Segun Oluwaniyi

How many times does Shola fall on his arse and lose the ball in positions that many strikers may have made useful? I think some of the talk surrounding Cisse, Shola, and Ben Arfa and the last three results has confused correlation with causation.

I remember this day vividly. It was back when I was staying in London, and my "uncle" showed me the news right after the church service that morning. Even today, it is still a shocking story. It is odd to see the people you idolised during youth and adolescence be torn apart from within by their own demons. This is especially true, when they are as outwardly successful as Speed. I am happy that there has been no contrived "explanation" by the media or needless exposing of whatever negative stories the poisonous media can find or invent. The man and his family deserve better.

MLS is a difficult league. The weather conditions can be quite harsh, the variation in quality between teammates an be staggering at times (making team play difficult), the style of play is very physical/rushed, and the referees are generally poor.

I wonder if more places will put some sort of padded landing beneath areas like this. If the drop is genuinely 10 metres as has been stated some places, he may have still died from internal injuries and organs being crushed, but the hard material will have caused the head trauma.

The photo looks very much like a death.

didn't see it brett, just going off the radio and chelp on here that we basically followed our usual pattern in the 2nd half, conceded and it was nervy to the end - i know you reckon it wasn't but plenty reckon it was, which drug do you trust? chelsea were very, very wasteful on the break first half as i've said before - they didn't create much in the end, but a team of their class would normally make more of the positions they found themselves in The Norwich match was nervy because we essentially stopped playing and they had the ball in and around the NUFC box for long periods in the last 30 minutes. Brett is right, though. They created very little. This was more to do with Norwich being a terrible football team, but it has to say we were lucky not to concede twice is very harsh given what the other team created.

Sobering. Been called a lot of s***, but Felipao? I get the message. f*** did that come from? the guy who thinks Africa will win the world cup every year. At least me an unbelievable (or whatever the dutch guys name is) have some sort of reason to be biased towards players from our national team. I shrine players that perform. The day I come on here shrining Anichebe or Kayode Odejayi, compare me to the American and yourself. Fwiw, Enyeamagnet is still the best keeper in Europe this season.

He made one mistake, when he gave the ball away unnecessarily, and cost the team a chance, but I thought he was one of the better players beside this. The best in our back-line, imo. A good outlet going forward as well.

Mike and Felipao are are the same person in terms of discussing players from their own nation.

Why are all of the players 25 and under? Did they think that all of the older players would just disappear?

Last two January transfer windows: In: Cisse Debuchy Yanga-Mbiwa Gouffran Haidara Sissoko Out: BA

That second sentence is nonsense, but I don't remember Krul being tested other than the goal. They put most of their chances wide or managed not to test the target at all. edit: In reference to Brett

wouldn't be his fault though, of course. Redknapp was blaming the lack of big front man, ignoring Sam spending £15m on a crock and buying Downing when he clearly need a front man because of said crock. 100% Fat Sam's fault. Utter bellend of a manager and hope the c*** gets them relegated. He did have a 6 foot 3 international front man on his bench, but decided to start with a fat, immobile midfielder instead.

Spot on. We're operating below our capacity merely because of him and his f***ing have what we hold attitude against sides worse than us. Below our capacity. We'll be at most three points off the top four by the end of the weekend. People just like to complain about him. We just like to complain about a manager who has two CMs that start games for France yet we can't control games at home to Norwich and Hull? Wow. I thought the squad wasn't good enough, Sissoko was overrated, and the transfer policy had produced a team full of pieces that didn't fit. This is what was being said in September. What has changed? I don't know, derby game aside, I've been quite impressed with our play in general since the start of October. NUFC have come out from the start and been the better team in just about every match during this period. I'd agree that we have had a problem with tiring, sitting back, and pressing at a lesser rate in the second halves of several matches, but these haven't been false results at all, imo. I'd understand if it the team had stolen one goal and spent the whole match holding on, but Norwich barely threatened until the last ten minutes.

Germany finished in November.

Spot on. We're operating below our capacity merely because of him and his f***ing have what we hold attitude against sides worse than us. Below our capacity. We'll be at most three points off the top four by the end of the weekend. People just like to complain about him.

Newcastle average. Norwich atrocious. League table fantastic.

http://www.footballgroundmap.com/olumide It's better than it looks. All the stadia in London and DC/Baltimore ended up as 2 dots. It's a shame that the stadiums in Ibadan and Lagos couldn't make the site.

Not to spread horrible ideas, but the guy is eligible to become president in 7 years or so. He might ride the wave of public support to the office after his unforgettable performance at the World Cup.

