Correlation, its not always Causation.
By: Rob |
10 Comments
So the big talking point of the day, is the apparent “proof” that Man United get more stoppage time when they’re down than when they’re up. Of course, this has been suspected and pointed out before, but now, apparently it is backed up by statistics.
As Chris on the Front Page via The Guardian has shown, its statistically true than in games where Man United are winning there is less injury time in the games than when Man United are losing. The suggestion is that the ref’s are collectively influenced by Sir Alex Ferguson’s watch-pointing pressure and allow United more time.
But, as we should by now know, there are three kinds of lies, Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics.
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Category: Uncategorized
How close are City to United?
By: Rob | 4 Comments
So typically, Sir Alex Feguson has come out in the press today to announce that he’s never really seen Man City as a rival to Man United, only Liverpool. This is all partly mindgames, I imagine, but also partly frustration at how quickly its all come together at Eastlands.
Playing Man United this weekend is a good benchmark for City, to see how close they are to getting to the Champions. Unfortunately, they have £100m of strikers unavaliable through injuries or suspension, and will have to start up front with Craig Bellamy.
So perhaps this weekend won’t be a good indicator afterall. It’ll still leave the question, how close are City to becoming a proper rival to United, in every sense of the word?
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Whose Fault Was It for The Crowd Trouble at Eastlands?
By: Rob | 2 Comments
There you have the much-watched highlights of Manchester City’s game against Arsenal at the weekend. As you will have seen, City won 4-2, thanks to an eventful day from ex-Gooner Adebayour, who scored, set one up, stamped on Robin Van Persie’s face, and sprinted the full length of the pitch to celebrate a goal in front of his former supporters.
Its the last thing I want to talk about. First off, I’m not defending Adebayour, it was an absolutely moronic thing to do (and incidentally , I was kicked out of my Under 10s School Football Team once for doing something similar) and he really should have been thinking a touch clearer than that.
But really, football supporters are grown men as well. I can understand you would be disgusted at Adebayour for the way he acted, but was it really nessicarry to create such a kerfuffle that a steward left the ground injured? Just as Adebayour lost his self control and acted stupidly, so, surely did the Arsenal support?
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5 Reasons Why: You Have to Watch The Second City Derby
By: Rob | 4 Comments
So, the big derby match this weekend is from the midlands, as Birmingham City take on local rivals Aston Villa, for the first time since returning to the top division. An intense rivalry that goes back to 1879, it is always a pleasure to see it on the football calender, as many memorable moments have come from it.
Its called the Second City Derby because of Birmingham’s unofficial status as the Second City of England, and the sides have played well over 100 competitive matches against one another. The classic matches go back years. In 1925, Birmingham were down by three goals, but scored 3 in the last 20 minutes to bring the game to a draw. Birmingham’s only domestic trophy came after a win against Villa in the 1963 League Cup Final.
So here is a rough guide to the reasons why you definitely should be looking for a way to tune in this weekend.
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Chelsea can’t buy anyone untill 2011, says FIFA
By: Rob | 13 Comments
Crazy big news coming through, as Chelsea have been banned from registering any new players untill 2011, according to a FIFA ruling today. They apparently “illegally induced a French youth team player of joining the club”
“A restriction of four months on his eligibility to play in official matches is imposed on the player Gaël Kakuta while the club FC Chelsea is banned from registering any new players, either nationally or internationally, for the two next entire and consecutive registration periods following the notification of the present decision,” said the DRC. “Furthermore, the club, FC Chelsea, has to pay to RC Lens training compensation in the amount of €130,000.”
If this sticks, you can imagine the ramifications are huge.
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Category: ChelseaTransfer window shuts with a whimper rather than a bang
By: Rob | 8 Comments
12 months ago it was so exciting. Here at the Offside we spent the entire day liveblogging the closing of the transfer window, excitedly. Manchester City had literally just been bought out and had one day to get…someone, anyone. Man United were courting Berbatov, and there were all kinds of rumours about Sir Alex beating Mark Hughes to death in a carpark in North London in an attempt to get to the Bulagrian first.
No such excitement this year, but a couple of transfers have gone through, and its only right that I round them up, so you’re not confused when Richard Dunne is actually playing on Match of the Day in a couple of weeks.
So transfers after the jump, although there is still time for them to fall through because of paperwork issues or whatever.
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Category: Transfers and SpeculationArsene Wenger: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. I love them all.
By: Rob | 11 Comments
I don’t support any of the Prem clubs, but I have a deep liking of Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger. He’s a quietly spoken, intellegent man who knows his football, and is nicknamed The Professor. He also is prone to the kind of crazed moments as above, where after being sent to the stands with less than a minute left of a match, stood with the Man United fans in protest.
He does seem, of late to be more mad than genius. He’d been constantly complaining about the Eduardo situation, there was that incident at OT at the weekend, and he’s come out this morning and accused Man United of anti-football.
But really, that’s why we love him isn’t it?
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Category: ArsenalAndrei Arshavin: You Wouldn’t Like Him When He’s Angry
By: Rob | 6 Comments
Don’t make Andrei Arshavin angry. Like the big green comic book character, you would not like him when he’s angry, as Man United learned today. The Russian striker was hacked down in the box by Darren Fletcher and looked extremely frustrated that he didn’t recieve a penalty.
A minute or so later, Arshavin picked up the ball just outside the Man United box and took his anger out on the back of the ball, sending it flying into the Manchester United net, the hit too hot for Ben Foster, who got a glove to it, but not enough to stop it going into the corner of the net.
Wasn’t enough for Arsenal though, who lost 2-1 after a penalty from Wayne Rooney and an own goal from Diaby.
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Abramovich: Billionaire. Owner. Lord of Irony.
By: Rob | 6 Comments
Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich has reportedly backed plans to curb clubs spending crazy money in the form of a spending cap during transfer windows. While obviously Chelsea have not been anywhere near as outrageous as some other clubs we could mention this summer, its not such a long time ago that Chelsea were the market bullies (including Claudio Ranieri’s £100m spree that delivered absolutely no trophies (there’s a lesson in there for someone) so the irony of course will escape absolutely nobody.
Abramovich isn’t, of course, the only owner who backs the spending cap – both Inter’s Massimo Moratt (who sold Barca’ Ibrahimovic this summer) and Milan’s Silvio Berlusconi (who obviously lost Kaka’ this summer) have asked UEFA president Michel Platini to do something about the problem.
Its easy to see what they’d gain. But the big question is what such a cap would do to transfer prices.
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They’ve Got Sol, and they’re possibly not soldiers.
By: Rob | 2 Comments
The revolution WILL be televised afterall. It’ll just be on after Match of the Day on a Saturday night. Yes, i’m talking about the revolution at Notts County, which gathered apace today with the surprise signing of former Arsenal, Spurs, and England defender Sol Campbell.
The oldest club in the world are currently in the footballing doldrums of League Two (the basement of league football, basically) but surprised everyone by nabbing ex-Lazio and England manager Sven Goran Eriksson in some boring non-managerial capacity over the summer. Sol described him today as “a great man”.
Arsene Wenger rationalised it into what we were all thinking:
“It was a surprise, because of the level Notts County play at. That shows you as well how much financial potential Notts County has suddenly.”
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