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2012-2013 Discussion Thread for La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga, Ligue 1, etc

173K views 4K replies 173 participants last post by  Goku 
#1 · (Edited)
Any Football league not related to Premier league can be discussed here.

My predictions:

Serie A - Juventus
Bundesliga - Bayern Munich
La liga - Real Madrid
Ligue 1 - PSG
 
#2,105 · (Edited)
Venky's & Kean were both the focus last season, Kean more so. It purely wasn't all on Kean, but because he was there to take the heat and Venky's weren't he became the easier target even though they were the ones that started this two years of shambles.

Sacking Sam was ridiculous along with John William & Tom Finn who ran the club superbly for years, appointing Kean was just wrong, keeping him in charge until we were relegated and then letting him carry on until he was unable to meet an almost impossible points target before sacking him so a new manager couldn't bring his own players in, appointing a global advisor who's a glorified pundit with a big mouth and no brain to run a club with no experience and to sign players Kean hadn't seen and then to appoint a new manager after six weeks who'd been available all that time was just ludicrous, now they sack him 57 days later and his backroom staff two days before a crunch game now with no coaching staff to take charge of it. What a piss take. The biggest problem is Venky's and the tits they've got 'running' the club don't realise they're the main problem. The fact Kevin MacDonald is the odds on favourite to get the job just adds to the whole farce. Having got him at 6/4 (now 1/4) earlier I hope he gets it. Let's face it, when Kean was sacked and even before, the question was asked who'd want to work for Venky's. Berg said it himself that no one with any self respect would. He should've listened to his own words. He wasn't up to it, no doubt. He kept saying the defending was bad but he didn't do anything about it. After losing four to what was an average Cardiff display a week earlier, we go and give away two free headers at Blackpool. As a defender himself it was even more criminal.

The fact is though the new manager will inherit the same shambles Berg did. We've got a squad on Premier League wages who are barely Championship level with the exception of Jordan Rhodes who should be getting decent service but doesn't. The players brought in during the summer apart from Rhodes have been a disaster and are just taking the money or aren't even playing (the Portuguese players no one including Kean had heard of) and we've still got idiots running the club.

No matter who we bring in we're not going up in a million years. We'll go down unless there's some miracle work in January in the transfer market, if we can afford to even bring players in on loan. We couldn't even afford Cameron Jerome's wages for a loan deal a few months ago. It's disgusting what those cunts have done to the club in just two years, and the worst thing is they don't even realise it.
 
#2,104 ·
I don't even understand why they focused there hatred towards the manager, Venkys were always the real problem. Not saying that Kean's a good manager (slander!) but the Blackburn board were the ones that made the decision to sack Allardyce and persist with a failing replacement.
 
#2,106 ·
The hatred towards Kean during matches was embarrasing in all honesty. Why create a long term negative vibe during matches when the team, including the manager, needed support? Instead Venkys should have copped all of the abuse before and after games. By creating that hostile atmosphere Blackburn fans hardly helped the situation at the club. I mean, you're finally rid of the guy but it has made absolutely no positive difference to Rovers.

This opinion is not coming from an inexperienced viewpoint either. I remember when we had the 'Worthy out' campaign. There's no doubt that he was getting stale at that point but the real issue was our then chief executive Neil Doncaster, the guy responsible for the loss of our best players due to piss poor financial management of the club, not to mention a baffling tendency to add in a release clause in every new player's contract that was usually of the same value that we signed them for in the first place fpalm. That 'structure' lead to the situation where Roeder and then Gunn had to manage a team of loanees in 08/09 because our squad was diminished due to a lack of permanent signings. It was definitely Nigel Worthington's time to go back in 06, but poisoning the atmosphere at the club in order to get rid of him made absolutely no positive long term effect, something that is evident due to the downward spiral that continued long after Worthy's dismissal. The situation at NCFC only improved when David McNally replaced the inept Doncaster who is now making Scottish football even worse. A difficult task, but if anybody was going to do it...