Do the players in your team play for clubs that play in a "typical Premier league" style? The league in general, but especially the top clubs, have become more similar to their continental brethren since 2000.

It's not that I actually don't understand how things are calculated. It was a misstatement tbh, the pots just really surprised me. I thought France would have been regarded a lot more highly numerically given their performances over the last few years. It is probably just that these other teams have been picking up consistently good results I hadn't noticed.

I don't understand how France ended up as the last ranked European side, tbh. Their record is much more impressive than say, Bosnia (who are ranked above them) during the past four years (which is what FIFA takes into account).

Twenty years is nearly the entirety of the African presence on the world stage, so that comment either makes no sense or is irrelevant. Why barring Ghana? Because of close victories over the United States for two tournaments? In their two group stage exits Ivory Coast have collected 0 points from Brazil, Argentina, and Holland, 1 point from Portugal, and 6 points from Serbia and North Korea. Not exactly informative results. Even Nigeria, we lost to Argentina 1-0 in the first matches of our last two matches, took the lead in the second, had things go pearshaped and it was done. WC is quick, luck matters a lot. I back Japan (none of the other Asian sides, though) to be very competitive in Brazil, but I also back CIV, Nigeria, and Ghana. Algeria and Cameroon are less likely, just because the talent isn't as strong. Ghana have had a lot of great results in their last 2 world cup and not only 2 wins vs. USA. They beat a very good Czech team in Germany, and Serbia's golden generation team in South Africa. Narrowly lost to Germany, and were a Suarez handball away from the Semis. They deserve a lot of respect. And the dominance they showed in absolutely destroying Egypt definitely makes them Africa's best bet to make an impact on the world stage. Nigeria had a weird showing in 2010. They lost their first 2 game narrowly (second one after going a man down), but were still a shocking Yakubu miss away from qualifying to next round. What's gotten me is the dislike and discontent towards Lars Lagerback for Nigeria's performance in 2010. If Nigeria were simply unlucky, why is he getting such a bad reputation for that? Since you're from there, it'd be interesting to hear the Nigerian fan's opinion of 2010 campaign. You guys seem to be a lot better this time around, and as I said, I think you'll have a better showing. Thankfully, this world cup Asia won't have a team who will embarrass the continent (Saudi 8-0, and North Korea 7-0 spring to mind), so I'm just comparing their relative impact compared to those of Africa. I get the vibe that African football gets a lot of more hype than Asian football, and I believe it's due to the fact that more African players play their trade in top European leagues compared to Asians. I think it's a lot closer between the two continents. As you said though, it depends on the draw. I'd like to see a lot of head-to-head type games between Africa and Asia. In 2010, the record went 1 win for either side and 2 draws. The 2010 World Cup was an abject failure on and off the pitch. I am serious when I say that it disgusts me to even talk about it. The capitulation against a terrible Greece team was one of the most shameful things I have ever seen. It is not Lagerback's fault. It was the second consecutive WC that they sacked the manager and hired a new one 3 months before the tournament. both times it lead to chaos, and the Swede clearly had no idea what the hell he was doing. Lagerback is hated because he clearly only took the job because he saw naive African money (not his fault, our fault) and then jilted the NFF by email when they offered him another chance. Only, the two keepers, Ideye, Uwa, and Mikel Obi from that squad have been regulars in 2013, and Ideye was only called to 2010 as an injury replacement. (I don't agree with it, but I understand) The team is better, younger, and more athletic this time. I am hopeful. Asia is fine, but there is not much depth on that continent. I think Japan and South Korea are serious teams for the foreseeable future, but who else is there? Teams 3-15 are much stronger in Africa, imo. As I said, I don't see much difference between the big Africa sides, second tier Euro and SA sides, Jap and SK, and Mexico/US. I think it is much of a muchness after the first few teams and a lot will be decided by close matches and bounces of the draw balls.

Twenty years is nearly the entirety of the African presence on the world stage, so that comment either makes no sense or is irrelevant. Why barring Ghana? Because of close victories over the United States for two tournaments? In their two group stage exits Ivory Coast have collected 0 points from Brazil, Argentina, and Holland, 1 point from Portugal, and 6 points from Serbia and North Korea. Not exactly informative results. Even Nigeria, we lost to Argentina 1-0 in the first matches of our last tournaments, took the lead in the second, had things go pearshaped and it was done. WC is quick, luck and draw matters a lot for all middling teams. I back Japan (none of the other Asian sides, though) to be very competitive in Brazil, but I also back CIV, Nigeria, and Ghana. Algeria and Cameroon are less likely, just because the talent isn't as strong.

The differences in teams ranked from about 12 to 28, with the exception of Australia, are pretty negligible, imo.