Exiled in Texas

Well, he has got his finger on the.......pulse?

Respect your opinion, but couldn't disagree more on both fronts! Prefer quicker, more lethal attacking football. Agree with this. Barca play some nice stuff and are technically excellent, but I have really enjoyed the Man U performances in Europe this season. The speed of some of their counter attacks has been excellent to watch.

Totally the opposite, at least in the "Giggs has scored" context. The actual image itself tickles me. When I see his face makes me laugh and hear the Fast Show guys saying "Orrhh, suits you sir. Did you score, sir? Did you Sir? Did she like it when you scored, Sir?"

Fixtures in the poll OMG \o/

How can you call it a weakend team if its the same one that you played in the Champions League semi-finals, and they beat the Schalke 5-1?

It's time to promote Krul to #1 and then put either Harper or Forster as backup. I'd be happy to let Forster go back on loan to Celtic and keep Harper as back up. Time to hand over the reins to Krul and let him go to work.

Would have loved to see the referee give him a yellow for the foul, and then a second yellow for refusing to acknowledge the referees attempt to give him the first card. I like our US High School rules that have "Rellow" cards which means a second yellow dismisses the player without making the team play down. Ivanovic would have been gone in a heart beat if he had done that to me during HS season.

Watched Bundesliga game on Saturday FoxSoccer. A great last day relegation battle. Roller coaster last game for Eintract Frankfurt. Needed a win over champions Dortmund, and even opened scoring to lead 1-0, before giving up 3. A very Sunderland performance by Eintract.....they had scored 26 points in the first half of the season, then only scored 8 in the second half. Must be managed by Bruce's twin brother. Wolfsburg survived the McLaren Experience with a come from behind win over Hoffenheim to remain in the Bundesliga 1

Mourinho banned for 5 Euro games. Seems harsh, but he is a repeat offender, and this time criticised not just the referee but UEFA too. Will be interesting if Real stick with him as they have criticised him for what he has done to Real this season with their attitude/style of play. I wonder if he will go somewhere else and they will have to pick up his Euro ban.

FFS - I know it's convenient for them, but it was only one season in the Championship (playing mainly with Prem Players). It's not like it was a surprise that we popped right back up. We're not a suprise promotion like Blackpool or QPR etc.

My take as a ref - if a player who has been fouled talked to me directly about why is wasn't a card then we can have this conversation between the two of us. It's personal and private . If the same player gets up waiving his imaginary card, then it's a public display of dissent intended for the entire game to see. And they will be treated very different than the first person. Its the same as a referee hearing "f**k" or "F**K!!!!!"

Chelsea, Man utd and Arsenal get plenty of "tourists" going to their games. People who are coming from overseas or one-off special occasion fans who will pay anything for a ticket for that one game. I know people who make a special trip to the UK to go to see them play and they are quite happy to pay £50 or even £100 just to see them play. These casual tourist fans will easily drive up the price for the regulars

Did someone say "hey, you in the green shorts. You're the only one wearing the team shorts. You stand over here. The rest of you scruffy B%^@#s bunch up and hope that no-one notices" ?

Headline - Newcastle players have a pre-match walkthrough, but HBA was flying in practice.

The setup of the MLS follows the US Franchise model (NFL, NBA etc), rather than the open league model that the rest of the world follows. Franchises each own a fraction of the league, and as such the league is closed to external teams. Franchise leagues do not have relegation or promotion. These franchise leagues do have expansion possibilities to accept new teams - but the entire league (i.e. each franchise) must vote to accept the new entrant and grant them a franchise to the league. When the NHL expanded, new teams had to buy their way into the league and the entrance fee was distributed amongst the existing franchise holders. I don't think that MLS soccer is rich enough to have that process (maybe they do) but the expansion is carefully controlled as they must ensure that the talent pool of players available is good enough to maintain a worthwhile product. A league without relegation or promotion is strange to non-americans, but that's just how sports works in the US.

When the players start wearing shin pads that actually cover the shin, rather than a 2inch square just below the knee then maybe this could work.

Unlike most of us who have never had a TV camera in our face, Rooney knows how to talk to the camera. He knew that it was right there and looked right into it and said his piece. It's not like he was caught up on a mega-close up zoom shot from a camera in the stands, or was caught in profile clearly looking at someone else. He was one-on-one with the camera. I don't get the reaction about his ban. Public offenses get public reactions. I think this is more of a case of the "FA cannot do nothing" rather than "FA must act" situation. (I also think the total indignation by all the "offended in Surrey" and "Outraged in Hampshire" to Rooney language is OTT but I understand that action from the FA was inevitable).

100% agree with this, even stoke get addidas shirts! Some people complain for the sake of complaining... Not really. They're complaining because they dislike Puma, like Adidas, and Newcastle's kits are made by Puma. And the irony is that not so long ago the thought was that Adidas was sh*t, looks ugly cramming Adidas stripes onto an already striped shirt, and that we are glad to be leaving Adidas because Puma produce some nice looking stuff.

Nice comments. I though the referee was excellent too. Could have given the PK against Dawson, but I understand why he didn't - intent to handle etc distance from the shot, speed of shot etc. Thought he did a good job with early cards that had the right effect on the players (except for crouchy who didn't learn). Ramos body check was very sly. Played it like he barely moved into Bale's path but he knew exactly what he was doing. Master class on how to get away with it.

haha loved watching that game yesterday. What a knob Crouchies was for two terrible late sliding tackles. I understand if it had been a defender making last ditch tackles to prevent a goal, but both of Crouches tackles were 60-70 yards from goal. What a knob!

Yeah - I like him being on the board too. He's a good poster who gives as good as he takes.

Looking at the run-in for both teams, it's highly likely that Sunderland do finish above us, but not a given in any way. I think that newcastle have over achieved, certainly have in several home games (Villa, Sunderland, and Arsenal). I thought our wins would be 1-0 scrapers not the swash-buckling demolitions that we have seen on a few occaisions. I don't really buy into the "newly promoted club" concept that many keep using. We only barely were relegated, and didn;t loose too many players when we went down, so we were quite similar when we returned to the Premier League. To me "newly promoted" means a team full of Championship/League 1 players, not a team returning with existng premier league players. But when it all comes down to the last game and the two clubs reflect on their seasons.....Newcastle will look back on 4 points from 6 and a 5-1 derby hammering so who finishes 10th or 11th and who has 43 pts or 44, will be immaterial. We all know who had the better season.

a bigger PR stunt than anything else. it drew over 3000 viewers, which some tweeted was more than most Dallas FC home games last season. so not bad coverage for a reserve game. Slightly incorrect as the FC Dallas average home attendance was 10,815.

I'm pretty sure that there will be more flip-flops in positioning between us both before the season is over. The only thing that I'm sure of is that they will celebrate going back above us in the table despite their previous statements that it's not a big deal. And then justify it that that they are just paying us back.

Hodgeson 2 - 1 Dalgish But does Parky get anything?