Ndegwa

Aye, everything was spot on before he came along At least there was a club to support back then. I suppose it'll all be rosy when he f***s off then. What do you think then Haris? Do you think the Pardew/Ashley era is a continuation of our historical shitness? 'cos whilst I would agree with that to an extent, like others have said there used to be a club to support. Even with the lower mid-table finishes, cup failures, Owen, Shepherd, Kenny etc etc there was something to support. Now it feels like the club is an advertising platform without an identity, with a business model & economic policy that inhibits the playing squad from improving and growing. It's easily possible that if Pards is sacked and Ashley sells up we could drop into oblivion but I don't care personally...anything is better than the current set up

He's a RB, a very decent one at that....guess that 100% confirms Debuchy's departure if we're in for him. I can't profess to have seen a lot of him but he's in the Dutch WC squad and I know he's highly rated by Feyenoord fans.

Same here man, it's been a mission of mine over the last few years to get out there. I run a small Audiology clinic and a friend of mine is trying to help me buy a small dispensary in Santa Barbara, California. Over here in London/South East UK taxation for small businesses is disgusting so I basically earn fuck all money (have made significant losses over the last 6/7 months), over in the US the taxation on small businesses is miniscule compared to here and the client pool is much larger. Plus with the changing sentiment in this country regarding anyone who's not an Anglo-Saxon Celt (rise of UKIP, Britain First, BNP, EDL etc...I've even had a patient tell me that I'm taking jobs and money away from the 'indigenous' people even though I've spent the large majority of my 25 years in the UK, studying, working hard, paying insane amounts of taxes and sporting a heavy English accent) it feels less and less welcoming. The US is an incredibly diverse and positive (for the most part) country and I certainly don't think the indigenous Mexicans would tell me to fuck off (joke) (sorry 'bout the life story haha but feeling the US love right now)

Get outplayed for 115 minutes? make it out of the group stages Win a game? :lol: Don't know why we'd be so arrogant as to not take a leaf out of the Americans' book. We could have really done with working as hard as they did, committing men forward like they did, defending in numbers like they did, showing passion & determination like they did. And it's not like they're a talentless bunch of heavy-footed jocks, they've played some great stuff at this World Cup that seems to be overlooked by a lot of people....I certainly don't remember us stringing 3/4 passes together regularly like the US have done.

:lol:

So do I! Think you guys have won a lot of fans in the last couple of weeks

WHAT A FREEKICK! Shit man this is killing my blood pressure

WHAT A CHANCE MAN I LOVE FOOTBALL

Yeeeeeaaaahhh! What a game.

FUCK SAKE

Jesus christ he was actually well onside there

Yedlin and Bradley have fantastic engines, the latter looks smart on the ball, why did he leave Roma? Howard's been awesome too....come on USA

Errrr.....??!?! Didn't Pardew start him in the last 6 games of the season anyway? Man I fucking hate this club

Nice. No, Dijon. To be fair he's got nothing Toulouse.

Supporting the US tonight Love the energy and work-rate they possess, don't care if they're not the most fluid side in possession, they do enough to make it entertaining. I'm quietly enjoying the rise of footy out in the US and seeing all the pictures of (cheesy) American fans going nuts in big cities like Chicago and New York...the camaraderie between them is fantastic and to be honest they've shown more passion than England have for a while. So go...err...team USMNT

The Germans haven't impressed and neither have Argentina or Brazil, but I still see these 3 teams as the strongest. In other words, France v Colombia in one semi-final and Holland v Belgium in the other... Agreed, Germans don't look pretty at all but always seem to come up with the goods. They only need a few minutes in the game to win it, dat German ruthlessness. Would absolutely love Colombia to win it, would round of an incredibly memorable World Cup (even though my adopted nation are shite)

Great stuff from Algeria! Played some fantastic stuff, beautiful interchanging at times just lacked final ball. Incredible how much even they look better than England, especially going forward. Gutted there's no more African representatives, the continent's in the best shape it's been football-wise for a while now. Expected more from Ivory Coast, let alone Ghana and Cameroon. Got a feeling the Germans might go on and win the tournament now for some reason

But we are talking in the context of football so you've imparted these observations onto entire continents yourself. :lol: That much is true.

