Another packed weekend of action with league titles decided, the Dutch Cup going to Ajax after an extended penalty shoot out, relegation fights continuing across Europe and Glenn Roeder resigning his position at Newcastle.
Premiership is suing YouTube over copyright infringement.
Meanwhile West Ham may find that they are sued into oblivion.
But Ian Bell contends that the likes of Wigan are missing the point.
On Friday’s FSR we mentioned that FIFA/UEFA might not take of any civil court action by Premiership clubs against West Ham to well.
Amy Lawrence looks at how the Premiership has changed as it reaches 1,000 games. Based on 380 games being played each year I can't work out where the number 1,000 comes into it. On the other hand one of the responses that lists the Premiership nightmare eleven is fun to consider. Who would be in your nightmare eleven for the 2006/07 season and you might also want to select a manager?
Philip Cornwall looks at the value of the Premiership at birth.
Patrick Barclay looks at Manchester United on what turned out to be the eve of their ninth Premiership title.
Guy Hodgson’s review of the City – United derby is worth reading for the first three paragraphs alone.
And remember to nominate your dogs and stars from this week’s televised games.
Now that Man Utd have won the EPL (with 2 matches to go) and will play in the FA Cup Final, do you see Carrick's transfer fee as being justisfied?
His play throughout the season was consistently very good and he was a valuble part of the 1st team, so I believe he was well worth the 14m-18m pounds. I know you were wary of that amount at the time of the transfer, so I just wanted to get your current views.
Congrats to ManU, which as an Arsenal fan is tough to say. I was really wishing the Gunner's could have held on yesterday but once again we were killed by Essien.
Bobby, I went to my first USL game yesterday and I was actually kind of impressed with the atmosphere and reasonable quality of play. In your opinion, where would USL 1st division compare in quality to England's leagues? Would it be League 2? And MLS, my impression is that a good MLS team would be comparable to a mid-table Championship team. What would you say? I'm trying to get more into US football this year to accomodate my summer fix since there is no WC or Euro to watch. I know I can't expect the EPL but I don't think MLS (or even USL) is the absolute worst football in the world either.
Bobby,
My four stars for the weekend: Gutti (real madrid), Van Nistelroy (what a season), Arsenal (thank you for the title early), Real Salt Lake (unprecedented coaching change in the MLS and pull off an extra time draw at home against the #1 team in the MLS NYRB)
Bobby, why is Mark Hughes always associated with being the heir apparent to the ManU. throne? With Keane showing promise why is everyone so hot on Hughes? If SAF were to retire today I can think of a couple of others I would rather see as Gaffer than Hughes. I like Steve Coppel if I had to chose right now. HOw about you?
Newcastle is the easy answer to your second question. I do know there is another St. James' Park, but I'm completely blanking on who plays there.
The NOT first eleven
GK: Hilario
RB: Gary Neville
CB: Titus Bramble (Liverpool fans cheered when he came on as a substitute at Anfield not long ago)
CB: Khalid Bouhlarouz
LB: Ben Thatcher (shouldn't be allowed to play)
RM: Wayne Routledge
CM: Joey Barton (capt)
CDM: Phil Neville
LM: Andy van der Meyde
ST: Corradi
ST: James Beattie
For the hell of it, the all-injured team (i.e., missed a significant chunk of time):
GK: Petr Cech
RB: Micah Richards
CB: William Gallas
CB: Ledley King
LB: Fabio Aurelio
RM: Joe Cole
CM: Luis Garcia
CM: Tim Cahill
LM: Harry Kewell
ST: Thierry Henry
ST: Michael Owen
Subs: Dean Ashton, **Marlon King, Ji-Sung Park, Antonio Gardner, Chris Kirkland (injured?, I'm shocked!)
**NOTE: In my opinion, no injury was more costly to their team's ambitions this season than Marlon King.
Madrid looked great. Yes Atleti that was a good game. La Liga has been very exciting lately. Real can do it. Becks was not good but he wasn't a liability(well maybe once or twice). If Diarra had put that first corner away it may have been different.
-I have always been a big fan of Guti, although he can be equally awful as he was sublime yesterday.
-Should Capello be fired? I should say not.
