Dog's Football Thread Part Five.

[Trapper John]

Lionel Messi has signed a new deal with Barcelona that will keep him at the Spanish giants until 2021.

Lionel's new contract has a buy out clause of £626 million pounds.

Best player in the world Lionel Messi and seeing as he'll be 34 when that contract finishes, he'll end his days with Barca.

Unless some club is prepared to pay £626 million pounds to sign him.

Spanish club players by which I mean the top players, Messi, Ronaldo, Benzema and the like, never ever intend to leave La Liga.

The simple reason is why should they? They play in a country where their worst winter day is like one of our better summer ones, are pampered like gods, guaranteed Champions league football every season, paid as goood as if not better than Premier league players and don't have to exert themsleves too much if they don't fancy it.

It's a standard practice for them all every couple of seasons to put out on the jungle drums they are unhappy and voila, up pops a new deal and everyone is happy again.

Are you aware i'm black affronted, because my team lost to the bottom of the table side on Friday?

Where's your kind words?

You would only interpret any kind words as a 'piss take' so I didn't bother.

[Trapper John]

Whoooops! I missed out one of the better stories from yesterday, Crystal Palace recording their first win under new manager Roy Hodgson.

Stoke travelled to South London hoping for all three points from this game against the team holding up the league. It looked like that would be the case, when that weird dwarf of a bloke but exceptionally good player on his day, Xherdan Shaqiri opened up what was a dull game with a fine left foot shot from 25 yards.

It galvanised Palace into action and they never gave up though, equallising with a tap in from Loftus-Cheek 3 minutes later with Sakho grabbing his first goal for Palace and the winner in injury time, after some fine and determined build up work from Wilfred Zaha.

I have to say that I have seen Palace play considerably better on many occasions this season and come away with zilch, so a poorish performance and all three points was probaly deserved.

[Trapper John]

I have to say, I am more than a bit disgruntled that Sky have chosen not to show what is probably the best game of Sunday if not the weekend.

Instead they have elected to show two of the shitiest teams in the league at the moment, Southampton v Everton in the same slot as Arsenal's trip to Burnley, no wonder football subscriptions are falling like stones with decisions like this.

It is not unknown for Sky to switch televised games during the games package in a season when matches dictate, why haven't they done it here?

Forgetting I'm an Arsenal supporter for the moment but I think if you polled Sky Sports viewers on which game they'd rather see, two teams on equal points, battling for a win which will not only put one 3 clear points above the other but see them into the top four, or a couple of worthless shit teams, who have done fuck all this season except scramble around the bottom half of the table trying to avoid the relegation places with only 6 wins between them. It's ludicrous planning from Sky.

Anyway, I'll have to make do I suppose. Burnley are a tough nut to crack this season, Sean Dyche has turned them into a team to be feared, especially at home, only losing once early on. Arsenal have not been great away from home either, so this result is far from clear cut.

Some of the weekend's result went for us for a change, Spurs, Liverpool and Chelsea all drawing means that the Gunners can can jump above both Spurs and Liverpool and be just a point behind 3rd placed Chelsea. Of course the same can be said for Burnley, which is why I find having to hunt the internet for a stream, doubly annoying.

The downside for me as an Arsenal supporter is that the Gunners have a long record of failing to capitalise on the poor results of other clubs, so I'm less than confident going into this one.

Last game of the weekend is Huddersfield v Manchester City hardly rivetting either but it will be nice to see what little gems the officials can come up with if it's 0-0 after 30 minutes or god forbid City go a goal behind, the hotline between Richard Scudamore and Mike Reilly at PGMOL will be frazzling like a burger on a griddle.

[wutang]

I have to say, I am more than a bit disgruntled that Sky have chosen not to show what is probably the best game of Sunday if not the weekend.

Instead they have elected to show two of the shitiest teams in the league at the moment, Southampton v Everton in the same slot as Arsenal's trip to Burnley, no wonder football subscriptions are falling like stones with decisions like this.