But we are talking in the context of football so you've imparted these observations onto entire continents yourself. It was a tongue-in-cheek reference to a few tongue-in-cheek posts. Check back over the posts and remove the log from your anus please

Loving this casual racism So from the last few posts I've determined the following.... Africans- leaders of corruption in football therefore solely responsible for the moral ills of the game, players who won't play unless they're given enough money to buy their own African country South Americans- Murdering, cheating vampires with a questionable construction industry Europeans- Noble and virtuous, leading the world in sportsmanship and fair play Asians- Unimportant and unrecognised in every aspect

Good lord... Can we stop inviting Africa? Do these unproven allegations regarding Cameroon represent the culture of an entire continent or something? Bit unfair to tarnish 55+ countries with same brush is it not? If this turns out to be true I'd like to see Cameroon given a long ban, even if it does affect innocent parties. It's incidents like these that fuel negative stereotypes on Africa like above, and as an African it's frustrating to say the least Given the recent Ghana match-fixing scandal reported by Dispatches, the players going on strike over money, the Nigerian team missing training over money and now this Cameroon issue - you can understand where the stereotypes come from. That's without even mentioning this... http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/23412227 Or this... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AS_Adema_149%E2%80%930_SO_l'Emyrne Of course I can understand where the stereotypes come from- it still doesn't change the fact they're lazy assumptions which are unrepresentative of a developing continent. Essentially you're extrapolating the actions (some of which are unproven) of a few nations into the standard operating procedures of over a billion people and 55+ different countries, sorry I don't like that. Do you think all Africans are the same or something? Exactly! I could easily turn around and say that it's endemic in Europe (and therefore we shouldn't invite European countries to the WC by your logic), as allegations have been proven and acted upon (custodial sentences, relegation and long football bans have been handed out to the guilty parties) at the highest level. I don't, however, tar Europeans with the same brush- Italians are inherently different to British people, French people are different to Polish people and so on. This ill-informed popular belief that Africans are leading the way in corruption breathes pure arrogance in my opinion- sort your own house out first before commenting on the state of others. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-27939919

Good lord... Can we stop inviting Africa? Do these unproven allegations regarding Cameroon represent the culture of an entire continent or something? Bit unfair to tarnish 55+ countries with same brush is it not? If this turns out to be true I'd like to see Cameroon given a long ban, even if it does affect innocent parties. It's incidents like these that fuel negative stereotypes on Africa like above, and as an African it's frustrating to say the least

That is actually hilarious :lol: :lol:

Sorry if said before Sir Stevie G OBE reckons the reason why we're so shit is because of 'the money' and a small talent pool http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/27994925 Yawn, convenient excuse. No mention of the lack of quality coaches at grassroots level, the over-competitiveness of youth academies and leagues (of which I have first-hand experience), the lack of a footballing identity and style at all levels aside from percentage filth and athletic prowess, the lack of confidence and 'can-do' attitudes at the highest level (severely ingratiated into many of our players' psyche), a manager (albeit a very likeable and educated one) that simply got his tactics wrong (if you're gonna pick half the Liverpool squad then at least emulate them in some ways, especially in an attacking sense) and didn't really have the foresight to mix it up slightly. We have enough good lads in this country, we could do with some more obviously but we've got a decent pool in my opinion...it's just by the time they reach 12 years old their technicality and creativeness is stifled and coached out of them by beer-swigging, pie-eating, dribbling mongoloids from Yorkshire on a Saturday morning. Costa Rica population around 5m. Uruguay around 3m. Both countries have players who believe in themselves and are willing to take risks from a much smaller talent pool than what we have, they've both got managers who are willing to place their reputation on the line and try something different tactically. If it were up to me, I'd make Hodgson the FA chief and allow him to choose his boardroom (he's got an extensive network of people from the 7+ countries he's managed in let alone the multitude of languages he speaks), and get a young, expansive and creative manager to come in and work closely with Hodgson to help mould and create a footballing style for ourselves at all levels in this country. But would Dyke & co leave their comfortable offices and high salaries for the good of our national sport? No, they wouldn't...and that's part of the problem. We've got too much of a management & department system in this country where it's too easy to shift the blame on others. The FA don't work towards the same goal, they work to keep themselves in a job and pass responsibility onto others (ironically within their own bloody organisation).

Stifler coming out with this pearl of wisdom convinced me I am absolutely correct. Did nobody watch the games Sammy featured in this season before he got injured? As Santoon says, he played quite well. I will never understand this hatred for him from our own fans.. Agreed, thought he did okay and actually tried to run at people. There's no way Ferguson is better than he is