Roke

Same here. Though I lack the football knowledge most of you have I can't think of anyone to come in and manage in the interim. John Carver might be one but he was an unmitigated disaster coaching Toronto FC and I don't think he could do any good for us.

Should have happened right after Liverpool got their second.

Typical misplaced pragmatism from Pardew. I'm sure Jonas will do a decent job tracking Johnson's runs but would it not be more effective to pin Johnson back with some attacking threat? On another note, Tiote-Perch is a midfield pairing with no distribution. Cabaye's either going to have to drop deep to pick up the ball or (more likely) it's going to be more constant hoofing. If he wanted to push Cababye further forward (which isn't a bad idea) Anita alongside Tiote makes a heck of a lot more sense if you're going to do anything with the ball.

Edit: And I put this in the wrong thread. Sorry about that. Anyway, hopefully he's sacked in the tunnel after our last match of the season.

Is it wrong to think that if the team from the reg season flames out in the playoffs, they were nowhere near the best? The best team is the one that's left standing when the playoffs are done. Given the large role randomness plays in sports outcomes (North American sports specifically) I would say that yes it is wrong to think that way. Even going with the intuition that a team recently in great form heading into the playoffs is going to carry that form is generally incorrect (http://www.arcticicehockey.com/2011/2/10/1978386/feel-the-playoff-momentum). I'm Canadian and I generally don't follow the lower leagues all that much. I followed Newcastle in the Championship when we went down and there are a couple teams I check up on because friends support them but I basically have no emotional investment in the lower leagues. So keep that in mind. I don't see the playoffs in the lower leagues as a good thing (but the drama they provide is admittedly fantastic). What it comes down to is that when I watch sports where I'm not supporting a side I want to see greatness. Great teams, great bits of skill, coaches making astute adjustments. Playoffs aren't about celebrating greatness, they're about creating drama and masquerading that drama as greatness. Fundamentally the playoff system, like so much about sports in North America is about arbitrarily creating "parity". Whether it's the leagues acting like a cartel and limiting new entrants, having a draft for new talent (cheering for your team to lose to get a better draft pick when the playoffs are gone is the worst), the salary caps and floors, and restrictions on the free agency of players it's all about making everyone more equal than they would be. My distaste for the playoffs is as much an ideological blind hate of that structure (and the frequent work stoppages that come about with it) as it is the playoffs themselves. I want greatness, not parity. I can't argue lower league playoffs with you because we smashed that league and didn't have to deal with it. So I guess we have to both claim ignorance on that. You said you want to see greatness more than parity. I get that. Playoffs wouldn't really make the EPL a fair playing field, if anything there would be a Big 8, although those last few spots would always be up for grabs in some way or another. When you mention playoff randomness, I think you look at the result a bit more than you're looking at the reason. imo The reason that the playoffs seem so random (NHL in particular) is because every year it seems as if someone new steps up and takes over. Do you want team greatness (more likely to be bought than randomly ignited in a Boston 2004 kind of way) or individual greatness (nearly impossible to predict who is going to go nuts when the playoffs start)? What if this entire time, goddamn Bobby Zamora was like Mariano Rivera and we never knew? I want great performances from a team standpoint. In the playoffs are usually either great players performing about as you would expect and just given the opportunity to do so (such is the case of Rivera) or lesser players going on an unsustainable hot streak that are usually percentage-driven (in hockey Fernando Pisani for the Edmonton Oilers in the 2005-06 playoffs comes to mind. Also David Eckstein in the 2006 World series with his "grit" and .380 BABIP). Since I went down the analytics rabbit hole when following baseball and then even more so with hockey . I've become much more interested in how and why outcomes happen rather than just watching them happen. The thing is, I think soccer has more drama than the four major North American sports and it's because it's such a low-scoring game. The flow of the sport with only having a complete stoppage at half-time (Rather than for regular commercial breaks) also ups the drama and tension for me in the match. Every goal in a given match is so important and there's not much interrupting the flow of the match. There are also a lot more important games in non-north American soccer throughout the season than the North American sports because you have two or three Cup competitions, plus the league, plus fighting to avoid relegation.

