RVP performs better against more difficult opposition, the rest of Man u can't get through so he gets priority and scores more. I'd be disappointed with the defenders.

Ha, why do you want villa to smash them? I reckon it'll be 2-0 stoke.

Yeah he's scored against Arsenal, Chelsea x 2 and Liverpool already. If he scores the winner at City this weekend I think the Mancs will **** themselves and erect a statue, they must absolutely love him.

I like what Villa are doing, they're a young, predominantly British team with a young British manager. I can't stand Stoke, I don't like their team and having spent time in Stoke I think their fans and the people of Stoke are grade A wankers (generally speaking of course.)

I don't like Villa's fans either, but, I think most football fans are idiots.

True dat!

Oh Good God, Thierry Henry coming back for another spell with Arsenal. I think Peles hip surgery went well, and hes ready to sign too. BOO!!

Can't stand Arsenal fans. Good club but their fans are typical modern day footie fans.

Every club has "typical modern day footie fans" because it's the modern day, we just get a lot of press because of the roller coaster ride our club is currently on.

na there are way more of them down south. I think the only club from the south I don't find embarrassing are Tottenham.


Live + Breathe - YouTube


Thierry Henry Goal - WinkBall Fans Reaction (Funny!) - YouTube

Sums up southern football fans.

I was talking with Arsenal fans not long ago actually about stadiums in the English league and all of them were insisting the Emirates is the best, ignoring the fact it encapsulates everything about the commercial business football has become now and is everything that is wrong with football. Doesn't even have it's own name. Sold it to sponsors. Typical soulless modern bowl stadium. Has nothing compared to the character of Highbury. Crap stadium.

It's a fantastic stadium.

For rich people yeah, not for the football fan, it's a terrible stadium mate, I know an Arsenal fan who says he'd swap CL football and The Emirates for 10th placed finishes and Highbury back. It is a complete rip-off of Estadio Da Luz:

http://www.worldstadiums.com/stadium...isbon_luz2.jpg

http://www.worldstadiumdatabase.com/...dio-da-luz.jpg

Plenty of stadiums in the Premier League are better than The Emirates.

Whoever you know is a complete moron who absolutely would not swap that under any circumstance.

Why? I agree with him. I would much rather watch a team with ambition in a traditional football stadium with some noise than a team who have surrendered inside a shiny library.

You know Highbury was called the "Highbury Library" for it's famed lack of atmosphere, right? And you can't contradict yourself and say a "team with ambition" when the original parameters was 10th place.

10th place doesn't mean you can't aim for European spots though, no contradiction there at all, do Arsenal aim for a title challenge these days or do they just settle for the Profit Cup? + Highbury was definitely noisier than the Emirates is.

That's less ambition than what we have now.

Also, are you aware that we have a 10 mil transfer budget every season, including wages?

Not sure what the point of this is. How many times have the fans been told there is money available?

The business model at Arsenal = sell the best players and qualify for the CL = £££

No, we have a £10mil transfer budget, as well as profits from selling players. Either way, we are probably the biggest over-achievers in the League.

Arsenal, over-achievers?

So you would say that now they're achieving what they should be, because before they were over achieving?

Considering how much we spend we over-achieve.

Man Utd to beat Man City 1-0 with Hernandez first scorer, 60-1 at William Hill.
Well worth a pound guys.

lol Glazer net spend per year at Man U is something daft like £5m, are Man U overachieving as well when you look at the likes of Chelsea, Spurs and City spending large amounts?

Arsenal have spent how much this summer, are 10th and that's overachieving?

Arsenal basically broke even last summer, but that had alot to do with selling van persie. And before that cesc, and nasri. Their refusal to hold onto good players has finally caught up to them in terms of performances now. Persie carried the team on his own last year. This year it's showing. It's worked in the past, but it's getting too tight to maintain perfomance.

The Premier League summer transfers by Net Spend

Everton, tottenham, swansea all had a higher net income than arsenal in the last transfer summer season.

Yea, they probably overachieved in terms of league position compared to net spend for 3 or so years. But they didn't win anything and now they have a far weaker team.

That table is flawed though as it makes it look like United have money when they operate on even more of a shoe string budget than Arsenal apparently do.

Can't be bothered looking for a better one.

Basically Wenger has been at the club too long. I think Arsenal need somebody in with fresh ideas.

Trade you Wenger for Pardew? :D

Having Pardew would be like a step back in time. What Arsenal need is a younger Wenger type manager or somebody with newer ideas like Laudrup or Villas Boas etc.

Arsenal have always been criticized over the years for having a shocking defence, but it's not like they never had good defenders or anything, it's just that they can never defend well under any type of real pressure, it's a shocking fact for one of the biggest teams in the league.

Yeah, Laudrup has really impressed me so far. Despite all the media hype over Swansea last season I found them pretty boring to watch. Possession football is fine but if you're never going to take a chance or show some incision in your attacking then I just don't get the big deal. Laudrup has them them getting forward more often and just as importantly, taking their chances.

I still think Wenger is a great manager. He should spend more, but apparently he "won't" so I think he needs more financial support in just keeping their better players. I think Pardew is decent, similarly he needs to be backed in the transfer market. He wasn't this summer and that's partly why we've been so gash..

Did feel bad for Wenger, didn't Arsenal have a decent defensive record at the start of the season and then everyone was praising the defensive coach? Bless

Klopp should be our next manager.

Why would he leave Dortmund to go to Arsenal? He has the world at his feet there, why chuck it away?

I never said he would.

Fair enough then, Mourinho should be QPR's next manager.

He's not good enough for that job.

Yet another performance today that leaves commentators and pundits alike saying that we, Sunderland, have at least shown enough in the second half or latter stages of a game to take some positives from the game.

How long do I need to keep hearing this before we come out of the blocks and start a game the way we end it? Today we slipped into the bottom three because, before we showed any promise at all, we had lost all three points.

Yeah, I watched your match and I know what you mean about losing the game before you started playing. Still, that kind of fight will come in handy in the games against lesser opposition. We're still basically in the same boat points/position wise, difference being as soon as we go down we never look like getting back into a match, we've not come from behind to win in a match in well over a year now. Similarly we always start slow and are supposed to be more of a second half side...

If that is what we have - fight, then **** are we gonna need it now! Roll on Tuesday and Reading. A good chance to perform for the whole 90 minutes and get a result.

How are Arsenal fans feeling today? I only saw the highlights of that game but on one hand it did look like they were the better team and so probably deserved the win, however had it not been for three rather poor ref decisions West Brom could have won that 1-0 or at least got a point.

Well said Mr. Bell-end.

Hey, it was against chelsea. A loss was to be expected really.

Arsenal's passing was fantastic, but the only goals were penalties. One of which was a no-contact dive.

And the other involved a foul and what should have been a free kick given the other way beforehand?

Also, I know it was against Chelsea but Chelsea should be made to beat us rather than be gifted three points.

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/A9r4ZyTCMAI6orB.jpg:large

:clap:
Go on, son.

Who to? I'm assuming not the fan?