You ought to have proper football conversations with real English people.

From my experience, most of the stereotyping on this forum is blown out of proportion. Yes, there are English people who want nothing but hoofball at a million miles an hour. I've encountered them, too. But too many on this forum (possibly embittered by how average our NT is at the minute) stoop to nothing but stereotyping and massive exaggeration.

Similarly, too many on this forum (who claim to know loads) think in exactly the same extremes that the stereotyped English fans thinks in (just the other end of the spectrum). Where the stereotyped English fan believes that all footballers need to be big and good at running, some of the 442 counterparts seems to think wingers and strikers don't need to have any pace whatsoever (in fact, they seem to look upon those type of athletic traits with suspicion).

Where the stereotyped English fan seems to think that goalkeepers need to cover the entire goal and to be able to kick from one end of the pitch to the other, some of this forum seem to think goalkeepers can have slow reactions, poor agility, a poor leap, poor hand-eye co-ordination and it's fine as long as they have tidy distribution and they can sweep.

Where the stereotyped English fan seems to think the wingers should run helter-skelter down the wing and bomb it into an oncoming striker on every occasion, some on this forum think it's anathema to score a headed goal.

Ryan starting in Romania and they're up 1:0 after 20. I really hope they get through and get a decent draw and then get a big side in the following round. 

Why Man City won't face their own player Aaron Mooy in the FA Cup

The news that promising Manchester City midfielder Aaron Mooy would not be allowed to play against his own club in Saturday's FA Cup tie has caused some puzzlement.

After all, Blues fans were delighted to see young winger Patrick Roberts in action against them for Celtic in the Champions League – and not so delighted when he put the visitors ahead.

Many fans went on social media to plead with City to “allow” Australia international Mooy to play against them in the fifth round tie, to gauge how good he is.

Mooy has, after all, been the prime reason that the Terriers have been pushing for a play-off spot all season and now – after a surge of six straight wins – have an eye on an automatic passage into the Premier League.

But the simple fact is that Mooy is forbidden by the FA's own rules for the competition, and the player's ineligibility is nothing to do with City.

The FA's rules state “The association will not give permission for players on loan or work experience to play against the lending club”.

Roberts was able to play for Celtic against City because Uefa's Champions League rules state the opposite – that a loan player cannot be STOPPED from playing against his parent club.

Many fans pointed out that Sanchez Watt played against his club Arsenal in the FA Cup while on loan at Leeds in 2011, after the Gunners gave permission for him to do so.

But that was the last time anybody played against the club owning his registration - the FA changed the rules in the 2011-12 season.

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/man-city-news-aaron-mooy-12612658

Ryan concedes. No footage so no idea idea what happened. 

2:2 in the end. 2 vital away goals for Genk.

Conceded at the near post from an acute angle just under the bar. Should've done better. Second goal there was nothing he could do about though, and he did make one decent save to keep a header out.

they are a basket case, constant rotation of managers and players, yes they are rich. But they haven't made the play-offs since they were relegated. 

Rich means nothing now that FFP has come in to play.  For the past two years we have been trying to get rid of the players we bought in when we were "rich" because there was the threat of FFP sanctions.  Mass was part of a new strategy of buying young talent from the lower leagues for cheap and seeing how they turn out.  Unfortunately for Mass the fans have now gone full retard and ignore statistics and only want "grafters" in the team.  The forums are full of bitter old men who constantly abuse a young kid who likes Luongo and uses stats to back it up.  They then go on to say that they have been attending games for 50 years and don't need no stats to tell them anything and that Mass is "utter pish"

ian holloway is a decent manager. he has already pulled out a bag of shit from relegation. another season with him and he could take them through to promotion.

this thread really deserves its own subforum. 

Just finished watching Genk v Astra.
Genk look good, enjoy their attacking plays and that they like to push forward, holding a home team to mostly counter-attacking play.
This left Maty Ryan with not too much work.
His first goal you cannot blame him, supurb shot with a very low chance of saving. The player was left in space without any real defence.
The 2nd goal conceded was a little disheartening, conceded in the last couple minutes and Maty should have done better. He saved a decent shot just before it.

Look forward to more Genk in the Europa league

Mabil doing very well at Esbjerg. A goal and 2 assists overnight. If he can keep improving, he has the potential to be the x-factor the Socceroos are lacking in the final third.

It's great he's doing well, he's currently being loaned to a lower Danish club. Hopefully he can get back to Midget Land (you know what mean)
Nice little back heel pass for his first assist.
Keeper messed to allow Mobil to get that goal.

