United thread 2012/13 (inc merged IPO thread)

[waspish]

Re: The Fergi Statue unveiled at 2 pm.

Is the hiarachy trying to make a hint to BaconChops to fuck off? The stand named after him and now this statue what's next?

 

[tangaroa]

Re: The Fergi Statue unveiled at 2 pm.

I hope it's inscribed with the quote "not in my lifetime".

 

[pirate]

Re: The Fergi Statue unveiled at 2 pm.

Let's hope in 20 odd years we are doing the same for Bobby.

Billy Shears take note.

As De Nero states however "a **** of a man still".

The Daily fail are wanking him off this morning. Even got Van Horselroy stating bacon face was right to bin him.

I doubt our owners are the type to erect statues tbh.

Just a hunch.

most strands ofislam frown upon creating images of men, so fairly good hunch

 

[Mike N]

Re: The Fergi Statue unveiled at 2 pm.

As Ive said previously, Busby was embarrassed by the fuss when they named a road after him. Bacon face has a stand, his name in massive neon lights outside the ground and a bloody statue. His ego is unbelievable, he has agreed to all these brown-nose suggestions. Wonder what he'll want if he stays there for a few more years?

P.S. I forgot that he also had 4 50-foot-high posters of himself on O.T. for the past few months!!!!

 

[blue b4 the moon]

Ah Mr Poll.

Not only was he a shit referee he also admitted on Talkshite last season that he would favour the rags at home otherwise he wouldn't get 'the big' games involving them at the swamp.

It was an interview I heard on the way to a city evening game and the comment wasn't picked up on nor mentioned ever again.

Oh Graham Poll he's a fucking ......

 

[bluemc1]

Re: Study into Fergie Time

Just found this on the bbc website.

Fergie time: Does it really exist?
By Charlotte Pritchard
BBC News
8 hours ago

It's a well-established idea among football fans that there's something called "Fergie time" - an extra helping of added time when Sir Alex Ferguson's team, Manchester United, are losing. But does it really exist?

The final minutes of a football game can be the tensest. If the match is tied, and both teams are desperate for victory, or one side is a goal down with the chance of pulling off a draw, these are desperate times.


Some (mostly non-Man Utd fans, it is fair to assume) accuse Sir Alex Ferguson's team of getting more added time to score that crucial final goal than any other team - and have dubbed this Fergie time.

If it does exist, it follows that referees aren't doing their job properly, as it's their responsibility to calculate how much time to add on at the end of the standard 90 minutes.

It is widely believed that referees add 30 seconds for each goal and substitution, and a certain amount for other stoppages such as injuries.


In fact, Fifa - world football's governing body - has no defined rules on the amount of time that should be added. Referees are supposed to work it out for themselves.

Former Premier League referee Graham Poll says that when you're refereeing, you don't believe in Fergie time.

"You dispel it as popular myth of teams that are jealous of Manchester United's success."

But when you take a step back, he says, you realise there could be something in it.

"I think it would be too easy to just say it's rubbish. When you analyse and think psychologically what happens, the pressure that's on you at Old Trafford or the Emirates or Stamford Bridge, the pressure that is implied upon you must have an effect, even if subconsciously."

(For the uninitiated, Old Trafford is Man Utd's ground, the Emirates stadium is Arsenal's and Stamford Bridge is the home of Chelsea.)

The phenomenon of Fergie time goes back to a game in the very first Premier League season, 1992/3, says Duncan Alexander of Opta Sports, which collates data from the football leagues.

It was Man Utd v Sheffield Wednesday and the score was 1-1 after 90 minutes. Seven minutes of added time were given, during which Steve Bruce scored for Man Utd, clearing the way for their first top-flight title in 26 years.

"Ever since then, every time United have been given quite a bit of injury time, it's been flagged up in people's heads and they've said, 'Oh United have got more Fergie time again'," says Alexander.

To work out whether there could be anything in it, he looked at the average amount of added time for the second half of every match. After all, the second half is where added time is going to matter most.

"This season United have had the most," he says.

So the suspicions about Fergie time are true - but only for this season.

Last season Man Utd had the lowest second-half average added time.

"Over the course of the 20-year Premier League there is not much consistency. United are not top every season," says Alexander.

But the crucial figure is how much added time Man Utd get when they have been drawing or losing after 90 minutes. Opta looked at the relevant data over the past three seasons - 2010-11, 2011-12, and the current season to date. They compared Man Utd with five other top teams:

Manchester City
Chelsea
Arsenal
Tottenham Hotspur
Liverpool
When Man Utd were losing, they had an average of four minutes and 37 seconds added time, Alexander says, compared with three minutes and 18 seconds when they were winning.

