BBC Sport - Football - Robert Pires set to complete move to Aston Villa

I know we have half a team injured but is this the future for Villa? Where has the ambition gone?

From 20/7/2010. I really did not expect to see this come true this soon but I think it's great. He's been absolutely stellar for us and the U21s.

So Henderson, Gibbs and Carrol? He really is giving opportunities tonight, isnt he? I'm glad to see it.

EDIT: Starting line-up v France:

Foster

Jagielka, Ferdinand, Lescott, Gibbs

Walcott, Henderson, Gerrard, Barry, Milner

Carroll.

With the young team that played against United and showed some promise, Pires could prove to be a very good buy.
His experience will be invaluable to those young players still learning.

It's good to see on paper, but judging by that first half it's a disaster.
Having said that, I don't see any reason why he shouldn't stick to the majority of this team over the next few years and onto the World Cup.
They can only get better as a team the more chances they get.
I'd rather see that than the same old tired faces of over rated and over paid nearly men going through the motions, as was the case with the last lot.

Well yeah, he had to start making changes and tonight is as good a place as any I think. Carroll and Henderson are well worth an opportunity. I'm not too sure about Gibbs. To be honest I'm watching this and yeah, I would love for us to win and would hate to see France destroy us in the second half. However, I'm really just happy to see him give a few young lads a chance. The result is secondary, I feel.

This England performance....

Wow.

http://www.arsenalhighlights.com/wp-...ay3_548209.jpg

And I mean that.

Without actually playing well I thought we had enough chances to win this game.
You're right about the result being secondary too.
It won't do the young players any harm.

Lets all :laughing: at Man United.

...reserves.

Top of the league. :laughing:

Such embarrassments. :laughing::laughing::laughing:

Seriously though. Fuckin' shite!!!
Fabio fast asleep, O'Shea not worth a shit, Evans also, Bebe bobbins, Fletcher awol.
Only Anderson, Hernandez and Giggs looked interested.
Well done to a solid looking West Ham.

Reserves they may have been but I wouldn't replace many of them with anyone from West Ham tonight. Well, unless you're judging that exclusively on tonights performances. I guess if you're gonna lose 4-0 you may aswell do it in the league cup.

Evans doesn't deserve to be anywhere near the shirt at the moment, let alone wear it.
He's an embarrassment.
Macheda has the first touch of a rapist.
I'm gutted, we've left the door open for City or Liverpool to win it now... Oh, wait.

Evans has been poor as of late. I remember him playing well in a few Champions league games and he was a star when he was on loan up here. Don't know what he was up to tonight but to be fair, O'Shea and Smalling were even worse.

Smalling wasn't as bad as Evans, but I only managed to watch it towards the end of the first half because of BT ****ing vision. I'm going back to Sky, I don't care if I'm in a contract for a year. **** juggling thunder ****s, I can't even settle down and watch a game of football cos they can't keep their service up and running. ****ing clowns. Evans first season he was amazing, second season he was decent, third season I want to castrate him. He's actually embarrassing. Grown men singing about blowing bubbles, ****ing nancy twats. I'm ****ed off. What makes it worse is a load of ****s with low level down's syndrome forgetting they got knocked out in the third round.

/rant

I actually thought Smalling was the worst of your centre halves, I think O'Shea was worse too. Your entire back four was shit tonight really though.

Oh and :laughing:! I used to do tech support for the steaming pile of useless toss that is BT Vision.

I hope you burnt the place down.
Sky are really expensive, but for the most part they do a damn good job.
My mum said BT Vision was cheaper and we'd get Sky Sports 1, 2 and ESPN and it'd save money etc.
I watch football and Match of the Day, the only other thing I watch are a load of movies.
But the movie channels are pretty abysmal, so I agreed to it and it has been absolutely woeful. I miss Sky :(

I think there's a reason why it was Evans taken off for Brown and not Smalling. Fletcher has been woeful this season as well. Hernandez was the only shining light, great movement but if the players around him are ****e there's not much he can do.

^ Then you're a Cunt!

But not as much as O'Gay.

I'm sure a lot of the miserable complainers (even the ones who had nowt to complain about) known as the general public would have agreed with you, but the call centre is in India now so they can kiss me arse. I'm sure they would love to have me back now.

I can't comment on what BT Vision is like now as I haven't worked there for quite some time. When I did though it was sold to a number of people who were never gonna have the internet connection fast or stable enough to run it, even more who were right on the line which means sometimes it's gonna work and sometimes it's not and the product in general was NOT in any way ready to be rolled out when it was launched. Before it was launched, a load of us were supporting it through its BETA stages to clients, employee's and a select number of customers who agreed to trial it. The list of reported faults during the (i think) two years it was in its various BETA stages was absolutely massive and I would say that not even 25% of them had been resolved by the time the first ads were ran and it was made available to the general public.

Typical BT. They don't need to give a flying fuck and they know it.

So that makes it Arsenal's to win really! Though considering this year has been even more of a turn up for the books than last season, I wouldn't be surprised if they got smashed by Ipswich in the final...

Bring on 3pm. It looks like we did a really good job with our presentation, but I suspect that everyone has their minds made up well before today.

