stage!

Anybody fancy a sweep stake on Portsmouth continued existence?

Back in the 90s I knew an Arsenal fan who rubbed one out over a photo of Ian Wright.

Liverpool, like Man U, have lost a hugely influential player - what they don't have is the resilience Man U have, nor a manager as canny as Fergie. Which means they're currently the weakest of the Big 4. Not saying Benitez is a bad manager, he's not, he's just not really EPL title winning material.

Add in to this Torres sometimes forgets he's there to score goals, and not get the hump with the opposition, their most potent goal scorer is pretty easy to negate by simply annoying him, and they're in a troubled season.

I really see them finishing 5th or 6th this season.