Congrats to ManUre, couldn't have done it without us. Love Essein and Drogba as players, hate them for the team they play for, but they are really starting to #### me off with the goals they keep scoring against Arsenal.
Sad to see Seville lose, Ruud boy is just on fire right now. But that Alves guy, what the hell is he, coz if he is a rightback he spends more time on the offensive end than on the defensive end even when his team is not dominating the game.
Mas Maz spot on on your in-jury & not-1st 11 team of the year. Couple of additions though. Van Persia for the injury team and Baptista for the not 1st-11 team.
Ringo, I think Wenger might go for Yanke in the Arsenal Ladies team, he needs a winger and she seems like she can keep up with the guys!!!!
Rwon- I cannot agree more about suing You Tube. What is the point? Time-warner did the same thing with the Colbert Report and The Daily Show. Can't there be anything that just works for us peons?
G44- That was Verbal's, but I agree with both of you.
Wow, van Persie is a glaring omission. I guess I just wanted to make my Marlon King point, but also, I haven't really noticed he's been gone.
Also, I don't think Baptista or Harewood are (un)worthy enough to be in the NOT XI, especially when the very inept Corradi and Beattie are in contention. I probably would have Hesky above (or rather below) Baptista and Harewood as well.
Wow Verbal you are tough displease if Julio "feet of Stone" Baptista and Marlon "Spaz" Harewood don't make the team.
I have to be believe Marlon King belongs in the premiership, I thought Watford played good football all year and at the beginning I thought Young and King were gonna storm into the league.
Michael Ball should be suspended at least 5 games that was cowardly.
I`ve been thinking about the Tim Howard/Everton/Man U thing.
Here`s what we are going to do next season.
Roman is going to buy up every goalkeeper in the league...loan them back to their clubs...and they can`t play against us!!
I think SAF will field a strongish team with them lifting the trophy on the last home game of the season in a party atmosphere. There will undoubtedly be some stars given breaks, either a half or a full day off; but SAF isn't going to "pull a Liverpool".
Roy Keane buys Lee Bowyer, Joey Barton, Craig Bellamy, Michael Brown and Ben Thatcher. And he brings in Eric "Kung Fu" Cantona as a coach.
What would be the over/under for arrests? and for fights both on and off the field? Perhaps they can get a new sponsorship deal with "Chico's Bail Bonds".
The usl isn't bad, the tickets are cheap and while the teams aren't the best it'still soccer and its better than college level games.
The portland timbers games are nice because there are a group of die hard fans that are at everygame with thier green and white ####ing drums and singing the entire game.
That would be some team. Maybe they could get Barton's brother out of jail as tactical expert and blade manager.
ManU should keep Heinze he is a great back-up at all four positions.
-Arteta was good but Tevez was dominant. Carlitos reminds of the old fight in the dog cliche. I will repeat my belief that Arsenal could use some of his toughness, he could be the missing ingredient.
Poor old Charlton.
I have some relatives at the game who are probably pretty p****d off right now.And how ironic that Curbishley has played a part in sending them down!
And yes ,I do now how it feels to be relegated....I saw Chelsea go down on two occasions...hard as that is to believe today!
Does any-one remember :-
Ron "chopper" Harris
Norman "bites yer legs" Hunter
Emlyn "crazy horse" Hughes
Tommie Smith and Nobby Stiles
REAL hard-men ,who would eat the likes of Barton and Ball for breakfast!
Game of the weekend: Arsenal -Chelsea, and not just for the result (thx for title guys). Classic Arsenal -- all build up and no finish without Henry; classic Bhoularouz (don't undertsand why Mourinho keeps playing him, he's a disaster every time out) ; and a phenomenal performance by Essien -- if this guy isn't the world's best player, he soon will be. From Man Utd's POV, I hope Mourinho stays; he's managed to reduce an all star team to an all-star team -- i.e. 11 individuals -- and he's always pretty much wasted Essien.
Q1Bobby what is the problem with tyneside club, do you think its the board, or the club in my opinion is not as big as it claims to be?
