I'd be happy if he went after the team made the top 4. But he might stay if LFC did make the CL. I'd sell him to shore up the defense. Norwich would probably pay half his transfer fee to get him off the fixture list.

I love these United losses. Every time they lose some new streak seems to end. Newcastle hadn't beat them at OT in 41 years. That's a thing right there. And it was Man Utd's first time losing back to back in the Prem, at home, since 2002. They're going to spend like madmen in the window to paper the cracks. Moyes will end up overpaying for players he should have bought 5 months ago.

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Back off, Warchild. Seriously.

Too bad for Arsenal they couldn't keep the lead late to the Toffees. Palace win again!

speaking of arsenal, i want everyone who reads this before ~6:45am saturday morning to say a prayer for arsenal as they head into the biggest game of the season thus far @ manchester city.... they're gonna need it.

to give you an idea, if i'm not mistaken city was just the second team to beat buyern @home in this calendar year and the first this season (arsenal, of course, beating them @ home in the CL round of 16 last year) even tho it was a meaningless game.... arsenal continued down the path of pain started by that brilliant deulofeu goal (off of the botched clearance) to equalize the scouserettes with them and rob them from going to 37pts/7pts-clear..... and then napoli does that when a tie/victory gets arsenal a much much more favorable CL draw (as opposed to the one they're gonna face where they have to play either buyern/real/barca/atl-madrid/PSG.... yikes) and now.... @city then vs chelsea in the EPL.

5pts clear with my unlucky # being 36 = they'll get 1pt from either this game or the chelsea game and get 36'd and the end shall begin.... unless they were sandbagging against napoli and the EPL was their only goal this year and now they'll unleash a rested ramsey/jack-wilshere to wreak havoc upon city.... cuz they're gonna need 3 goals or more to have a chance at 3pts tomorrow.

so hey stranger things have happened. and i'm on the ledge on whether or not i wanna sleep in cuz even if they win i'm gonna be aged 5 years during those ~95mins tomorrow thanks to all the stress.

COME ON YOU GUNNERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

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Well that match sucked.

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Citeh finally plays well!

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Ба́бушка гада́ла, да на́двое сказа́ла—то ли до́ждик, то ли снег, то ли бу́дет, то ли нет.

Fun game to watch as a neutral.

Palace didn't look too bad against Chelski. Chelski's set piece defense almost cost them.

when i said that i feared arsenal would get 36'd, i literally didn't know that they'd lose 3-6.... here's a wallpaper for anyone who dislikes arsenal (and man city loves to do these scoreboard shots.... and this is my penance for laughing at their rolling of spurs 6-0)



that was just.....bad. arsenal was crushed when silva got that goal to put them up 4-2 and then arsene made a really weird sub in putting gnabry in the midfield?!?! gnabry, predictably, shit the bed....and hell, i ain't gonna cry refball or anything, but there were 4 offsides calls against arsenal that were horseshit, the last one being on bendtner's goal that woulda made it 5-3 right b4 arsenal eventually got back to 5-3....

so now one of my IRC soccer buddies who supports united is poking back saying "with 8 days of rest we're going to see what arsenal's made of this season with their game vs chelsea" --- and yeah, man, i knew arsenal wasn't far and away the best team in the league or anything.... i never predicted them to win.... but this is why that deulofeu goal vs everton last sunday killed me.... if they could have held on and got 3pts they'd have 37pts to citeh's 32, and they'd still be guaranteed to be top of the table after the match vs chelsea on the 23rd.... now if city gets another 3pts next weekend, the scousers get 3 tomorrow and next weekend, and if chelsea gets all 3 from arsenal, there's a very real possibility that arsenal could be in 4th place on monday december 23rd (cuz city's gotta have goal diff over us... i mean they already had a bonkers +23 a few weeks ago so who knows what it's at now)

but yeah.... man that was painful. let's hope arsene can come down from the ivory tower and realize IF YOU'RE GONNA PRIORITIZE THE EPL > ALL THEN YOU NEED TO GET ANOTHER STRIKER (akin to how chelsea got demba ba last january) BECAUSE GIROUD DOESN'T SCORE OUTSIDE OF LONDON, AND UNLESS IT'S THE LAST 10 SECONDS OF STOPPAGE TIME HE'S NEVER GONNA GET THE BALL TAKE A DRIBBLE AND STRIKE A BLAZING SHOT @ GOAL, HE'S ALWAYS GOING TO LOOK TO PASS AND ~2/3 OF THOSE TIGHT PASSES IN THE BOX ARE GONNA GET INTERCEPTED.

