i swear i thought i had read it but maybe i'm confusing it with someone else. i tried looking the other day but this thread is superlong.

anyway i was, what do you guys call it-- taking the piss? nothing serious meant.

but i didn't know west ham had been fucking up! i'm sorry about that.


oh yes they are. a pain. i have to go feed a bunch of them in a little while. i was just getting carried away by celulose envy.



i'd kill for some of that!

ps- okay i had to waken my dormant google mojo (because this board's search function is shit) and search this longass thread to find out the truth

yes, you find big sam depressing, he's a cunt, you hate his gum chewing, getting him picked made you angry, etc. consistently since at least 2011.

who you love (or loved) is andy carroll, whom you mentioned as suited for allardyce's long balls

even though i think (i imagine?) i remember someone saying "i love big sam!", you do not, have not, ever loved "big sam"-- in fact you've hated him always and i've found ample proof.



you can sue me for libel now. i'll plead guilty. or we can settle out of court. i can pay in steaks.

OK, 'Big Sam' didn't work but I searched 'Allardyce'. These are literally all the posts I've made where I've expressed any kind of personal opinion about him.

From 2010



From 2011


From 2012



2013



2014



This comes closest to positive, but still no love ...


Maybe I reserved all my affection for when I called him Big Sam. Either that or it's a filet Mignon, rare.

And here's some recent 'Sam's from the past few months




A quick look through some other recent ones, it's interesting that when I'm praising how we've played I never ever mention Sam at all. Unfair maybe but it speaks volumes about how I feel about him.

So that'll be a side order of sauted potatoes with that steak, thank you very much.

haaa haaa haa haa

damn, yes, i found all that on google yesterday. which is why i turned myself in to the authorities.

it's unlikely i'm confusing you with someone else, i think what's happened is that i'm confusing allardyce with another manager-- is there another english manager that you actually like lots?

i remember (maybe it's hallucinations, mind you) you talking very fondly of some english coach... at some point by first name. so it's evidently (evidently!) not big sam....

the thing is when my brain gets obsessed like that it refuses to stop until the puzzle has been solved. a fucking curse it is. it keeps spinning around in my head. if you think of any candidates have mercy on my disease and kindly mention them. else i'll have to read all 327 pages (so far) of this shit. ayayay...

POTATOES: i am actually going to plant some this spring!

--

meanwhile the stupid clock changes... waiting for the bundesliga to start 1 hour later than usual

haaa haaa haa haa

damn, yes, i found all that on google yesterday. which is why i turned myself in to the authorities.

it's unlikely i'm confusing you with someone else, i think what's happened is that i'm confusing allardyce with another manager-- is there another english manager that you actually like lots?

i remember (maybe it's hallucinations, mind you) you talking very fondly of some english coach... at some point by first name. so it's evidently (evidently!) not big sam....

the thing is when my brain gets obsessed like that it refuses to stop until the puzzle has been solved. a fucking curse it is. it keeps spinning around in my head. if you think of any candidates have mercy on my disease and kindly mention them. else i'll have to read all 327 pages (so far) of this shit. ayayay...

POTATOES: i am actually going to plant some this spring!

--

meanwhile the stupid clock changes... waiting for the bundesliga to start 1 hour later than usual

bayern 4 bremen 0

this is not a surprise but it was a fun game nevertheless-- plenty of violence in the 2nd half kept the score at 2-0 for a long time.

pepe reina as keeper made it look like bayern was missing a defender-- so bremen pressed pretty high up the pitch vs. the usual sight. he had a couple of nice saves though.

lahm came back from the bench to play the last 10', which is good news.

dortmund-köln in 1 hour! still waiting for the second coming of the messiah.

--eta: and teh messiah did not arrive as per usual

the spotty stuttering streams provided me ony with a partial view-- but in the end dortmun 0 köln 0. dortmund in 10th place 11pts behind 4th place monchengladbach-- but "the other borussia" still have to play their game this weekend. if they beat hannover (likely), they'll be 14 pts ahead of dortmund. dortmund only 6pts short of a europa league spot though, but europa is not the champions...

Wow. I'm stumped. There's plenty I haven't minded in the past few years but none that I feel a particular fondness for, at least from England. Best I can think of is Alan Pardew, who gets a bad press here but I tend to stick up for a fair bit. His first name's Alan so, Alan/Allardyce? Maybe that was it.

Meanwhile West Ham lost again today, although hardly unexpected against Arsenal and our injuries are now getting ridiculous. We'll survive relegation but can see us now finishing firmly in the bottom half.

Speaking of past posts I found this gem. Hindsight and all that ey? :D

Haha. Yeah, I was obviously way off there. He's good at what he does and he gets maximum respect for what he did at Palace.

no, i found your pardew posts and they weren't it

see, insane as it sounds i turned off images the other day and scanned all 300+ pages of this thread--- NOTHING.

i have this very vague memory of you doing like 2 successive posts talking very affectionately (maybe in jest) about someone... can't say who it is though... maybe someone in the english squad...? by first name or nickname.

what i remember the most clearly (though not clearly, just not as vaguely as the rest) was the cadence of the phrases. but i can only "hear" it not reproduce it.

i'm starting to think maybe my brain has a line to an alternate universe where walternate wears suits and bolivia is not such a miserable person, and that's where these fake memories come from, ha ha.