Q2 If $60m we put for bebartov do you see totenham selling him
Q3 what do you think of lorik cana, l am of the information that he is definately be one of wenger's signings.again bobby amy lawrence on a talk show said that wenger has been given $100m pounds as part of 80m pound transfer budget they agreed on with the creditors upto 2009 and she sees
certain that eto'o is on the cards.personally l feel eto'o and henry are mutually exclusive in the same team, even if wenger has this amount of money do you see him coming to arsenal
Bobby - I know this is a minor thing but now that Man United has won the Premiership title can the new guy on the Fox Soccer Report stop referring to the Reds as "Man U?" All football fans know that is not a proper term. Thanks...
Great show as always tonight. I wonder did you see Jorge Valdano's comments on the Liverpool Chelsea champions league game. If not, check out The Guardian's website. Basically he compared it to watching #### on a stick. As an Arsenal fan, I have to agree somewhat that Benitez and Mourinho are strangling a lot of the skill level out of the game. The sad thing is that you could say that Arsenal actually made it to the CL final last year playing the same way. Hard to see what the solution is, but I have to say I would rather watch ties like Milan Man U over the Liverpool Chelsea ones every time.
Rabble: didn't read the Guardian article but how I agree with you! The worst UCL game ever seen. Never understood Mourinho's one-dimensional tactics cause he has the personnel to play a "technical" game. Perhaps he never trusts the "flair" players like Robben, J Cole, etc. But I disagree with your thoughts on Arsenal. Watched their matches against RM and Juve and boy, segments of which can only be described as fast and furious and I found myself unable to get out of the chair till the end. This season they changed tactics but the loss of Pires and Reyes has never been recovered.
Bobby,
Q1, given his failure to defend the title, how likelydo you think now is JM to be asked to quit in the summer, if Abramovich would risk losing a couple of key players? What's your reckoning on what the owner wants the club to be like? Playing beautifully? Or a team to win at all cost, the more trophies the merrier?
Q2, Can you name the three transfer targets Sir Alex alluded? Or to rephrase it, if you were ManU manager, who'd be your top three recruits?
Q3, Could you also name the three most needed positions/candidates for Liverpool and Arsenal?
Q4, Is Tottenham faring better than you expected at the beginning of the season? If they can keep Berbatov, will they be among the top 4 challengers next season, including, imo, Arsenal, Everton, and Aston Villa?
Don't worry I wasn't saying Arsenal were totally like Chelsea last year but I do think we sarcrificed some of our usual attacking play, and switched to a 4-5-1 formation. We only scored 5 goals in the seven knock out games, which is well below our usual average. Some of our football was still fantastic to watch, especially in the home game against Juventus, and the away tie against Madrid. Still, we know Wenger's philosophy is for attacking, flowing football (like Man U), unlike Mourinho and Benitez.
P.S. Hopefully we can pick up a good winger in the offseason, as I don't think Hleb is cutting it at the moment. He was very poor when he came on yesterday (again). I'm a big fan of Rosicky though. Let's hope he can stay injury free next year.
Worst game of the week? There were some bad ones, but the Manchester derby was a shocker, even without th much replaid stamping incident. Man U looked like sleepwalkers. Man City like the walking dead.
I didn't get to see the Spanish games so I may have missed the best. Just for way they wouldn't lie down, 10 men Chelsea deserve credit. Otherwise Tevez was great to watch.
OK, I really take exception to this nonesense about Chelsea putting out their second team. Bobby, I see that you were doing some tactful splaning to your co-host tonight. Thank you.
I wouldn't be surprised if Drogba wasn't one of those having an operation immediately after Wembley. I'm surprised that he made it this far. He only scored one goal in the last 15 games he played. There is no reason to assume that all the rest who were injured, we really being held back or dropped. He finally got Essien into midfield only having to put him back to CB. What JM probably hadn't bargained for was Kalu having a poor game and Joe Cole not creating anything with a worn out Lampard.
In retrospect, the smart move for the top four (not Chelsea) was putting the kids on the pitch for the meaningless Carling Cup.
Bobby, are league teams still contractually obligated to enter it? I assume so.
I am the soccer analyst for the Fox Soccer Report and appear twice a week - every Monday and Friday at 10:00 EST. I have also been a regular contributor to the Fox Soccer Channel website since the summer of 2004. Over the last twenty years I have contributed to various radio and television programs throughout North America as well writing about the game for newspapers, magazines and websites.
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