So far it’s kind of been a summer of blue balls, as far as big transfers go. Lots of talk but not that much delivery. Well, except for the French teams, or at least the 2 of them with access to delicious oil money. In the Premier League it’ll likely be all about the Big 4 again, though the final ranking is quite uncertain (note: unsure if Arsenal or Tott'num ((c) Ted Lasso) is in that group now). Slight edge to Chelsea just on the strength of their coaching change? City fans might disagree. Meanwhile La Liga is getting even more lopsided, as depressing as that is. Outside of the big 2 the whole league was a net seller transfer-wise, which at least point to the fact that the clubs are getting serious about their debts. Which is great news for EPL clubs looking for Michu-type undervalued assets that can contribute right away. Ligue 1 looks like it could be a runaway race between 2 teams as well, but I wouldn’t be shocked if a Marseille or Lyon inserted themselves into the discussion. Meanwhile the cool kids of Serie A will be fashionably late to the party and start their season next week.

Also we finally get to see how well NBC is gonna do by their fancy EPL contract. All games available one way or another, with the ManU game shown on national TV, and a Match of the Day recap show on Sat night… I, for one, welcome our new soccer TV overlords.

EPL
SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 2013
7:45 ET Liverpool v Stoke City
10:00 ET Arsenal v Aston Villa
10:00 ET Norwich City v Everton
10:00 ET Sunderland v Fulham
10:00 ET West Bromwich Albion v Southampton
10:00 ET West Ham United v Cardiff City
12:30 ET Swansea City v Manchester United

SUNDAY, AUGUST 18, 2013
8:30 ET Crystal Palace v Tottenham Hotspur
11:00 ET Chelsea v Hull City

MONDAY, AUGUST 19, 2013
3:00 ET Manchester City v Newcastle United

La Liga
SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 2013
1:00 ET Real Sociedad v Getafe
3:00 ET Real Valladolid v Athletic Bilbao
5:00 ET Valencia v Malaga
SUNDAY, AUGUST 18, 2013
1:00 ET Barcelona v Levante
3:00 ET Osasuna v Granada
3:00 ET Real Madrid v Real Betis
5:00 ET Sevilla FC v Atletico Madrid
MONDAY, AUGUST 19, 2013
2:00 ET Rayo Vallecano v Elche
4:00 ET Almeria v Villarreal
4:00 ET Celta Vigo v Espanyol

Bundesliga
SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 2013
9:30 ET Eintracht Frankfurt v Bayern Munich
9:30 ET Hamburg SV v TSG Hoffenheim
9:30 ET SC Freiburg v Mainz
9:30 ET VfB Stuttgart v Bayer Leverkusen
9:30 ET VfL Wolfsburg v Schalke 04
9:30 ET Werder Bremen v FC Augsburg
12:30 ET Borussia Monchengladbach v Hannover 96

Ligue1
SUNDAY, AUGUST 18, 2013
9:30 ET Nurnberg v Hertha Berlin
11:30 ET Borussia Dortmund v TSV Eintracht Braunschweig

FRIDAY, AUGUST 16, 2013
2:30 ET Sochaux v Lyon

SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 2013
11:00 ET Marseille v Evian Thonon Gaillard
2:00 ET Bastia v Valenciennes
2:00 ET Nice v Stade Rennes
2:00 ET St Etienne v Guingamp
2:00 ET Stade de Reims v Lille
2:00 ET Toulouse v Bordeaux

SUNDAY, AUGUST 18, 2013
8:00 ET AS Monaco v Montpellier
11:00 ET Lorient v Nantes
3:00 ET Paris Saint-Germain v AC Ajaccio

Villa coming for that ass this year. Held onto Benteke. Added Antonio Luna and Jores Okore (who DOMINATED Chelsea in the CL last year) to shore up the back line. Added Big Nik Helenius to give some depth on the forward line. Alex Tonev has looked the business in preseason. Lambert's been playing a 4-2-4 occasionally, just to see if he could.

Bring on the Gunners.

Comcast, you know, owners of NBC, have no listing or info on where these non-broadcast games they are promising are going to be available.

are they gonna have an actual channel called Live Extra with all the spillover games?

