Random Soccer Thread

[Donny B.]

HART BEAT

The Fiver has for some time been an advocate of the reverse-visualisation gambit, whereby openly tempting fate by saying out loud the worst possible thing that might happen means it somehow won't. For the Fiver, this means a daily routine of wandering around saying things like "no way could there ever be a beetle in my pocket", or "it would be probably be really awful to be routinely jeered and jostled by disdainful lesiure-suited youths outside Londis". Or "how unpleasant hypothetically speaking to find yourself jaded, frayed, smelling faintly of fish paste, all youthful vitality spent and increasingly prone to ranting in a way that seems angry and frightening rather than funny or in any way charming". Without which, the Fiver suspects all these things would have happened at least a bit more.

It seems that Paul Hart takes a similar approach, judging by his comments on taking the QPR job only last month. "I am here until the end of the season at the moment and I am happy with that," Hart said at his unveiling in December. "As far as a poisoned chalice is concerned, it has not been deep in my thoughts," he declared, lowering a chalice from his lips and coughing violently. "Some people have said that it is like going out of the frying pan into the fire," he added, struggling to free himself from a giant flaming wicker replica of a sad-looking, long-faced manager. "This is a great club and it is privilege to be working here."

And so it was until this morning when Hart left Loftus Road after just five games in charge, his second abrupt departure from a flailingly hopeless English league club in the last eight weeks, following his sacking by penniless Portsmouth. "The club would like to wish both [insert name of recently fired manager here] and [insert name of recently fired assistant manager here] good luck in the future and thank them for their hard work," droned the increasingly overworked template QPR use for announcing their managerial departures. Or at least something along those lines, the Fiver having nodded off counting up the recently departed bosses at a club which, since it got mixed up with swaggering blue-spectacled, disco-dancing, yacht-loiterer Flavio Briatore in November 2007, has been managed by John Gregory, Luigi De Canio, Iain Dowie, Paulo Sousa, Jim Magilton, Gareth Ainsworth, Steve Gallen, Marc Bircham, Hart and, now, his assistant Mick Harford.

Semi-retired miserabilist Alan Curbishley is already being bandied about as next in line. And has no doubt spent most of his afternoon pacing up and down talking about how awful it would be to have a blue-spectacled yacht-swaggerer rattling the letter box and peering through the keyhole and how maybe it's time to turn off the lights and close the curtains and keep very, very quiet.

[nelly the elephant]

Jaysus......Inter must be sick of the sight of Gareth Bale.......what a second half performance from the lad. He's playing out of his skin at the moment. Both those crosses were right on the money....

[Armchair]

Jaysus......Inter must be sick of the sight of Gareth Bale.......what a second half performance from the lad. He's playing out of his skin at the moment. Both those crosses we right on the money....

Bale seems to be bit special alright, Spurs will do well to hold on to him, I'd expect a big money offer for him in the summer if he keeps putting in those sort of performances in the champions league. Well done Spurs!

[Logorrhea]

What price for him though? The papers are quoting £25million but thats way too low. Dont think many clubs would be able to afford him.

Either way we have him for another four years so he wont be going anywhere for at least two.

[Armchair]

What price for him though? The papers are quoting £25million but thats way too low. Dont think many clubs would be able to afford him.

Either way we have him for another four years so he wont be going anywhere for at least two.

If Jose offers £35 million in the summer he's gone!

[Avenger]

Jaysus......Inter must be sick of the sight of Gareth Bale.......what a second half performance from the lad. He's playing out of his skin at the moment. Both those crosses were right on the money....

His form is exceptional. Amazing he couldn't get in the team a year ago.

[sarah_lennon]

Harry's a genius. He knew if he ignored him for long enough that the result would be CL hattricks.

[Broken Wing]

Harry's a genius. He knew if he ignored him for long enough that the result would be CL hattricks.

Does this mean Robbie "Diver" Keane will be a goal machine next season?

[Avenger]

Harry's a genius. He knew if he ignored him for long enough that the result would be CL hattricks.

I don't remember Bales performances as a left back as I don't see Spurs much but was he any good? Maybe he's just not good defensively. His pace is what makes him so dangerous in midfield.... plus he's able to pick out a decent cross.

[sarah_lennon]

Harry's a genius. He knew if he ignored him for long enough that the result would be CL hattricks.

I don't remember Bales performances as a left back as I don't see Spurs much but was he any good? Maybe he's just not good defensively. His pace is what makes him so dangerous in midfield.... plus he's able to pick out a decent cross.

He suffered from the Glen Johnsons a bit, getting caught upfield or throwing himself in and being skinned. Venables would play him wingback in his christmas tree

[Donny B.]

Rafa Out!!!

