dubai_phil

Agree, however Gerrard (like bloody Lampard) always seems to score or set up goals against us

Liverpools' "resurgence" has coincided with them not playing UCL matches midweek due to the winter break. (and the return of Sturridge of course) While not counting chickens, results on a weekend following a big European match have often been "surprising" for most of the "Big Teams". Liverpool have a big European Night tonight, and while they aren't travelling back from the far side of Europe, tonight has to take a lot of their attention and emotional energy. Add to that the fact that Stevie G should be missing and Liverpool really are there for the taking on Sunday. I have no doubt that our lads needed the extra rest, Tadic & Pelle have certainly been found out by the intensity of the PL and let us hope they come back sharper. For those who talk about it not being a must win, taking "6 pointers" off Spuds & The Scousers is pretty bloody critical. It eases "must win pressure" and leaves us more focused on staying above Arsenal and the Mancs. I would like to see Mane playing closer to Pelle and us attacking their CB's with his pace more. While Elia & Mane wide is a scary prospect on paper for opposition teams, so far it hasn't seemed to work out that well. .................Forster.................... Clyne...Fonte...Toby/Maya.....Targett ...................VW.................. .......Davis...............Morgan/JWP... Mane.................................Elia... ...............Pelle.................... Think this is a game that RK should at least name the full set of subs even if to only give a nipper the experience

Semi Pro. A 2008 "Sports Movie" allowing Will Ferrell to be his normal annoying over the top character. It is set in 1976 and chronicles the no hoper Basketball team of Flint Michigan as they embark on a final season before their league merges with the NBA. Only 4 teams from the league will qualify for the expanded NBA........ The owner (Ferrell) trades the teams' washing machine for a washed out NBA has been - Woody Harrelson. It is one of those films that is on and you don't really watch, it certainly doesn't grab and connect with you, but fairly early on the Commissioner decrees that the Top 4 teams will move to the NBA and then barriers start to be put in the way to stop the no hopers including a crowd average of 2,000. There are some funny parts in the film - Wrestling with the Bear for one which becomes a running gag. And then the rules change and even though the losers COULD qualify by winning their last game they are told they are not media worthy and the rules are changed again. So the last 10 minutes becomes all about WINNING 4TH PLACE... And suddenly "CLICK" it's a parody of US this season. The whole City goes nuts for the Mega Bowl which could see them finish 4th (even though it would mean nothing). The fans stream out the stadium and trash the City in their wild celebrations for finishing FOURTH. And suddenly the brain flips and they're Saints fans rushing out of the Etihad and celebrating and trashing Manchester for finishing FOURTH.. But it doesn't count because Arsenil have won the UCL and Spuds have won the Europa and UEFA change the rules and we just don't care because at least we were fourth. Yeah, different context, could almost see RK wrestling the Bear and Ralph shooting down a ramp at the Northam on Roller Skates to whip the crowd up before KO. Stupid bloody film but maybe it fortold our future?

