Chelsea 3-4 NUFC

[donaldstott 0]

Promised myself I wouldnt get wound up by these fuckers anymore, but tempted to hear Adrian Durhams spin on last nights events.

 

Wish the game had been on sky as it would have been talked about for years to come as one of the great cup ties. (I suppose at least we know it was).

 

Anyone know what the London press big boys had to say about the game.

 

Standard are pointing the fingure at Ross Turnbull. I watched the highlights at lunchtime and his positioning of the wall is pathetic.

 

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-spo...-carling-cup.do

[Andrew 4296]

Promised myself I wouldnt get wound up by these fuckers anymore, but tempted to hear Adrian Durhams spin on last nights events.

 

Wish the game had been on sky as it would have been talked about for years to come as one of the great cup ties. (I suppose at least we know it was).

 

Anyone know what the London press big boys had to say about the game.

 

Standard are pointing the fingure at Ross Turnbull. I watched the highlights at lunchtime and his positioning of the wall is pathetic.

 

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-spo...-carling-cup.do

 

his personal positioning was shit too, sets his wall to the left of his goal then stands right behind it, no wonder taylor could just pop it into the empty side

[donaldstott 0]

Promised myself I wouldnt get wound up by these fuckers anymore, but tempted to hear Adrian Durhams spin on last nights events.

 

Wish the game had been on sky as it would have been talked about for years to come as one of the great cup ties. (I suppose at least we know it was).

 

Anyone know what the London press big boys had to say about the game.

 

Standard are pointing the fingure at Ross Turnbull. I watched the highlights at lunchtime and his positioning of the wall is pathetic.

 

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-spo...-carling-cup.do

 

his personal positioning was shit too, sets his wall to the left of his goal then stands right behind it, no wonder taylor could just pop it into the empty side

 

You're right, the paper think he was poor for Shola's first. I'm not so sure myself. The big man was using Alex as a shield so he'd have seen it quite late and it was right in the bottom corner.

 

Having said that I think Cech would have saved it.

[Holden McGroin 5146]

If Harper had let in Chelseas first then he would have been crucified by people on here. Come to think of it, if he hadn't bothered diving for the penalty like Krul did then he'd have got bollocked as well.

[Asprilla 96]

If Harper had let in Chelseas first then he would have been crucified by people on here. Come to think of it, if he hadn't bothered diving for the penalty like Krul did then he'd have got bollocked as well.

trut'

[Tom 13915]

 

Great image from teamtalk!

[Dr Kenneth Noisewater 0]

Promised myself I wouldnt get wound up by these fuckers anymore, but tempted to hear Adrian Durhams spin on last nights events.

 

Wish the game had been on sky as it would have been talked about for years to come as one of the great cup ties. (I suppose at least we know it was).

 

Anyone know what the London press big boys had to say about the game.

 

Standard are pointing the fingure at Ross Turnbull. I watched the highlights at lunchtime and his positioning of the wall is pathetic.

 

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-spo...-carling-cup.do

Andy Jacobs said on Talkshite this afternoon that if Cech had been in nets they would've won 3-0.

 

Bitter blue bastard.

[Tom 13915]

Totally forgetting we also had our ''back up'' 'keeper in net.

[Guest Tuco Ramirez]

Promised myself I wouldnt get wound up by these fuckers anymore, but tempted to hear Adrian Durhams spin on last nights events.

 

Wish the game had been on sky as it would have been talked about for years to come as one of the great cup ties. (I suppose at least we know it was).

 

Anyone know what the London press big boys had to say about the game.

 

Standard are pointing the fingure at Ross Turnbull. I watched the highlights at lunchtime and his positioning of the wall is pathetic.

 

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-spo...-carling-cup.do

Andy Jacobs said on Talkshite this afternoon that if Cech had been in nets they would've won 3-0.

 

Bitter blue bastard.

I hate that no forsjin cunt. The only goal you'd proportion undoubted blame for was Shola's long ranger. Krul should've saved their first, and the pen was never a pen so I make that 1-3 you bungle off rainbow laugh bearded nonce.