but yeah dude....just.... hats off to city. that was deserved. the one citeh guy on IRC is running around like NOW EVERYONE KNOWS WHO THE BIG DOGS OF THE EPL ARE and it's like "dude, everyone knew it was you.... 60% of everyone picked you lot to win the league, with only 30% chelsea 8% united and like 2% arsenal/others" so yeah...blargh. and i bet i have to resize that picture to get it to stick on here.

just don't miss the CL next year, you gunners.... and for the love of god i love giroud cazorla rosicky walcott and etc.... but if you wanna be a force in europe after claiming that ozil was a "declaration of intent" GO GET A WORLD CLASS STRIKER. can you imagine how much better this team could be with higuain? why i reckon they'd have 37+ pts right now and woulda finished first in their CL group and therefore avoid the draw of death with buyern/real/barca/atl-madrid/PSG

ah well i've got nothing. the bears are gonna win tomorrow, right guys? =/

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Dempsey to Fulham on loan. Hopefully he'll actually score unlike for Seattle.

I haven't felt so good after a Liverpool win since the 4-1 thrashing of Man United at OT in 2009. Spurs did something impossible: they made Jordan Henderson look like he was worth his transfer fee. To think! If LFC hadn't shat the bed against Hull they'd be top of the table. I'm not completely tumescent over Liverpool's top 4 chances but I'm at half-mast.

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Back off, Warchild. Seriously.

this picture sums up the entirety of today's dortmund game...

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When the Reds come tumblin' down.

Fuck.

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Back off, Warchild. Seriously.

Theo Walcott is out for the rest of the reason and the World Cup. Poor England will have to settle for being runner's up. Arsenal set to make a January buy at forward.

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Back off, Warchild. Seriously.

Arsene spending money twice? Wow. Although not like he has a choice.

Chelsea-Man U on the weekend. No Rooney or RVP for United so I can't see them doing Chelsea over at the Bridge. I guess Moyes has been all over the continent scouting players for potential panic buys. I don't dislike Moyes but I find the whole situation amusing. I would have preferred their demise to have commenced under SAF's reign.

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Back off, Warchild. Seriously.

I also find the whole United crash and burn quite amusing as well. I feel bad for Moyes. On second thought, screw him and the horse he rode in on.

Learned a couple of match facts for Sunday's contest.

- Jose Mourhino has still never lost a home match in the Barclay's Premier League.

- ManYoo has never scored a goal against Chelsea against Stamford Bridge when Mourinho has bee in charge at Chelsea.

I will be curious to see who Mourhino throws out there for the starting XI. Also, I wonder what kind of part Nemanja Matic will play on Sunday.

i like to read the daily mail football page because they embody that old "art of writing a (transfer) column" trick from the old billy goat tavern days: "fling a bunch of shit on the wall and see what sticks"

that said, when i first saw the twitter rumors that moyes was @ the juve game i took it upon myself to gleefully decree in one of the soocer channels that "the prodigal son shall return home! paul pogba is coming back to manchester united!" and then it turns out those twitter pics weren't photoshops and moyes WAS @ the juve game and what the hell, the next day's daily mail says that not only are they ready to toss out 40mil for pogba but they also want pirlo while they're at it! i mean hey, why not shore up your old midfield with a 34.5 year old spring chicken??! i guess that juve is pretty confident they'll able to walk to the title over napoli/roma if they're even considering selling off pogba/pirlo/llorente/whoever.