Better Call Saul. OK so I have NEVER seen an episode of Breaking Bad (Yes I have the boxed set, but my DVD blew up so it is saved for when I get a new one) Well Bear, I loved it. The sheer uselessness & incompetence exuded by the lead character hits memories of so many idiots I have met in life. You cannot help but chortle & splutter. So I consider myself lucky that I do NOT have to compare it every few seconds like all BB fans. It certainly stands on it's own. It has all the makings of a classic "Quirky Comedy" with a perfect Anti-Hero screwing up everything, a TV format that is as old as Steptoe & Son for example. BUT. And this is what made it stand out, the first two episodes had a flimmy flammy feel to them, a sort of lack of depth in everything and suddenly you can see that it does have an edge in there. It does look like it will have "a darker side" to it. What IS indisputable is the Cinematograhpy and the script. Absolutely top notch. So for me it was quality and enjoyable as a show in it's own right. On the Negative side, Mrs D_P couldn't stand it. The voices and the accents just grated on her from the very first scenes in the shopping Mall. In her words "It is SH1T. FFS The ol Brazilian Soap Operas we used to get on Polish TV back when I was a kid were better than this bxllxcks. It is VERY unusual for her to react like this (unless it is a horror movie which she hates) and as for the bit in the Desert in Ep2 she walked out the room completely - Unheard of! So mixed reviews from Chez Phil, chicks may hate it lads will love it. Pap - Thank God you mentioned Agent Carter. I thought it was just me wanting to be a dirty old letch (Although I am sure Carter is a little wider around the hips than she was in Captain America). At times, her (and Jarvis's) acting does come across as more Wooden than the Sequoia National Park. Perhaps Jarvis should have stayed being a computerised voice in Ironman but she is annoyingly compelling and when she swaps her OTT Lipstick and Office Gear for the Tac Team Jump Suit she leaps right up there again into "Really Hot Fiteh" land - and actually seems more relaxed in her acting! The plot really was written for Kids (or Comprehensive School Drop Outs) with the so many "Oh really, never saw that coming" "Focus" type moments. But for all of that it captures the spirit of the Period really well, and it does have a decent story on the go. Whether it needed live action big Marvel Budget or could have simply stayed in a Kids Comic, I'm not sure, but we have watched it all so far and it is good entertainment. Oh and mcj - Yep as expected, Resurrection S2 starts here on 21st Feb. Already programmed the "Sky Box thingy" to record the series. Can I just put in a quick passing mention for the UK's most hated show - Top Gear. The New Series is on down here at what must be the exact same time as you guys in the UK. The 1st Episode was a good old fashioned TG Road Trip. The 2nd had Daniel Riccardo and THAT will stay memorable for a long time after we've forgotten the funny but inane "Ambulance" gags Then they had Ep 3 and it was actually almost a Motoring Show, interspersed with some absolutely hysterical moments when "The STARS in the reasonably priced car" were on No spoilers but the line about how WRONG it was when JC was reading the Rap Lyrics was classic as was the destruction of the "Star" with the photo of the wheels (No spoilers as I know some may not have seen it yet) and the whole Argentina? How did that go? conversation Yeah the UK think he's a boorish Oaf. The rest of the planet love him

Nothing Else Matters on an Acoustic guitar no less. Also did I saw here standing there by the Beatles which was actually far better.

OK gang, time for the annual "Who would you choose if you could have a freebie?" debate. The Annual Jazz Festival is here again, so I can use airmiles to get tickets for one night free unfortunately due to "change of sponsor, only minion standing area this year We've got a mountain of "Big Name" acts coming over here at the moment, just about one a fortnight until April, just had Redfest with Kid Ink The Script, Wilkinson, Keisha, Bastille & Iggy Azalea (no I didn't go!) So you have a free ticket to ONE of these evenings this week. who would YOU pick? Christina Perri & James Blunt Sting ("ALL" The Greatest Hits Tour) John Legend Now, I haven't seen Christina live, but I've seen all the other main acts (John Legend before THAT bloody song when he was simply brilliant now he's famous and annoying because people ONLY want to hear that song) Also, James Blunt is kind of a hero of mine as the last time he was here he stopped one of his monologues and apologised on Valantines night no less for interrupting the women talking in Corporate (my other half & some people she'd just met) and waited for them to notice he was talking to them before he played a Metallica cover & Smoke on the Water "for all the poor sods who'd been dragged along to see him because their GF/Wives insisted" and told the women to pay attention to their Men who had had to suffer so much (watching him) because of their love for their GF/Wives. So, who would you pick and why. On the PROVISO that if you do NOT pick one of the acts you have to go on a meet and greet and VIP front row seats to see One Direction in April and you can't take the kids... (Note we do have proper (ish) bands heading our way - Dave Matthews Band, 30 Seconds to Mars heck even Paolo Nutini to fill out between the Robbie/Ed/1D sell outs)

Wow he is truly a God. He's gonna get the boys back together to write a new Footie Song just for us. The ONLY problem with this song is you can only sing it at Karaoke the week before England travel to get screwed every two (or four) years. Can't wait to hear what they come up with. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_YiG7yN7PY Oh. Perhaps I shouldn't have stayed up late to watch Top Gear & Better call Saul while guzzling a few OSH's Sorry for any inconvenience, I'll go and work on my hangover

In an article in the Daily Fail this week, Adrian Durham said we would not finish top 4 because Pelle's goals have dried up. Well as he is always right no need for us to turn up the next few weeks and clearly WHU are gonna cruise tonight's game, especially as we don't have a left back and have no defensive cover of note on the bench........ Which means Pelle to get a hat-trick then. And probably about time one bounced in the net off JWP's ass (as he sure ain't ever gonna score from shooting as he always induces worldy saves. 3 Points and keep VG and the others annoyed "We won't go away, we won't go Away Ay Yay, we are Southampton, we won't go away!" COYS BeIn Sports Channel 9 tonight here with only an Arabic commentary so you'll need to find NBC or someone else on a stream.

