[Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

Seeing the FA Cup Semi today with Arsenal up against Blackburn Rovers, Im puzzled by the Rovers approach to the game. Instead of trying to score a goal after they got one behind (from Pires), they instead tried to injure as many Arsenal players as possible. Atleast it seemed they were more focused on that, than creating chances and goals. Problem is that a yellow card means so little, and with Todd probably getting away with his elbow against V.Persie, there is little incentive to play football.

So to the Rovers fans of GD (if any); Is this the best your team can do?

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

This has been a thread by an arsenal fan complaining about teams whose players elbow the opposition during games.




Seriously.

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

Laughing on the internet.

Did you go? Did you get stuck on the M4, i dont really give a shit just thought i'ld be polite and ask.

Seems Wenger and some of his players also complained about our tactics, now there's a first, Wenger complaining about something!

We outplayed you for the first 30 minutes and large parts of the 2nd half bar the 50 passes you put together at one point to get absolutely nowhere. In the last 10 minutes we had 3 strikers on and only 3 at the back, we most definietly went for goals so i havent got a clue what you are on about. You didnt get 3 goals because of your brilliance, you got the last 2 goals because we were attacking.

We didnt foul many of your players, they dived constantly. Viera doesnt mind handing out a few big tackles but as soon as someone comes near him he falls down like he's been shot and then lies there until the player is given a yellow, its a disgrace. This isnt a ****ing womens came, you should be able to take a bit of physical contact.

What exactly is wrong with our tactics anyway? We are just about out of a relegation battle now so have been scarpping for points as best we can, we battle hard, we go for every challenge and we dont give up. Do you expect us to pussy foot around and give all your players the time and space they need to rip us apart? People throw the same complaint at Bolton just because they cant cope with the physical side of the game. I have the same thoughts as Sam Allardyce, i love it when i see my players (Dickov especially) challenging and beating a 6ft 3 inch defender who then protests because someone dared to challenge him.

You need some glasses btw. Your player ran into Todd, it was accidental. I would have loved him to have floored Viera when he complained at him though.

Is that the best we can do? How far up your own ass can you get? We are down in the lower parts of the Premiership playing the 2nd place team and we held you to 1-0 until the closing parts of the game. Our back 5 consisted of 4 free transfers and Lucas Neill at a few hundred thousand. The rest of our team wasnt put together from all that much more. Van Persie on his own cost more than our starting 11.

Oh and Dicko shouldnt have been ruled offside when he was clear through on goal at 0-0.

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

spot on JC, agree with everything u say

i'd like to add what a **** wenger is tho, complaining about rough tactics... has he forgotten what lauren did to stuart downing, short memory

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

Sorry JC, but did you see the challenges that your lot were flying in with?

Robbie Savage, first challenge, studs up straight into Fabregas's knee, and then has the bottle to stand there and shout at him like he hasnt even touched him. Arsenal are not whiter than white, I've never claimed that, but Rovers played the whole game kicking seven shades of shite out of the Arsenal team. As for that elbow being an accident, what? Seriously, thats as blatant as anything I've ever seen anybody do, and he deserves to pick up one hell of a ban for it.

You didnt 'outplay' us at all, it was a pretty scrappy game overall, we had more chances, apart from the Dickov offside, and that pussy header just after our 2nd goal, you didnt have a chance worth noting. The 3rd goal was because you were stretched, I'll give you that, but the 2nd showed the class of Van Persie, I'm not a big fan, I think he needs bringing down to earth, but he did leave two of your defence for dead before slotting home a lovely chance.

Arsenal had 2 players booked for kicking the ball away, Savage gos in knee high and doesnt even get a talking to. I know you're a fan, and of course you'll stick by your club, but try and post a little less bollocks next time please.

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

Actually , watching it, Rovers made a point of trying to kick Vieira out of the game at one point, and i was truly amazed they didnt finish the game with 9 or less players.

Yeh , Football is a physical game, but **** sake, theres limits on it being physical and it being legalised assault.

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

And as a football purist, it really hurts to see "The Beautiful Game" destroyed by matches like that.

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

to be fair JC, he should never have got away with that elbow, although the commentators did seem to agree with you on a lot of points other than that one

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

Admittedly everything i have said is from 1 view at normal speed from the stand, apart from the Todd incident which i saw on the big screen but it was a dark picture at the far end of the ground. Wenger says its debateable whether he meant it though so i think i'll stick by my original thought on that one. I cant be arsed staying up to watch the highlights tonight if they are on because i was up at 5 this morning for the ridiculous treck down to Cardiff.