Is it wrong to think that if the team from the reg season flames out in the playoffs, they were nowhere near the best? The best team is the one that's left standing when the playoffs are done. Given the large role randomness plays in sports outcomes (North American sports specifically) I would say that yes it is wrong to think that way. Even going with the intuition that a team recently in great form heading into the playoffs is going to carry that form is generally incorrect (http://www.arcticicehockey.com/2011/2/10/1978386/feel-the-playoff-momentum). I'm Canadian and I generally don't follow the lower leagues all that much. I followed Newcastle in the Championship when we went down and there are a couple teams I check up on because friends support them but I basically have no emotional investment in the lower leagues. So keep that in mind. I don't see the playoffs in the lower leagues as a good thing (but the drama they provide is admittedly fantastic). What it comes down to is that when I watch sports where I'm not supporting a side I want to see greatness. Great teams, great bits of skill, coaches making astute adjustments. Playoffs aren't about celebrating greatness, they're about creating drama and masquerading that drama as greatness. Fundamentally the playoff system, like so much about sports in North America is about arbitrarily creating "parity". Whether it's the leagues acting like a cartel and limiting new entrants, having a draft for new talent (cheering for your team to lose to get a better draft pick when the playoffs are gone is the worst), the salary caps and floors, and restrictions on the free agency of players it's all about making everyone more equal than they would be. My distaste for the playoffs is as much an ideological blind hate of that structure (and the frequent work stoppages that come about with it) as it is the playoffs themselves. I want greatness, not parity.

Though the best team may not be in first place at the end of the season the team in first is much more likely to be the best team in the league than the team that wins the playoffs. Bringing in playoffs brings in three things things: More games to attend/more money for the owners, More drama (though nothing like the title last season), and More randomness. Each round of the NFL (http://www.footballperspective.com/are-nfl-playoff-outcomes-getting-more-random/), baseball (http://thesportswatchers.com/mlb/the-baseball-playoffs-and-the-randomness-of-it-all-4592), and hockey (http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/02/02/randumbness-the-new-nhl-is-less-predictable-than-you-think/ - about luck in a shortened regular season which is still more than the maximum 28 playoff games). Hockey is the sport I follow closely and the conventional analytic wisdom is that the best team wins the Stanley Cup about 24% of the time but I can't find the article where that was shown. Sports outcomes, especially in North America where the leagues conspire to achieve "parity", are basically weighted coin flips. You're more likely to see figure out who the best team is over the longer period of games. Playoffs are great for drama, a boon for sportswriters crafting narratives, and tremendous for mythmaking about clutch performances and rising to the occasion but they don't get the job done when deciding who the best team in a league. You also devalue the "regular season" tremendously.

Well I'm gutted but watching that match is the best Canadian soccer supporter experience I've had (I didn't follow soccer when the men won the 2000 Gold Cup). Poor officiating and heartbreak comes hand-in-hand with following either national team. Ref was just incompetent the whole match and we were just unfortunate that the big decision went against us. I was half-following the thread so I'm not sure if it's been said but the indirect free kick was given for the goalkeeper holding onto the ball for more than 6 seconds. Didn't seem to be applied at any other point in the match though. I'm fine with the penalty decision but not at all with the free kick that led to it. Immense performance by Christine Sinclair. I don't know what the national team is going to do when she retires.

Liverpool bringing on their #4 keeper in case Jones gets another yellow?

I share concerns about the midfield in the match, but that's already been said. Ba doing his usual dropping deep and doing his usual hard work should help out though. I'm a little worried about the usual high line with Spurs' pace down the wings. I'm always concerned about it though and it's worked all season, so that's more me not knowing anything about footballrather than something to be worried about. Even with Tiote and Cabaye missing I think it's a winnable game with the firepower we have up front. The match will be my first look at Cisse so I'm pretty excited.

The ESPN (US) commentator was bemoaning the pre and post-match "behaviour" overshadowing the match. I can't blame Evra for celebrating a victory over the player who racially abused him and a club that implicitly supported that abuse. That's the least I would have done given what he's gone through.

I've only been following football since 2005... but has Dalglish always been a scumbag? His actions and statements (again) about the Suarez nonsense are inexcusable. At best Kenny's like an ignorant old Great Aunt who says cringe-worthy stuff like, "those black people can sure run fast" when watching the Olympics. At worst... it gets a lot worse.

10th

It's a long list; you're just getting started De Guzman and Junior Hoilett haven't suited up for another nation so I still have a small amount of hope that they'll suit up for the Men's National Team, though that's unlikely because the side is dreadful. Wouldn't mind either of them in a Newcastle shirt at this point in time and I recall we were rumoured to be in for De Guzman last summer when he was out of contract. I'm a little more understanding of Begovic given that his family had to leave Yugolavia when he was young. If he hadn't suited up for the Canadian youth sides and said he wanted to play for Canada at the senior level I wouldn't have begrudged him playing for Bosnia. If he had been played in the dead rubber World Cup Qualifier it would be moot, but that's how it goes for Canadian soccer.

As a Canadian, let me say that Hargreavse can go fuck off and play for FC Edmonton. I absolutely despise him.