Christ Eric. You been going on speed reading lessons again? How the hell did you read Blotches post in 4 seconds? This tale reminds me of the "Overweight Fugly Dubai DJ" and his unfortunate memory lapse down at the Boston Bar a few years ago (He forgot the back door to the pub had CCTV (in both senses of the word allegedly) More to the point here inbetween the morally offended brigade (FFS people just go and wait in the cinema for 40 minutes until the naughty bits in 50 shades in a couple of days time) think you've all been missing the crotch of the matter - the opportunity for some really bad puns and new anti manu songs Will this derail Maure's bid to screw up Champion's League qualification again? Was it anywhere near a Nando's? Was Wayne having a "head" transplant. Did Angry do Maria? Was she a Foulcow?

Of course they do. And of course when a Sugar Daddy comes along with promises of great (non FFP compliant) investment with celebrity Managers and the like they will all use their "Shares" to refuse to allow a takeover, they'll all stand the moral high ground. They won't throw away their "Fan Owned" history, no sirree, they love it in the lower leagues. Like hell, they'll throw their worthless pieces of paper away faster than they threw away 150 million of debt.

So, a question for the true nutjob memoir recorders. When they had their last CVA they were completely debt free right? There were no staged payments or things left for the future? Nothing that anyone took a charge on? Was in conversation with a Queens Park Raisin fan after our game the other night and he seemed to think there was. I was adamant there couldn't be, otherwise we'd all be running around looking for those Popcorn gifs

I'm sure you had a lot of fun watching it home alone. Dubai Saints ‏@dubaisaints 14h14 hours ago Best turn out of the season!? #SaintsFC #GlobalSFC ericofarabia

Of course. Plus a change in the rules of football just for them so they can sign anyone they like outside the transfer window, plus a takeover this week by gazillionaires who will inject 4 billion into the club (all within FFP rules) and of course they can now build a double deck Supermarket with a Carrefour on top of the Tescos.

What a 40 point party. What a save by Forster. What a ball from Tadic to find Maya to set up the goal for Mane. What an insane expression of RELIEF when the goal went in. What a nightmare those moments when we didn't know if the Ref had disallowed the goal or not. What a great night to be a Saints fan. Even the QPR lads who watched the game wished us well on our crazy quest for the UCL. Christ, 5 years ago there were 2 of us down here watching games in the pub. Tonight, the Bar Staff, Waiters & the band all joined in singing OWTS. God bless you Ronald and the Boysh for what you have given us so far this season. May Allah, Buddha or God himself keep smiling on our crazy journey.

Thanks mcj. Streaming and the innernet here are not quite the same as elsewhere in the world. Let's just say everything here passes through Proxy Servers & has limited access to what you can get to in terms of downloads and VPN's and stuff. (Another way to say it would be Snowden/NSA/stuff on Sky News today) I see XBMC is now called Kodi and is available, trouble is 1) my home set up is not good enough to get a wifi signal downstairs to my telly area and secondly, the 60 quid a month I pay for 16Mps access gives me the equivalent of a new piece of string for my tin can receiver and that's about it. We have Satellite downstairs and Cable upstairs - Cable could only come in there ffs so I have BeIn Sports on a TV in the Bedroom and Movies downstairs which is where the bloody Sat cable comes in - totally fecked up but that is usual in this crazy sh1t hole We CAN get good streams from the local provider, OSN and in fact we get most US series about 12 hours after they are shown in the US heck, we even get Top Gear about 18 hours after you guys now! OSN have boxed sets but the kerfuffull isn't really worth it. As such we tend to head down the Pub once a week for Quiz night or the half price beer karaoke night and swap USB sticks/portable hard drives still! Normal routine is series record on our equivalent of Sky+ box then have a week power watching. Doing that (recording) with Legends at the moment (heck Sean Bean is starting to look a bit past it!) Hopefully by this summer the latest cabling upgrade in my area will be done and it will be worth upgrading the router & stuff, I have a mate who imports those "Google TV" type Dongle things from China & hope to get an agency for them! But all the mates I tested them with they either didn't fit the HDMI connector or didn't have more than a 5m WiFi range so waiting on the new spec'd ones. We'll get it sorted, wife started working for a major AV company here recently and is organising "evaluation" kit Plus they (OSN) are advertising Resurrection S2 as starting this month. If not the wife will do here smile thing and the lads at her work will get sorted. Failing that we'll share it around on download and we can hunker down with a bucket of tinnies over a weekend. I liked the Americans for a few episodes but it got a bit too "family" for me and I lost interest, will look out for Allegiance. Loved what Kiefer Sutherland said to Clarkson on Top Gear last week about TV now being the genre for real quality entertainment & how 24 Changed the World in that it introduced Power Watching.