Anyway, i'm generally pretty fair when i watch games. You'll find a hell of a lot of supporters that are more biased than me. I'm normally quite happy to hold my hand up and admit when we have been outplayed or one of our players should have been sent off etc. Maybe its the alcohol or maybe its the lack of sleep but I honestly cant see what the problem is. Yeah we might have gone in slightly late with a couple of challenges, but these things happen in all games, its up to the ref to hand out yellow cards for that. We arent a dirty team, we just try not to give quality players time on the ball. You cant seriously expect us to get the ball down on the floor and pass it around like Arsenal when we've got players like Mokoena and Flitcroft in the heart of our midfield. We play to our strengths, and our strength is out competeing the opposition. We'll go into 50/50s and come out with the ball, hell we'll go into 30/70s and come out with the ball, is that wrong? Should we stand back and let Viera stride through to set up someone else for a goal? If so i apologise on behalf of my team for not allowing Arsenal to beat us 10-0! Its probably a long time since most Arsenal fans remember supporting a side in a relegation battle so you've probably forgotten that style goes out of the window.

At least when you play United they are happy to take what they dish out most of the time.

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

just watched the highlights again on motd and i'd rather have players go in hard and missing the odd time than role around like fags. blackburn maybe slightly overstepped the mark but arsenal are pathetic, gilberto's interview on 5live was pitiful.
blinding skill is lovely, but theres definately a place in football for players that are winning to role up there sleaves and get stuck in. E.g. Kevin Ball

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

Great irony. This should be POTW nominated.

Well then, since you are blind.

Dickov (there is several incidents)
Savage's trying to injure Fabregas by going in high on his knee.
Molenko's tackle at Viera when he wasnt even close to reaching the ball.
Thompsons tackle was a lot of the same.
Todds assault on Persie
and there are more.

Now for here's a descent review:
http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/stor...t/sport1.shtml

Score verdict

ARSENAL reached the FA Cup final with relative ease — but Blackburn did their best to kick them out of the competition.

Rovers made no attempt to hide their rough-and-ready tactics but, in the end, football shone through.

The Gunners deservedly take their place in next month's showpiece.

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

You linked to a News of the World article.
Hahaha!

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

I said i was generally fair, perhaps in this instance i'm not being and like i said i've only seen the game once with no replays. Did you not read my post? :confused:

I've never said Arsenal didnt deserve to win and its not exactly a great surprise they did. Do you seriously expect the media to come out on the side of Rovers, Bolton etc? They always side with the big teams so showing me a report like that isnt going to change my opinion. If you want i could find you one from the Lancashire evening telegraph that would more than likely say exactly what i'm saying.

Off the top of my head the most cynical tackle was Viera on Reid, he didnt get a yellow but the difference is our players got up and carried on without rolling around trying to win an Oscar.

Where is it written that football has to be played in the way Arsenal play it? Greece won the Euro Championship with a pretty similar style of play to us so i think its a valid tactic as long as its within the laws of the game.

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

Nice argument. Linking to a paper with an outstandingly low quality of journalism.

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

Greece won with playing a defensive, hard-working style. They won becouse they tried to play football, just like they style their coach did with Werder Bremen a decade earlier. There is a huge difference between Greece today (and Werder Bremen a decade ago) and Rovers. No one says that Greece (or WB) plays with the flair like Barca, Real or Arsenal. However, they are focused on the ball, not trying to win by injuring all the opponents players. Playing defensivly dosent mean that you have Savage trying to injure a 17 year old by going in with a karate kick. If the referee had been up to it, Rovers would certainly be having a lot more cards out of the game than they had. All they tried to was to sabotage the game, instead of trying to play well (like they did the first part of the first half) and try to create chances.

Norway, under coach Egil "Drillo" Olsen practicly invented the defensive 4-5-1 with sone defence, agressive approach and long balls. The difference beeing if you want to play football or kickboxing. Savage, Thompson, Todd & co should consider the later.

And you dont need to do kickboxing to secure points against Arsenal, even if your a weaker team. Crystal Palace got a draw with Arsenal, and they are a worse team on paper than Shiteburn.

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

Here you have a Guardian report saying much of the same:

http://football.guardian.co.uk/Obser...461687,00.html

Strage, eh?

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

Oh dear God you made a rude name out of my teams name to insult us, how will i cope?! :eek:

If we had just won an FA cup semi-final I would be celebrating the fact we were in a final rather than mouthing off at every Blackburn fan like half the Arsenal fans on t'internet seem intent on doing.

