Archive for October, 2011

Palace Tweets 2011-10-23


  • Photo: That Steve Jobs Memorial http://t.co/CJ9RKF3i #
  • That iBook after some 'repairing' http://t.co/uAwik6U2 #
  • Good day for freedom as Tunisia goes to the polls. #
  • Photo: micasaessucasa: Crazy crazy gnarly wood house. http://t.co/zIKlLtY9 #
  • @MatDolphin Facebook shoes? Nein danke if it's just a poxy logo. I want my Fb shoes to do my social media drudgery while I walk n look cool in reply to MatDolphin #
  • Grrrrrrr Google's iPhone app doesn't seem to recognise their 2 stage sign up authentication process. #fail #google #
  • Photo: Young Parisiens are so French They like Patti Smith http://t.co/5tuz80fC #
  • Stoke v Maccabi might be low on football quality but it's high in red card hilarity. #football #europaleague #
  • White cube http://t.co/ZCdrA6nU #
  • Why can I STILL not delete that f***ing stocks app? I mean what's the point of it? #fail #iOS5 #
  • Tweetdeck spazzing out #fail #iOS5 #
  • Just put iOS5 onto the phone. Time for a play. #

Archive for October, 2011

Palace Tweets 2011-10-16


  • O2's phone coverage in Islington is diabolical. Calls cutting out the whole time. #O2 #fail #

Archive for October, 2011

Football: What We Learned From Montenegro vs Engerland (2-2)


Two moments of madness

Engerland never, ever make it easy for themselves. Here a match that was clearly there for the taking, and the easy taking at that, was transformed into a backs to the wall war of attrition which Engerland nearly managed to lose thanks to two moments of suicidal madness.

Concentration, Concentration, Concentration

The three testicalled scrotum that is the Euro 2012 logo. Two countries separated by football.

Arsène Wenger used to go on about concentration all the time. Aside from not seeing things it was his go-to excuse for slip ups and incompetence whenever Arsenal lost (or drew) in Europe. But it was never more clearly illustrated than in Engerland’s total switch off for Montenegro’s first goal on the stroke of halftime. This set the tone for the rest of the game. Before that Engerland were comfortably in control, indeed they were actually playing within themselves and never looked like being threatened by the Montenegrans. Afterwards it seemed as if none of them had ever seen a round ball, much less played with one. And once they found themselves on the back foot they never looked as if there was any chance of them seizing the initiative from their opponents and while the Montenegrans rarely appeared truly threatening, they totally dominated the entire second half. Thankfully Engerland had already built their two goal cushion, because without it they would have been crushed.

You Can Take The Boy Out Of Chav…

But you can’t, apparently, take the Chav out of the boy. Rooney’s petulant kick at defender Dzudovic, which saw him sent off, will set the tone for his entire Euro 2012. So reminiscent of Gascoigne’s madness in the FA Cup final (the injury he caused himself blighted the rest of his career) or more pertinently Beckham’s kick out at Argentinian defender Diego Simeone in France 1998? If Capello has any sense he will be including Rooney in his squads, but will only play him from the bench if at all. That way the team will have to learn how to live without him, while he will still feel part of the side. And in a pleasing development, this is exactly what Capello has said he wants to do.

All About The Attack

We also saw Wales beat the Swiss, something Engerland couldn’t do at Wembley. They have continued their admirable progress up the FIFA rankings, albeit from somewhere close to the bottom. And it struck me, does Engerland actually have an attack as good as the Welsh? You have Bale and Bellamy racing down the wings actually threatening teams, something that Wallcott, Young, Downing, Lennon seem to do only infrequently. And they’re backed by a midfield, led by Ramsey, which actually likes to pass the ball. And I wondered, Is anyone actually afraid of Engerland? Because I wouldn’t be. They are a good Championship qualifying side, one of the teams you wouldn’t want to be in a qualifying group with, but nothing special.

