Spurs-Chelsea (will contain scores)

therecklessone

0-1 at half-time.

Very marginal peno after a King challenge on Smertin, waiting for a decent replay on Setanta before I say yae or nay.

Very even contest that peno aside.

C'mon you Yids!

therecklessone

One angle makes me say yes, the other says no. Suppsoe we can't complain seeing as the Robben peno appeal could have been given.

Ronan|Raven

Was a harsish decision, spurs are playing pretty well just seem to be lacking the killer edge.

therecklessone

Chelsea were poxed!

Smertin nearly deflects a Zeigler corner into his own net.

:eek:

Draupnir

for all the money they spent, chelsea dont play very good football do they?

distinctly lacing in quality of passing when compared with Arsenal of last season or United of 1994/95

therecklessone

Robben is a diving little git... :mad:

Mark Yeates on for last 12 minutes.

Aquos76

2-0 lampard again

smuckers

That will do for me another 3 points in the bag.

eirebhoy

Draupnir wrote:

for all the money they spent, chelsea dont play very good football do they?

distinctly lacing in quality of passing when compared with Arsenal of last season or United of 1994/95

They're playing the form team atm, the team which deserved to beat Man U. I don't think you can judge a team on a match like this.

I'm just waiting for Lampard to get 10/10 for an absolutely fantastic performance. :rolleyes:

smuckers

The more you rib him the more he'll score, Frank has his weaknesses but he has many strenghts he was immense against Gooners and him and Claude have been excellent this season.

eirebhoy

I'll always give Lampard stick, he'll be found out soon enough, it took Beckham years. I just can't remember Lampard tackling once today. He's a central midfielder, he should be getting stuck in and not hiding.

eirebhoy

I wasn't far off with my prediction, Lampard got a 9:
http://skysports.planetfootball.com/matchratings.asp?fxid=260543&clid=8

It really gets to me for some reason.

edit: actually I think its ust Enlglish bias which I've no problem (as long as us Irish can ignore it) with as I'm biased towards the Irish. The reason I say this is because the only 3 players to get more than a 6 in the Spurs team were Defoe, Robinson and King. The only 3 players to get more than a 7 in the Chelsea team were Johnson, Terry and Lampard. What do they all have in common, they were the only England internationals that started. BTW, Liam Brady also mentioned Lampard being overrated in the last Chelsea match on RTE so I'm not alone.

therecklessone

eirebhoy wrote:

I'll always give Lampard stick, he'll be found out soon enough, it took Beckham years. I just can't remember Lampard tackling once today. He's a central midfielder, he should be getting stuck in and not hiding.

I'm starting to think along the same lines TBH.

The Beeb called it Lampard double sees off Tottenham when the truth is a dodgy peno and good work by Gudjohnsen saw off Tottenham. Lampard was anonymous today, and two goals (one a spot kick) does not necessarily equal a 9/10. That said, we're as bad when its the Irish playing...

Spurs were poor 2nd half, never looked like getting into Chelsea at all. We were short of options on the bench, hence the Gardner for Ziegler (with King pushed forward as an emergency big man) substitution. Not that it needed proving, but again the Carrick/Brown/Mendes combination didn't work, and Keane/Defoe was fruitless as is so often the case. Here's hoping Kanoute's not out for much longer.

eirebhoy

Am I mad or was that Ian Paisley sitting two rows behind Sven today?

Jivin Turkey

Eirebhoy, I feel you are very harsh in your criticisms of Lampard. While I agree that Sky might rate him so highly because he is English, I still think he is a class player.

I wouldnt say he is overrated either. Few rate him as the same class as the likes of Keane, Vieira, Gerrard or Scholes. He weighs in with goals, and gets so many assists, he cant be that bad.

eirebhoy

I'll always praise him for his goals and assists but he just goes missing so often that I wouldn't even call it inconsistency. If he didn't score those two goals today I'm 100% sure he would have been put down as having a bad game. The two goals he scored don't excuse his performance as one was a penalty and the other Makelele could have scored.