As for Blackburn having a squad that is barely of championship quality, I'm not really sure that's the case. If a decent man manager with good organisational skills comes in you will start seeing results. Kean lead your lot to wins at that level, so it's definitely possible.
 
#2,107 · (Edited)
Chanting during the game was wrong but the frustration on & off the field reached breaking point. The fans had tried to make the point for a long time before it went to protests. We could all see the way the club was going under Venky's & Kean. As an outsider it's no wonder the fans protesting during games were vilified. The media focus only started when the protests started during the games. Kean and his PR team manipulated the media, making him out to be the victim. From the moment he was appointed we slumped & slumped down the league so much so that we just escaped relegation, something which he was treated as a hero for despite where we were when he came in. Our home form was superb under Sam and we rarely lost. We only lost six in his time, against the big boys. Then we were losing a lot and couldn't beat the likes of West Ham & Blackpool who went down. There were no protests in that first season but it was clear where we were going, and that wasn't the Champions League where Venky's said. Then they go & give him an improved contract with the second worst managerial record in our history. We could see where it was going and look. The club weren't listening and the fans who were protesting must've felt desperate. Doing it during matches didn't help, but the fact was Kean was totally inept. His tactics at Spurs when we needed a win to stay up last year spoke volumes. We didn't even try to get a shot on goal. We went from being one of the fittest teams in the league under Sam to one of the least because Kean sacked the fitness coach.

The guy was an absolute conman and his agent who advised the club to sack Sam and give him the job. When he was caught drink driving, he blamed Rovers fans for spiking his drink, something which he was called a 'liar' for in court. He should never have been in that job. Chanting during the games wasn't helpful, course it wasn't. Venky's were targetted too after games but that wasn't shown in the media all the time. The Rovers fans were crucified because most of what was shown was Anti-Kean because that was what created the headlines and he was the one interviewed everyday. There was a lot more to it than that. Neutral fans who only saw what the media showed don't know the full story of what a twat Kean was. The video that surfaced online showed what a disgrace he was.

We're struggling now and not better off, but that's because of the mess he & the asset stripping cunts have got us into. We were lucky at the start of the season, really lucky with some of the results we got. We quickly got found out and the wages we threw at the likes of Murphy & Etuhu. When they threw money at the situation it's too late and is trouble waiting to happen. The club were badly advised by Kean's agent who got him into the job and he was never qualified or capable of doing the job. His results even before the protests showed that. He was sacked way too late. He should've been sacked when we just survived but instead he was rewarded with a hefty contract and took the club to new lows, but instead he referred to relegation as 'exciting times'. How anyone can stick up for that cunt is beyond me. The protests against him during matches were wrong, but it was purely through desperation because no one at the club knew what they were doing or who was in charge. Sponsors didn't get answers or any kind of response. It was the last resort to get the attention and the message across that changes on & off the pitch were needed. Those changes came too late and they've made the wrong decisions since then to make matters even worse.

Berg received full support from the fans but the mess he inherited from the average, unfit asset stripped squad would be a challenge to anyone. We need a lot more than just organisation. There's no fight in that squad whatsoever. The agency who have been advising Venky's all along have completely ruined the club and lined their own & Kean's pockets without a care in the world for Rovers. Go and watch the games and you'll see how average the squad is. Seeing it on paper is one thing but when you see them week in week out you'll see what they're really like. Apart from Rhodes there's no one I'd fight to keep apart from maybe Adam Henley. The heart's been ripped out of the club and that feeling is just horrible, and it keeps getting worse.
 
#2,108 · (Edited)
I think you're assuming quite a lot Nige. I do remember the post game marches with the chicken suits, I also witnessed the Kean holiday video where he took credit for Jones and slagged off Big Sam. Regardless of this, booing during games has not helped the club in any way shape or form. All of that energy should have been concentrated on finding ways to get Venkys out, but outside of game time. Kean could be the biggest cunt going, but that doesn't alter the fact that a club with unsupportive fans is an unhealthy one. How can the constant abuse of a manager during games be anything but detrimental? I'm not getting high and mighty because like I said before our fans were guilty of this, although to a lesser extent. I've learned from this that you have to look at things long term. Has getting rid of Kean sorted the club out? No. All of your lot's negative energy should be focused on getting shot of Venkys.

