2016-2017 EPL Discussion Thread

[Jezza]

We should continue this at another time, roar - I'm mindful that we're in Jezza's EPL thread, discussing everything except the EPL.

Don't sweat it P4S.

I've enjoyed reading your posts about past greats and some of your favourite teams over the years.

[Yarra Falls End]

We should continue this at another time, roar - I'm mindful that we're in Jezza's EPL thread, discussing everything except the EPL.

Fwiw, a long-time ago, I picked Arsenal as my team, briefly, in the days when Charlie George and Alan Ball were stars. My father was a Leeds man (Billy Bremner and Lorimer were his favourites) and my brother was a West Ham man (Lampard the Elder and Mervyn Day were the ones he always spoke of).

Anyway, for about a week now, I have been a staunch fan of Everton, although I could not (yet) name any of my great club's players. I have watched with horror as some player manager or other suggested that his star didn't want to come to Everton because it "isn't a big Club".

We will change all of that now we have a proper Dutch manager. There's the first reason we'll win the League. The second is because Ronald Koeman is our manager. The third is because we don't have any soft outside players like Ronaldo, Messi or Pogba on our roster. I was thinking of emailing the club to suggest that, in light of our financial constraints, we might go with a mix of existing and local talent and add in some harder running players - say Garttuso, Donadoni and Deschamps. A couple of proper English centre backs could complement Jaap Stam (is his ban finished, yet?) and I reckon Jarryd Hayne could add the outside run, now he's available. There's half a team for a few dollars, right there - and with the balance, we should get some good quality Dutch players (say Davids, Seedorf, Arie Haan, Neeskens and Rep). Then we can play Total Football (and if we meet any stupid Spanish team that wants to play ticca-taca, they can expect their legs broken). Anyway, we're in this thing to win it and I know RK has been practising his free kicks, with a view to subbing himself in to get us through some of the Cup Ties against more fancied opponents.

I'll be back with a thorough review of our playing roster once I find it.

Found this on a West ham forum

http://metaltalk.net/news2016sg/2016319.php

IIRC from the VPT thread you're a fan ?

If so, come join the "band"wagon at West Ham. Roar's already on board.

Regarding past players, nothing compares to the flawed genius that was/is Paolo Di Canio

Lampard the senior scored the winner in the 1980 FA cup semi final replay against Everton. Mervyn Day was the goalie before Phil Parkes transferred from QPR.

[roar]

DiCanio was a gem! Yet another example of players (usually forwards) from the continent coming to the EPL and starring because they were so used to playing against ridiculously solid defences.

[Pies4shaw]

Paolo Di Canio! I've been trying to think of his name for days. He kicked one of the most brilliant goals I ever saw in Serie A - I may be mistaken but I think it was against Milan. I'll see if I can dig out the footage from YouTube. I knew he'd gone to the EPL at one stage - but I couldn't remember where to!

[Pies4shaw]

We should continue this at another time, roar - I'm mindful that we're in Jezza's EPL thread, discussing everything except the EPL.

Fwiw, a long-time ago, I picked Arsenal as my team, briefly, in the days when Charlie George and Alan Ball were stars. My father was a Leeds man (Billy Bremner and Lorimer were his favourites) and my brother was a West Ham man (Lampard the Elder and Mervyn Day were the ones he always spoke of).

Anyway, for about a week now, I have been a staunch fan of Everton, although I could not (yet) name any of my great club's players. I have watched with horror as some player manager or other suggested that his star didn't want to come to Everton because it "isn't a big Club".

We will change all of that now we have a proper Dutch manager. There's the first reason we'll win the League. The second is because Ronald Koeman is our manager. The third is because we don't have any soft outside players like Ronaldo, Messi or Pogba on our roster. I was thinking of emailing the club to suggest that, in light of our financial constraints, we might go with a mix of existing and local talent and add in some harder running players - say Garttuso, Donadoni and Deschamps. A couple of proper English centre backs could complement Jaap Stam (is his ban finished, yet?) and I reckon Jarryd Hayne could add the outside run, now he's available. There's half a team for a few dollars, right there - and with the balance, we should get some good quality Dutch players (say Davids, Seedorf, Arie Haan, Neeskens and Rep). Then we can play Total Football (and if we meet any stupid Spanish team that wants to play ticca-taca, they can expect their legs broken). Anyway, we're in this thing to win it and I know RK has been practising his free kicks, with a view to subbing himself in to get us through some of the Cup Ties against more fancied opponents.

I'll be back with a thorough review of our playing roster once I find it.

Found this on a West ham forum

http://metaltalk.net/news2016sg/2016319.php

IIRC from the VPT thread you're a fan ?

If so, come join the "band"wagon at West Ham. Roar's already on board.

Regarding past players, nothing compares to the flawed genius that was/is Paolo Di Canio

Lampard the senior scored the winner in the 1980 FA cup semi final replay against Everton. Mervyn Day was the goalie before Phil Parkes transferred from QPR.

Nice try, YFE - it's actually my son that's the Maiden fan (he's a professional guitarist). I just humour him - and use my smattering of knowledge to annoy David in VPT. Let me know when Martha Argerich gets Bilic up for a joint-rendition of the last movement of Gaspard De la Nuit - that's more my thing!