Edit:
Any journalist that has a go at our lack of support really hasnt got a clue, he does call you play actors though.

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

the only thing that made me wonder, you (blackburn) have an ex-forward on the coaching seat, however you play naturally very defensive and judging from yesterdays game, your main goal is it to destroy the game of the opposite (ok i guess this depended that you played against the 2nd best team).

looking at the table you shoot the fewest goals. your players can't do better or is it to blame on the coach?

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

To stay up in the Premiership, the best way to stay up is to have a hard as **** defence and a midfielder enforcer because it's the cheapest way to have a strong side, especially against the weaker teams. Blackburn's strikeforce is probably the worst in the prem, but if you don't concede easily, as long as you capitalise on opposition errors you'll get by. They're a dirty team, but they want to stay up this season, so they have to play that way, although i have to say in Todd, Savage, Neill and Thompson they've got some of the nastiest pieces of work in the prem.

I would also like to use this post to thank Aston Villa for their superb result on Saturday.

That is all.

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

If anyone is to blame its our ex-manager, Souness. He wasted a lot of money on poor players (grabbi - £7 million, Ferguson £7 million etc) and was very very bad for team morale. He fell out with half the squad and never spoke to some players like Flitcroft, who was our captain, and Todd, who was our player of the season. He also fell out with Yorke and Cole and never really replaced them leaving us this season with only 2 decent strikers in Dickov and Stead. Unfortunately Stead has gone through a terrible patch of not scoring and we've had nobody to replace him with. Hughes only came in half way through the season and so his only chance to change things around was in the January transfer window.

We had 2 problems at that point. Firstly we couldnt defend and secondly we couldnt score, thats not a good combination. He spent £200,000 on 2 excellent defenders Nelson and Mokoena who have turned our defence into a very tight unit. Unfortunately we couldnt find any good strikers in our price range (Bellamy was too expensive) so we've been left in the situation where we have to play defensively and hope to nick it 1-0 when playing a good team. Our main priority in the summer is to sign a striker or 2 so we should be better suited to attacking football next season.

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

look, just feel sorry for me :(
relegation isn't nice and we've been shite all season.

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

Team SMS look like going down together :(

I haven't seen a great deal of Blackburn games since Hughes took over but when he managed Wales it was quite a similar style. I imagine that was a large part down to our poor team, but he seemed reluctant to then move out of this stance when we required goals or even against poorer opposition when, in my opinion, our forward players are far superiour to the defence so a more attacking style would have suited us more in them games. He did improve our defence a hell of a lot though.

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

Speak for yourselves, my team could well be promoted.

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

Our curse will stop you going up :cool:

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

Seeing that you neg & your fellow rovers supporters neg repped me, I dont see you cope with it, HEH :p
With a bit of "luck" we could have gotten Viera, Fabregas, Lehman and Van Persie out with long-term injuries. That no-one of them seems to have picked up such injuries is a sign of God interfering or something.
Besides, we are Arsenal, we dont do goals from outside the box unless their pretty :)
We want more thanjust winning :p

So not filling your seats doesnt say anything, heh.
Better to fall, unless mr. Dunn doesnt give anything. I mean, if he doesnt give a card for a karate kick (like the one with Savage) and the fact that Dickov was allowed to to get away without a booking says loads. Incompence at best. Its these matches that you wonder why Mr. Wenger doesnt just hand out baseball-bats before the game starts. After beating up Thompson (who actually can play football when he likes), Savage (who cant play), Dickov (who should be in a mental institution with Bowyer) and a couple of other blackburn players, one could have played football out on the pitch.

Besides, I dont only care for Arsenal, I do enjoy a game where the rules are enforced and not a game of kickboxing. You dont see me whining about the referee when van Persie gets sent off for an elbow either. Becouse I know he deserves it, and Im adult enough to see that he gets what he asked for. But I guess thats the difference between me and you then.

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

I wasnt going to until you resorted to calling us 'shiteburn' which i thought was a bit childish. At least i signed mine though unlike you :). Oh and i dont have any Rovers friends on here :(.

Not when you come from a town with such a small population. Arsenal didnt sell out until a day or 2 before the game and North London has a population of over a million i would guess. Man U and Newcastle on the other hand have more season ticket holders than tickets that were available for todays game so they sold out on the first day tickets were available.