Who Are Ya? (Repeat Until Senseless)

If Engerland were a Prem team, who would they be? Let’s think, supposedly one of the big beasts, yet they haven’t won anything for ages; capable of scoring goals yet always vulnerable with dodgy defending and a very soft centre;  just lost their talismanic forward/midfield dynamo; potentially a great attacking side yet always looking to throw away a lead… Any ideas? Could they possibly be today’s Arsenal (albeit with considerably less technique) in disguise?

Still A Few Good Points Lurking (Even If We Don’t Always Pick Them Up)

  1. Engerland have qualified and are in the second pot. And now that we don’t have to jet about trying to win approval from some FIFA despot we can play some proper friendlies and try to build a side that could do well in Euro 2012. Time for Capello to really earn his money, playing players with potential, rather than the same old failures.
  2. New broom? Engerland went to South Africa with the oldest squad in the tournament. And with players like Terry, Lampard, Gerrard, Rio and Ashley Cole beginning to look tired (or perpetually injured) it’s time for change. Capello has a moment, in between the demands of qualification and the tournament itself to test out the new blood. We want to see what a midfield of Wilshire, Cleverly and McEachran can do. What an attack with Welbeck, Young and Wallcott can accomplish if they’re allowed to float around and go for their opponents. We want to see players who can hold and play with the ball rather than just hoof it. We want to see an attitude to friendlies that says, it’s more important how we play the game than the result, because right now we have an opportunity to try things out without recrimination.
  3. Changing expectations. We’re probably not going to win it. One of Engerland’s apparent problems has been the weight of expectation on their heads. Now, surely, that isn’t the case. I don’t think anyone expects Engerland to win Euro 2012. And with Spain, Holland and Germany all apparent certainties for the semis (an unkind draw aside), it would show admirable progress for Engerland to even get to the semis. What we do want to see is a dramatic improvement in both technique, holding and using the ball, and tactics, determining when to press and when to let your opponents have their head.

Archive for October, 2011

Palace Tweets 2011-10-09


  • My new sounds: Techno Beat on #SoundCloud http://t.co/SPX1mbuB #
  • Engerland manage to make qualification for Euro 2012 look painfully hard. Shit second half performance. #football #Euro2012 #
  • Engerland turn total dominance into a 2-2 draw #football #Euro2012 #
  • Engerland move into hospital pass mode #football #Euro2012 #
  • Engerland enter foot-shooting mode. #football #Euro2012 #
  • Engerland move into headless chicken mode. #football #Euro2012 #
  • Credit agencies downgrade Fox as network fails to implement austerity package on The Simpsons http://t.co/PCihEXYJ #
  • Deceased Nobel prize winner gets to keep his gong. "They'll have to prize it out of my cold, dead hands." #
  • Finding out about System Zero tamper proof screw systems. Don't ask. #

Archive for October, 2011

Football: Prem 2011 Week 7


A Piss-Poor Season Just Got Worse

Not content with having their worst start in 50-plus years, selling their two best players and recruiting a bunch of, frankly, second rate talent, Arsenal continue their spiral of death by losing to Norf London rival Spurs thanks to yet another tentative long range effort. You would have thought that after Danny Rose and David Bentley managed to plunk 30 yarders into the Arsenal net someone might have thought to close down Kyle Walker. But  no. Definitively out of the title race (that’s one of the four things Arsenal aren’t going to win this year), the team are going to have a challenge getting into Europe, let alone the Big Cup this season. Newcastle, currently in fourth, have over twice as many points as Arsenal.  And while making up 8 points isn’t impossible over the rest of the season, it’s a tough ask.

Mind The Gap

With the top seven all winning, we’re beginning to see the start of the gap between the better teams and the rest. So that’s seven teams who’ve all built an additional three point gap over Arsenal. However, it’s worth noting that at this stage of last season Liverpool were worse off, while three seasons ago Spurs had just two points from ten games. Mind you neither one of them managed to qualify for European football.

