The Football Thread 2011/12

[rudderless]

Sepp Blatter wants an alternative to penalites

Fifa president Sepp Blatter has asked Bayern Munich honorary president Franz Beckenbauer to come up with an alternative to the "tragedy" of penalty shoot-outs.
Beckenbauer is head of the Football Task Force 2014, a group designed to recommend rule changes.
"Football can be a tragedy when you go to penalty kicks," Blatter said.
"Football should not go to one to one, when it goes to penalty kicks football loses its essence."
He added: "Perhaps Franz Beckenbauer with his football 2014 group can show us a solution, perhaps not today but in the future."

Well someone wanted Bayern to win.

Players have to line up to kick Blatter in the face until he finally agrees to relinquish his position as FIFA president?

[Rex Kramer]

Maybe Sepp should write down who he wants to win before the game, then when its a draw at full time, he opens the envelope and announces the winner!

[PatSharpsMullet]

Hide and Seek, Scrabble or Hungry Hungry Hippos.

[Rex Kramer]

Hide and Seek, Scrabble or Hungry Hungry Hippos.

Hide and Seek on a football pitch would be immense. Only problem is that Crouch would win every time by just covering himself in whitewash.

[Kanbei]

Match of the Day remains on the BBC until the end of 2015/16 season. New deal also means Match of the Day (the main one) will be available on iplayer, this deal starts the season after next.

[Zellery]

So Pep said he would manage this year if he seduced by a club! GET ON IT JOHN HENRY!

[PatSharpsMullet]

Hide and Seek, Scrabble or Hungry Hungry Hippos.

Hide and Seek on a football pitch would be immense. Only problem is that Crouch would win every time by just covering himself in whitewash.

Players would be allowed to go anywhere within the ground.

[Peter Crisp]

How about after extra time we have 1 person from each team taken away ever 4 minutes after that until it gets to just 6 a side? The person would be chosen at random and no subs are allowed.

[Scotticus Erroticus]

No, no, no! Don't take them off, just have a sniper on the side to take one out every 4 minutes. Their bodies could be used to defend the goal.

[That's not a growth]

How about after extra time we have 1 person from each team taken away ever 4 minutes after that until it gets to just 6 a side? The person would be chosen at random and no subs are allowed.

Or just do that until only the goalies remain.

[Tomous]

Match of the Day remains on the BBC until the end of 2015/16 season. New deal also means Match of the Day (the main one) will be available on iplayer, this deal starts the season after next.

Good news

[jambot]

Sepp Blatter wants a bullet in the back of the head

Done

[Preezy]

One thing that annoys me with the latest Hazard quotes are that he's said he will make his decision based on how much playing time he gets.

Whilst this clearly works in favour of Man United, no player should ever be able to make demands on playing time, regardless of how good you are. If you play well you play more, if you play badly then don't expect to play much. I'm sure he probably meant he doesn't want to join a massive squad, but most top teams have huge squads nowadays.

Having said that though, I genuinely think United have a chance of bagging him, along with Kagawa. They would be a couple of awesome additions to the squad.

[Kanbei]

I actually don't mind his recent quotes, kinda shows it's nothing to do with money and all to do with playing, which can only be a good thing. (now watch as he joins City for the money )

[PES Fan]

One thing that annoys me with the latest Hazard quotes are that he's said he will make his decision based on how much playing time he gets.

Whilst this clearly works in favour of Man United, no player should ever be able to make demands on playing time, regardless of how good you are. If you play well you play more, if you play badly then don't expect to play much. I'm sure he probably meant he doesn't want to join a massive squad, but most top teams have huge squads nowadays.

Having said that though, I genuinely think United have a chance of bagging him, along with Kagawa. They would be a couple of awesome additions to the squad.

All we need is then to get someone in alongside Carrick. Hope we get rid of Anderson, Berbatov and Park. Kagawa, Hazard, Baines and a CM would do me nicely.

[Spindash]

[abcd]

If that was a Sunday league game, his legs would be broken by now.

[Hank Scorpio]

Suarez to Russia Today: "My conscience is clear [on Evra]. They convicted me without any proof. [The ban] was weird, unbelievable.""They wanted to get rid of an #LFC player."

Words fail me

[abcd]

He speaks very good English.

[ladybayred]

One thing that annoys me with the latest Hazard quotes are that he's said he will make his decision based on how much playing time he gets.

Whilst this clearly works in favour of Man United, no player should ever be able to make demands on playing time, regardless of how good you are. If you play well you play more, if you play badly then don't expect to play much. I'm sure he probably meant he doesn't want to join a massive squad, but most top teams have huge squads nowadays.

Having said that though, I genuinely think United have a chance of bagging him, along with Kagawa. They would be a couple of awesome additions to the squad.

I didn't read it like that, of course it reads that he will go to the team he feels he will get to play more often but I don't read it as him demanding game time and there are a lot of factors that will have an effect on how often he will play such as squad size/depth and more importantly team tactics. For example United play with two attacking wingers so that's good for Hazard, but he will also be competing with top players for game time. At City they usually play with more central players playing out wide (who look to cut in like Silva and Nasri) so maybe unless Mancini is planning to play with proper wingers City may not be quite so appealing despite there lack of quality wide players. Arguably Chelsea suits him best with both a lack of quality wide players (even with De Bruyne and Marin coming in) and also the 4-2-3-1/4-3-3 formation they play providing with ample opportunity for game time.

Its a massive move for the lad's career so I don't think you can be too harsh in him taking his time over a decision.