Just been "Power Watching" a US series called Resurrection on our "CATCH UP" TV Channel. It stars Omar Epps (of House fame) and a bunch of "No darling you ain't no Olivia Wilde" lookalikes (so Bearsy won't like it none of the support chicks have decent bewbs). Some of you may have caught "The Leftovers" which was a weekly edition of wtf? where you couldn't work out what was going on. (I think Lost may have a lot to answer for in years to come), well Res is kinda a back to front Leftovers. Basically a kid is found in China and he had died like yonks ago, finds his way back to "Arcadia" in "Small Town USA" accompanied by a US Customs Dude. So there is a whole bunch of "Family coming to terms with the Son they lost eons ago". Then another one comes back who is about the same age as his daughter, then another and...... So yeah an inverted Leftovers where The Departed come back, but not in a Walking Dead way. It isn't World Class acting, it isn't House or The Leftovers or The Walking Dead, BUT it is a good yarn and well put together. S2 looks like it hit the US from September 2014 through to January this year so should be around on Download or Sky. Damn site better than a re-run of Bargain Hunt or anything on Food Network or endless repeats of Star Trek into Darkness, a good story, well put together, looking forward to S2 coming in to land in the next weeks here. Because the cute chicks in it are a little light on the Bewb stakes it only rates a 3.5 out of 5. But fun and a good S1 climax.

Nailed on loss on Saturday. The Dubai Massive are (FINALLY) having their much postponed 40 point party before the game with fine dining by Eric & sponsored by Heineken & OSH. Which means we'll all break our usual "lucky" routines for getting down the pub to watch the match. It was such a simple plan, nailed on 3 pointer against 'twitchy and then we go and get new manager syndrome as well. Ho hum. With so many players coming back I doubt that RK will want them all on the pitch at the same time in case of stamina/match fitness/reactions so would expect to see only one of MS/VW making a start alongside the ever improving Harry Read. Big decision is whether we need to have two DM's against the unbalanced midfield of QPR in which case I'd go with this. Personally I don't think we'd need them so would go with Morgan as lone DM and Davis JWP in CM with the wide players more in support of Pelle. But then I know sod all, would actually like to see Mane play up alongside Pelle in a more 4-4-2 (4-4-1-1) formation as I think that is his strongest position & he scares CB's to death and would also give Caulker two different problems to cope with. ..................... Forster...... Clyne......Fonte......Maya........Targett .................VW/Morgan............ Tadic...Davis...JWP........Elia ..............Mane.................... ..............Pelle....................... Subs: KD VW/MS, Gardos, Read, Djuricic, McCarthy, Seager/Gallagher On the positive side it will be on live streams but not on Sky so maybe Eric will finally see us win this season in the EPL at the Pub after all. In which case Sunday is cancelled

'Arry's problem now with much of the media is the fact that he won his Tax Case in Court. (For a more in depth discussion of this, read approx 8,000 pages of PTS. I did mention names and context at the time and no I won't do it again on here as it upsets Supermikey) While he appeared to the wider world to come out of his days in court smelling of Rosies, the damnation of him was in the amount of "Evidence" that the CPS had gathered but with which they had then "made procedural error type" mistakes with. As a result, a swathe of Evidence became inadmissible in Court and yet much of it had been tweeted or commented on prior to court orders blocking or turning it into material that had not been priven in Court & therefore potentially Libellous. While some like the Sky TDD crew still need 'Arry to give them their annual fill of cliches, a great deal of the veneer was stripped away with many Sports Reporters as a result. The snippets that I heard retold make his lack of IT skills, and Rosie's bank account seem the most professional and sane thing he ever did. Nobody is going to be follish enough to type or publish those rumours or allegations, and nobody will be stupid enough to put any of the tales into any form of written record anywhere as that would just automatically put more money in "Arry's coffers and see the authors hauled off to court. But many people "stopped loving "Arry" and over the coming days I would expect to see a number of leaks and character assassinations coming to press. It's not difficult to ask reporters what they had heard, just check out who tweets matchday updates on our home games from the "Broadsheets" and go stalk them on their way out of SMS.

