To those people who say English league football isn't the greatest only need to look at today. Just incredible. Top to bottom of the league had something to play for today.

Was in a huuuggggeee pub that had both the city game and the utd game playing on seperate screens and by christ was it tense. One of the most amazing days of football ANDAND! Everton nailed Newcastle whilst L'pool lose. Great day.

Oh and Joey Barton...only half an hour before hand was I thinking how he seemed to have calmed down in recent days then he pulls them tricks out. God bless that loveable rogue.

i actually saw tevez kinda-punch barton on the back before he got the revenge elbow to the face, so i *sort of* understand his reaction, though he's an idiot cuz he got a red card, but hitting agüero when the guy wasn't even looking at him was truly fucking low.



rah rah rah! (?) yeah but do you watch other leagues though? dortmund beat bayern yesterday 5-2 and they played beautifully. fuckit, i love bayern but dortmund was fucking unstoppable. [btw fergie was watching the game @ stadium w/ the intent of buying kakawa for man u]


i think the word you're looking for is "felon" ;) (though that may be a 'merica-only word).

Match of the day should be good tonight, can't wait to see the look on Ferguson's face. I'm happy with a 10th place finish, just hope we can get someone good to replace Hodgson.

I'd be surprised if Curbishley isn't on the shortlist. He'd be a pretty like-for-like replacement.

Ranieri is favourite apparently, not quite sure how I feel about it. Curbishley would be a good appointment though.

Curbishley is very 'safe' and will almost guarantee you mid-table (but no higher). Ranieri strikes me as capable of taking you further but with more of a risk of it all going wrong. But Curbishley's style of football is almost unwatchably dull. (At West Ham his nickname was 'Cautiously'.) He's Sam Allardyce minus the cuntishness.

that was quite the end of the season wasnt it. very tense and enjoyable that united didnt win it, not that i am a city fan by any stretch of the imagination. i hope that its always going to be as close as that so that its exciting, i dont like it when one team is already 10 points clear at the end.

barton, calm down son.

I've not seen every league but I've seen enough of a lot of them to say the Prem may not be the best in terms of football quality but I've still yet to find a more relentlessly intense and involving league. I can't compare it with the Bundesliga but I've seen enough of La Liga and Serie A and some of the S'th American leagues to say that, on the whole, I much prefer the Prem. It's a different kind of football. It's not the beautiful game but it's far more dramatic throughout the league. It's common that players and managers who come to the Prem from overseas end up commenting on how intense it is.

If you can, try and see next Saturday's Championship Playoff Final between West Ham and Blackpool. (And support West Ham, obviously) The all or nothing prize is promotion to the Premier League, and as such the final is often the most dramatic and tense one off game in the whole of the English football calender. It'll be on before the Champions League final and I wouldn't be at all surprised if it doesn't end up being the better game. It may not have much tactical sophistication or beautiful passes but for sheer frantic do or die epicness, it's hard to beat.

This.

And I'm hoping West Ham DESTROY Blackpool. The last thing the prem. league is Blackpool's shed spoiling things again.

Yeah. The media and quite a lot of neutrals seem to want Blackpool to win, because of 'lovable' Ian Holloway.

I'm really nervous about it.

This whole season has been insane, the amount of amazing things has been almost perfectly balanced out by the number of colossally shit things. And thats just Balotelli.

Yeah, definitely the most event-packed Prem season I can remember. It;s hard to pick a favourite moment: Aguero's goal on Sunday; all things Balotelli; Chelsea v Barcelona; Torres' goal celebration in the second leg; The whole Capello/Redknapp/Hodgeson saga; King Kenny looking like he could lose his crown; the whole AVB thing. Plus some negatives: Gary Speed; Muamba (although luckily not entirely negative); Joey Barton (will be a positive if he never plays in England again); Blackburn fans threatening to kill Steve Keane's kids; the Suarez-Evra non-handshake; all things John Terry; shit referees; West Ham's non-involvement.

That moment was the reason I value sport.

