I remember the score but we managed to win that game only because of sending off. Stoke were better team at that moment.
Perhaps it was the similarity to Eduardo injury incident that made me pessimistic of our challenge post that incident.
Ramsey was not influential but he was just starting to displace Denilson in the team, who was horrible that season & i couldn’t wait for Ramsey to take his spot.
So basically Stoke are missing their whole backline. Alexis to rip them apart.
Look how angry Fabregas is in the post match interview on Sky
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guGCCwppwWU
He was incredible after that sad incident. Played like a man possessed and single handidly got us the win if I remember.
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[quote=“Trion, post:38, topic:1000, full:true”]
Something i always wanted to ask and now that Ramsey is not everyone’s favourite anymore, I guess its safe to ask.
Was Shawcross’ tackle really bad or was it an accident?
I never brought myself to watch the tackle again, not because I can’t handle it but that was a sad day watching yet another player & yet another title challenge go down the drain.
[/quote]If you can imagine a footballer who is an idiot, being told by a manager who only has a neanderthal style of playing football, to go out and rough them up, then that’s what he did.
You could tell from the start, he was pumped and was running around, diving into tackles like a lunatic.
He should have been booked and told to calm down several times before what he did.
The amazing thing about the injury to Ramsey, was that Pulis came out and said, “he’s a nice lad and didn’t mean it,” as if Shawcross had somehow been hurt by the bad publicity.
It might have been an accident but you could tell that is was going to happen.
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I don’t put these two in the same category at all. Shawcross’ was a poor tackle, clumsy and shit but lacking in malice. I don’t think you can say the same for Smith’s. I’m sure he didn’t mean to shatter Diaby’s leg and help wreck his career, but there was a level of malice in his tackle imo, he clearly was trying to put one on Diaby. When you tackle like that you know what the risks are, so in my book he’s always been a cunt.
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He was a good captain and played like one after that injury.
It makes me sad to look back at non-evil Cesc like that. I think his leaving hit me harder than any of them around that time even though he left with dignity… kinda.
Yeah he did. Going “home” was never seen as being a traitor. And if you believe everything you hear and read he wanted to come back to us before going to Chelsea. I was still devastated though. I was in love with him, he was my screensaver and my measure of how guys should be, lol.
Mind you, I think he is a complete dick nowadays 
I’m waiting for @Luca_from_Italy obligatory photo of drinking in a deserted random pub :ramsey:
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Can’t stand Stoke, I think a 4-0 win.
Going to have a pizza and then i am gonna buy a shirt before the game :ozil2:
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I hate Stoke their manager and their knuckle dragging 6 toed fans ,il be there though !
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Two of our main competitors for top 4 can both lose points tomorrow. A comfortable 2-0 would be great.
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I don’t see how you can be sure of attributing malice to one but not the other though.
It’s like when all these overpaid pundits go on about “oh there was intent”, “I don’t think there was intent there”.
There’s only a very few incidents in football where you see the guy proper lose it and can say with surety that he intended to go and damage the opposing player
If we can get an early goal, I can see us winning comfortably but if they come and defend deep and we struggle it could be a 0-0 draw.
Although I think we have far to much in our attack for them too handle so maybe a 3-1 win.
I just hope we don’t get any injuries as well.
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I did try to throw in the odd “imo” or two in recognition of the fact that it is hard to tell what people’s intentions are from the outside.
Just from watching the two tackles is how I came to my judgment though. The way they both go into the tackles looks different to me, Dan Smith goes in aggressively with studs raised and Shawcross doesn’t. Shawcross goes in hard but the contact isn’t with his studs, it’s with the top of his foot and kind of his shin or leg. If your intention is to hurt your opponent I don’t think you go into the challenge like Shawcross did, in a way that also leaves you somewhat exposed to harm too. Shawcross’ immediate reaction looked to be one of horror/disbelief at what he’d done, which of course doesn’t mean that there was absolutely no malice in the first place, but to me it suggests that he didn’t intend to cause harm. That is totally open to interpretation though and I might be reaching.
As I said, I’m not accusing Smith of wanting to break his leg or anything like that, but looking at the tackle and the context of the match, it absolutely looks like a frustrated player putting a reducer in on his vastly more talented opponent. And as I said originally, even if there is no malice every player knows the risk of flying in forcefully leading with your studs, he was willing to take that risk with someone else’s well being, so he’s a cunt in my book. The way Shawcross went into the tackle wasn’t the same, you wouldn’t think there’s as big a risk of injury when you go into a tackle leading with the laces.
I respect your opinion though, you do raise a very good point about reading intentions from the outside, it relies too heavily on interpretation for this to be an objective discussion.
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Luca instead of your constant comment updates about matches going on, you should just post photo after photo (in the same single comment) with no caption at all…
Yeah db10 I enjoy them too that wasn’t my point I thought doing my suggestion could be pretty funny and interestinf
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That would actually be brilliant.