As for Berg, why are you so defensive of him after he did a far worse job with your squad than Kean? There is plenty of quality and potential within the BRFC squad if managed correctly, so I don't see how he managed to do so poorly after Kean earned 2 points per game on average. You say that only organisation won't help you, but I did also mention good man management, something that will help to motivate under performing players on big wages.
 
#2,109 · (Edited)
I think you're assuming quite a lot Nige. I do remember the post game marches with the chicken suits, I also witnessed the Kean holiday video where he took credit for Jones and slagged off Big Sam. Regardless of this, booing during games has not helped the club in any way shape or form. All of that energy should have been concentrated on finding ways to get Venkys out, but outside of game time. Kean could be the biggest cunt going, but that doesn't alter the fact that a club with unsupportive fans is an unhealthy one. How can the constant abuse of a manager during games be anything but detrimental?
As I said, chanting during matches was the last resort for them. Every other avenue had been exhausted. The club weren't listening to protests before & after games. There was no one at the club to speak to the sponsors who tried to get their concerns across after many many calls. When they called the club they were met with responses of "we don't know who you need to talk to." The club was a joke and no matter what sponsors & fans tried, BEFORE the chants during the games. It was the last straw. You cannot imagine the frustration we've been through, and I'm not one of the protesters. Our club's been ruined from top to bottom in less than year, and now even more in the last 12 months.

The chanting did not help but the fact is results dropped significantly to relegation form WAY before the it started. Kean wasn't up to it even when the fans were on side. His results in that time spoke volumes. We saw this coming a mile off, and we're painted as the villains by the media and neutral fans, just like Kean and his PR team wanted all along.

Has getting rid of Kean sorted the club out? No. All of your lot's negative energy should be focused on getting shot of Venkys.
No because Venky's are still there and they have been targetted for a long time. The manager was the tip of the iceberg and he had to go. He was never capable of being a manager.

We all know Venky's are the main problem but they won't sell. We've managed to organise meetings with the Premier League & Football League to talk about their takeover and their ability to run the club where further meetings have taken place, but not everyone hears about that when they should, and Venky's have had more questions asked of them and still are, so yes, we're still going after Venky's.

Venky's keep saying they won't sell and because they're not in the country it's even harder. Besides, there's been no negative energy since Berg took charge. We tried to give it a chance and most have put the negative energy to bed, but that hasn't worked either. Venky's are so stubborn and Shebby Singh has copped so much shit on their behalf, not that makes it any difference.

As for Berg, why are you so defensive of him after he did a far worse job with your squad than Kean? There is plenty of quality and potential within the BRFC squad if managed correctly, so I don't see how he managed to do so poorly after Kean earned 2 points per game on average. You say that only organisation won't help you, but I did also mention good man management, something that will help to motivate under performing players on big wages.
I'm not that defensive of him. I said originally that he was poor tactically in not sorting out the bad defending he talked about constantly. He did inherit a mess. There's no question about that. It's easy saying differently looking from the outside.

Robinson's a decent keeper but his handling & positioning is poor. Our only other keeper is Jake Kean who's played the last two because of Robbo's form. He's got potential but he's still young.

Martin Olsson's not a proper full back, and like Evra gets caught out way too easily. We have Henley at right back who's still young and the only other full back is Bruno Ribeiro who came from the second tier in Brazil, and despite being labelled by Kean as the next Denis Irwin, he didn't pick him last year and barely played this year.

Dann is so clumsy, tries hard but switches off. Hanley's a dozy bastard who watches strikers go past him before he even realises. Givet's ok but has too many moments of madness like at Blackpool when he lets people go.

