Premier League Saturday, Gameweek 28: Open Thread
Ryan Giggs will play his 1,000th senior appearance today (as long as Sir Alex Ferguson doesn’t spoil the plot). If he does play for the Red Devils, it’ll be 22 years to the day when he made his debut for United on March 2, 1991.
I, and many others, thought that Giggsy would be making his 1,000th appearance for United today. In fact, he’s made 931 for Manchester United, 64 for Wales and four for Great Britain. If only he had played more for Wales instead of pulling out of matches (cough, cough), he would have hit the 1,000 mark much sooner.
But full credit to Giggs, who has been a positive role model and inspiration to the game.
As an aside, only 3 players have played in the Premier League aged 42 or older. Those are goalkeepers John Burridge, Alec Chamberlain and Steve Ogrizovic. Giggs will be 40 in November.
With no early kick-off today, we have seven matches kicking off simultaneously at 10am ET/9am PT/3pm UK time, so you have time to rest this morning before those games. And then there’s one late kick-off with Wigan against Liverpool (12:30pm ET on FOX Soccer, for readers in the United States).
The 10am ET/3pm UK kickoffs are:
Manchester United vs Norwich
Chelsea vs West Brom
Swansea vs Newcastle
Southampton vs QPR
Everton vs Reading
Stoke vs West Ham
Sunderland vs Fulham
Check out the TV and Internet schedule to find out where you can watch each match live.
Have a wonderful Saturday!
48 Responses to Premier League Saturday, Gameweek 28: Open Thread
Sunny and clear blue skies in Stoke, temperature might even creep up to 9 or 10c, though it’ll still be cold in the shade.
I expect a 0-0 bore draw unless the refe intervenes with a penalty or sending off. The teams are too similar in style like when we play Sunderland, I think we’ll just cancel each other out. That said West Ham have a shocking away record and Stoke aren’t known as Registered Charity number 1863 for nothing, so the hammers could go away with all 3 pts.
Predictably Pulis will start with Crouch, we’ll labour and struggle, he’ll bring on Jones and Jerome around 60-70 minutes and everyone will curse him not starting them.
Hopefully Jussi is still having nightmares about the 5 goals he conceded against us at Wembley.
As for elsewhere Southampton v QPR looks the most intriguing game today given their league positions. I’d like to see QPR win just to stir things up a little.
Bale Hotspurs vs Arsenal is the one everyone want’s to see this weekend though.
Forgot to say that Stenio will be on the pitch at half time today, it gives me the excuse to post this link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yX49d4Wq3VU
This man’s magic! He scores goals that others simply dream of.
The Golden One.
jtm – forward the link to 5.22, Forest get pummelled.
And again at 7.31
Ian
WOW just when a Forest fan has a glimmer of light then you smash me with the Stoke highlight reel against Forest.
you need to go youtube and enter Forest European Cup Winner.
missed you on the breakfast debate thought for sure you would chime in with some Midland breakfast favorite.good luck to the Potters today.Forest is at Hillsborough today keep the momentum going.
Go back and check the food story again, jtm. Oatcakes!
Ian
i found your breakfast post.
Tricky Trees are 0-1 up! I’m a huge Clough fan so am well aware of the miracles performed at Forest during that period. A freak occurance or could that happen again to a club that size? If Swansea keep hold of Laudrup them having a good go at the UEFA Cup wouldn’t be far off.
Some interesting matches lie ahead today. Hope Chelsea lose to see what follows. Man U guaranteed a win so can’t say anything about that, be good if Norwich can hold them to a single goal.
Well, looks like Ferguson has spoiled the plot. Giggs not even on the bench.
No early read on Gus Johnson’s whereabouts?
I tried to tell myself I would stop slagging the dead horse here, but I am trying to plan my viewing schedule (office with computers and FS2Go if Gus is on Fox Soccer, HD TV in living room if not.)
Of course leading again to the essential point – pretty damned poor when you, as a network, inflict an announcer that is so terrible as to make people rearrange their habits around avoiding him.
Marc L
i am sure he will be front and center to screw up the Spurs Arsenal match on Sunday.mute T.V. listen on talksport.
Makes sense, come to think. I just fear they will stick him on Chavski-Albion also just to compound the annoyance.
Just saw that Piers Morgan will be on FSC tomorrow. I don’t what will be worse having to listen to either him or Gus Johnson. I guess there is a mute button for a reason. Thankfully, FoxSoccer2Go has had non-Gus Johnson commentary streams.
Hey Gaffer, constructive suggestion for “EPL Talk TV and Internet Schedule:” highlight where Gus Johnson is scheduled to appear (if you know.)
Hell, not as if Fox itself doesn’t do this (implicitly acknowledging how terrible he is) on the Fox Soccer 2 Go listing for the UCL matches. Seems like they don’t give you that heads-up very far in advance, though.
Thanks Marc, but I disagree. I don’t want to highlight which commentators are going to be appearing (and which ones aren’t). The TV schedule is focused on the games, not the talent
Cheers,
The Gaffer
5 mins 42 Seconds in & Ramirez fouls for a free kick, let’s see how many fouls he commits….. My guess 6-8
Guy
thanks for food update/breakfast did not check back after about post 50.almost 100 posts food football a great marriage.
Meh…useless west brom .
is there anything pardew doesn’t complain about
Dirty dirty Newcastle performance in the first half, hacking Swansea players and trying to stop them from playing their game.