Its his goals and assists that are getting him off the hook. Surely two goals like today's don't make you the best player on the pitch but other than the fans at White Hart Lane and the Irish with Setanta, everyone will think he had a fantastic game because of the likes of Sky's ratings.

I never rated Liam Brady but when he said what he said about Lamps he made me listen to him a bit more. He literally summed up how I felt about Lamps. I can't remember who they were playing but Lampard scored and Brady immediately said something along the lines of what I said about getting him off the hook. To be fair, he had a rare good game that day but Brady wouldn't admit it.

My mate thinks I'm mad btw, the first thing he said to me today was about Lampard scoring. Although, I've seen about 70% of Chelsea's games since last season and have never changed my opinion. He only needs to be invloved in games about 500% more and I'd give in.

smuckers

Well I don't listen to Brady at all, Giles made a good point that I agree with, Lamps is not the best in tight situations as he's a big lad, but he's always looking for the ball and something which he didn't do well as Hammers was one touch passing he's excellent at that, I thought in The CL he'd actually struggle last year but he was immense in the 4-0 thrashing of Lazio and he also had to redefine his game for that tournament too.
As for the ratings Johnson didn't deserve a 7 he can be good at times and but doesn't seem to learn from his mistakes.
I like the look of the big guy Jarsovic, has a good first touch for a big lad.

smuckers

A great example of his one touch passing was the Drogba goal against Boro the other week, he was excellent throughout that game. The best player today was Terry and has been all season.

eirebhoy

smuckers wrote:

As for the ratings Johnson didn't deserve a 7

He got an 8, which is basically the equivelent of writing "Take these ratings with a large pinch of salt" in big bold writing. I rate Johnson and all but what made him better today than say Ferreira or Gallas.

Anyway, Smuckers, don't mind me, I don't know how you haven't let rip at me yet as I'm constantly slating Lampard.

On the point you made, he's an excellent passer one of the best around, but so is Beckham. He just needs to get himself around a bit more. My oul' mate Duffer was putting the opposition under pressure whenever they had the ball but you'd only see Lampard whenever he got the ball himself, which was ver rare tbh (even the commentator mentioned that in the first half). I don't know what it is about him but I suppose football wouldn't be the same if we all agreed.

Big Ears

Liam Brady actually has a vast knowledge of football and is correct a huge amount of the time in his predictions , his only problem is..............his voice , for years I just drowned the sound of it out and didn't listen to what he had to say , then during the Euro's I started listening and the guy had everything spot on , even little things you never hear anyone else mention .

I suggest people try to listen to him more often , as you will learn a lot .

d22ontour

bradys voice reminds me of teds boring priest buddy but he is normally spot on with his analysis i reckon rte have the best panel in footballand thats not forgetting apres match as well

therecklessone

eirebhoy wrote:

I wasn't far off with my prediction, Lampard got a 9:
http://skysports.planetfootball.com/matchratings.asp?fxid=260543&clid=8

It really gets to me for some reason.

Methinks I'm joining the eirebhoy-approved Frank Lampard is the new Becks club...

Another Sky rating

Full of tricks, he was never contained by England and produced decisive contribution in injury time.

The player? Zinedine Zidane.
The match? Euro 2004, France 2-1 England.
The rating? 8

John Terry was man of the match yesterday, and Carrick had a better game than Lampard. I'm keeping a close eye on him for the rest of the season if I can...

growler

i think you're being overly harsh on lampard, he's scored 8 goals for chelsea this season in 30 appearances , he's a great passer, reads the game extremely well , he hasn't been as obvious this season as in previous ones as Robben / Duff given the team a different shape where the atacking role of central midfielders is less obvious.

Admittedly there is likely to be an English bias in the media, much as I will always ignore the mistkes of Duff, but then Terry is a regular MOTM recipient and few would doubt that he deserves it.