[Leinster Exile]

FIFA goal of the year perhaps ?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/footbal ... 151629.stm

[suisse]

What price for him though? The papers are quoting £25million but thats way too low. Dont think many clubs would be able to afford him.

Either way we have him for another four years so he wont be going anywhere for at least two.

In soccer terms, £25 million may be too low. But in the real world, £25 million for someone who can cross a ball well is just ridiculous.

[nelly the elephant]

I'm no United fan but it's enjoyable seeing the "Managerial Mastermind" that is Big Sam Allardyce getting a right good seeing to at Old Trafford..........6 nil down and there's still half an hour left!

[LeRouxIsPHat]

Chris Hughton just got sacked. I know there's been rumours about it for ages but that makes literally no sense whatsoever to me.

[Armchair]

Chris Hughton just got sacked. I know there's been rumours about it for ages but that makes literally no sense whatsoever to me.

And people wonder why a club the size of Newcastle never win anything? They seem to have an in built self destruct button in the board room over there no matter who controls the club

[Donny B.]

Chris Hughton just got sacked. I know there's been rumours about it for ages but that makes literally no sense whatsoever to me.

And people wonder why a club the size of Newcastle never win anything? They seem to have an in built self destruct button in the board room over there no matter who controls the club

Mike Ashley is a grade-A cretin. He's been itching to sack Hughton from day one.

This is the Fivers take on it!

OH ASHLEY
There were familiar scenes at St James' Park today where Satan's Barcodes resumed their former guise of Jongleurs FC with the sacking of Chris Hughton in order to appoint "an individual with more managerial experience". The Fiver doesn't know what's more soul-crushing: getting rid of a manager who had impressed everyone by getting Newcastle back into the Premier League and going to the Emirates and suchlike and winning ... or the fact that Alan 'Mascherano and Tevez on the bench, yes sirree' Pardew is the favourite to take over.
Mike Ashley, the north-east's biggest comedian since Bobby Thompson, the Little Waster himself, has been as silent as the grave on the issue, but a statement from the club said: "Chris has shown exceptional character and commitment since being appointed manager in October 2009 ... [But] regrettably, the board now feels that an individual with more managerial experience is needed to take the club forward. The task of appointing a new manager now begins. An announcement will be made shortly regarding transitional arrangements pending the appointment of a successor."

Only yesterday, before the defeat by West Bromwich Albion, Hughton was musing over the board's lack of urgency over offering him a new contract with characteristic modesty. "The club came out with the statement that the intention was to address my contract at the end of this year and the end of this year, I presume, means the end of December," he said. "We are now into December so hopefully those talks will start soon." Too soon, as he found out this morning and what a whizzer piece of business to keep him dangling on a string since the summer and thus saving themselves a bigger severance package. Sadly Hughton has too much restraint and dignity to resort to the tactics of another Cockney who was ill-treated in the Toon, burst into the owner's office and said: "You're a big man, but you're in bad shape. With me it's a full-time job. Now behave yourself."

Sir Alan Sugar, doyen of the axe, sprang to the former manager's defence: "Chris Hughton is a nice bloke, we go back a long way in our Spurs days, terrible treatment, bloody players get away with it again, it's their fault."

At least as Ashley no longer frequents the Bigg Market, he is unlikely to listen to the supporters' wildest five-pint fantasies and indulge them as he did with the appointments of Kevin Keegan and Alan Shearer. Then again, Pardew who is said to be "strongly interested in the job" heads the betting market. It's probably worth remembering that Pardew took over another Premier League club during December. Six months later Charlton went down

[nelly the elephant]

Chris Hughton just got sacked. I know there's been rumours about it for ages but that makes literally no sense whatsoever to me.

A shock but not a shock.......after what he's done for them....just the kind of steady hand they need on the tiller for the next couple of years after the succession of circus acts they've employed over the past decade. The dogs in the street knew he was gone though as he hadn't been offered a contract. No room for decent,able guys like him at the top of the greasy pole that's top-flight football management

Toon will now go down without question...

[Dexter]

Chris Hughton just got sacked. I know there's been rumours about it for ages but that makes literally no sense whatsoever to me.

A shock but not a shock.......after what he's done for them....just the kind of steady hand they need on the tiller for the next couple of years after the succession of circus acts they've employed over the past decade. The dogs in the street knew he was gone though as he hadn't been offered a contract. No room for decent,able guys like him at the top of the greasy pole that's top-flight football management

Toon will now go down without question...

I certainly hope so, its what that clown of an owner deserves. Tough on the players and fans though.

[Avenger]

Chris Hughton just got sacked. I know there's been rumours about it for ages but that makes literally no sense whatsoever to me.

Apparently Newcastle were worried that they were about to be taken seriously (as a club)...