Gotta say I'm kinda excited by the MoTD show, let's see if their highlights match the quality of BBC's. Fox Soccer Daily will not be missed...

http://www.nbcsports.com/ExtraTime


I have comcast in atlanta, and with Comcast, they are showing the games via OnDemand...in select markets which apparently Atlanta is one of yet. Bullshit.

#comcastfail

sigh.

-----------
Y'all stupid...should've tanked for Lebron/Wiggins in 2014 -Rex LongFellow

It's only funny till someone gets mad. Then it's hilarious.

no more scanning for keywords and shit every week, finding out whether I get to watch LFC and if so, at what time.

thigh tear.

apparently we are very interested in him. i've never seen him play but the youtube clips dont jump for me.
also we put our squad numbers out for the season. 7 and 9 are vacant. what does this mean?

I'd be will to set it up this afternoon, if ppl are interested. If you're down, reply to this post.

Never done it, but i'd give it a shot.

No idea who's in charge of that one, though, or what the add code is.

http://fantasy.premierleague.com/my-leagues/330945/join/?autojoin-code=347600-330945

I almost copped a Soldado shirt but I think it's safe to go with Bale. (I think)

with bale, top three isn't out of the question.

EDIT: i copped last year's kit. didn't like the HP logo or the new trim over the collar. sucker for collars on kits.

Both are terrible.

My boy's trying to convince me to wait it out until next year and stick with last year's shirt.

I might do that.

I think he's going to be great this week.

Messi
Neymar
Iniesta
Xavi


I've never bought a Messi joint, because... it's Messi. Having a Messi jersey doesn't even mean you're a Barça fan. But it's kinda needed in the collection. I should've gotten one when he first received #10.

Neymar: As I've stated over and over again, I didn't like this move. But I can't act like I wasn't impressed with his form at the Confed. Cup. And if there were ever a time to get a Neymar shirt, it's now.

Iniesta/Xavi is another one I should've gotten years ago. But I opted for the 'Dinho's, the training kit, the jacket, and the Thiago instead. In between year's I wasn't crazy about the kit. Now, I realize I should've picked them up. They're real fan jerseys.

don't forget the JR

We came out with a ton of energy and movement...Rosicky turned a defender way too easily who then released Ox down the left who patiently put a ball across for a striding Giroud...excellent, basic finish to drag the ball across the net for the first goal.

I want to see how the team reacts with game having settled down...Aston Villa are very dangerous going forward.

Ramsey's long-balls have been terrible so far. Laughably inaccurate and in one case, if he just lays the ball deeper, Walcott is potentially through.

Wilshere onto his wrong foot and then Koscielny beaten on one touch...the problem is we just let Agbonlahor have so much time and space on the ball which resulted in him bearing down.

FYI: If you have Comcast, go to your On Demand menu. Choose Sports and Fitness. Then Premier League. Then Live Games. You can choose your own games to watch live.

maybe a late pass to me, i dunno. it's EXTRA late if this was an option w/ Fox Soccer.

and it's awesome. wish they had la liga now (and not just so i could watch in HD, though that'd help).

-----------
Y'all stupid...should've tanked for Lebron/Wiggins in 2014 -Rex LongFellow

It's only funny till someone gets mad. Then it's hilarious.

a treadmill: a whole lot of running, but going nowhere.


The service up top does not match the workrate of their midfield, and the finishing is disgusting. No way is arsenal going to win the PL, and with liverpool playing with more togetherness, and the spurs will challenge, they might not even get a CL Spot....

Liverpool played with a lot of fire today, and they appear to be more complete than they were last year... We should have kept sturridge, just imagine him up top and getting service from hazard. He has always been a quick trigger striker, be he appears to be more clinical...


Hull City shouldn't be much of a challenge tomorrow, but our striker position is a question mark right now.....and the verdict is still out on jose's tactics. In low scoring games chelsea will probably rule, but in a game where there is a lot of goal scoring, will the team be allowed to let loose and come forward? ....didn't appear that way against real madrid....

all this talk about getting rooney, but not going after Beneteke is insane.

Wenger will not last through the season...I cannot see it.

They need an overhaul.

This is a good start for Villa....

^^^North London Pimp Walking....but you better not step one foot into west london.

thanks for the laughs against lolarsenalol.

thanks for the laughs against lolarsenalol.

