Official Football Discussion Thread 2012/13

[AZUCAR!]

Figured it was time to start a new thread, since the Premiership fixtures were released today. Here's the opening fixtures:

Arsenal v Sunderland
Everton v Man Utd
Fulham v Norwich
Man City v Southampton
Newcastle v Tottenham
QPR v Swansea
Reading v Stoke
West Brom v Liverpool
West Ham v Aston Villa
Wigan v Chelsea

We've been given a tough opening game against Everton at Goodison Park. Whether David Moyes will still be at Everton by the time the opening game of the season is played, remains to be seen. Newcastle vs Spurs for me, is the only other good looking game on the opening weekend. I think Man City will easily beat Southampton too.

Use this thread also to discuss player transfer's throughout the season, and when the time gets nearer, i'll decide whether to do a Champion's League thread like there was last season. Or i'll just ultimately decide keep the CL discussion going in here.

 

[Lewb]

Second year in a row that Man City get a newly promoted team on the first day of the season. United getting one of the teams that cost them the premier league last season. In the championship Owen Coyle has to go to his old club Burnley with Bolton, and Cardiff will be playing Huddersfield at home. And Huddersfield will be the team wearing blue. Fucking shocking.

 

[Prodigy]

Second year in a row that Man City get a newly promoted team on the first day of the season. United getting one of the teams that cost them the premier league last season. In the championship Owen Coyle has to go to his old club Burnley with Bolton, and Cardiff will be playing Huddersfield at home. And Huddersfield will be the team wearing blue. Fucking shocking.

Haha gutted!

 

[AZUCAR!]

Oh yeah, forgot Cardiff's new home kit is red

 

[Lewb]

Pienaar. Fuck you both hahaha. Least ours ain't a tea cloth... Anything to be on top of a table this season eh lads?

 

[AZUCAR!]

At least we're not going to be stuck in the Championship for another season

 

[Keith]

Well Villa's fixtures follow a simler patten to last season, as we don't play one of the top teams until November, but then we have three of them in a row and it is a pretty rough looking ride then until christmas.

Anyway our opening six are West Ham (A), Everton (H), Newcastle (A), Swansea (H), Southampton (A) and West Brom (H) which is a pretty decent start, am looking forward to the Saints away, its good to have them back and I should be able to go to that one as I should have moved to Brighton by then. Hopefully under the new manager we will be able to take better advatadge of those good early fixtures than under the old one last year. I will go for eleven points from those opening six.

 

[The Cork]

Sunderland is a boring start, but in September we have Liverpool and Man City away, Soton & Chelsea at home.

Ouch.

 

[AZUCAR!]

Andy Johnson & Ryan Nelson will both be joining QPR on July 1st, from Fulham and Spurs. Both have worked under Mark Hughes before, so it should be interesting whether he immediately pairs Johnson & Zamora together like they were at Fulham, or waits a while.

 

[Dale]

Van Persie not signing a new contract Arsenal.

Sucks for them massively just as it looked like they were having a good start to bringing in some much needed players.

 

[AZUCAR!]

Don't blame him tbh, especially since they haven't won a trophy in 8 years. They keep buying good players but each season it's getting them nowhere. Now will be an interesting situation. With Podolski & Giroud already signed, does Wenger keep RVP for another season and let his contract expire and he joins whomever next season on a Bosman. Or they try and get money for him.

Whatever happens, if I were him, i'd goto Juventus. They seem to be signing everyone at the moment and with Del Piero gone, he could easily replace him and become Juve's prolific goalscorer.

 

[Aniking]

And cue all the "Arsenal won't make Top 4" comments all over Facebook, etc. :fp:

As an Arsenal fan, I'm obviously disappointed in losing Van Persie. I was really hoping he'd sign a new contract, especially considering his family is reportedly very settled in London, but he's very frustrated with winning no trophies and obviously doesn't believe we can win one next season or doesn't wanna take the risk. It's understandable and I hope he finds success wherever he goes next... as long as it isn't Man City. I don't mind if he goes to Barcelona, Real Madrid, Juventus, PSG, doesn't bother me because it could possibly only affect Arsenal with one trophy (Champions League) and not the Premier League, FA Cup or Carling Cup.

Anyway, obviously we now have Lukas Podolski and Olivier Giroud, but I really think we need to add another striker now. Those two and Van Persie were going to be our main strikers, but now it'll be those two... and Chamakh or Park seeing how we're selling Bendtner and Vela and are about to send young Joel Campbell out on loan. We could always live with what we have and push Walcott forward if we needed to, but then we'd need another Winger as we'd only have Gervinho and Oxlade-Chamberlain left seeing how we're selling Arshavin and Miyaichi may go out on loan for the season.

For me, that's the tough decision Wenger needs to make. As for the Captaincy, that's a pretty simple one - Thomas Vermaelen.

 

[Dale]

Arteta for captain for me.

 

[AZUCAR!]

RVP & Lavezzi playing for PSG

 

[The Cork]

Lost bigger and better players than Van Persie before so the news doesn't really bother me.

Cash in now and get a decent midfield.