Disappointing that Newcastle has to resort to these sort of tactics.
Cheers,
The Gaffer
Tiote especially i see a red card for him in the second half if he isn’t careful
Fox having Piers Morgan on the show tomorrow just adds to the ridiculousness of their coverage… Another clueless pundit to add to the show…. Ugghh
In addition to being clueless, he also loves to hear himself talk, which makes things even worse. Maybe a massive scoreline in favor of Spurs will keep him quite.
Man U vs Norwich still 0-0 at half time, great news for now. Whether it’ll still be this way at the end of 90 minutes is, however, a very different thing
Hey Gaffer,
As the BPL becomes more and more depemdent on its global tv money (currently 2 billion of the 5) and its member clubs want to gain more supporters and revenue, do you think they will consider moving the kick off times in favor of certain markets? They play evening games midweek, surely there would be other benefits to moving the times from noon and 3 to say 5,6,& 8 pm on Sunday and Saturday like… The routine of the players being more consistent…
I know 3pm is a long standing tradition, Germany and Spain play later in the day…
Thoughts?
It’ll happen, but very slowly. They need to make sure they don’t upset the core fanbase in the UK that go to the matches who are very resistent to change.
Maybe in 2-3 years they may try to start making small changes to the schedule to feature earlier kick-off times to appeal to the Asia market (where those games would be shown live in primetime).
Cheers,
The Gaffer
My response to this will be it will be solely to suit the top 6 teams.
To be honest when that happens it’ll be the straw that breaks the camels back for a lot of older supporters.
AMF is the anacronym of choice at present amongst many for a good number of reasons.
Won’t happen. The bulk on income comes from the domestic sales and they like it how it is because they’re getting the best of both worlds. Even from next season when the TV allowance goes up from 138 to 154, none of those extra 16 games are going to be 3pm matches moved – they’re going to be made up from matches already being played on Sunday’s due to Europa League etc.
The Asian markets etc are important in terms of marketing revenue but there’s none more important than the UK – the Sky and BT money far outweighs what comes in from foreign territories. Nobody (broadcasting wise) likes the 12.45 kickoff as it is. It performs really bad in terms of viewing figures compared to other slots. The kick off times are decided by the police as much as the clubs and they wouldn’t allow football any later than what’s already played. Saturday 8pm kickoffs would be a nightmare for everybody. In Spain they’ve got a completely different culture to what we have.
There would have to be a clear 2 hour slot in between matches as well because of exclusivity of the host broadcasters. Matches can’t overlap and clash on TV here so it’d have to be 5.15, 7.15 & 9.15 because the blackout doesn’t end until 5.15 on Saturday. As for Sunday, it’s already a pain having 4pm matches.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. Not going to listen to the second half of the Stoke match. Maybe that will change things around. It sure can’t make them any worse.
Well, that really worked.
The Fox halftime proram showed goals from every match, except Stoke v West Ham. Come on, guys! At least let me be a little more miserable!
Excellent win by Swansea today against a very dirty Newcastle United side in the first half. United played better than the Swans in the second half and could have won it, but substitute Luke Moore took his chance to give the Swansea a 1-0 victory before doing a lap of honor around the pitch to show off the League Cup trophy.
With the win today, Swansea have reached safety in the league with 40 points, with 10 games to go.
Cheers,
The Gaffer
Happy for Swans, but it won’t take 40.
It’s that romanticized 40 number even though 30-something (or less) would be adequate this season.
Cheers,
The Gaffer
With Stoke’s record lately, I’m counting on it!
Oh no! Huge blow to the Latics’ chances of staying up – Dippers have Shelvey on the bench.
Johnson and Barton confirmed as commentators for Utd v Madrid….
They can put that out there, but they can’t make me listen to it.
Dreadful to do. Will not be long before the Pulis out chants start.
Just listening to Ian Darke today upset my stomach knowing what tomorrow brings. Darke and the other top commentators just talk you through the match…like they are in the living room with you having a casual conversation. And everytime he brings up a casual anecdote about a player, team or grounds just solidifies that no one that has not grown up with the game can ever be a top flight commentator…Gus Johnson or anyone.
This fact pretty much eliminates any American from ever being a top flight international commentator…MLS, maybe…but never an international star. And I doubt that many, if any, MLS announcer even knows the history of the NASL other than Pele and the Cosmos.
FOX SUCKS!! THANKS FOR RUINING OUR VIEWING EXPERIENCE AND RUINING THE BEAUTIFUL GAME.
Fox just used a “Piers in the studio” promo for tomorrow. Haha. Let me set my alarm.
Look up Stephen Fry’s definition of the word countryside.
Fantastic and appropriate adapatation of the English language.
haha. Perfect!
Good win for my Chels. A much needed 3 points to go back to third. Now for a gooners win or a scoreless draw tomorrow.
Ian
i don’t think what Forest did with the E Cup wins could be done today. not to knock the minnows of the world money to big.my side has been a minnow longer then a power or top of the table side.another win today away BD has the Trees rampaging still stuck in 8TH.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this blog post
2madison.com adalah tempat belanja online untuk produk gaya hidup pilihan: Aksesoris/tas eksklusif, dekorasi interior, poster/graphic art untuk rumah dan perkantoran,dll.Kunjungi resto-gallery kami di 2Mad Eatery, jl Benda Raya 46-Kemang.