Of course, sorry. I was thinking of Northern Ireland. You're quite right about Robbie Keane. My bad.

Yeah, when the fuckers not injured!

check this..

british team for 2012

please mr berbatov.. please..i implore you, no more..just fuck off to united and drag them down with you!!!

i have been a fan of yours for a while and now youre behaiviour is deplorable... dont want to play because "not in right frame of mind".. you are a footballer for fuck sake, under contract... and a spoiled fuck! go up the country to your beloved man u and fail to get on the team.. sulk and frown on the bench for 9 months and drag them down with you.. next year spurs may well be in europe without your help and i hope they treat you with the respect you deserve on your next visit to the lane...

dimitar... piss off now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Don't you just hate it when you want your manager to get the sack, and then your team goes out and wins 4-1. Curbishley, you are one lucky bastard.

Do you think Steve Mclaren has followed a course to master the Dutch accent or is he just improvising?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6l9BFJYiPxA

To be honest I didn't even hear it initially, but when I saw it posted on youtube and paid more attention to it I noticed that he's definitely putting some effort into sounding "Dutch". Does he think we wouldn't understand him otherwise!?

Yeah, I've seen that before. What a total cock.

"Ze Arsenal are special team"

I dont get why the hell he's talking like that... How longs he been there? Coupla months?

This is very funny:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK1-lmCH4_E&NR=1

Yes, less than two months when that interview was held.
I'll keep an eye on whether he's going to perfect it or drops it altogether at some point.

I wouldn't expect him to do another interview like that. He got crucified in the UK press for it. He's a joke here as it is, without doing stuff like that.

More examples of MccLaren pisstakes for you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz1g5A1fwLQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9AwIVNFF-o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R71U3ovmNFE

BTW, Pokkeherrie, which team do you support in Holland?

Feyenoord from Rotterdam.

Once, a million years ago winners of the European Cup and World Cup, but nowadays better known internationally for their hooligans than for their successes... which have been rare, except for miraculously winning the UEFA Cup in 2002 (scientists are still clueless about a possible explanation).
Last time they made the news in the UK was probably when they got kicked out of the UEFA Cup for rioting "fans" in France (Nancy), giving the Spurs a free pass into the next round.

Best known Feyenoorders to make it to the Premier League in recent times have been Van Persie, Kuyt and Kalou.

Best known players in the current squad are probably Giovanni van Bronckhorst, Roy Makaay and Jon Dahl Tomasson. We're only getting old players these days.

bye bye berbatov... good fucking riddance... go sulk at alex ferguson and see where it gets you.....

welcome paulychenko and corluka.....

spurs to rebuild and rise again....

I'm really sad to see Corluka leave. He is easily the best of the signings that Sven made for us; very strong defensively, with an attacking ability and really exceptional ability to read what's going on. He would grace any team in the world.

I like Tottenham's squad. You have a good line-up.

Mixed feelings about Curbishley resigning. I never liked his style of playing (Allardyce on sleeping tablets) but sympathise with him over the reason he walked: boardroom intervention. When will the money men realise that accountants don't make good managers?

God knows who we'll get in his place. Would love it to be Bilic or Ranieri, but I'll tell you what, if some of the rumours are true about it being given to Allardyce he's gonna be about as popular at Upton Park as a lorry load of Spurs and Millwall scarfs.

West Ham slipped next to the bottom last season, they've lost elements and kept those who often go to the physio.
Glad I'm not a fan.

Bertrand: You mean the season before last when we (controversially) avoided relegation. Last season we were mid-table which, considering our frankly surreal injury list was pretty good.

Gravityslip: Allardyce DID do well with Bolton, but it's the style of football he promotes that would go completely against the grain at a club like West Ham, which is associated with a much more attacking style. Oh and losing massively too. I go on a West Ham board a fair bit and the general feeling is that Allardyce would be a totally mis-judged appointment, just as he was at Newcastle - which has a similar club eyhic, and similarly shit board. Just look at how they're treating Keegan at the moment.

How nice it is that we have a fundamentalist, oil-wealth, woman-subjugating, gay-excecuting, patriarch business family running Man City.
This is one step worse than Abramovich or Glazer, because this Royal family are a nationally recognised group of theocratic slobbering dregs. Good luck Man City on your moral decline.

The developments at Manchester City are intriguing; for the first time since I have followed their progress, they are going to win things, but I'm not sure I'll enjoy it.

This time, it's not hard to find apparent evidence to back up the claims against the club's owners, so I have to look at not supporting the club for the time being, which won't be nice. It seems that Abu Dhabi is far more acceptable than some other nations in the area, but that in itself isn't good enough.

Even if the current owners were to sell in a few years to someone thoroughly decent, the success that we ('we' being in the past, probably) have will have been founded on Abu Dhabi rulers' money, so it will be hard to fully support them again.

What can I do to protest though? Write to the Premier League concerning the fit and proper person test? Write to Manchester City? Take City players out of my fantasy team? Basically, those fans who care about dodginess are powerless to do much.

Oh well.

I'm not sure what to think of it either. These huge injections of cash really are killing off major aspects of the game. Good luck to Man City I suppose (I say that even as a West Ham fan) cos it would be crap if they did become just another faceless corporation. There's so much wrong with British football right now, it's untrue.

Wasn't there a team with no logo on the players' shirt somewhere? Madrid?
Money money money...
When Arsenal moved, the new stadium had the name of a company. Companies aren't linked to a particular place like Highbury.
Such thing already existed in Germany.
It's getting painful to retort to friends who don't like football that it's also a game - they will always attack on the ground of money. Robinho won't help.

Once I get rich I buy Aston Villa, just to make sure noone is sacked.