[tinofbeans 91]

Totally forgetting we also had our ''back up'' 'keeper in net.

I think Krul is better than Harper. Certainly a better shot stopper.

[Happy Face 29]

If Harper had let in Chelseas first then he would have been crucified by people on here. Come to think of it, if he hadn't bothered diving for the penalty like Krul did then he'd have got bollocked as well.

trut'

 

How to take penalties: Freakonomics explains

You too can be a World Cup winner: just kick the ball straight. The statistics can’t lie, say the crazed economists

Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt

 

Economists used to spend their time studying things such as financial crises, inflation and unemployment. But a lot of them have finally realised that their theories and data don’t always work so well on such problems. There is, however, a silver lining. Faced with these failures, economists have turned their attention to equally important issues for which the economic approach really can provide some answers. Such as football. So if England bring home the World Cup, you may have an economist — a French one, no less — to thank.

 

The problem with the macroeconomy is that it is overwhelmingly complex. With billions of consumers, millions of suppliers, “animal spirits” and the like, there is no way for the mathematical models of economists to capture adequately the inherent complexities. Such models work best when there are only a few forces at work. Think of E = mc² or force = mass x acceleration.

 

This is why studying the penalty kick has become a favourite pastime of economists. Just as an astronomer can model the gravitational pull between two objects, the economist can capture the interplay between kicker and goalie.

 

When we, along with collaborators who include the French economist Pierre André Chiappori (whose promising football career ended with a knee injury), apply the tools of game theory to penalty kicks, a number of predictions emerge. The most basic one is that kickers and goalies must randomise their actions; otherwise, one opponent could exploit another’s particular tendencies. The best footballer in the world would fail quite often if he put every one of his penalty kicks left and low. Theory also predicts that the kicker’s choice on his previous penalty will not affect what he does on the current kick. (In economist-speak, choices should be “serially uncorrelated”.) Furthermore, the model says that right-footed kickers should go for the left side of the goal more frequently, because it is their natural strong side. A more surprising prediction, perhaps, is that goalies should jump to their right — the kicker’s left — even more often than the kickers shoot to that side.

 

So how good are footballers at randomising their penalty kicks? Surely they can’t compete with an economist’s game-theory model, can they?

 

The answer is a resounding yes. Analysing data from several seasons in the top French and Italian leagues, we can see that most penalty kickers are quite brilliant at mixing things up. Behaviour on the pitch almost perfectly matched the theory’s prediction. It turns out that football players, most of whom are not renowned for their many years of formal education, are capable of doing the kind of mental calculations that garlanded scholars need long, complicated formulas to produce.

 

There was only one prediction that failed to hold in the data. According to economic theory, in equilibrium the likelihood of scoring should be the same whether the kicker shoots to the left, the right or straight down the centre. Why? Because the kicker and the goalie, each pursuing his own self-interest, end up making choices that leave the other player indifferent as to which action to take. Otherwise, a savvy opponent can exploit his rival.

 

But that is not what happened in the data. One strategy proved considerably more likely to score a goal than any other. It wasn’t shooting to the left. And it wasn’t shooting to the right. The wisest choice is to kick the ball straight down the centre. And yet that was the least-common choice.

 

Why?

 

To answer that question we need to first ask a different question: what is the kicker’s incentive when taking a penalty?

 

The answer may seem obvious: he wants to score a goal. But let’s break that down a bit further. Imagine an England player standing at the penalty spot sometime in the coming days with the eyes of the world upon him. If the idea is to score a goal to help his team to win, then the obvious choice is to kick it down the middle, where the keeper is unlikely to be.

 

But if he’s primarily concerned with himself, he may be thinking something different. He may think that if he kicks down the centre and the keeper does manage to stop it, the kicker will look like an utter fool. He may think back to the 2006 World Cup, in which two Swiss players went centre in a shootout and failed. He may think back to England’s own David Batty in the 1998 World Cup shoot-out defeat to Argentina. A penalty kick down the middle has the same private benefit as a goal to the left or the right, but a miss down the middle has a greater private penalty: it may well define a player’s career.