Meanwhile, I've been wondering about alternatives to the present penalty shot-out to decide big games. I've been toying with the possibility of a "throw out", where one designated player on your team gets to take five one-handed penalty throws (with a slightly pointier ball), faced only by four 300 kg maniacs who are allowed to run at him at full pace from about 2 yards back from the penalty spot and try to kill him (let's see the Real and Barca boys try a "simulation" with that coming at them)! I have a potential recruit in mind. Do you think this could take on?

[Pies4shaw]

Here's Di Canio's goal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRBxV505i3A

And here he is putting one home for Milan in a give and go with "Il Genio" (the equally temperamental Dejan Savicevic): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Xyc--nuLHg

And here's one he scored in England, at the tennis, I think: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwL-QDZg2BY

Best of all, here he is doing absolutely the right thing in a game against against my great club: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUrx1NWnkBE

Harry Redknapp's very funny recollections of Paolo playing for West Ham are here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgAbu4zOxg4

Here's the argument over the penalty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NovS1hohmTw

And some extended highlights of that game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohOWcE7yeTE

And here's a focus on Paolo in that game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKHvvPClH-8

Great stuff!!!

[roar]

Awesome! Thanks p4s.

I remember that goal against Wimbledon very well. Actually I'm surprised that the other stuff also came back to me after watching it. We really did have it good with the weekly highlights on sbs. Am I imaging things, or did channel 10 have the bundesliga at some stage? I know I got my Pierre Litbarski fascination from somewhere.

[HAL]

I'm glad you liked it roar.

[Pies4shaw]

Awesome! Thanks p4s.

I remember that goal against Wimbledon very well. Actually I'm surprised that the other stuff also came back to me after watching it. We really did have it good with the weekly highlights on sbs. Am I imaging things, or did channel 10 have the bundesliga at some stage? I know I got my Pierre Litbarski fascination from somewhere.

Channel 10 picked it up after the '74 World Cup. I remember watching Der Kaiser playing for Bayern. That was short-lived, though (they also showed the Dockerty Cup because I remember watching the old Brunswick-Juventus team on Channel 10 around that time).

I have a vague recollection that SBS may have had a Bundesliga coverage that followed immediately after the Serie A (so 11.30 in Sunday mornings - I wouldn't have been able to justify watching another hour of soccer in those days) but the other show they had was the Saturday afternoon (??) 4 pm to 6 pm coverage of world football. I don't really remember the precise format but I remember seeing European and South American football from all the major leagues (Dutch, Belgian, French, German - at least - in Europe). What I remember most of all about that program was that Les used to wish some star or other a happy birthday at the end of the program and then run a highlights package of 3 to 5 minutes on the named star. In the days before the Internet, that was remarkable because you'd never get to see those assembled highlights anywhere else. I have lots of this on video because I used to hang out for them - all the greats - Cruyff, Gullitt, Van Basten, Rijkaard, Bergkamp, Koeman, along with the lesser lights from second-rate countries (), like Maradona, Baggio, Matthaus, Muller, Charlton, Gascoigne, Francescoli, etc etc. I couldn't get enough of them.

There also used to be a lot more coverage of internationals on SBS (so, eg, I remember that amazing match where Asprilla's Colombia thrashed Argentina in the South American qualifiers for the 1984 World Cup), so there may have been European qualifiers with Germany playing, as well.

[The Prototype]

I remember the ABC used to have a premier league show on a Sunday morning, I am not sure what it was called but they used to show the weekends results on there each weekend. I think it was around 1993-4, I do remember getting more into the sport watching the 1994 World Cup.

I have been watching some of the classic games that have been shown on Fox Sports, and now on Chelsea, Liverpool, and United Tv. Been good to go down memory lane for some, but also learning about others.

When SBS had the coverage I used to support Man United, because they were always on there, I was only in High School so I didn't know much about them. I then started following Newcastle upon learning their Magpie name.

I've supported them ever since, I became a massive fan of Alan Shearer, since he wore my favourite number, and the one I wore playing footy.

My dad told me he was a Leeds United fan back in the days of black and white TV, him and my late uncle believed they were wearing black and white stripes as they had the strips back then. He has no real interest in the games, he asks sometimes about Leeds United here and there.

[Yarra Falls End]

I was going to write about The Big Match, until I found this article which echoed my thoughts exactly and has saved me heaps of time.

http://www.theroar.com.au/2011/01/21/re ... big-match/

Yes it was that infectious tune that I can still hum today and seeing we are on this nostalgic trip at the moment, I might go and make it my ringtone.

Yes it was on a Wednesday night but what the article didn't say was, that it was the Wednesday week after the game was played.In those days the earliest way of getting the football results was waiting for Freddy Villiers on World of Sport on the Sunday Then I discovered the recorded message services on telecom which would have the results at about 11am on the Sunday morning.

The article also references the Budesliga show.I'm sure it was just an oversight P4S , but it still would have been Channel 0 back in those days.

[Pies4shaw]

Yes, it would have been Channel 0 but I deliberately chose to call it "10" for fear that anyone under 50 (ie, Jezza) wouldn't know what I was talking about.

Thanks for the link.

[roar]

I thought it was channel 0 but also wrote 10 to stop any confusion. And I'm under 50!

[Pies4shaw]

Ok, ok! SBS started using Channel 0 in early 1980, so Channel 10 must have started some time before then. That's 36 years - if I said "anyone under 35", would that pass muster?

[roar]

TBH, you could have said under 47 and I would have had to wear it.