Did somebody mention golf? But seriously, the take up rates for kids learning golf have halved in the last 5 years. The new Twitter generation can simply no longer see any reason in spending 5 hours following some old numpties who spend more time chatting than they do hitting a golf ball. Golf used to take 3.5 hours now it takes getting close to 5 hours people simply don't have that time any more unless you're unemployed or able to play "Millionaires Golf" at some club charging 200 quid a round. So the number taking it up is dropping and their reaction is to REDUCE the number of people who can see it on Public TV. Yes they will take the money, yes they will invest it in more coaches and more Academy subsidies to get schoolkids playing, but in another couple of years everyone will have forgotten who Tiger Woods was and what he did for Divorce Lawyers (oops sorry Golf) and many will never get to watch the extreme masterclass that (for example) Rory put on this past weekend here in Dubai. You watch, next up will be "Nobody plays on the Muni courses anymore so let's turn them into housing blah blah blah.... Stupid decision and one which will come back to haunt them

Allegedly this has all come about because the Council has knocked back the plans to expand the Stadium to 60,000 over the summer. That's my third post for this month

Good to see the next crop of first teamers doing well..... Clearly we didn't need to add to the squad... And Sam Gallagher's back. Now, where did they hide the facepalm button Southampton FC ‏@SouthamptonFC 3m3 minutes ago GOAL: @ChelseaFC 5-0 #SaintsFCU21s (Dominic Solanke-Mitchell 38) 0 replies2 retweets1 favorite Reply Retweet2 Favorite1 More

So we need a goal scoring striker. Preferably with a bit of pace. I see Oldham have their Top Scorer attracting interest. Think we should get in there Johno Quick. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Forte

zzzzzz Next time I'll just type "People who work at Sky Sports believe this story to be true" I'll leave out the context and you can moan about where and how I had a source for that.

There's a golf thingy here this week (again) (Sash Shirts on Saturday by all our Massive) Anyways, bumped into my "mates" from Sky Sports 'tater crew today and they said "Wes Sneijder? Wtf? You guys are 'avin a larf surely? Jeez, you pull that off it would be huge" And before you all ask, no, they have no other sources than the ones we have been reading, and yes they did ask loads of "Do you guys really think you can make the CL? "Thought you guys had popped your cork (I liked that) back in December when you went on that bad run. Etc etc etc. So anyway no new news but they DO all know about the rumour

I'd been to Poly in Skatesmuff and one of my pals had moved to North End for work, so the whole weekend was about going down to see him and his missus, staying over and having a night out in Southsea after the game. We actually took the Bus from his place down to Nott Arf (scarves were tied round our waists under our shirts and certainly not showing any colours. I remember we were about in line with the Penalty Area to the left of the goal looking at the Pitch and I remember we went absolutely mental when Biley missed then we scored. Leaving the ground we could see the "carnage" broken radio aerials IF you were lucky through to bricked windscreens on anything with a Bristol Street Motors sticker in the back window. I remember standing in a queue at a Bus-stop with "painted on" glum faces and just occassional grunts and harumphs and farking scummah comments muttered under our breath. Then we were on the bus, sitting upstairs and it was like being at a bloody funeral, just occassional outburts of Caarnts or scummah farkers. We reached North End, got off the bus of gloom which drive off and just let out this huge YEAAAAHHH with fist pumps and that sideways kick in the air people used to do when they were over the moon.... To see the Bus had stopped at a Red Light 50m ahead of us and people pointing and shouting and doors opening and suddenly we were away and running and down alleys between terraced houses, over some fence, through some sandpit and then finally about 30 minutes later banging desperately on my mates front door as he'd lost his keys and we could hear some morons still coming down the next street... Then we showered and changed and went slag hunting at Nero's or whatever it had become in those days. We'd learnt our lesson and kept things down to repeated requests to play Frankie Valli & Oh What a Night or Kool & the Gang - Celebrate. Yep a night out in poorsmuff celebrating a last minute Saints win is pretty high up there in the list of "Great Moments".