Disqus - Latest Comments for DaveMo

Re: Chelsea In Trouble

DaveMo — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 00:26:53 -0000

Liverpool will never overcome all the off-the-pitch distractions enough to mount a sustained title challenge. It's worse than a bad soap opera - Keane not even on the bench, likely to be sold back to Spurs, Rafa not signing a new contract, Rafa saying he didn't buy Keane - 'the club' did, Rafa's chafing at not having total control of the purse strings, the ongoing ownership drama, Rafa's brilliant rant about Sir Alex Ferguson during his press conference... this is not the stuff you would read about United during their two title winning seasons or about Chelsea during their two (yes, about Chelsea later, but not during the title seasons).

btw, it's not January - it's February (re: paragraph #1)

...I was impressed by the photo that accompanied the story, and it got me to thinking "where does a blog writer GO to find the perfect photo that expresses the 'Chelsea in Trouble' headline so perfectly...?" - it's not like epltalk sprang for a photographer at the game. Then I started looking at the pic, and I thought "who's that in the white jersey?" and "didn't Drogba have his hair pulled back today?" and "wait a minute - Lampard was red-carded about an hour before Drogba even took the field". The I tilted the laptop enough to read the "Carling Cup" patch on Lampard's shoulder. You big cheater.

Re: Kaka to Manchester City Heats Up

DaveMo — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 11:01:09 -0000

Appropos of nothing (except your article headline), isn't it odd that Brits say a thing "hots up" instead of the (clearly more accurate) "heats up"?

Similarly, I noticed that when Ronaldo wrecked his car last week, all the headlines were how he "wrote off" his ferrari. I presume this is analagous to our saying someone "totalled" their vehicle. Interesting that both countries have a slang term that originates from insurance policy terminology.

Re: Man Utd’s Pick and Roll Play

DaveMo — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 10:51:42 -0000

Nice analysis, and good frame-by-frame pics. If you watch the replay, you see Vidic whispering in Berba's ear just before they set up - in case there's any doubt it was preconceived.

Small quibble - it was not Ballack that Vidic blocked. It was Di Santo. You can see Ballack in your pics, but he's lower left (probably not marking anybody, based on his level of commitment Sunday).

Re: Tottenham Keeper Gomes Denies Man United

DaveMo — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 21:26:42 -0000

Okay, I am biased, but it seems like United can't catch a break this season. They played New Castle at the start of the season - when they were unbeated in their first four (before they took a serious nose-dive in form). Arsenal picks the one week that ManU comes to town to look like a decent side, and every team in the prem takes maximum points off Spurs before Redknapp takes over and has them looking like a top team. Just kidding (sort of), but why can't MUFC play these teams during their slumps???

Re: Why Isn’t Setanta Sports Available In Widescreen Format?

DaveMo — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 18:37:43 -0000

I'm watching Setanta Sports News right now (the 5:00 PM program), and they are broadcasting the entire signal "squished" - touch one button on the widescreen TV ("stretch'), and you get a beautiful 16:9 picture. I'm not sure if it's just certain news programs, but I have noticed several times recently that Setanta is broadcasting like this. Not matches (yet), but one can hope.

Re: Poll: Will Arsenal or Manchester United Win Saturday?

DaveMo — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 11:18:34 -0000

According to MY copy of the form guide, United has taken 16 points from the last 18 on offer. Chelsea and Liverpool are both at 15. You can say they're "slowly pulling away from the pack", but you'd be wrong (if you're including United in "the pack"). If/when United win their game in hand against Fulham, they're a whopping two points off the pace.

http://www.premierleague.com/page/FormGuide

Re: Which Premier League Clubs Will Get Relegated This Season?

DaveMo — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 15:39:28 -0000

Amazing that Newcastle went from bottom to 14th in the table with just the one win yesterday. It will be an interesting year at the top and at the bottom this year - when the whole lower half of the table could be in and out of the relegation zone all season - not because they're clearly poor (as it was last year with Derby) but because all the teams are capable of pulling out a win, punishing the teams that have even a 1- or 2-match dip in form.

Re: 10 Reasons Why This Premier League Season Is The Best Yet

DaveMo — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 17:08:42 -0000

The whole Manchester City story (off the pitch)... one minute their Chairman has been indicted and his assets frozen and they look like doing a Leeds United (not enough to cash pay wages - the specter of selling off their best players...), then the miraculous transfer deadline day takeover, a complete reversal of fortunes, and nicking Chelsea's summer-long transfer target. It hasn't yet translated into an on-the-pitch reason for this to be one of the best seasons ever, but I imagine it will get interesting come January.

Re: Liverpool’s Magic Triangle: Kuyt, Keane And Gerrard

DaveMo — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:54:00 -0000

Not sure of what to make of Liverpool yet. One the one hand, they have clawed back and won some games after going down 2-0 or 2-1, but on the other hand they've needed an opponent to be sent off both times before they started their comebacks. They're more creative in attack, but not as mean in defense as they've been past couple seasons. As a United fan, I cheered for Liverpool to defeat Chelsea because I knew Liverpool would find a way to drop points elsewhere. Chelsea... not so much.