:)

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

If you foul someone, you get a card - if it's not spotted, the FA panel look at it and ban you. If you hurt someone while making a fair challenge, you've done your job. Players getting injured is just an unfortunate side of the game. As much as everyone hates Savage and wonder why he isn't sent off every game, the best tactic is to wind him up early on, get a booking out of him, cos he's usually as good as gold after that as he's not stupid and doesn't want to get sent off. Players get targeted in games for various reasons, and Blackburn weren't going to open up and play passing football with the squad they've got to let you roll them over.

So you got some bruises and got battered a bit - it's not Blackburn's problem you are playing Chelsea midweek.

P.S. The reason that there weren't many Blackburn fans was because of the 12:15pm kickoff and the stupidly long journey (meaning a bloody early start to get to the game), not to mention the cost. I mean what a joke to hold that game in Cardiff FFS.

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

What I want to know is what was wrong with the Old Trafford/Villa Park semis? Big stadia, fairly central, no worries.

OT's a bit shit though, no leg room and terrible viewing angle.

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

I only looked at this thread cos i knew JC would reply <3

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

FA is a laugh. They withheld Dyers suspension, 3 matches, exactly the same as RvN got for his attempt for injuring A. Cole. Blackburn is going to end up getting those 4 yellow cards, witch is going to mean nothing to them. This serves as a inspiration to managers who looks for a new tactic to try out.
How this helps football is beyond me, and seeing how shite most referees are, I dont think it will improve the PL.
With Mark "ManUtd" Riley beeing the referee in the final, we are assured of some quality refereeing there. :p

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

What else can I call a team who doesnt play football, has 36 points and did put Souness in charge of biz so he could ruin things? :)

Yeah, I just neg repped anyone who I thought to be writing utter sh**. Your post was clearly worth one.
FROM THE TERRACES AHOY. (if you got that one).

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

For the money they've spent and the fact they're from a small town and not even a provincial city, Blackburn are having a successful season.

Fact is Arsenal are hardly angels, have benefitted many a time from dodgy refereeing decisions and last time they got beat by man u it was because they were outplayed rather than a referee having anything to do with it.

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

Compare Blackburns spending (-income from player sales ofc) the last 3 seasons, and Wengers, and Im not sure you will find Wenger spending more. They might not be a big city, but they certainly got money from the fund left by the billionaire supporting em.
They should have had atleast 3 players sent of. I cant see us loosing 11 against 8 (I belive your refering to the scandalous 2-0 in the Premiership, not the League Cup match). You need to join JC in the search for some vision.

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

Jose Antonio Reyes
Sol Campbell on £100k a week
Pires diving like nobody's business
Vieira's nasty challenges

Just stop crying about it, and be happy you've got to your cup final.

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

I'm not sure you'd find Wenger spending more, but I am sure that you'd find Blackburn selling more.

In the last 3 seasons, Arsenal have spent £18m (not including the undisclosed transfers of Van Persie, Lehmann and Almunia) and received £7.2m back.

Blackburn have spent £19m (not including the transfer of Emerton) and received £23.2m back (not including the selling of Dunn).

Arsenal are £7m down from their transfers, at least. Blackburn are £4m up from their transfers, at least.

Yep, that sure looks like the work of Jack Walker's money, if any of it actually is left.

Oh please. Arsenal, for a long time, have been pretty universally regarded as a team with plenty of flair, but a distinct nasty side.

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

Emerton cost us about £3 mil and we sold Dunn for £5 mil, so that puts us £6 mil up in total. Our highest payed player will be on £40k max compared to Arsenal's £100k as well.

Jack Walker wasnt a billionaire, he made about £350 million from the sale of Walkersteel. The majority of his wealth went on to his son-in-law after he died and unfortunately he sits on the board and doesnt want to spend his money in the same way Jack did. Not sure how much he has, i would guess no more than £100 million.

Jack Walker did set up a fund for us with about £25 million or so in it, but how long do you think that lasts in football these days? He also has some system where by for every hmoe game we play he adds an extra 5,000 worth of ticket sales onto whatever the attendance is, which when we only average 23,000 or so is quite useful.

We arent even a city, we are a town with a population of about 120,000, which makes us the smallest team in the Premiership. We are in between Manchester and Liverpool and have to compete with them for fans, so we do well to have roughly 1/5th of our population attending the games. I doubt many other Premiership teams can say they have such a high population to paying fan ratio.

He got us promoted, won the Worthington Cup and into Europe 2 years running. He did well for us until his last 18 months in charge.

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

But Rob Styles is going to be the referee for the final :confused:

Edit: Here

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

I never thought id see the day an Arsenal fan tried to take the moral highground

As JC said, Rovers are a physical team, footballs a physical game. Blackburn got punished for it in yellow cards, what more do you want?