Superb. Looks as if he has learnt not to sky it into row z too. I also like his ability to provide oppurtunities as well. Something that seems to be added to his game. 

null
@inlah
What? Davidson's 2 apparences in the pl?

Sainsbury continues to get benched for Inter
thoughts?

As in, it's a good thing he's in the squad? It is encouraging that he's been in the squad after only arriving weeks ago. Any game time at all would be a massive positive and a rather big surprise. 

Arriving weeks ago doesnt mean he cant start
It would be a bit of a suprise since his not at that level yet

You need to lower your expectations somewhat 

null
Its not my expectations. It is true arriving weeks ago can mean that u can start if you have been cleared with pressumbly Sainsbury has otherwise he wouldnt be on the bench
So what, the reason his on the bench is cause he only arrived weeks ago? Come on now. It's cause his not good enough. And that's the truth unfortunately

he's got a bit of practice to do to step up from the shit at china tbf.

pretty good sign that he's even on the bench.  was not expecting a match day squad for some time/cup game/injury emergency.  the boy has the goods,  but he has not been playing at a level good enough for him to develop like a normal top level player.

played for west brom.

what says he isn't good enough? He is the Socceroo's best central defender at the moment. We are the reigning Asian champions, we consistently perform well in friendlies against top 20 nations and yet a lot of Australian fans think for some reason our players aren't good enough to be playing at the highest level! 

Coaches in the top 5 leagues are by nature conservative as hell. Too much is on the line for them to go out and promote an unknown quantity every week. Most throw in one or two here and there but that's the exception. Every other player will be someone tried and tested at that level of football, either with that club or with another club in the same division/league. 

Australian players currently face the bias of not having any players in the top leagues. Conservative coaches see that and have to judge all Australian players by that bias. Some do it worse than others but the judgement is there. 

Coaches do not judge players entirely on the football or the training. 100%

They just don't. 

Team selection is based on so, so many other factors than just footballing ability.

The ability of Australia as a footballing nation should see our players treated better but it doesn't, because we currently don't have anyone shining at club level. We have the talent. Our national team performances prove that. The recent history proves that with Kewell, Cahill, Viduka and the like, but so many of our players of that era got a look in because their national team teammates were performing well in top leagues. I mean Emerton was playing every week in the EPL one season and then came to the A League and didn't manage to stand out. He was an average A League player. 

Australian football just isn't that bad. The gap is not big. An Australian national team player like Sainsbury should get a look in at a club like Inter. He just should. He has the ability judging by his standing in a national team like ours. 

But that's not how European coaches see it. And that's not how Eurosnob fans see it.

Rant over.

Bias against Australian players isn't new, just the world is more globalised now than 20 years ago creating stronger competition.

we get a few in decent teams and it will change. we can always be flavour of the month.  if mooy and rogic move to top leagues next year and kill it more will follow.

No. Look at the players that get games for top flight teams. Football managers are picking from amongst more nationalities. The same countries are over represented. Players from the nation the league is from also get an unwarranted boost. 

Actually that's an interesting debate I had with a mate the other day. I actually think English, Chinese and Gulf nations would do better if they didn't have a home grown rule and clubs could buy and play any player whatsoever. My thinking is that this would then correct the market in regards to the price of homegrown talent. Because in all those countries the local players are disproportionately expensive and their ability doesn't match up to their market price. 

This is why the A League consistently beats Chinese teams because the local Chinese players are grossly overpaid making it seem like the A League team is up against millions and millions of dollars of talent when in actual fact they're up against 3 players worth millions, one worth a few hundred thousand and then seven players worth four fifths of fuckall. Chinese players just aren't anywhere near as good as their wage suggests. Same with the English, same with most of the Gulf nations. 

As I said before, coaches in Europe are conservative. South American and European nations are over represented at the top level. Even Africans only get a look in if they do well at a lower Euro club first. 

We just need our national team and even our youth teams to get some decent results, ideally a long run into a major tournament then i think aussie players will get noticed again, also the quality of player we have produced in recent years has dropped off which we already knew.

To be fair any country that does well or a certain player does well then it becomes the flavor of the month to look into that country, that's what ange is saying.

Hopefully the quality of young player improves and at the same time we start to get better results at international level which happened during the 90s the attention towards us kicks in again.

Amini's AGF Aarhus at 2 AM tonight.

Yeboah and Leckie starting. Bulut bench.

note: bench