[Football] 2007-2008 Barclays' English Premier Leaue

Man U won 3-0 (1-1) by penalty kicks. BTW, Isn't Community Shield once called Charity Shield? Since when the name was changed?

 

like 4 or 5 years ago.

 

does Henry play for another team now or what?

 

He was sold to Barcelona over the summer.

 

He plays for Barca now.

 

Thanks guys

 

Thanks for the info.

 

Just a bump since the season starts tomorrow.

Also, as of yesterday, there will be another American in the Premiership as Benny Feilhaber completed a move to Derby County.

http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11696_2652885,00.html

It also looks like another of our U-20 stars is about to move to Europe, midfielder Danny Szetela is close to a deal with AS Roma.

 

James Lawton: Wenger's dark horses can conjure a triumph for the purists
The Frenchman's brilliant young Arsenal side have the quality and the self-belief to be surprise title winners
Published: 10 August 2007
Sometimes in football, as in life, it is necessary to make an act of faith. Ideally, though, it is accompanied by a thread of logic and a set of beliefs about what is right and wrong, what deserves success and what doesn't.

Most of all, if you are detached just a little from the apparent need of so many to have their team at the centre of their existence, the hope is for something that does most for the general good, in this case the spirit and the horizons of the money-loaded, morally poverty-stricken Premier League.

What am I saying? Two things. One is that is nothing would be more uplifting to the debate about how a football team should be run, what its priorities should be, and how it plays, than for Arsenal to return to the peak of English football and win another title for their allegedly embattled manager Arsène Wenger.

The other is that, despite the widespread dismissal of their chances by the bookmakers who have them 10-1, they are eminently capable of doing it.

Their chances should certainly not be dismissed, and least of all by the man who has so brilliantly re- invented their greatest rivals, Manchester United. Sir Alex Ferguson, claims that he has his strongest ever squad, which is of course what he would say. What he cannot suggest is that Arsenal are necessarily crippled by their youth. With great courage he made nonsense of such a theory, and the infancy of Alan Hansen's career as a pundit, when he released Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, David Beckham, the Neville boys and Nicky Butt. Hansen declared that you can't win with kids. Fergie proved him wrong and won the title, as his great predecessor Sir Matt Busby did, four decades earlier with his unforgettable Babes. It simply depended on the quality of the kids.

Relatively speaking, does Wenger hold the same kind of hand as Busby and Ferguson? Do the likes of Cesc Fabregas, Gael Clichy, Emmanuel Adebayor and the potential powerhouse Abou Diaby, and the physically and psychologically maturing Robin van Persie, Eduardo da Silva and Bacary Sagna suffer too much in comparison.? Not in the bright light of a new football dawn.

When you feed in the experience of William Gallas, whose substance was underlined by the strength of the reaction at Stamford Bridge to his noisy journey across town, and Kolo Toure and Gilberto, and consider the potential of such as the lurking young Brazilian Denilson, you have to question the rampaging belief that Arsenal, as serious contenders, are shot through.

Why is the suspicion so entrenched? Largely, it seems, because Thierry Henry is gone. In truth, it is the fantasy of Henry that left for Barcelona. The reality of him was scarcely present last season - and certainly not when Adebayor scored a beautifully sculpted goal at Old Trafford for the first of Arsenal's two Premier League victories over the champions-elect.

When Henry was operating at his best for Arsenal the idea of his leaving was unthinkable. He was the spirit and the genius of the side that played so beautifully and, so staggeringly, went a whole season undefeated. That Henry was precious and irreplaceable. He illuminated both the game and the sky. The one that finally packed his bags was much less than that. Some of his aura slipped away in the Champions League final a year last spring. He had the perfect chance to pull the trigger against Barcelona but his instincts froze. So, you had the sense, did his willingness to continue as the supreme guiding light of an emerging young team.

Now those taking the Arsenal odds in preference to those against United, 11-8, Chelsea 6-4 and Liverpool 9-2 has to take the leap on which all of Wenger's immediate hopes depend.

They have to believe that in a way Henry's absence is not a blow but an incentive.

An incentive, this is, for a whole team to grow up, to grasp that potential is a diet on which you can exist only so long without losing a certain strength and panache. Last season Wenger yearned for signs of such dawning knowledge and that it came so spasmodically was no doubt the greatest source of his frustration. Sometimes you could look at his face and see that he ached for a sign of a new force creating the old alchemy.

Fabegras, at 20, has already expressed his desire to be captain of the club. There is nothing wrong with this as long as it is underpinned by a consistent body of work. Some older heads might mutter about an upstart's pretensions – but not those who recognise the kid's extraordinary ability to shape a game, to invite responsibility with the moral courage to get on the ball and make things happen. This is a rare quality in a modern midfielder and Fabregas's progress is still another tribute to the insight and the operating style of his manager.