It is not unknown for Sky to switch televised games during the games package in a season when matches dictate, why haven't they done it here?

Maybe there is a rule about how many tv matches one team can have?

With you guys still in the Europa League there are gonna be plenty more Sunday/Monday games from which to pick

[Vicky]

Are you aware i'm black affronted, because my team lost to the bottom of the table side on Friday?

Where's your kind words?

You would only interpret any kind words as a 'piss take' so I didn't bother.

Yes i suppose that's true, good luck against Burnley.

[Vicky]

Here TJ..

I hope you don't think i'm being cheeky, but i don't like those black strips of Arsenal's

There awfy cheap looking, the blue one is far nicer.

[Vicky]

Oh and that was good news about Arsenal getting that penalty and scoring in the 92th minute.

My Dad was waiting on Arsenal for his coupon, they've made an auld man happy.

[Sunny]

Maybe we should do that, pay off the officials to make sure you win in the 92minute!

[Vicky]

So the Scumbags have won the Scottish League Cup, it always helps when the opposition have a man sent off.

[Trapper John]

Oh and that was good news about Arsenal getting that penalty and scoring in the 92th minute.

My Dad was waiting on Arsenal for his coupon, they've made an auld man happy.

Glad to hear it. I'm gonna do a match report in a minute, bet you can't wait.

[Trapper John]

Maybe we should do that, pay off the officials to make sure you win in the 92minute!

You wouldn't say that if you'd seen the push, somehow I wished it was a referees 'error' so I could at least think we were getting some preferential treatment on decisions but sadly it wasn't.

You're building a new stadium, I don't think you've got much in the bribery and corruption budget. Though I would have thought there was still bundles in the kitty, you chucked plenty in it to get all those beneficial decisions last season.

Anyways, how are you and whats it like down there in 5th? ..... shouldn't be too bad, we've been keeping it warm for you becasue we knew you'd be back where you belong sooner or later.

[Trapper John]

I can only report on the Burnley v Arsenal game as I had to go out so didn't see the others, though I just noticed a penalty for Man City brought an equaliser after Huddersfield scored first, no surprise there then and a winner for City four minutes from time, that speaks volumes.

Anyways, fuck me Burnley are a tough team to play away from home, they were at us from the first whistle it's no surprise they are where they are.

It was clear from early on that it was gonna be just one goal deciding this game with both teams counteracting each other from the off. To be fair, Burnley probably had the best of the first half as several good chances came to both teams, neither making any of them count. It seemed we were playing with similar tactics to the game against Cologne on Thursday, don't push too hard first half and let them have it in the second.

Of course that brought dread to me as we all know what happened with that particular plan. Well as expected we came out and turned the tables on Burnley, again it was pretty much even stevens on the chances missed, though we were keeping the ball a whole lot better and making better strides froward than our hosts.

As the game hit the 90th minute it appeared we had once again failed to capitalise on our other challengers misfortunes when our last attack in their box brought a stupid foul from Burnley's Polish sounding defender who pushed Ramsey to the ground from behind with both hands as he stretched for the ball, within yards of the ref who didn't hesitate in awarding the penalty, which Sanchez converted giving us a hard won 0-1 victory. On balance, just about the right result.

Arseanl are now 4th and that must be choking many of our detractors who had written us off after a couple of games. Onwards and upwards, next target to overhaul Chelsea who are just a point ahead in third.

[Vicky]

Oh and that was good news about Arsenal getting that penalty and scoring in the 92th minute.

My Dad was waiting on Arsenal for his coupon, they've made an auld man happy.

Glad to hear it. I'm gonna do a match report in a minute, bet you can't wait.

Good one TJ.

[Vicky]

Talking of Arsenal and penalties..

Arsenal beat Burnley 1-0 last season with a penalty scored in the 98th minute.

Burnley's manager is raging about this.

[Vicky]

Brendan Rogers is getting talked about in the same breath as Jock Stein now.

Fucking Hell!!

Maybe we should wait until Brendan wins the European Cup before he's compared with Big Jock.