supposedly some UK betting sites have had a rush of bets on draxler to arsenal so the odds have gone to 5/6.... some ppl think that arsenal might try use drax's injury (some ligament damage having him out til sometime in march) to get through a ~$37mil bid now and then they can get him into the squad to get used to everything for a proper non-cup-tied deployment next year. some ppl think that wenger wants to turn him into a striker, which some think is his future but others think would be a waste (unless arsenal wants to run a 4-6-0 formation with their collection of AMs.... but hey given the way arsenal "strikers" are like 95%+ pass-first in the box, you can argue they play that way already)

even though i've only got one transfer season under my belt as an arsenal supporter, i'd be over the moon if they could go and get their guy early b4 the proper gamut of bidding starts in the summer and then we once again go through the chinese water torture that is arsenal transfer season. this was embodied in 2013 by the gonzalo higuain non-signing ("SOURCE: higuain's brother says he's signing with arsenal".... that is until napoli gets their cavani-$$$ and they can jump all over arsenal's ~23.5mil bid with a ~37mil bid. c'est la vie. i hear juan mata in 2011 was another ordeal like that, except with chelsea swooping in to get their future capital one cup specialist)

ah well, at least i can sleep easy knowing that the scousers are gonna get the egyptian messi and thus they're going to be appointment football every week (that is, if you're not into the whole luis suarez thing =)

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I love the winter and summer transfer season. Makes free agency look like child's play.

They talked about Mourhino's home record a bunch after Ramires' pathetic dive won them a penalty in extra time against WBA.

Here is an interesting stat I found

Of the 13 bookings for diving this season. Chelsea and ManYoo were called for six of them or 46%. United has 4 bookings and Chelsea 2.

Also, David Moyes has never beaten one if the traditional "Big Four"

Wonder if Howard Webb is refereeing the match.

oh yeah man, i tell people only familiar with american sports that the football fervor over there is roughly the equivalent of all of our big-4 sports combined into one. i really got my ass wore out as a newfound arsenal supporter because there was this overwhelming feeling of dread that accompanied the bataan death march that was everyone saying stuff like "arsenal won't get higuain. no way. just watch" and then the headlines moved from "arsenal near higuain deal" to "higuain's brother says arsenal deal imminent" to "why hasn't arsenal signed higuain?" to "napoli signs higuain" to "editorial: why it's probably time for arsene wenger to go"

and the drum just kept beating on and on and on.... and then the schism in fandom broke 70/30 "wenger OUT" / arsene ALS, so when your only respite via positivity is people who literally worship at the altar of arsene high up in his ivory tower and act all smug and dismissively condescending to anyone who dares doubt the master plan of the board (who supposedly have 400mil+ in reserves and are set to be THE financial powerhouse of the EPL in this era of FFP and etc etc)

yeah man, it was just..... yeeeesh. i mean even on deadline day when the ozil stuff was coming out (mesut's situation was exacerbated by ancelotti buying isco and immediately plugging him into the #10, sticking out ozil on the wing, where he got pouty and was meh and the consistently pulled @ 60' in the first 2 games of the season, whined about it, and was benched in the 3rd. arsene called him up and told him in fluent german that he can come here and be the man now(, dog) and that was that)

AHEM. yeah even that had the prevailing sense of fatalism that i've come to learn is the arsenal transfer window since, say ~2007. and this one was still miserable even tho they didn't lose their best 1-2 players like they had in pretty much every window since 07/08.

so yeah now with this january one i'm just blissfully ignorant of most things and avoiding the big giant circlejerk of messageboards/twitter/etc..... tho i really hope they get morata on loan from RM cuz i think he's got some quality/class in him, and he's fallen behind jese in terms of having an immediate impact and thus minutes, so if he can show up here and provide a different look to poldoski (whose inconsistency never has him 100% in favor with arsene) and of course TGSTEL/bendtner (who go figure has a giant go-ahead/golden goal @ 85' in a game.... and gets injured for ~2+ months on the same play, and i heard last week there were thoughts he could be rushed back to be in the squad for fulham tomorrow? yikes!) soooooo yeah i'm not expecting the world, and i pointed out that 5/6 odds rush for draxler as a cheeky bit of "here we go again" sarcasm..... so if they can do something that's the equivalent of chelsea getting demba ba from newcastle last year i'll be really happy about it.