We have no wingers whatsoever, just converted ones other than Nunes who's played a few games having come from not playing in Portugal. Murphy has no pace or strength in midfield. Etuhu is useless, such a donkey. He doesn't look where he's passing and gets caught on the ball too often. Lowe is still young and after being played out of position all year last season at right back, he's still trying to get used to playing in midfield again. They're our three central midfielders and they're constantly over-run and outbattled. There's no energy or strength that you need in the Championship. Dunn's past it and has been for a few years and so's Pedersen. He's a tart and way too lightweight to play midfield.

Rochina, Rosado & Vuckevic are all tarts, greedy and too soft for this league. Rochina & Vuckevic were in the Prem too. Markus Olsson is just crap and only signed because we wanted to keep his slightly more talented brother. Formica's ok but he's not a winger or central midfielder.

Rhodes is a great goalscorer but we don't play to his strengths. Having no wingers doesn't help at all. King is green, quick but clumsy. Goodwillie is average and Kazim-Richards is all over the place. Nuno Gomes showed promise and should've played more. Getting Leon Best back will help.

Berg didn't organise the team as well as some managers could. If they can manage to get something out of a team with no pace, width, a lightweight slow midfield in such a physically demanding league with clumsy central defenders prone to constant mistakes and lapses of concentration then they should be knighted because it's a job and a half with that shower of shit Kean & Singh assembled in the summer.
 
#2,110 · (Edited)
A couple of things that I don't quite understand: Why not go with 'Venkys out' chants instead of 'Kean out'? Surely that would get the message across to the media in a better fashion?

Also a point that you seem to have avoided: If Kean managed to get more points than Berg in less games then why is the latter being potrayed as a victim of prior dealings? If Kean is so bad but could get results then why couldn't Berg? Surely Berg should be copping a similar amount of flack (alright, not quite as much as Kean) if you're going to blame managers?

Your (BRFC) :kean hatred seems akin to that of NCFC fans towards Glenn Roeder. We hated him for good reasons, but the truth remains that he wasn't the real villain, that was Neil Doncaster. Similar stories. We ended up in league one because of that cunt, nothing changed until McNally came in, regardless of who was the manager at any given time.

Also:

a team with no pace, width, a lightweight slow midfield in such a physically demanding league with clumsy central defenders prone to constant mistakes and lapses of concentration
That basically applied to us last year, minus the wingers/width part (who are slow btw) :)
 
#2,111 ·
Just read this article that sums everything up at Rovers perfectly from people who know what they're talking about and aren't easily manipulated like a lot of people in the media.

Ordinarily, the sacking of a football manager after just 57 days in charge might come as something of a surprise. But nothing that Blackburn Rovers do is surprising anymore. In the two years and one month that the Venky's Group have been blindly slapping buttons and yanking levers in the boardroom, they have transformed a respected football club into a laughingstock. From the safety of the Premier League, Blackburn now find themselves falling to the bottom of the Championship like a brick tossed down a well.

Like Steve Kean before him, the tragedy of Henning Berg is not that he was sacked but that he was ever appointed in the first place. Kean bore the brunt of the fans' anger -- rightly so, given that he took their club down -- but why was a rookie coach installed in place of an experienced and proven manager? Berg won just a single game in his 10-match spell, but why was a man with such a modest track record appointed to such a challenging role in the first place? Was he given the job purely because he had once played for Blackburn?

And what of the man who makes these decisions, global adviser Shebby Singh? For the reported 400,000 pounds he earns every year, what is he bringing to the table? He's a Malaysian footballer turned controversial TV pundit; what does he know of the battle-scarred quagmire that is the second flight?

Ultimately, Blackburn's fans deserve better than this. The supporters aren't stupid despite the best attempts of some to paint them that way. They knew that even under normal circumstances, it was highly unlikely that Rovers would ever return to the top of the table. The days when Jack Walker’s money was enough to help them challenge the likes of Manchester United are long gone.

They also knew that being located too close to Manchester and Merseyside to enjoy widespread support in the region, Blackburn would always have to work hard to sustain themselves in the top flight. But with sensible senior management from John Williams and team management from Sam Allardyce, that’s exactly what they were doing. There were bargain signings, progression from the youth teams and tactics that maximised their resources.

