oh, schalke arsenal finally ready to watch on replay, w00t!

Yeah. I think there was a lot of doubts about Mancini last season but winning the Prem covered over the cracks. He seems to be a terrible man Manager and must have lost some authority in the dressing after reinstating Tevez and Balotelli. He's too emotional, which can come across as passion when things are going well but hot headedness when they aren't. I'm expecting the back pages to start filling up with 'Mourinho to the Etihad' rumours.

Maybe I shouldn't be but I am shocked by that result.

No one can love a team that has Suarez in it.

A great match, that was.

i've always loved that kit, but just presumed that was me being biased

when they have tried to bring it back in recent years it's been a pretty poor version.

i like suarez--he's hilarious.

plus there are the populations of liverpool and uruguay to consider.


YES.

I think City will have a really bad season, and Mancini will go.
For me, Chelsea look really good. I reckon they'll win the league

MC seem to be going backwards this year. I'm increasingly starting to think Mancini's just out of his depth. And yeah, Chelsea are the surprise package for me. I really thought they'd plummet. Although it still seems too freaky for me to be able to take DiMatteo seriously as a manager. But I keep thinking that and he keeps proving me wrong.

He might be my favourite player in the prem right now. Definitely one of them. Impossible to condone, though.

Spurs getting a 1-1 draw in Slovenia tonight...

We're probably not going to win the UEFA CUP (I refuse to call it the Europa league) and are unlikely to finish top 4, so Im prepared for a season of silence. Its nice, it takes me back to being 16 again, only this time Arsenal arent beating everyone

I am dreading the Everton/Liverpool derby tomorrow. Feel sick just thinking about it.

BUT I do hope Suarez gets his legs broken.

If not that then at least this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rcXdZpdJ6I

boo, sir, boo

but if you wanted to hurt him, the front teeth is where it's at. just saying.

---------

dortmund/freiburg just played in the snow. nice.

DEMOÑO: frankfurt plays tomorrow if you wanna watch them vs. stuttgart. 10:30am "eastern time" so figure out the time zone difference between ny/you/germany (i have no idea).

Awesome, thanks!! I think the time translates to 2.30pm here which means I can still see the bulk of the Chelsea Man U and Liverpool Everton games.

They'd better fucking win. West Ham going down to Wigan this afternoon is all the defeat I can take in a single weekend. Wigan, for fuck's sake!

Want the Dolphins to win tomorrow, too; my default favourite NFL side.

As far as I'm concerned there's only one game that matters this weekend.

This was at the start of the final training session today:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0v3taNlAf4
I expect twice as much fireworks tomorrow during the actual game, both on and off the pitch.

hot damn

that looks awesome

--

ps @ half-time, man city is sucking balls!

As much as I hate Suarez (his first goal celebration pretty much had me ready to kill) that offside was a bad call. HOWEVER I guess you could call it Karma.

DEMOÑO i hope you had a taste of what you asked for w/ the frankfurt game lolololol

anyway bayern got fucked by bayer leverkusen. crazy-ass game, im not sure what the table is going to look like after this weekend.

NEXT: boca-river which im going to watch out of curiosity just becuz it's going to be fucking bananas

99 years of football warfare

Haha, I watched it on a stream. At this stage it's hard to know if Frankfurt were a bit crap or Stuttgart are quite good. Although it should've finished a draw given Frankfurt had a perfectly good goal disallowed towards the end.

Curious to know how the Boca v River Plate game pans out. I know they're intense affairs but wonder if that's just a fan thing or if it translates to the pitch.

They're showing live NFL here, tonight, too: the Denver Broncos vs the New Orleans Saints. Perfect for me, seeing as I've just come down with flu and expect to be up most of the night. So something I can watch in the wee small hours. Today was also the first of two scheduled 'International' games to be played here in England. I'm currently listening on the radio to the Patriots destroy the Rams. (Since when did St Louis stop being the Cardinals?) It feels weird having NFL fixtures here but I should maybe make an effort to go to the next one.

It was a fantastic game from a neutrals standpoint.

the transmission was crap and blurry and headache-inducing so i stopped watching & i'm catching up with the weekend's goals. here it's barely sunday morning (sorta) and everything is already over in europe already. blagh. lucky i have the "fox soccer" website that lets me watch english games on replay.

anyway stuttgart dominated the game and frankfurt yeah were crap during the first half. the last goal if i recall was a clear offside but a pity because it would have been cool. now schalke is 2nd on the table. the bayern game was great though so if you can catch it in some interweb thing the 2nd half was pretty thrilling, though if you're a bayern fan you'll be screaming why the fuck why. still fun game to watch.

anyway you wanted to root for a loser team so you got your wish. also west ham got spanked, yes? you crazy masochist! i saw them briefly yesterday.

see if you can catch that bayern game though. leverkusen got lucky and bayern couldn't fin the net. fuck.

ps - tuned back to river/boca and it's stil 1-0 for river plate at halftime (i saw the first goal, it was like the first few minutes). the teams have no great stars these days though, and both teams are currently mid-table.

pps - im gonna watch the liverpool and man-u/chelsea games on repeat this week. speaking of english games, i was happy to see man city come back in the 2nd half. i had forgotten they have so many players i like. not sure about the coach drama but i've been trying to read up on it (he doesn't talk to the players?)