 

And so he acts according to his own private benefit, not the greater good, and fires away to the left or the right. If he misses there, the moment will be remembered more for the keeper’s competence than the kicker’s ignominy.

 

But, just for a moment, imagine instead that that same player, keeping in mind what he has read here and what his own experience has taught him, fires the ball straight towards the goal’s centre. If he fails, he may indeed be a goat to all of you. But to economists the world over he’ll be the truest of heroes.

 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/foo...icle7147680.ece

[Barney 0]

Looking at the run-up, I thought Anelka would try a cheeky dink down the middle. Well placed penalty nonetheless.

[Howmanheyman 27907]

Promised myself I wouldnt get wound up by these fuckers anymore, but tempted to hear Adrian Durhams spin on last nights events.

 

Wish the game had been on sky as it would have been talked about for years to come as one of the great cup ties. (I suppose at least we know it was).

 

Anyone know what the London press big boys had to say about the game.

 

Standard are pointing the fingure at Ross Turnbull. I watched the highlights at lunchtime and his positioning of the wall is pathetic.

 

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-spo...-carling-cup.do

Andy Jacobs said on Talkshite this afternoon that if Cech had been in nets they would've won 3-0.

 

Bitter blue bastard.

I was almost tempted to put him him on to hear his take on it as the last time I listened to their show he basically came out with every cliche in the book about how deluded us Mags were the afternoon after KK came back, anyway, I say I was 'almost' tempted, but then I remembered how spectacularly unfunny he and his sidekick are and how uninteresting as well, so I kept my music on as I was painting my kitchen. Thanks for doing the dirty work on our behalfs, though, Dr Ken.

[wykikitoon 17260]

Promised myself I wouldnt get wound up by these fuckers anymore, but tempted to hear Adrian Durhams spin on last nights events.

 

Wish the game had been on sky as it would have been talked about for years to come as one of the great cup ties. (I suppose at least we know it was).

 

Anyone know what the London press big boys had to say about the game.

 

Standard are pointing the fingure at Ross Turnbull. I watched the highlights at lunchtime and his positioning of the wall is pathetic.

 

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-spo...-carling-cup.do

Andy Jacobs said on Talkshite this afternoon that if Cech had been in nets they would've won 3-0.

 

Bitter blue bastard.

 

Stopped listening to it because of them two silly cunts on an afternoon.

[wykikitoon 17260]

Some interesting quotes coming out of Stamford Bridge last night.

 

John Terry

Shola came up to me shortly after the match started and said that he’s named his pocket in honour of me. I think it shows how well respected I am in the game for a fellow professional to do that for me. It was touching really.

 

 

 

Carlo Ancellotti

John Terry has promised to name his first love child after Shola.

 

 

 

Frank Lampard

I heard Terry makes his wife dress as shola as he likes being dominated

 

 

 

 

Allegedly.

 

Im sat here thinking "WTF, I never saw them quotes before" then *wham* penny has dropped

[Dr Gloom 20232]

Totally forgetting we also had our ''back up'' 'keeper in net.

I think Krul is better than Harper. Certainly a better shot stopper.

 

it's hard to agree with that when we've only seen him play a handful of games. he was poor for van anholt's goal on wednesday. should have saved it tbh. harper is a solid keeper. krul has a lot of promise but it's early days for him. still very much the junior keeper for now.

[Isegrim 9016]

It should be good for the overall confidence of the team as well.

 

Though knowing us we will fuck it up against Stoke on Sunday now...

This.

[Bizza 105]

It should be good for the overall confidence of the team as well.

 

Though knowing us we will fuck it up against Stoke on Sunday now...

This.

 

Spoken with true German efficiency.

[manc-mag 1]

It should be good for the overall confidence of the team as well.

 

Though knowing us we will fuck it up against Stoke on Sunday now...

This.

 

Spoken with true German efficiency.

 

'Ziss' tbh.

[sweetleftpeg 0]

Watched this on dodgy middle east tele in a bar in Greece surrounded by Chelsea 'fans' and I have to say it was a beautiful, beautiful moment when Shola put that header in. Los of plastic cockneys head in hands.