And then everything was thrown away in a ludicrous and hopeless lunge for the big time. Did they think Allardyce had constructed a prosaic, functional team for fun or because that was the best way to survive? They know now.

Oddly, it was the supporters who were pilloried for their reaction to last season's inevitable relegation. When they had the temerity to protest against a manager out of his depth and owners that appeared to have all the football knowledge of a 10-year-old boy who had just played "FIFA 2011" for the first time, they were dragged through the mud. "How can they boo their own manager? Don't they realise that it's not helpful to attack their own club?" asked the pundits.

What those experts failed to grasp was that Blackburn Rovers had ceased to be "their own club" when Venky's first arrived. The fans knew exactly what was happening. They knew that their future had been squandered by feckless know-nothings. They knew they were going down and were paying through the nose for the privilege of watching it firsthand. And they were expected to paint their faces, dance a jig and blow kisses to the owners while it all went up in smoke in front of their eyes? They had every right to jeer.


Blackburn Rovers are no longer a functioning football club. They're twisted wreckage on the side of the road, something for us to slow down and peer at before accelerating away and thanking God it wasn't us. Who would now slip their tracksuited bottom into Berg's vacated seat? Who would work for the Venky's Group knowing that, along with common sense, wisdom and know-how, there is now a marked absence of patience, too?

Cynics might remark that football is nothing more than a business, but Blackburn Rovers weren't formed in 1875 to maximise commercial revenues in the sub-continent or to secure generous TV rights. They weren't established to be a plaything for naive chicken merchants in search of adulation. They were created to represent the people of Blackburn. On that basis, they are no longer fit for purpose.

If Venky's had any sense, they would hand the club over and walk away. But you fear that far from this being a nadir, Blackburn's descent has only just begun.
 
#2,114 ·
Delighted to see Hull doing so well this season, in 2'nd place after beating Dirty Leeds and now 2 points behind Cardiff (played a game more mind), dropping down a division has seemed to have done Steve Bruce a world of good and just watching his interviews on local telly he looks far more relaxed than he ever did at Sunderland
 
#2,116 ·
Was listening to 606 on 5 Live earlier where they had Blackburn's "Global Adviser" Shebby Singh on the show I'll list some pointers for people who are interested but he was difficult to understand his broken English at times and he wasn't exactly direct with his answers

When asked about his role at Blackburn part of his answer was "Fighting enemies from outside and inside the club"

Shebby also admitted that he made the final decision to hire Henning Berg

Shebby claimed to have watched Blackburn for many many years but has always struggled to identify the style of play and says that Blackburn need an "Identity"

Shebby claimed that 10 games is a "lifetime" to decide whether or not a manager is right for the job or not.

When asked about Judan Ali: Shebby says that Judan was there just to observe the team and he's a guest of the club and made out that people speculating that Judan would be involved in any form of coaching are dumb

Shebby then said anybody who thinks that he took training yesterday are "Stupid"

Shebby then said the 1'st half of 2012 was Brilliant when answering how long it would take to get a new manager in....

When asked how he was by a fan who called the show he said he was happy because he got 6 points today because Blackburn and Tottenham had won
How has Nige not thrown himself off a bridge yet?
 
#2,117 · (Edited by Moderator)
Nige, how does any of that answer my two questions? Obviously you can't because I made two excellent points and you will look silly disagreeing with either of them. I see that you won yesterday without Berg in charge, that's as many times as he managed in ten games. I really don't think that Kean left behind as big a mess as you like to portray. A good manager will sort you out. It’s up to Venkys to bring somebody good in; you can’t blame Kean for Berg’s failings.