cuz lord knows this team just needs another proper STRIKER or two, aka someone who gets the ball in the box and is committed to trying to kick the ball into the net, not trying to impress arsene with his selfless play/vision by making a near-impossible pass through 2-3 defenders to try and set up the perfect tap-in..... that's why ramsey cleaned up with so many goals early this year: he was just running up a few steps into the box and kicking the damn ball in the net. get someone who hangs out up front with a score-first mentality (and actually, you know, scores. there's a reason ol 6-head gervinho was let go) and i'll up their chances from ~10% to ~15% that they hang around and have a crack at the prem.

otherwise i'll be happy if i dont have to shit myself down the stretch with the nightmare of thursday football looming for next season. at least arsene would treat it like a giant capital one cup and it might be the best thing to happen to serge gnabry, that is if dortmund doesn't come up with a bigtime offer =/

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oh don't worry, united's bound to bring in reus, gundogan, pogba, and pirlo.... and then prolly a RB/CB.... so when they drop 60-100mil in the next ~14 days they're gonna go from scouser-food to legitimate premiership contenders! it's gonna happen, man! this is david moyes we're talking about and check out with his toffee faithful think of him:

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Yeah, sucks to be a fan of a team that makes the Champions League every year.

ah yes touche indeed, as it'd be much more torturous to be a fan in the lower half.... b4 sunderland/southampton kicked off this morning hull city was in 10th with 23pts and crystal palace was in dead last with 17pts..... that relegation battle is going to be a thing this year.

nice win for arsenal.... time to see liverpool handle business before trying to figure out if i want united to grab 3 from chelsea or the more likely chelsea burying united. still prolly the former....

but yeah if i didn't say it b4 or otherwise imply it, city's walking to a domestic treble this year unless someone can do something about it. that's the default, even as arsenal sits at 51pts still 1pt ahead of a bonafide problem for british football.

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oh and btw, just sit back and relax and watch the whole buyern munich / arsenal thing coming up in a few weeks and then we'll talk abotu m. night shamalyan twist endings where in the end you find out that you were never really in the champions league at all =D

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Chelsea 3, ManYoo 1

Eto'o scores 3 goals. Hernandez pulls one back for United. Vidic shown straight red and is sent off.

United 14 points behind first-place Manchester City.

Still loving the United crash and burn.

Well that was the worst professional shoutout I've ever seen. 2-1? Really? Can't believe Jozy didn't take one, what a chicken shit.

Mata to Man U, maybe. He's a guy they should have bought five years ago so they wouldn't be in the mess they are in now.

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Back off, Warchild. Seriously.

good business for chelsea.... they spent 7mil on de bruyne and he fell out of favor under mourinho and they sold him for 21mil, so now mata was 23mil and fell out of favor under mourinho and they sold him for 37mil. this allows them to go and get salah aka "egyptian messi" out from liverpool, where it's been said for months that was a "done deal."

some @football_vertex promised news that would signify that "it's an amazing time to be an arsenal supporter!" which ended up being that they were putting in a 30mil bid for paul pogba.... who would be nice @ united cuz who's gonna get the ball up to that !!!! quartet of mata/januzaj/rooney/RvP? fellaini? carrick just caught a knock.... he'd be nice to have back there, let alone at arsenal where he could figure to supplant arteta/flamini and give them a long-term solution @ CM/DM next to ramsey/those-guys.... so of course it won't happen.

this talk of arsene trying to peddle 20mil+poldoski for draxler = WTF?!!??! we'll see what they can do. naturally arsene was @ the levante/barca game yesterday and some thought he was taking a gander at cristian tello, who of course went on to have a hat trick yesterday. c'est la fucking vie, no?

/me returns to the perpetual torment of 16 str8 years of CL football, with 14 of leaving the group. but like midnight, buyern approaches!

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