And yes, West Ham were 10th last season, memory didn't serve me well. Still don't think they'll do better this time.

Madrid are sponsered by BWin, a large betting company. Are you thinking of Barcelona? They've never had a shirt sponsor. A couple of years ago they started wearing the Unicef logo on their shirts, but Barca is paying Unicef instead of the other way round.


Re: Man City - it's just not right when a team that finished 9th in the PL and barely qualified for European football is paying 3 times the salary that Real Madrid does...

I think at the moment there's a real crisis of confidence amongst fans in the English league at the moment. And now the Berbatov, Keegan/Wise, Man City, Curbishley fiascos all happening in the same week, have really brought things to a head regarding issues like club ownership, player power, fan power, etc.

I mean imagine the consequences on Man Utd as a club if the Glazers had an argument with Ferguson and decided to just sack him. You'd have riots.

Right, it was Barcelona.
Two mistakes on one page.
Arsenal and Man Utd have kept the same manager for over 10 years. Looks like an anomaly when it's what's supposed to create a particular style.

hey... the spurs are good at something this year already!!!






great racing by a great team

the new superleague formula....

From Eurosport:

West Ham are expected to start talks with Gianfranco Zola on Tuesday with a view to appointing the Italian as the club's new manager. Zola remains the clear favourite to succeed Alan Curbishley after the club's board ruled out Slaven Bilic's claims on Monday.

The club's directors are understood to have made Zola, 42, their top choice narrowly ahead of fellow Italian Roberto Donadoni. West Ham will look to complete talks as soon as possible but may face a slight delay - the former Chelsea midfielder is joint coach of the Italy Under-21 side and they are in action in Croatia on Tuesday night.

It is understood Zola's years of experience in the Premier League have given him the slight edge over Donadoni, the former Italy coach who resigned from that job after a disappointing Euro 2008 campaign. Donadoni still remains in the frame in the unlikely event a deal is not clinched with Zola, but Bilic's hopes of succeeding Alan Curbishley foundered on the complications surrounding his release from his current job as coach of Croatia, though he was never top of West Ham's wish list.

West Ham hope they will unveil their first foreign manager at a news conference on Thursday.

Kia Joorabchian, who works as an advisor to West Ham, said both Zola and Donadoni had impressed. He told Sky Sports News: "Zola has a lot of experience in the Premier League, he was admired by every fan in the league irrespective of which club they supported. He has built a big reputation for himself in Italy. He hasn't Premier League experience as a manager but he understands the Premier League very much. But Donadoni has vast experience and is a good candidate. They are moving fast. They would like to appoint a new manager before the weekend but it is a process they will consider carefully. It is a different system, a more European system of working and it will be a manager who will be working under that style in order to minimise and avoid errors which have occurred in the past."



Your thoughts, demonrail666?

I can't help but think that West Ham's problems aren't going to be solved by a new team manager, their problems are at boardroom level. Zola will only able to turn them around if he is given the chance to get rid of the sort of players that WHU seem to end up buying, and keep the sort that they generally end up selling. I don't think the current West Ham squad is necessarily capable of playing the style of football that Zola would want them to.

I agree with pretty much everything you say. Zola may be popular but his lack of managerial experience is far too big a risk to take. But the board are looking for a yes man (with 'flair' credentials) and Zola looks very much the part. I can't see them giving him a lot of money to spend. My prediction is that he'll load up the squad with cheap Italians (like Sven did at Man City) and we'll struggle.

It's no wonder that we'll probably end up with Zola. A more established manager would surely run a mile from Upton Park right now, given what's been going on. I give him till the end of the season. Personally I'd have preferred Coppel.

i feel sorry for curbishley. he doesnt deserve all the flak he gets at all....

Yeah, thinking about it, I feel sorry for him if he does become WHU manager. He could easily end up marked as a bad manager without ever having the chance to be a good one.

If you think about it, there are very few really good players who have gone on to be really good managers. Most of them end up as capable managers at mid-table teams, I can't think of any top managers who were top players in their day.

I'll stand aside now to be ready for the avalanche of names that prove me wrong.

bring back di canio......

West Ham and Newcastle should approach Raymond Domenech; he might be released from his French team job tomorrow.
He's a good hate-magnet, that'll spare the board.
What do you say?

Hate magnet is fucking right! What a tosser Domenech is.

I'd like the excitement of a Di Canio but in real terms it'd be a nightmare. An entertaining nightmare, but a nightmare nonetheless.

There are some very good players that've made very good managers (Dalglish, Rijkaard and I'd even say Hoddle) but I generally agree that one really leads to the other.

I hope Curbishley lands a decent job soon. He's a good manager but he was never right for West Ham, just as Allardyce is a good manager but would never be accepted at Newcastle. It's weird that what happened last week happened to both West Ham and Newcastle. Two teams with a similar footballing philosophy - as unrealistic as that philosophy might be nowadays.

I work with a Charlton fan, and he's thrilled that Curbishley's on the market. Thinks he's the best manager they ever had, and that his return to The Valley would be a wonderful thing for them.

I think Curbs did a brilliant job at Charlton and they should get him back asap. West Ham's problem was that he was trying to turn them into one of those mid-table mediocrities that might be stable, but hardly make for an exciting season.

hammers always reach to tottenham for their inspiration yeah?

Er, yeah. Right.

Seriously though, I never know what to make of Spurs. Clearly a good team, they do seem to struggle to reach that other level though. West Ham are a bit schizo when it comes to success (which we'e not had much of really). It wants success but insists on getting there with attractive football and young players. I do admire their ethic but fail to see any signs of it translating into any great success.

just sayin man!!!

zola new hammers manager!! just announced...

I really can't stand Miroslav Klose at the moment.

has Zola even managed a club before?