There were times last season when a popular view was that Wenger was losing it. His touchline capers smacked of desperation. But then Wenger's vision of football has always been that of an artist and it has to be noted that, unlike Vincent Van Gogh, he has yet to cut off an ear... or the lifeblood of his success.

Wenger would no more dream of stocking his team with players he has never seen – as Sven Goran Eriksson has done in his wild punt with Manchester City – as spend half a training session practising long throw-ins. Wenger is about the certainties of knowing and believing in his players, and whatever the internal politics at Arsenal – and whether or not his friend David Dein will return to the fold in the company of vast amounts of American money – we can be sure that his priorities will remain undisturbed. Yes, we know he is a wretched loser, in some ways worse than Ferguson, but how much in the end does it matter? What is more forgivable? A fierce, and sometimes dislocating, hatred of defeat for the team you have made and whose best values you cherish? Or a desire to win for its own sake and at the expense of all that creates the excitement and the beauty of the game which has given you so much? We should know, by now, where Wenger stands on this most important question of all.

We certainly know that Wenger, no more than Ferguson or Rafael Benitez, would not still be in his job if his club had behaved towards him as Chelsea have recently treated Jose Mourinho. Mourinho has buried, at least publicly, his angst at the appointment of owner Roman Abramovich's nomination Avram Grant to the coaching staff and, in the context of the Russian's wealth, a cruel pegging back of his ability to spend on the players he wants, but there has to be the strongest sense that the Special One is reduced, for the first time in his extraordinary career, to papering over cracks in what was once a fortress. He walked away from Benfica, the most important club in his own football culture, because they wanted him to surrender some of his independence. Now, whatever he says, he is Abramovich's compliant servant – a status that Wenger, we have to believe, wouldn't countenance for a second.

Of course, Chelsea are still formidable, and not least because of the players' devotion to their embattled coach, but the plague of injuries, and the sense of divided command, says here that they will again be a stride short of the mountain top.

United, augmented by Owen Hargreaves, Nani and Anderson, remain the team everyone has to measure themselves against. Ferguson's confidence is founded solidly enough, but there are still vital questions to be answered. Will Cristiano Ronaldo produce the full range of his talent in the most important matches – something he failed to do last season despite a blizzard of acclaim – and will Wayne Rooney achieve with Carlos Tevez the chemistry that was once or twice so thrilling when he travelled briefly in the company of the old but still bright star Henrik Larsson? Will Rio Ferdinand, for all his gifts, be able to banish another wave of doubts about his defensive resolution? Positive answers to any of these questions will lift the bar for United's three significant challengers, not least Liverpool, who may know that Fernando Torres is a major acquisition but are unlikely to be too sure of their best line-up before Christmas.

There is maybe just one certainty in the coming season. It is that Arsenal will play as they always do, which is to say with artistry and intelligence and a wonderful ambition. That, and the anticipation that Fabregas will make his most serious challenge thus far as everyone's idea of a footballer of the year, surely makes the blood run fast. The hunch is that it will do so all to way to triumph, for both Arsenal and football, in the spring.

http://sport.independent.co.uk/football/comment/article2851400.ece

 

<--- that refers to you, since you're obviously confused.

 

<--- refers to me, since I'm laughing at you.

 

So you also think that Arsenal will be lucky to be a top 5 LONDON team?

 

oh ok... I got you. I'll cease laughing now. I guess it pays to read.

 

For those with FSC, they just added the Arsenal-Fulham game live on Sunday

At 6 AM

 

LOL @ tottenham

 

Keano's a legend.

 

That liverpool-aston villa game was absolutely awesome. For those who didn't watch it, liverpool went up with an own goal by an aston villa defender in the 30th minute. Then in the 84th minute aston villa gets a penalty kick because of a hand ball in the penalty box by a liverpool defender. So now it's 1-1, steven gerrard gets the ball, makes a move and gets a foul about 30-35 yards from goal. He takes the free kick and makes a goal. It was an absolute beauty the way he made that goal, it spun around the wall and then it was about 3 feet above the goal and just took a nosedive like a barry zito curveball into the net. I'll post a vid of it as soon as I can, but WOW what a way to start off the premier league.

 

I watched the second half... That goal by Gerrard was beautiful.

 

I just went and watched the last game for atmospheric purposes and was accosted by 12 jillion magpie fans cause i was wearing a newcastle shirt. Hilarious. Hope springs eternal.

 

I guess you didn't want to wear you Spuds jersey (although IIRC you're a fan) after the game today.