The midweek/weekend games thread

[NaijaSpurs]

Those of you happy with Chelsea beating Barca on Wednesday I suggest you be very careful, remember if they win the CL and we finish 4th we are

I guess there will be more diving and time wasting from Drogba next week as well

 

[Raziel]

Those of you happy with Chelsea beating Barca on Wednesday I suggest you be very careful, remember if they win the CL and we finish 4th we are

I guess there will be more diving and time wasting from Drogba next week as well

Mate, Cheat$ki against a Mourinho Real Madrid ... no chance ...

Not that it's even likely the 1-0 against Barca will be enough, still see Barca as big favourites

 

[Superted]

Not sure roulette is a good comparison... The odds are fixed

Here is a scenario:

Wolves (4/1) are playing Everton (6/5) at home

10000 punters back wolves to win

There are no bets on Everton

What happens to the odds...?

This. The way I understand it, the big betting agencies employ people to calculate the opening odds. Then as bets come in, they are adjusted via a mathematic formula. Form, home ground advantage, etc only coming into establishing the opening odds. Then it's all about market influence. The final odds virtually have nothing to do with anything but weight of money.

 

[Modric THFC]

This. The way I understand it, the big betting agencies employ people to calculate the opening odds. Then as bets come in, they are adjusted via a mathematic formula. Form, home ground advantage, etc only coming into establishing the opening odds. Then it's all about market influence. The final odds virtually have nothing to do with anything but weight of money.

One thing that illustrates this is England odds. In International tournaments England's odds are always much shorter than they have any right to be. Once the usual England hype machine gets into gear punters will stupidly back England. Watch how England's odds will come right in from 10/1 to something like 5/1 right before the tournament starts.

 

[DubaiSpur]

What a surprise. Dubai spurs was tossing over the Spanish league and most people saying bar a would teach Chelsea a lesson, I said no way will that happen and the Spanish is astonishingly weak. I still think Barca will go through, but hopefully this will stop all the masterbataing of Barca and Spanish football. They are amazing, just not THAT amazing, and thenspanish league is tinkle poor and makes them and real look better than they are

Chelsea were on the ropes for almost all of it. Barring a considerable number of embarassing(and extremely uncharacteristic)misses, Barcelona would have won that game with ease.

They are unlikely to be as forgiving, or as profligate, at the Nou Camp.

 

[milo]

Mate, Cheat$ki against a Mourinho Real Madrid ... no chance ...

Not that it's even likely the 1-0 against Barca will be enough, still see Barca as big favourites

What makes you so certain that Real will get to the final? They are down after the first leg, have let their lead slip in La Liga and have a tough game this weekend

 

[ArcspacE]

What makes you so certain that Real will get to the final? They are down after the first leg, have let their lead slip in La Liga and have a tough game this weekend

Because they only need a single goal to go through and having averaged around 3.1 goals a game this season (all comps) and 157 in total - there is a good chance they'll squeeze a few out.

I'd say the odds are very much against Bayern in this case

In addition - Real Madrid have scored in every single CL game so far this season at an average of 3 goals per game. No team has managed to keep a clean sheet against them. In fact - they have managed to draw a blank in only 2 games this entire season out of 52.

 

[Robbo]

I just hope, for the sake of entertainment for the neutral, that Barca get an early goal or two against Chelski next week.
The 90 minutes of ultra defensive tactics, hoofing, diving and time wasting yesterday, was more than enough.

 

[ArcspacE]

I just hope, for the sake of entertainment for the neutral, that Barca get an early goal or two against Chelski next week.
The 90 minutes of ultra defensive tactics, hoofing, diving and time wasting yesterday, was more than enough.

If that is how Chelsea played at home - imagine what would happen next week away. Probably bring some shovels along and have Cahill and Terry dig out a moat around Cech and simply form a man-wall. Embarassing.

 

[camspur]

All I can say after last night's match si I wish my wife went down as easily and quickly as Drogba did all game.