I wish I was there so I could chant with them

Completely inconsistent squad, same ole shit. Start great but once the game settles in and the going gets tougher, the team falters. Have multiple chances to get a 2nd goal, can't finish. Multiple giveaways in midfield, Cazorla's leading to the chance which turned into the 2nd penalty. Tactically, giving so much space between the midfield and backline...Agbonlahor given free runs on the ball all game.

And to compound it all: Gibbs, Ox, and Sagna have each picked up knocks

It's the same ole shit, can't even imagine how I'd feel if I was paying those Emirates ticket prices to watch this team.

Showed the composure and grit that I wish we had.

he looks primed to score but they can't get him touches.

when he had the ball.

the problem was out of the 95 minutes, he probably had it a combined minute and 37 seconds.

I'm thinking no fewer than 29-30 wins.

...and you see Moyes instead of SAF. Weird.

talent (compared to typical MU squads).

this is still awful.

I suspected we would look like this. Sad. Jones at right back. Rio looks 40. Our midfield is still shit. Cleverly can't pass to save his life. Giggs should never start. Rvp scored. But we still look like shit

Insufferable.

>Insufferable.

because even *I* wonder how we score at times.

Essentially the anti-Arsenal

Fuck that dude, even if he's built up a bank of goodwill equivalent to Ghandi and Mandela combined, it's completely exhausted at this point. Just the sight of his f'kn face bring my blood to boil.

On a lighter note, Santi looks noticeably fatter and slower, was he eating all Off season? He's at least a month away from working his way back into shape.

A good result mid-week is looking real unlikely. May be for the best.

Bring a bit of British steel to the club.

http://l3.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/ZHAKns7faYyZdy_MIpAJdA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Y2g9MzYwO2NyPTE7Y3c9NjQwO2R4PTA7ZHk9MDtmaT11bGNyb3A7aD0zNTU7cT04NTt3PTYzMA--/http://media.zenfs.com/en_GB/Sports/Eurosport/1076566-17162276-640-360.jpg

That midfield still got out-possessed though....

be with possession and service.

http://cdn2.mocksession.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/HEAD-CRUNCH.gif

man, all england needs to do is go with welbeck and sturridge up top in a 4-4-2, and get some good service from the mids.

There. Is no one in the stand-no hyperbole. There is not a single person in the stands. Is this some type of punishment or is the french league that hard up outside the big clubs

there's a strong section of knuckleheads among Nice fans, the club was punished for some shenanigans they got into last year

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BR5ExFnCMAAFQPt.jpg:large


speaks volumes

De Gea gets a pass, but that still leaves 3.

they even cheered him despite him being a complete distraction this summer.

- obvs love the wall-to-wall coverage, in particular the LiveExtra app/website is pretty great. If they made this a paying option I'd seriously consider plopping down $5-10 a month.

- the game commentary is good, I didn't get the sense that they were tailoring it to non-British audiences, which is something I felt with Fox sometimes

-their version of Match of the Day is pretty lame. The 7 matches felt way too spread out over 2 hours. The BBC version is 70mins or so, and even with ads 2hrs felt like too much. The little analysis I watched wasn't that stellar, but more disappointingly the highlights seemed a lot more disjointed than the original. Might give them another go but to be honest I think I'll go back to getting my fix from the OG version.

tried a double bid of 28m for Baines & Fellaini. I don't even think they're that good but that's just insulting.

Sagna, Ramsey, and Rosicky all doubtful in addition to Nacho and Arteta.

It's a good thing we picked up some depth...o wait.

Not like Wenger could have seen this coming with our impeccable injury rate...o wait.

This approach just gets dumber and absolutely fucking dumber.

welp time to panic buy some squad level players.

crying after one game. C'mon man.

The biggest issue being a complete lack of pro-active problem solving, problems with depth, player quality, and tactics that aren't addresses until they become red-alert status. That's not how you build a serious contender, that's how you build a team destined to fight for scraps.

Hopefully my guy will finally get his career on track.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGJeZtE-js0

was just reading an article this morning about how they passed on him for their academy when he was 14 because they deemed him too scrawny. He was a local kid too, grew up idolizing the club.

of course, he said all the right things in his interview ('it's not about revenge for me, yaddi yadda')...and then this.