What a con!
3.25 pm and Spain make a press release claiming Russia win the bid.
3.30 pm sees the Associated Press announce that England aren't in the envelope for the final 2.
3.35 and Blatter makes his speech claiming China invented football (kicking a sphere around blindly with no rules, is not inventing football) and explains how he doesn't know who the final 2 bids are, just before declaring Russia the winners!
No wonder Putin pulled out of attending this circus. After the allegations of bribery he's not going to want to be associated.
The whole thing stinks!!!

Absolutely couldn't agree more. And Qatar in 2022? Really?

Money in the right places, talks.

So much for Politics being kept out of football, eh? I think it's about time Blatter was used for a Bladder, and booted out of the stadium.

Well it must do, mustn't it? The temperature during the world cup will be between 45-50 oC, they dont have a major domestic league, their (current) biggest stadium is still smaller than St. James' Park and the rest of them are no bigger than the Don Valley stadium and Craven pissing Cottage.

They would have been my first choice to host a world cup too.

I hate soccer and don't follow it too closely... but seeing Qatar getting the nod to host the World Cup is a joke. Worst decision possible.

I don't think so. Many times sports is a bridge between cultures, and spotlighting an area that many do not understand is a great idea. Opens up the conscious to a better understanding of all of our brothers and sisters from all over the world.

Yeah...like that world cup in the U.S did. :rolleyes:

Talked a little in the shoutbox but I'll echo myself here a little bit.

Qatar has no experience hosting anything even close to this magnitude. They are going to have to build a ton of **** to accomodate everything and it's gonna be at least a million degrees. Their plan doesn't sound all that secure or realistic... Something about building air conditioned stadiums and then dismantling them to give parts to needy countries or something??? Good luck with that.

As for spreading the popularity of soccer, who cares? It's already the world most popular sport, and as the USA has shown, some countries just aren't soccer crazy and never will be. Qatar better start preparing ASAP, I just don't think they have what it takes to accommodate everyone and everything. it's such a huge scale event for a place that doesn't hold large scale events.

BBC Sport - Football - Boss Chris Hughton sacked by Newcastle United

You've gotta be fucking kidding me.

Here's a guy who's seen Newcastle, in their immediate return season to the top flight, beat Arsenal away, push on the top 5 at points (however fleetingly), get the best out of Andy Carrol and play some great-looking football on top of it all, and this is how Mike Ashley thanks him?

Jeez, some people...

I hope they go down now, I really do.

Jesus Christ!

I've kinda been cut off from the rest of the world so far today so hadn't heard about this. This is disgusting. Mike Ashley already shat all over Kevin Keegan and eveything he gave to the club and for a club that changes manager every week, I think the fans all thought that Hughton would bring them a bit of stability as they were all behind him and the job he was doing.

Ashley out! I hate Newcastle but I hate that cunt more!

Same.

The official line is that they want a 'more experienced' manager at the helm, but if that's the case, why get rid of him in the bleedin' middle of the season?! And I dunno about anyone else, but a promoted club being 11th at this point of the season kinda makes it look as if they don't really need one. Certainly not this season anyway, which should be about consolidating a place in the top flight again.

I always knew Mike Ashley was a cunt who doesn't have a clue how to run a football club, but this just takes the piss.

http://www.thenewsgrind.com/sport/fo...-of-stability/

“We should be challenging for Europe, given I’ve bankrolled moves for big name players such as Leon Best and Wayne Routledge.”

'Desperate Newcastle sack Hughton to halt worrying period of stability' :laughing:

"Owner Mike Ashley is understood to be concerned that Newcastle are on course to quietly achieve Premier League survival, damaging the club’s reputation for keeping the whole of football amused." xD

It made me laugh, but this whole thing just angers me so much to be honest. He shouldn't be getting involved, he should be there to invest his bags of money in the club and let everyone around them do their jobs.

One of my Geordie mates used to go to pretty much every home game and a lot of away games over the course of the season. Now he goes very, very rarely and often even just looks up the scores but doesn't even watch Match of the Day. That started when this idiot forced Keegan out by refusing to let him do his job and so I'd love to know what he makes of this.

Exactly. And if we see what Russia and Qatar have in common...

http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/3034/oilmoney.jpg

Alex Beam: Hardball in Liverpool - The Boston Globe

Read that if you fancy a laugh. I use that word lightly because it is not funny.

If you don't know anything about football, don't write about it. Even if you seem to consider yourself the link to the sport for Americans who don't know anything about it. Most false claims can be forgiven but eventually your lack of understanding is gonna catch up with you - and you're gonna call the Hillsborough disaster a "soccer riot!"

The only accurate part of that article reveals itself with the transatlantic knowledge of Liverpool (self pity city) and it's fans are still wallowing in the tragedy that was Hillsbrough, after all these years.
I bet the Bradford fire and Heysel stadium disasters of 85 aren't as well known across the pond.
Wonder why that is?

I also have it on good authority that the anonymous Bostonian who is a rabid Liverpool fan, is in fact our own Big3.

BBC Sport - Football - Alan Pardew set to be new Newcastle manager

...really?

This has to be some sort of sick joke. What a good time not to be a Newcastle fan!