Football talking points

First topic message reminder :

Rather than hijack the "which team do you support" thread where some of these are being talked about...

Some of the events of the weekend that are getting people talking

1) Mario Balotelli: plenty to say about him in general but specifically the alleged stamp on Scott Parker and his subsequent charge by the FA

2) Lescott's elbow on Kaboul(?) - FA say no charge to answer

3) Conspiracy theories in general about Man City!

4) Wenger's decision to take Chamberlain off and put Arshavin on - and Van Persie's reaction

5) Peter Crouch and the "eye-gouge"

6) Harry Redknapp and the tax-dodging allegations and court case

Discuss!

Congratulations to Luton. First non league to beat a top flight team for 24 years and to do it away from home since '86.

Heartbreak for Aldershot, so close to a replay and 5 minutes into stoppage time they concede the winner.

Well done Blue, it must have been rocking in the Weston, whatever, stadium today. Weren't you suspicious of Sears earlier.....

Well as rocking as it can get Grumps, when there is only 2800 there...

Great to get a win today obviously. Three new signings on show and the side had much better balance. Freddie did do well today for the 15 minutes that he was on the pitch, I still feel he tends to sometimes go missing when he plays the full 90 minutes

Glad to see that you got a win Blue - hopefully that will help John-Joe decide that he's not needed there!

A good win for you today also Mary, and off the bottom of the table as well

I'm a bit sheepish to admit that I woke up very early to watch Murray in the tennis and then went back to bed after it finished. I was intending to get up around 10 but woke up as injury time was announced at Oldham.

Who would have thought Chelsea's draw would be the best result of all three premiership sides today. I know Spurs played Leeds a couple of years back in two thrilling games and was probably the hardest tie of the three. Doc's probably still celebrating but maybe not so much after the 5th round draw.

7 Premiership sides left in the Cup and some good ties; Oldham and Everton, Man City and Leeds. Hopefully no upset at the Emirates this year.

I thought that the Oldham v Liverpool game was quite "old school" - seemed to be quite a physical game, which you don't tend to see so often these days. Managed to watch the Chelsea game on-line, Brentford played well but unfortunately I can't see them repeating it at The Bridge.

Blue - there is a lot of belief at Rovers that JW is going to be our Saviour.

Let's hope so Mary, would be a shame to see the Rovers play their first game in the new stadium in non-league!

I see that JJ's loan has been extended for another 2 months. This means he will miss our last 4 games, so hopefully we will be safe by then.

We will probably need him back for those last 4 games to help keep us up!

What do you make of the bizzare situation with Peter Odemwingie on Transfer Deadline Day? Pitching up at QPR and being turned away, as no deal had actually been agreed. I'd love to be a fly on the wall at the West Brom training session today!

Becks off the PSG, and donating his wages to a French charity. Would have been nice if he'd split it 50/50 with an English charity, not sure why he feels the need to give so much to France as he's not got any connections there. No doubt he'll still get a nice wedge for a % of the shirt sales, image rights etc, and it gets him away from scowling Vicky for the majority of the week.

Mary_S wrote:What do you make of the bizzare situation with Peter Odemwingie on Transfer Deadline Day? Pitching up at QPR and being turned away, as no deal had actually been agreed. I'd love to be a fly on the wall at the West Brom training session today!

Becks off the PSG, and donating his wages to a French charity. Would have been nice if he'd split it 50/50 with an English charity, not sure why he feels the need to give so much to France as he's not got any connections there. No doubt he'll still get a nice wedge for a % of the shirt sales, image rights etc, and it gets him away from scowling Vicky for the majority of the week.

Mary the QPR thing is very strange, as it happened twice yesterday and apparently it was down to Harry jumping the gun. You know he has a reputation for wheeling and dealing in the transfer window, and loves hanging out of his car window to talk to the press. Andros Townsend a winger he had at Spurs (Not brilliant) also turned up and was turned away, but that deal got done last night late, a loan I believe. The Odemwingie thingie you would suspect was because of a bit of tapping up and a greedy player, who wants more cash, even if it means playing for a team who could go down. Doesn't endear him to the WBA faithful going forward ..... Wonder what will happen if Harry fails to keep them up, after spending millions more on this failed project. Fernandez will deffo sell up and no doubt Harry will walk into another high profile job.

Oh-Dim-Whinger won't have endeared himself to West Brom at all. He's going to have to work hard to earn their trust and support again or find himself frozen out. It would be a risk of the club to do that because I'm sure if he's as mercenary as they're making out he would be happy to sit on the bench and earn his fortune.

The cynic in me says the Becks thing is a tax dodge. While it sounds great he's probably avoiding paying the massive French taxes that has seen high profile fence citizens leave France. I can understand them wanting to leave France anyway and the tax thing was just a bonus.

So the FA avoided giving Hazard an additional game ban; hopefully that will be the end of fatballboygate.

The Beks thing is deffo a tax scam, and I heard someone on the radio this morning mention that if he was on $100k per week, which is likely at that club now with their new owners, he would have lost most of it to tax. By having this deal in place he will be better off overall by more than he would have earned before tax. He's been working with PSG for over 3-months sorting this deal, whereby his company still earn image/media rights and the club earn a shed load in merchandising. A win-win for both parties, but especially for Beckham Ltd.