Games

Man U continued their inexorable progress by just about spanking Naarich. However, the latter were reasonable good, threatening Man U during the second half and moving beyond their agricultural challenging. Dropping Championship bruiser Grant Holt might have something to do with that. Man U seemed less interested in crushing Naarich than they were against Arsenal.

Newcastle have been quietly coming up on the outside. They’re still in fourth, although if Spurs win their game in hand they will probably take over on goal difference, and at this stage that should actually count for something. They have built an interesting new spine of largely French players and have dispensed with the English brutality of their Championship side, removing Carroll, Barton and Nolan. It will be interesting to see how Alan Pardew does given his previous track record of ruining West Ham. The most striking thing about their win at Wolves was how generous a player Leon Best is. Given he appeared to be the replacement for Carroll, he’s not playing the standard no 9 role of a big target man stuck in the middle of the pitch. Instead he’s also bombing down the wing providing crosses for Ba. So while he may not score 20+ goals this season, it’s a fair bet he’ll be directly involved in 30 or so.

Sunderland looked like getting a right pasting. Especially as West Brom were two up in less than 10 minutes. Then Wroy’s Boys gave Steve Bruce a let off, allowing Sunderland back into the match, which then just about petered out into a tedious draw. Steve’s plan of replacing Bent, Gyan and Henderson with a bunch of cold meat cast offs doesn’t seem to be paying dividends.

Everton‘s big match derby with Liverpool looked to be a cut above the usual kicking lumps festival, at least for the first 23 minutes. Then the ref inexplicably sent off Rodwell after Dirty Suarez did his thing of diving over Rodwell’s legs and playing the injured primadonna until his opponent was punished. After that it was all a bit predictable. Everton tried hard, but Liverpool were just a little too good for them. Henderson appeared to do his usual thing of being anonymous all match until everyone realised that he was actually on the subs bench.

Not content with pillaging most of Arsenal’s best players, Man City continue to steal what should have been Arsenal’s year (win a cup, make progress in the Prem) and give uppity tykes Blackburn a good taking out. Again it’s clear that whatever Aguero, Nasri, Dzeko et al do, it’s Silva who runs the show. Consistently the best, most influential player, he was good, but not at his best here. However, the strategy is clear, stop Silva and you stop City.

Say what you like about rubbish manager Alex McCleish, one of his achievements is to get Aston Villa‘s Agbonlahor back to something approaching his best. You might have thought that with both Young and Downing sold over the close season, Villa might struggle a bit. However, their loss seems to have freed up space for Agbonlahor to thrive. He helped defeat a nice Wigan side who are struggling once again to convert attractive football into points.

Spurs beat Arsenal. To be fair it wasn’t exactly unexpected and Arsenal played much better than anticipated, certainly way better than Liverpool had a couple of weeks previously, yet all this result did was reinforce the gulf in class between Arsenal and the Manchesters.

Stoke must be vaguely ruing their Europa League campaign. So far it’s been two group games won followed by two Prem away matches lost. This time they were beaten by a developing Swansea team, who look to be getting up to speed with the Prem. Five bookings for Stoke suggests a ref up to speed on current FIFA dictats.

QPR continue their attempts to become the Blackpool of 2011, what with playing attractive, engaging football and being humped 6 – 0 by Fulham. You suspect that the energy they put into their last couple of matches has weakened them. Maybe as Shakespeare suggests (albeit in Shakespeare In Love) once they have spent themselves where else did they have to go but down? Still this was a game where the likes of Barton, Tarabt and Wright-Phillips were eclipsed by Zamora, Murphy and, amazingly, Andy Johnson. Time for some squad building during the international weeks for the hoops.

Finally, Bolton continued their nosedive down the Prem table by shipping five against Chelsea. That’s not progress, that’s the sound of obliteration.


Archive for October, 2011

Palace Tweets 2011-10-02


  • I just finished a 1.51 km run with a time of 14:50 with Nike+ GPS. #nikeplus #
  • I just finished a 2.14 km run with a time of 18:12 with Nike+ GPS. #nikeplus #