Be Excellent To Each Other

Time for a new football thread for the new season.

So sparky is now at Fulham.

Predictions for the season?

Where's the football icon? The failure is massive.

Celtic will suck at everything they attempt to do.


I can now only be pleasantly surprised.

No one mention last night, losing our first European game of the season is tradition

Singing championship players isn't a good start.

Football players shouldn't sing, regardless of their division.

Not true, you can be proven right instead!

I'm interested in how Blackpool get on, and Newcastle are back up too, though likely both will struggle.

Hard to see past Chelsea & Man Utd again for the title I suppose, so that is pretty boring to me as a neutral.

You don't think Man City can realistly challenge this time around? and you think Liverpool/Arsenal have dropped too far back?

I think Liverpool might actually do quite well with their new signings and manager, and I have a sneaky feeling about spurs too.

Malc

I thought the Premiership title race last season was fantastic, especially the battle for third and fourth which came about after Chelsea and Man Utd inevitably ran away with it. Should be even better this season. Blackpool will go back down. Their attitude from what I've heard is very much "enjoy it whilst you're there" rather than "invest and become a top-flight team".

Boro have bought half of the Old Firm and should hopefully mount a promotion challenge. Hopefully.

Blackpool have lost half of their team and not bought anyone. The manager and the fans are getting royally shafted.

Yeah, I guess City will be expected to do more this time around, but you never know if the new signings will gel well enough for this season.

Arsenal, Liverpool... The Arse always do well for a while then tend to tail off. Liverpool, I still don't quite see it, though I think they'll do better than last season.

it's like something out of 1984



Malc

There wasn't a world cup in 1984, you must mean 1982 or 1986...

I predict FCUM will finish in a playoff position for promotion to conference north.

MUFC 2nd in prem and win FA cup and semis of European cup. Chelsea win league comfortably city 3rd, begrudgingly, and arsenal 4th.

Liverpool will do fuck all.

glad Jol stayed with us, but having a bad start already..

1st Chelsea
2nd Manure
3rd Arsenal
4th Liverpool
5th Tottenham
6th Man City
7th Villa
8th Everton
9th West Ham
10th Sunderland
11th Fulham
12th Birmingham
13th Stoke
14th Bolton
15th Blackburn
16th Newcastle
17th Wigan
18th West Brom
19th Wolves
20th Blackpool

There; season done, I'm happy, Newcastle stayed up.

15th... you're kidding right?

yeah, Blackburn will be lucky to make 15th.

We were 10th last season! And haven't lost any players so I can't see us doing much worse. I'd say between 8th and 12th

Why not, it's a step up from the SPL.

Barcodes will not stay up. Fact. And you spelt Utd wrong muppit.

I really can't see Blackburn finishing above any of:

Chelsea
United
Arsenal
City
Liverpool
Spurs
Villa
Everton

But 9th is feasible. I still reckon Fulham are a good bet to finish above Blackburn though.

I also reckon Newcastle might do surprisingly well.

I'd be happy with a top half finish, if everton get one or two injuries then they'll struggle I think, not really a big squad there.

You lot doing fannasy footy this season? I missed out last time.

Is there one where I just pick a team and don't have to worry about changing players every week, and nonsense like that? I CBA with that sort of palaver.

I've created two leagues on the official site since there is two types and wasn't sure, but we could easily do both since it only takes a second to join them.
http://fantasy.premierleague.com/

Anyone the first type of league is the usual most points at the end of the season.

Code to join that league is:



The other type of league has you facing off with another Beexers team each week and works in a similar way to the new league where if you get more points than your opponent you get 3 points and so on.

Code to join that league is:



I'll try and remember to do updates in this thread on a regular basis when the season starts to try and keep everyones interest up since it usually tails off at some point.

I think all them have the option to do transfers now. You could just pick a team and hope for the best.

Ha in the guardian preview of blackburn's forthcoming season they've also predicted a 15th finish.

Probably a typo.

Just watching Man United take apart a League of Ireland XI at the Aviva Stadium. First off, the place is almost full and Irish people wearing United shirts outnumber everyone.

Second, Hernandez looks very good.

United are 7-1 up at the moment.

Edit: And judging by the advertising, it is practically a United home game. 90% of the ads are for something United related - quite a bit of adverts for the Far East.

Irish people are stupid. They should be supporting Bohemians and St Patrick's Athletic, not chuffing Glazer Utd.

Are we doing a fantasy football this year then?

Two of us are apparently.

[edit] Three.

On the official premier league site? What's our league code?

Who decided that Shamrock Rovers get to be Shamrock Rovers? Surely nobody should get that name to be fair? I mean, that's why there isn't a Sunday Dinner Athletic or Steak 'n' Ale Pie Wanderers in England. Everyone would want it.

Mnnnngh!

Cheers!

joined

ajax survived the first cl playoff round in an incredibly weird game in saloniki
1-0, 1-3, 2-3, missed penalty for paok, 3-3 in the 90th minurte, 4 tense minutes of extra time...

FEEX

In the interests of accuracy, it goes

Liverpool
Man Utd
Arsenal
Celtic

Maybe, but the Celtic one is the one that gets my goat.

Why? The team was formed from & by Irish immigrants.

There is a very long gap between United and Arse in that list, BTW.

What pissed me off - and I wrote about it in my blog - was going to watch Shamrock Rovers vs Bohemians, the biggest match in Irish football and walking past the ground but away from it was a guy dressed top to toe in United gear.

More people head to the UK from Ireland each weekend than watch their local side. Pisses me off.

I know what you mean but equally I sort of understand it these days.

The Premier League is just a brand now. It's more than football and also seperate from it. It's like arbitrarily deciding that you want Ferrari to win F1 races. Or rooting for Chuck Liddell in the UFC when there's a fighter who lives in your town but isn't as charismatic. It's certainly not about your local side these days. Not when 400 billion trillion Chinese people are watching the matches.

I mean I keep up to date with the Prem even though QPR haven't been in it for years now. I just see it as seperate from football. It may as well be NFL or something. Also, assuming that Irish football is up there with Conference football in the quality stakes, I've been to a few non-league games and it's fucking bleak.

Of course, that's all well and good until you see some fucker dressed in a full Man Utd kit. There's no excusing that but then again, it'd be the same if he was actually a Utd season ticket holder and was sat at Old Trafford. Football shirts/kits are for football players and kids. No-one else.

Ooh, look. He's doing another rant

*readies email*

arf!

Also arf @ Wes Brown retiring from international football. Can't blame him given the media's hysterical reaction to the World Cup.

Woah, wait. Wes Brown is THIRTY?

Blimey.

I met Wes Brown once. He really IS that orange in real life.

I also think the media should report the story as "Wes Brown and Paul Robinson finally admit they're not good enough to play International football".