Throughout the second half the City fans and Mancini were losing it, and i mean REALLY losing it. He was on his haunches with his head in his hands, they were crying and thrashing their replica jerseys on the seats of their PUBLICLY FUNDED stadium. They looked truly deranged, like a prehistoric tribe witnessing a solar eclipse for the first time, watching the end of the world and powerless to stop it.

And then...





There's been a dozen villains in football this season, and a good proportion of them were on the pitch on Sunday, but in the end it was the two most heroic Man City players who took centre stage. The ones you would be proud to have on your wall as a kid. The ones you would get two of in the Panini albums but still never swap: Kompany and Aguero.

How fitting was it that Joey "A quote for every occasion" Barton (ha ha ha me) got involved with Carlos "one comedy goal celebration that you borrowed off Craig Bellamy anyway" Tevez. I only wish the ref and everyone had just ignored them.

As it was, everyone did the customary thing; They gave Yaya Toure far too much praise, and gave Balotelli far too little. I still dont get why Mario is the villain to everyone, he set up the goal that won them the league!

Absolutely agree about Aguero and especially Kompany (my player of the season and seems like a decent bloke, too). I don't think anything this season tops that game. Pure drama, even as a neutral. As you say, it's games like that which show just how epic football can be, to the point where I actually feel a bit sorry for people who don't like it. There's a lot to dislike about football but every now and then a game comes along, like the one on Sunday, or Chelsea's second leg against Barcelona where I defy anyone with a soul to watch it and not be drawn in.

Classic clip of Paul Merson commentating the final minutes
Some great fan reactions

Re Mario, I love him but can understand why some don't. He's entertaining as fuck but far too unpredictable to be relied on. I really hope they keep him but I couldn't really blame Mancini if they don't. I think Toure's a brilliant player. If anything I'd say he's generally underpraised. He's very unspectacular in the way he plays but I think he's even more vital to the city midfield than Silva.

Silva's form dropped off toward the end of the season, which coincided with City's poor run.
But then Toure seemed to step up and become the spark. His performance against utd was immense

Yeah, it looks like Mancini played Silva too much, but I think Toure, Aguero and Kompany were the two most vital city players for the season as a whole.

Hodgeson names his Euro 2012 squad.



Terry going but no Ferdinand seems like the only really controversial decision. And even that's understandable, given Rio's ongoing injury problems. Carroll seems a bit odd, given his form for Liverpool, but maybe being freed from the Anfield pressure is what he needs. And I just hope Parker's fit in time.

EDIT: I just noticed, no Micah Richards. Now that is odd. Capello never rated him either, so maybe there's something about him that we don't know. But I can't understand how Glenn Johnson goes but Richards stays at home. Nobody's ever gonna convince me that Johnson's a better right back than Richards.

supprised at Downings inclusion, and at Micah Richards exclusion

and suprised at Defoe getting in over Sturridge

but most of all i'm supprised at how excited i am about the tournament. I knew i was excited but fuck me i'm excited

wall charts!!!!

sweep stakes!!!!

afternoons off work!!!!

downing should not be there, he is just so predictable that you can see what he wants to do before he does.

i see kenny has had his last at liverpool. who next? maybe martinez but for gods sake why?

I like Martinez but I think he'd be a big risk at a club like Liverpool. At Wigan, the expectations are so low that simply staying in the Prem (which they only just managed) is considered a successful season. Martinez hasn't had to deal with the expectations of Champions League qualification and a decent title challenge, season after season, where every loss is a crisis and where every player brought in is expected to be world class. Plus he'll have a similar problem to the one that faced AVB at Chelsea: key players coming to the end of their career and another massively expensive flop in Carroll to deal with. Rightly or wrongly, just as Terry etc refused to take AVB seriously, I doubt if Gerrard or Carragher would be in favour of a young upstart manager like Martinez taking hold of 'their' Liverpool. It's a totally different situation to the Martinez has at Wigan, and until that old guard is finally eased out, I think they have to go for a more established and experienced manager to see them through the transition. They won't, though.