Re: Top 10 Surprising Premier League Statistics

DaveMo — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 09:58:41 -0000

I don't think "surprising" is the word you were looking for. Giggs longest serving player...? Aston Villa most Englishmen...? Liverpool most foreign...? Crouch is tall...? Arsenal is young...? I think the word is "duh".

Re: London 0 Hull 4: Hull City Make History

DaveMo — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 10:09:38 -0000

Maybe all this 2008 attention will get this album on iTunes. Earlier this year I wanted to put "Reverend's Revenge" on a mix CD I was making, and I couldn't find my copy of London 0 - Hull 4 (I suspect my wife, even though she always professed to like the H-Martins). I was shocked - shocked! - to see no Housemartins on iTunes.

Re: How Should Fox Soccer Channel Commentate International Matches?

DaveMo — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 12:51:37 -0000

I was encouraged that FSC chose to broadcast the match at all (rather than just put it up on PPV), so I am loathe to criticize. There were many problems with sound (mics going out - the sounds of paper being shuffled - poor mixing of crowd noise / sound from Wembley), and the commentators were clearly inexperienced. One can hope that all of these things will improve - I still applaud the effort.

Re: Berbatov Sparking Manchester United Revival

DaveMo — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:19:29 -0000

I think the two inches of water on the pitch did a better job of keeping the score down than the Blackburn defense - Ronaldo shot two wide that he would have hit easily last season (or this season on a dry field). Too hard to weight those shots accurately on that day.

Re: All Hail Hull City, Giant Killers Of The Premier League

DaveMo — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 17:22:22 -0000

I don't watch Fox Football Fone-In much this season (or listen to WSD at all), but I've been wondering if Stephen Cohen has retracted his oft-repeated declaration from late last season - that all three clubs coming up from the Championship (Hull, Stoke, WBA) would be going right back down - that it was essentially a "relegation pressure free year" for the 17 clubs that manged to stay up. Anyone follow him closely enough to know? Not to say that they're safe, but - surprise! - they're good. I'm a United fan, and especially after the way they've begun their season, I'm always watching the weekend matches that include Chelsea, Arsenal, and Liverpool - always hoping they'll find some way to drop points - who would have thought Stoke would trip up Liverpool, and Hull Arsenal? It's like manna from heaven.

Re: Poll: The Role Of Technology And Referees In Premier League Matches

DaveMo — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 12:40:17 -0000

...ha! I had typed the character combination that Google displays for an apostrophe, and of course it appears as an apostrophe in my above post. What actually appears in Google Desktop Web Clips is this (just take out the spaces): & # 8 2 1 7 ;

...which is distracting.

Re: Poll: The Role Of Technology And Referees In Premier League Matches

DaveMo — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 12:37:48 -0000

Something about your web page upgrade is not translating text well into apps like Google Desktop Web Clips. All the apostrophes (for example) come across as an unrecognized character: ’ I have similar problems when I type in MS Word and then try to paste text into an email. The email apps don't recognize the special characters Word uses for dashes and apostrophes. You've got something like that happening here - most of the time it's a minor distraction, but occassionally (as in with this post), the summary text is unreadable. FYI in your quest for perfection (don't read as a nit-picky complaint).

Re: Why Isn’t Setanta Sports Available In Widescreen Format?

DaveMo — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 10:17:06 -0000

What about transmitting the widescreen standard def programming in letterbox (like some US tv shows do - such as E.R. and The Sopranos, iirc). It might take someone at Setanta flipping another switch at times, but it would sure beat the crappy way their signal is coming across now - the highlight reels often show the goal mouth with the ball going in, but not who's shot the ball; my son and I were wondering why their World Cup Qualifer, Group Tables showed "number of games played" and "goals for", but not "points earned" - - that is, until we realized the rightmost column(s) were getting cut off the screen.

Re: Delap Throws, but Cahill Sees Everton Through

DaveMo — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 11:09:14 -0000

How is that Delap gets a measly two points in the premier league fantasy football scoring?? From my point of view, he should have been awarded two assists, but he gets no credit for either goal. I picked this guy up after week one when I saw his first throw-in, so I'm just a little biased, but still...

Re: What Do Liverpool Cops Do All Day?

DaveMo — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 09:46:27 -0000

Are you seriously suggesting that the pudly po-po's should have been on stake-out from last December until last week (when Keane got burgled)? Even limiting the shifts to when players were at away matches would be a budget breaker. The players themselves should have private security companies that go on high alert when their clients travel, and they probably all do. This Keane incident is a hotel room - not really his residence - that's being given press because it can be construed as a continuation of a pattern, even though it's much more likely a one-off. I'm sure if/when he relocates from London to Liverpool, he'll have the same security measures as his teammates most certainly have. I've heard that when he's recruiting players Rafa has to throw an extra few quid a week into the pay packet to allow them to cover anticipated security expenditures. ;-)