Don't blame him as i would do the same, but also don't think he's a philanthropist, he's a shrewd cookie who has almost £600m in the bank already, and this is the latest in a long line of brilliant reinvention and PR by Becks, keeping the brand in the headlines.

Ah - thanks Doc, as we suspected, all is not what it seems. It's a win win situation then, he's quids in and everybody thinks he's a Saint!

Let's not be too hard on him, he has got 4 kids to bring up after all!

What's the truth in the story about his eldest son and Gordon Ramsey's son having trials with Chelsea. Is it just red top media hype?

Wonder if he'll commute from London, or is Paris fashion week soon, so that team Becks can get free accommodation for a while.

Basement battle today Blue, have you got enough to make it back wins and break Pompey hearts?

So far so good Blue, another half like that will mean 2 wins on the bounce.

Thanks Grumps, very happy with a win at Portsmouth today and that takes us three points clear of the relegation zone.

Swindon at home on Tuesday night, hopefully a good time to play them with Paolo Di Canio considering his future after their off the field disagreements of the last few days

Looking forward to the game against Swindon tonight despite the prospect of a very cold night in the stands!

Paolo Di Canio has said that he only has 13 fit players for the match due to illness and injury which I find quite surprising. Let's hope they don't get a few injuries early on in the first half

(Sorry to knock the rugby thread off the top LP, I'm sure it won't be for too long!)

Might be fortunate for you if a couple more pick up the flu though Blue. Think the minimum you can play with is 7 before the ref has to abandon the game.

PS down with rugby

Well the winning run had to come to an end sometime, unfortunately Swindon managed to keep 11 men on the park

A fairly well contested game tonight but I thought they just about deserved their 1-0 win to be honest. Another home game on Saturday, this time against Preston who are only a few points above us so hoping we can get a decent result then

Unlucky Blue - at least it sounds as though it was a reasonable game to watch. I took a trip down memory lane on Saturday and went to watch Bath City v Staines - it was pretty dire!

Forget Fergie Time - we've got Wardy Time. Rovers snatched an equaliser in 4th minute of added on time last night, to draw 1-1 at Cheltenham. Now at the dizzy heights of 19th in the league, 14 points of a play-off spot.

Not a fan of Ashley Cole - but there's no denying that he's a good player, so hope that he'll get respect from the England fans for his 100th appearance this evening.

Good to see that John Ward is beginning to turn things around for you Mary.

Col U released six players last week, would not be surprised to see at least one of them head down to the west country to rejoin their old boss.

Hard work today but good results for us all; Gunners, Col U and Rovers. We seemed to have misplaced the shooting boots in the second half but held on with a bit of a backs to the wall performance.

Blimey, there's an impressive display of firepower in the City side today. Shame they keep managing to hit the self destruct button. This would be an impressive first and important win for Pochettino.

Thought that was a great result for us Grumps - Jack going off injured (hope it isn't serious) then Jenkinson getting 2nd yellow - 1-0 at Sunderland is always a good result

The Wardy honeymoon period continues with a 0-2 win at Oxford.

Looks like it was a good weekend all round for the GC football fans.

Just the 12 points off a play-off spot now then Mary!

Despite 9 points out of the last 12 for us, we are still only 2 points away from the drop zone. Next up for us is Sheffield United away on Saturday, can't see us picking up too much there to be honest

Your win yesterday wasn't helped by other struggling teams getting good results too. But least you picked up the 3 points.

BlueCoverman wrote:Next up for us is Sheffield United away on Saturday, can't see us picking up too much there to be honest

I wish I was this good in the fantasy league!

The Arsenal boys are a bit quiet this weekend?

Football's a crappy game, up with rugby!

1GrumpyGolfer wrote:PS down with rugby

The fickleness of Arsenal fans knows no limits

Arsenal fans? What Arsenal fans?

Davie wrote:Arsenal fans? What Arsenal fans?

These are not the arsenal fans you are looking for (waves hand mysteriously)

Is that you waving goodbye to Arsene Grumps?

I don't know Blue. I'm not sure who would be better and be available or willing to come. Some things do seem a bit baffling like zonal marking at corners, especially as we seem to be so strong at defending them

I think that Wenger can get Arsenal through this. Agree GG - sometimes it's a case of be careful what you wish for.

Looking good for Col U at the moment Blue especially with other results going your way too.

Yes an excellent win today Grumps. My dear Mum had the good sense to pass away last Saturday afternoon thus saving me the humiliation of having to sit through the 5 -1 defeat by Tranmere. I didn't feel like going on Tuesday so I missed the 2 -0 win against Yeovil, but certainly 6 points from the last 2 games gives us cause for optimism.

You had some other results go your way today too, sucked a few more back into it.

What's the prediction for the big North London derby tomorrow then Grumps?

I'm hoping for a win for the Arsenal, just as long as we don't get beat by that team of wrong-uns

I've had to turn the buildup to the match over as Piers Morgan is about to character assassinate Wenger and say that we'll be lucky to get a draw. This is from the guy that predicted Arsenal would win 8-0 today in Lawro's weekly prediction competition. @#$!

My considered response: Wankers!

Thankfully I can turn it off and pretend it never, ever happened

Don't think it will be that easy Grumps, the supporters of the wrong-uns will be reminding you frequently!

Luckily don't know any wrong-uns here

I'll see if I can get any of my Spurs mates on here for you

BlueCoverman wrote:I'll see if I can get any of my Spurs mates on here for you

Not sure how long those posts will last on here then Blue