Just be ****ing thankful the FA doesnt review dives because arsenal would never have a fit XI.

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

:up:

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

Just found this from the BBC.

Van Persie was relieved to have put his season back on track after receiving a red card at Southampton in February.

He was criticised at the time by manager Arsene Wenger for his "flashiness" and immaturity.

The former Feyenoord striker admitted his behaviour prompted him to turn to Arsenal team-mate Robert Pires as a role model.

Did anyone else find this funny?

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

A yellow card is no punishment, specially when you can just substitue them out before they get another one.
Like its just Arsenal players who dives heh. The whole sport does it.

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

Perse made a nasty rep while playing in holland, and it did show. Its not often you see Wenger react publicly to something his players do, but Persie got a clear message when he headed for an early shower, after getting sent off and loosing us 2 points against Soton.

Pires just dives, like the rest of the premiership, and it should have learned now that it doesnt pay.

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

We have a team called Sogndal (produced such players as Tore A. Flo and Eirik Bakke) here in Norway, they got relegated last season from the best division (but prob coming up again). They come from a small place with 6000 people spread out, with maybe 2-3000 living in the town itself.
Their average attendence is something about 2700. The first match in this season, in the lower division, they had 1800 people attending. So Im not that impressed by your numbers :)

And no, their side plays football more like Arsenal than Rovers.

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

Txn god. I read somewhere else that it was Riley.

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

Took a break from fighting all the polar bears did they?


Also edit your posts together for the love of god.

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

Those three (V.P, L, A) prob cost a total of 6 to 7million pounds.
I belive your wrong in your sales figure for Arsenal, just Upson and Jeffers is about 5mill £ together. This summer will prob going to be some major signings, but most like a few players getting offloaded too (Edu, Reyes?, Cole?, Hoyte?, Lehman?, Almundia?).
The sales of Rovers is boosted by Duff, with 17mill isnt it, just like the purchase side of arsenal is boosted by Reyes (wich if sold it looks very different).

Yeah, and I ask myself why, becouse he have been one of then nicest teams around when it comes to red and yellow cards the last 2-3 seasons now. We are currently in 5th place on fair place, with Rovers at rock bottom (strange heh):
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/stats/f...=ENG.1&cc=5739

Ofcourse nobody agrees with me that Rovers is a abysmal side:
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/feature?id=331140&cc=5739

Todd charged after all:
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/headlin...331158&cc=5739

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

Never realised you were from Norway and we have an Australian and Singapore dude (Singaporian?) insulting Todd there, the World truely is against us!

Doesnt that back up the point that Rovers have to sell players to afford new ones while Arsenal can go out and buy any player within reason? :confused:

I still dont think Todd meant it and i've seen the replays. One angle does make it look bad while the other makes it look like it was unintentional. Todd's never elbowed anyone while playing for Rovers. He did kick Dugarry up the backside while he was lieing down, but who wouldnt have done that given the chance?!

How long have you supported Arsenal for by the way? i'ld be interested to know.

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

I heard he had that cut down by 50% or something now he signed (or has he?) signed a new contract.

V. Persie = £3.5m
Lehmann = £2m
Almunia = £1m

Or so it was said once upon a time on the Arsenal website.

The fact they haven't been relegated since the early 1900s I very much doubt this is going to happen.

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

Im not sure, but he aint getting 100k a week, thats for sure.
Probably not, since Arsenal doesnt like to give out the numbers they pay for transfers, and when a player is bought or sold undisclosed, It wouldnt be much be much point in doing it when you realised the numbers on your own web site.
That said, the numbers are fairly good guess.

Re: [Premiership] Rovers a shitty team?
 

Dont worry, I bet there is plenty of people in the UK thinking Rovers is crap too.
In one way, but he isnt at the club anymore, like Reyes is. Reyes is still listed as a positive "commodity" in Arsenal's accounts. If Reyes is sold this summer for the exactly the same as he was purchased for, its balances it. Another point is that Blackburn cannot expect to sell another player in the future for 17mill £. It was a one time Chelskji thing, besides I dont see anyone in the squad besides M.G Pedersen (who can play football, so no idea why he gets to start :p), Friedel (why didnt you buy him Arsene!) and maybe Thomson and Emerton. So if you got lucky this time around, maybe it wont be so the next 3 year period.
A very good defence for Todd there I must say... Quite a few descent people I belive. However, maybe Todd isnt descent.

Since Tony Adams was young, and Steve or Andy partnered him in central defence. Im not sure really, since I was quite young, but it must be around 91-92.