Also, that article is massively hypocritical:

Like Steve Kean before him, the tragedy of Henning Berg is not that he was sacked but that he was ever appointed in the first place. Kean bore the brunt of the fans' anger -- rightly so, given that he took their club down -- but why was a rookie coach installed in place of an experienced and proven manager? Berg won just a single game in his 10-match spell, but why was a man with such a modest track record appointed to such a challenging role in the first place? Was he given the job purely because he had once played for Blackburn?
So Berg takes no responsibility and receives little anger for performing far worse than his predecessor because he's a rookie manager, yet Kean is lambasted for exactly the same thing? Lol. The article lost all credibility after that. Why is one manager abused for being wrongly appointed while the other isn't? Regardless of that, nether should be targeted during games; ALL of the hatred should be aimed towards Venkys. The buck stops with them.

Also:

Oddly, it was the supporters who were pilloried for their reaction to last season's inevitable relegation. When they had the temerity to protest against a manager out of his depth and owners that appeared to have all the football knowledge of a 10-year-old boy who had just played "FIFA 2011" for the first time, they were dragged through the mud. "How can they boo their own manager? Don't they realise that it's not helpful to attack their own club?" asked the pundits.

What those experts failed to grasp was that Blackburn Rovers had ceased to be "their own club" when Venky's first arrived. The fans knew exactly what was happening. They knew that their future had been squandered by feckless know-nothings. They knew they were going down and were paying through the nose for the privilege of watching it firsthand. And they were expected to paint their faces, dance a jig and blow kisses to the owners while it all went up in smoke in front of their eyes? They had every right to jeer.
So it's justifiable to boo the manager because the owners are runing the club, what kind of logic is that? Venkys hired an unqualified manager who wasn't up to the job, so they should have been booed, not the guy whose removal wasn't going to fix the real problems at the club. Terrible article that completely lacks sense.

You're also being rather patronising seeing as Norwich fans have already been through all of this with the 'Chase out' era in the nineties. You act as if this has never happened in football before! We managed to get Chase out in a similar scenario by targeting him, and only him. Did we target any of the failing managers including Gary Megson (awful) during that time? No, because we saw the bigger picture. The fact that your lot only now understand that your problems lie beyond the underperforming managers (something that clueless outsiders have realised for some time) and that you were misguided in targeting Kean (which achieved the best part of nothing) proves that Blackburn fans were rightfully viewed as a joke by the media and other football fans. You were right to be angry, but your direction was aimless and pointless. I still empathise with your club’s supporters despite this. Nobody should have to suffer the same fate as we did nearly two decades ago; going from a top half club challenging for Europe to a ‘money making’ asset that was stripped of all its value and ended up in the second tier for a long time.

EDIT- Why has this stretched the page so much? FFS!
 
#2,120 ·
Interesting article from Tim Vickery on Pato's situation. He says Pato's move move is down "Brazilian school of physical preparation" -----------and that he'll be working with physical trainer called Fabio Mahseredjian at Corinthians.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/20874300

Besides article Tim also commented in comment section -


Quote:
The idea for this piece came when a member of Pato's enourage -without allowing himself to be named - said that one of the mian reasons for the return was the extra quaity of Brazil's physiotherapists. The much vaunted Milanello facilities don't seem to have worked with Pato. Couldn't be too specific on methods in the piece because of the battle against the word count.

From the 2002 paulo Paixao interview "we think that the planning in Europe is wrong. They do their physical preparation work pre-season and then that's it for the year. So they don't take advantage of the fact that they have fewer games than in Brazilian football.
"The number of playrs out injured is very high. They don't seem to mind. If one player is injured they go out and buy another."

"if you ask European clubs for a player's physical record they don't give you anything. They have no record of tests carried out. Any club in Brazil can give you this information. Without carrying out tests you can't draw up a work programme, and In Europe they hardly seem to do any. In Brazil all the big clubs have physiology labs...".

paulo paixao (2002)
"our players are dealt with in a laboratory situation. The player continuously goes through a battery of tests to find out what he needs to fulfil his athletic potential. We focus on the specifics that a player requires, be it muscular eenforcement, stamina or aerobic work, or addressing muscular imbalance. You don't see this kind of work carried out in Europe.

Can only wish Pato all the best.
 
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