"So you can see there that in games they lost, they got more time," he says.

"For the other, so-called top teams, other than Chelsea, all of them had longer games on average when they were losing. Whether that's a case of the defending team wasting time to try and hang on to what would be a fairly notable victory, or whether it's because referees are influenced by the fact Man Utd are losing, this data doesn't show."

But Gabriella Lebrecht of Decision Technology - another firm that analyses sports statistics - has looked closely at the reasons why time has been added in matches over the last three complete seasons.

After the time added for events such as substitutions, yellow or red cards or goals, "you're left over with a certain amount which seems to be affected by the referee", she says.

Her calculations show that if the home team is winning, then the added time is cut by 46 seconds.

"If a strong team is losing at home, they get more time than if a strong team is losing away," she says.


Referee Graham Poll (seen here in 2004) admits pressure can affect decisions
Lebrecht calculates whether a team is "strong" based on their attacking and defensive performances. In the current season, Man City rate strongest, closely followed by Man Utd, Arsenal, Chelsea and Everton.

So Fergie time does appear to exist, especially if one of these strong teams is playing at home. This applies to Chelsea too.

"If they're playing away it doesn't seem to exist as much," says Lebrecht. "There is this idea in football statistics of a home advantage. No-one knows quite what causes it. We know it's statistically significant but we're unclear why. This could be a part of that home advantage."

One thing she has noted is that when a substitution is made in stoppage time "a lot more" time is added to the clock than would be added in normal time.

"The referee feels the [home side] fans' anger if he doesn't add on enough time," she says.

Graham Poll bears this out from his experience.

"There is a pressure that's felt, that's tangible - you can feel as a referee out on the pitch - for that team to come back."

"You're sitting there going, 'OK, there's a couple of subs, goals, that's wasted time, injury there - we've got... three minutes maybe four.' Then you find yourself saying, 'Five'.

"That's something which then, sitting down and analysing it, you go, 'Where did that extra minute come from?' That's when that subconscious can kick in. It's a very strong referee that can actually recognise that and make sure he doesn't fall for it."

There is no statistical proof that Fergie time applies specifically to Man Utd. But the statistics do show a bias towards big teams.

Perhaps we should call it "Mancini time" or "Wenger time"? Or even "Benitez time" (or insert name of whoever is managing Chelsea at time of reading)?

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the big teams getting more added time if they are losing could be down to the other team really wasting time to get the big result maybe

 

[Damanino]

Re: The Fergi Statue unveiled at 2 pm.

Pretty ugly statue to be honest.

And I dont even sa he didnt deserve a staue after all. 20+ year at United many trophies.

Actually this is a pretty bad statue given the circumstances.

It is nothing like him, he holds his hands like he would be Wenger. He is always doing something with his face in matches and he rarely is standing there so serious.

It is simply a bad statue.

And the funny thing this will be there for 50 years or more.

Look at the Busby statue. That probably tells a lot more about Busby than this statue tells about SAF.

And Clattenburg is missing from the statue. Webb and him should be there in small version ahead of SAF's legs.

 

[argyle]

Re: I think Dailymail is a ManU's newspaper.

I wouldnt know, I have no wish to read the tory partys propaganda rag.

-- Sat Nov 24, 2012 8:49 am --

I wouldnt know, I have no wish to read the tory partys propaganda rag.

It's more UKIP than Tory.

Ian Ladyman and Neil Ashton continually do anti-City stories.

Today's Ladyman piece has Mancini saying Mourinho is jealous of him, when in fact he said no such thing.

 

[scotty123]

Re: The Fergi Statue unveiled at 2 pm.

The twat got on the microphone and said heres my wife the only person in the world who tells me what to do and the only person im frightened of or words to that effect.
Just fuck off and die you drunken old piss can then football can get back to normal without you bullying the shithouse press core who have licked your ring piece for 25 years, not frightened of them while your at the swamp, wait until you retire or kick it some will have their revenge the shit will hit the fan.
Jelly n ice cream

is it ok to wish death on someone? we have had a bad reputation over the years from rags,we don't want nonsense like that anymore,we are enjoying success of three decades of shite and some of us are still immature,hope the boards take a look at this sort of childish crap and set a precedent.

No it's not acceptable, you are spot on. I'll have a word.

Im big enough to apologise for my outburst, im sorry i wouldnt wish death on anybody

 

[BlueAnorak]

Re: I think Dailymail is a ManU's newspaper.

Yet Martin Samuel is probably the the most balanced journalist out there. lways gives us a fair crack of the whip. For example, he knows exactly what FFP is all about.

The Mirror is by far the most rabid anti-City paper. Wall to wall rag fawning to boot.