Mancini's just one of those awkward characters. And when he u-turned on his statements that neither Tevez or Balotelli would ever play for him again, I think he lost a lot of players' and fans' respect. Now he's criticising Micah Richards for questioning his three at the back formation. Ultimately though, I just don't think he's a good enough manager to meet the expectations of Man City's owners. To be fair, few are, and with Fergie set for retirement and nobody knowing for sure if Guardiola will even manage again, that only leaves Mourinho, who I think is wanted by almost everyone but Man City will be among the few that could afford him.

I've always liked Man City. I like teams that are traditionally in the shadow of bigger local rivals - I like Everton, too, for that very reason. And same as you, I like a lot of MC's players, especially Yaya Toure, Kompany and Aguero and of course Balotelli. But I'm really losing respect for Mancini, as a manager and increasingly as a man, too.

that's weird cuz i was just reading his wikipedia page (hey, it's as accurate as the encyclopaedia britannica) and i found out that:

-he's got a contract till 2017!

-he's famous for doing well at cups for the past 10 years

- was the most successful manager of recent times @ inter

- won the premiere league for man city for the first time in 40+ years

- he tends to tell the media the opposite of what he means

...

however from what im reading his problem is not lack of tactical or strategic know-how but more on how he deals with people yes? what do you mean by "not good enough"? i mean--- not good in what sense? no football know-how or no people skills?

By not good enough, I suppose I mean as an all round person/manager. He's too impulsive and tinkers for the sake of it. Nobody can argue with his record but I do think he was the reason Man City almost lost the title last season, thanks to his mismanagement of Tevez, Balotelli, Silva and Dzeko. Had Fergie managed that team, I'm convinced they'd have sewn up the title weeks before they eventually did. Apart from that, there's just something slightly unconvincing about Mancini, at least for me.

The West Ham thing wasn't really a choice; I was brought up literally a few minutes walk away from their ground. They're a nice team to support though. Never successful enough to attract glory hunters but sometimes good enough to have an occasional good season in the Prem. They used to have a reputation for playing really attractive football, too, but that was a long time ago. Now, under Allardyce, they're pretty lumpen. Believe it or not, Barack Obama is meant to be a fan.

i see. i thought the problem w/ tevez had to do w/ tevez himself-- which is why the argentina national team doesn't want him (though it might have to do w/ lots of reasons not just discipline). and balotelli is famously out of control. but i don't follow the prem close enough to know these things and i wasn't aware of him having problems w/ other players. damn. i read that the herman-munster-lookalike lescott is unhappy as well.

alright thanks for the chance to catch up w/ the news. man city has lots of players i like (hart, lescott, kompany, higuain, tevez, toure, agüero, balotelli... i actually don't like silva or nasri but eh) and it's suprising to see them struggle like that.

we'll see how things develop then... so man city is now just 1 point behind chelsea it can't be such a debacle can it? maybe things will turn around. hmmm...

oooh! i see! also, looks like katy perry's tits are fans too. which i'm all for.

well then if you wanna watch a game from a team other than frankfurt don't miss the replay (if you can get it) of the bayern/bayer game (yes, one "n" difference). i know i already mentioned it but the 2nd half was great. really.

I agree, but the problem becomes Mancini's because he so regularly says one thing then does another. What authority can he have with players when he's publicly sacking them one day then taking them back the next? He criticises Micah Richards whose probably thinking, then fire me, just like you did Tevez and Balotelli.

so his problem is that he runs his mouth with the press then?

i read that this had worked for him during last season by relieving their players of pressure to go for the title, while secretly believing they still could win.

however, triangulation (and with the press, no less) is not a good long-term strategy, i'd agree with that-- triangles are terrible for loyalty-- this is some theory from my old shrink that i'd be happy to explain perhaps some day but basically if you recruit an outsider to gang up against your partner instead of telling them things to their face in private, the connection will go to shit very quickly.

To be fair, it's just my interpretation of things. I went from liking Mancini at the beginning of last season to really doubting him at the end of it. All managers talk shit to the press but what seperates say Fergie or Wenger is that they always seem in control of it, where Mancini just seems to speak too much from raw emotion - which initially seems quite refreshing but soon just becomes odd. Ultimately though, I'm not saying he's a bad manager, just that City's owners are rich enough to get the very best there is and I simply can't put Mancini in that category.

As someone who regularly finds themselves recruited as just such a go-between, I entirely agree.

so i saw his mocking celebration by taking a dive in front of that dude and i ask HOW CAN YOU NOT LIKE HIM.

also: taking the coin and putting it in his boot: hilarious.

suárez rules and this last match just confirmed it.

a pity for the ref's bad call but it seems it was a weekend full of bad calls. the gringo commentators here were screaming for "video assist technology."

anyway if you wanna witness true scandal, check out the highlights from the juventus/catania game. *atrocious*

west ham have katy perry and obama as a fan, Palace have jo brand and kid jensen

says alot

Fuck Suarez, he just rides Forlan's coat tail..

Fuck Suarez, he just rides Forlan's coat tail..

pfffthaaattttttaaaaahaaaaaaalololol

Or taking them back 4 months later. That's exactly my problem with Mancini. He just needs to show them who's boss. I don't get to see Man City very often at all, but coincidence had it I was watching the game vs Ajax and what was the most telling for me was when Man City were behind and Balotelli and Kolarov were arguing over who got to take a free kick. Kolarov won and after that it seemed as if Mario didn't feel like doing anything at all anymore. As if his team weren't on the fringe of elimination in the most important competition just two months into the season. With an attitude like that they're not going to get anywhere this season. And it's Mancini who is to blame for that. Fergie (or any decent manager) would never allow something like that...

forlan is garbage now being recycled in the brazilian league. his time is over.