 

[indianspur]

i got the impression both Real and Barca played well within themselves and were reserving their energies for the El Classico this coming weekend.

its gonna be brutal on Saturday

 

[GrimsbyYid]

i got the impression both Real and Barca played well within themselves and were reserving their energies for the El Classico this coming weekend.

its gonna be brutal on Saturday

Yes, that's the reason they both lost. It can't be because they simply aren't as good as everyone makes out and that they can't annihilate teams like people think. No. Its dieftienily because they were saving themselves for a match at the weekend. Because by GHod teams can't play at full capacity twice in that period. They almost let the others teams win. I'm surprised they didn't drop all their first team players actually. Champions League isn't important so not really trying is definitely what happened.

 

[GrimsbyYid]

Barca outplayed Chelsea throughout the game, they created the most chances by far and were unlucky to not win. That was at Stamford Bridge with Chelsea playing one of the more defensive games I've seen from any team. If anything this match just confirmed the difference in ability between Barca and teams like Chelsea.

Yeah, that tinkle poor Spanish league, with poor teams like Athletico Bilbao in 8th - they would get crushed by most English teams...

And Chelsea beat them. Defending brilliantly. And Bilbao are not close to most teams in the premiership, they have a couple of great players who who can turn it on. People who say 'they must be great they beat the best team in the premier league" are so idiotic. Wigan beat Man u are they the best team in the premier league?! It means nothing, especially in a cup which is widely disrespected.

 

[GrimsbyYid]

Chelsea were on the ropes for almost all of it. Barring a considerable number of embarassing(and extremely uncharacteristic)misses, Barcelona would have won that game with ease.

They are unlikely to be as forgiving, or as profligate, at the Nou Camp.

Funny. When Tottenham batter most teams on here and still don't pull it out people slag us off and say the other team just knew how to beat us. But when it is the saviours of football Bracalona then they were still the best team ever. Funny. Maybe Chelsea "just knew how to beat them"

 

[Baleforce]

I can easily see Chelsea sneaking a 0-0 next week, yes they'll need to defend perfectly and ride their luck a bit, but Barca won't throw anything at them they didn't last night.

 

[Modric THFC]

I can easily see Chelsea sneaking a 0-0 next week, yes they'll need to defend perfectly and ride their luck a bit, but Barca won't throw anything at them they didn't last night.

Guardiola will have a week to come up with some bizarre tactic to break them down.
He might even play that inverted pyramid from the Getafe match that everyone was raving about.

 

[mick cooper]

Pwned

Oh dear...........

 

[indianspur]

Yes, that's the reason they both lost. It can't be because they simply aren't as good as everyone makes out and that they can't annihilate teams like people think. No. Its dieftienily because they were saving themselves for a match at the weekend. Because by GHod teams can't play at full capacity twice in that period. They almost let the others teams win. I'm surprised they didn't drop all their first team players actually. Champions League isn't important so not really trying is definitely what happened.

nice tirade

did you even watch last nights game.....everyone else who did said that Barcelona played below their usual high level and yet still they created 6 or 7 clear goal scoring chances

they ARE as good as everyone makes out.

 

[Jurgen the German]

And Chelsea beat them. Defending brilliantly. And Bilbao are not close to most teams in the premiership, they have a couple of great players who who can turn it on. People who say 'they must be great they beat the best team in the premier league" are so idiotic. Wigan beat Man u are they the best team in the premier league?! It means nothing, especially in a cup which is widely disrespected.

Bilbao dingdonged all over United TWICE! Are you actually suggesting that Madrid and Barca aren't the two best teams? Who are then? United and City?

If the English teams are all so vastly superior to the Barca and the rest of the teams in Spain, then why does every English team that plays Barca spend 90% of the game camped outside their own penalty box and can't seem to muster more than 1 shot on target? In fact, if you add up all the shots on target from Arsenal, Chelsea and United in their last games against Barca, it probably wouldn't add up to more than about 5. If you can't see that Chelsea were incredibly lucky to win last shot then you clearly weren't watching the game.

 

[Modric THFC]

And Chelsea beat them. Defending brilliantly. And Bilbao are not close to most teams in the premiership, they have a couple of great players who who can turn it on. People who say 'they must be great they beat the best team in the premier league" are so idiotic. Wigan beat Man u are they the best team in the premier league?! It means nothing, especially in a cup which is widely disrespected.

Chelsea beat Barcelona. It doesn't mean they are a better team than Barcelona. It means nothing.