Problem solved.

oh man! she's violent criminal. if she was a man we'd be burning him in effigy. instead, it's the more reason to love her. are we crazy? most likely...

leverkusen out on penalties yesterday. ayayay.

today i know most of you guys will be watching man city vs. barcelona (maybe)

me i'm looking forward to seeing borussia dortmund come back from behind and knock out juventus

at least in my dreams ha ha

i like juve as well so it's no big drama, but dortmund needs a breath of life

dortmund-juve has been exciting mainly because tevez scored at 3' with a monster cannonshot that weidenfeller was too slow to stop. so dortmund has to attack & attack--

the thing is juve's defense is solid and for the first maybe 20 minutes dortmund couldn't even reach the last 3rd-- eventually dortmund was able to penetrate the area but with little danger.

so it's not completely exciting-- eventful though. pogba out after trying to foul sokratis.

oh here we go 2nd half! (barca's game looks awesome btw)

=====


well. tevez & morata doing the killing as usual. dortmund's defense a stuck pig.

juve is much more of a team-- no pirlo and no pogba and they're owning this.

--

3-0 now! dead & buried.

Didn't see (or hear) either game but all the English clubs going out before the quarters will inspire the inevitable deluge of 'what's gone wrong' artices in the press.

Except Everton obvs.

Barcelona yesterday reminded me of Barcelona in 2009-2010. Pure football heaven (except for the missed chances)

yesterday the fox sports commentariat launched into that immediately after the games-- actually it was alexi lalas (gringo) who started it. oh what is wrong, for all the fanfare they just look mediocre, 2 french teams moving forward, etc.

a couple of english guys (ex-players), particularly an old one... i think his name is warren barton? received his words with expressions of anger & disbelief and just avoided replying and changed the subject. hilarious.



i saw the highlights and messi was on fire-- looked like the human pinball/pinball machine with some insane dribbling--he wants that ballon d'or next year for sure.

Too true, and I hope you go all the way. Nationally though, in terms of the CL, we do seem to have gone backwards or, at best, hit sit kind of wall.


Didn't see it but the match reviews are saying the same. It sounds like Messi had one of his incredible game, even without scoring, that we'd almost become a bit blase about a few years ago.

He was indeed out of this world. The dribbles, the ball control, the passes, the faints. The other thing is that Man city really weren't a decent opponent yesterday and they left him just enough space for his maneuvers.

I know that this debate gets tiring after a while, though I believe he's the most complex player ever to set foot on a football pitch. While CR7 is a brilliant striker, he's a striker only. Messi, though, has been showing more and more playmaking skills recently and when he gets older and his speeds decreases, he can just about become the new Xavi.

I disagree that Ronaldo is just a striker. He's an awesome winger, too, and able to play on either side. Like Messi, he increasingly plays quite a free role, making it hard to pinpoint really what his position is. And while his stats for assists aren't quite as good as Messi's, they're still excellent. He's definitely not an out and out striker like say Diego Costa or Lewandowski or the original Ronaldo.

Decent player from the mid 90s early 00s but amazed he became a pundit.

i found out today he's merely a year older than alexi lalas but he looks like his grampa-- wtf does that man drink-- i want none of it

haha!

Anyway, Everton thrashed tonight means no more English clubs in any European tournament.

against dynamo kiev? damn! that's a war zone team...

wolfsburg beat inter milan which is the revenge for juve in a way...

i'm going to end up getting into the europa league and it's going to end up being all your faults. (thanks?)

Watching the latter stages of it is probably OK but the whole thing just goes on too long for me.

there's an idea!

thanks

so we have the QF draws:

CHAMPIONS

PSG / Barcelona - should be epic! with Zlatan banned I'll go with Barcelona-- still PSG beat Chelsea without Zlatan though...

Madrid / Madrid - bananas! ATM has beat them regularly this year hasn't?

Juve / Monaco - i haven't seen monaco play this year but now i will. juve has been pretty great though dortmund was shit & therefore easy.

Porto / Bayern - another easy draw for bayern who are yet to be tested. good for advancing though-- unless pep goes too baroque.


EUROPA

Sevilla/FC Zenith -- don't know

Brugge / Dnipro D..... how are these war zone teams pulling it off?? 2 ukranians!

Dynamo Kiev / Fiorentina -- don't know. is gomez still playing? haven't seen fiorentina since early in the season when they played rome & lost

Wolfsburg / Napoli -- gtg w/ wolfsburg -- bundesliga rah rah rah

....

Has to be Barca, has to.


Real are in a bit of a dip so I'm going AM. [EDIT] But the more I think about it, I bet Real scrape through.


Haven't seen either. Want Juve to go through but I've no idea.


Over two legs hard to see anything but Bayern.



No shits given

how did everton get ballsacked by a ukranian team though? is that not a story?

Martinez fucked up big time with the tactics. It sounds wanky but it's true. More later.

i believe you-- and i'm starting to give a shit, so rant away when you have a chance and i'll hear you out

The main talking point in the press right now is English teams falling short tactically. The Prem sells itself on excitement and intensity (which it does deliver on) but that evidently only takes you so far in these bigger competitions.

It is a story but for whatever reason former Eastern Bloc sides are notoriously strong at home. They just travel really badly.

the ancient mariner--i mean dortmund!--plays in less than 10'

tomorrow wolfsbug/mainz followed by bayern/monchengladbach

wolfsburg is highly watchable-- de bruyne + bas dost are the real batman & robin ha ha ha. seriously a great duo. and monchengladbach is 3rd on the bundesliga-- they should be able to put up a fight.

--

looks like the "daylight savings time" bullshit threw me off the schedule

==

dortmund 3 hannover 1!

some great goals, and hummels saved a ball from the goal line with a header

kagawa back on fire-- a bit late in the season but fingers crossed for the next one

Oh maaan i can't wait for Sunday. Classico and liverpool vs man u! Should be a good one

^^ sweeeeet! i might be able to catch the clásico on beinsport

what's interesting about liverpool these days?

Liverpool, along with Arsenal, are probably the in form team in the Prem right now. And the Liverpool Man U derby is pretty big - bigger than Man U v Man C or Liverpool v Everton.