Anyway, re Spurs, this was the first season in many where I thought that they might actually win a game at 3 point lane, I should have known better, it was a close run thing in the first half hour but Spurs weren't able to capitalise on their chances, if Keane had put his header on target it may have been a different story. That Pamarot looks well dodgy seemed to have no discipline at all. Thought Drogba looked quite poor. It was nice to see my Arsenal fans cheering on spurs for the first time ever !

Jivin Turkey

Carrick has looked very classy in the last two games.

You wonder how the hell West Ham managed to get relegated?

therecklessone

Jivin Turkey wrote:

Carrick has looked very classy in the last two games.

You wonder how the hell West Ham managed to get relegated?

I saw the Irish Times refer to that whammers team as the "classiest team to ever get relegated" (or words to that effect). Not far wrong.

eirebhoy

growler wrote:

i think you're being overly harsh on lampard, he's scored 8 goals for chelsea this season in 30 appearances , he's a great passer, reads the game extremely well , he hasn't been as obvious this season as in previous ones as Robben / Duff given the team a different shape where the atacking role of central midfielders is less obvious.

As I said, he's a great goalscorer but that doesn't make him one of the best central midfielders in the world. Its the amount of games he just goes missing in and then goes on to score and get man of the match that frustrates me. You could have honestly forgotten he was on the pitch in the first half hour of Saturday's game. This quote basically somes up why I feel the way I do about Lampard:

an additional viera type in midfield (lampard would do nicely )

Big Ears

eirebhoy wrote:

As I said, he's a great goalscorer but that doesn't make him one of the best central midfielders in the world. Its the amount of games he just goes missing in and then goes on to score and get man of the match that frustrates me. You could have honestly forgotten he was on the pitch in the first half hour of Saturday's game. This quote basically somes up why I feel the way I do about Lampard:

spot on , is it only a select few of us who realise this ?

smuckers

Nobody said he's one of the best CM's in the world, if you look at The Lampard in his first season at CFC and now, there's a diff.

FL- when he joined, bad control, many misplaced passes, couldn't dictate the rhythm of a game.
FL- now, controlled range of passing ,much better control, doesn't go for the spectacular ball, never over- compensated on the ball, sure there are areas of his game that he can improve on.

Bateman

eirebhoy wrote:

As I said, he's a great goalscorer but that doesn't make him one of the best central midfielders in the world. Its the amount of games he just goes missing in and then goes on to score and get man of the match that frustrates me. You could have honestly forgotten he was on the pitch in the first half hour of Saturday's game. This quote basically somes up why I feel the way I do about Lampard:

Right then, add him to the same list as Maradona, Romario, and as many others as you can think of. When were all these games that he has "gone missing" in? And what were the results? Makelele is immensely under-rated, and is the work horse of the midfield engine room (wouldn't be as patronising as to call him a water-carrier), and Lampard is free to maraud when he sees fit. Several times this season, the team has been coasting, and he's chosen to lay the ball off rather than try to burst forward. For someone who hasn't missed a game in 2 seasons, this makes sense. In short, Lampard can afford to pick and choose his moments, but rarely fails to deliver. However, as has been said, Terry is the BIG BIG influence on this Chelsea team, much more so than Lampard.

Bateman

Just quickly on Liam Brady; he can be very hit and miss as a pundit. He made a brave call before the group stage about the downfall of Italy in Portugal very well, but recently slaughtered Drogba against Norwich when he was obviously less than 50% match fit, then said "he'll probably score now to sicken me", which Drogba did.

eirebhoy

Bateman, Come on. I can honestly say, hand on heart that I forgot Lampard was on the pitch for about the first half hour and I've said that so many times about him. That is the very reason I think he's overrated (not exactly the word I'm looking for) so there's no reason for me to be making it up.

Actually, Matt Holland gets stick for the way he can go through a full 90 mins for Ireland virtually unrecognised. The reason Lampard gets away with it is because he's scoring.

eirebhoy

Quote from the 606 commentator just 5 minutes ago:

"a number of the Chelsea players far queiter than usual tonight. Frank Lampard, I've hardly noticed him."