Greenlizard0 Weekend Football Thread ** spoilers ** [18th - 21st January 2014]

[Gooner Leroy]

Haha poor Wham

 

[G|mp]

Oh well

I'm hoping Sunderland do us over, I really don't want City to paste us :/

 

[drunkenmaster]

Well done to Pepe Mel for actually making an effort to speak English and doing a good job of it, unlike Pochettino who can't be arsed.

According to one person when i blasted Pochettino for not speaking english is that so his comments arent taken out of context or something to that effect by the media. A lame pathetic excuse all the same if you ask me, you live and work in a english speaking country so should at least be able to speak the language. He is just as bad if not worse than the immigrants who come here and dont make an effort to speak the native language.

Blasted, or explained? The simple fact is you have no idea how good Pochettino's english is compared to Mel's, thus the comparison is stupid. Some people are brilliant with learning languages, others are poor at picking up new languages, now, if your job is an interpreter that has a large bearing on things. Pochettino is not an interpreter. Mel may have visited England every summer since he was 5yr's old for all you know, while Poch never attempted to speak English before last year.

You have no idea if Mel is confident in his english or is Poch is not confident, the latter's English may be better than Mel's, he just isn't confident about using it in public.

Did you not see Eto'o's interview? He literally blushed, smiled and hid his face in Terry's shoulder like a kid because he was embarrassed over his English... but he understood every word put to him and laughed at what Terry said.

Judging someone because they are confident or not over something that is not at all crucial to their job, is frankly pathetic, comparing him to other immigrants and banging on about his English frankly makes you sound racist.

Poch CAN speak English, that doesn't mean he wants or feels confident speaking it infront of a camera in which the Media will be happy to twist his words. Most people are afraid of sounding stupid, and it's vastly easier to be mistaken in a language you aren't confident in.

I didn't think it was nice to see Mel speak English, I simply saw a man who was confident in his ability to speak English in front of an audience, nothing more or less. I honestly can't believe it is something anyone would have a go at someone for. Crap manager, have a go, rubbish buy, have a go, not completely confident of speaking in front of a usually horrendous press.... damn immigrant...... really?

 

[Stewy]

I was gonna say, fairly sure Pocchetino speaks English but doesn't want to accidentally say something he doesn't quite mean for it to be taken out of context and his message miss-construed all over the papers?

Plus, his voice-over man has a funny deep tone and it's amusing. I never want to hear Pocch speak English, it will ruin the illusion.

 

[Robbo]

That's all totally fair enough - I can sympathise quite easily. However, if you're being paid large amounts of money and it's job related, you'd think a greater effort would be made to learn and at least try. On top of that, people who know Pochettino have said his English is more than fine. As for confidence though, isn't a management job in football a lot about confidence? I doubt he lacks it.

 

[Stewy]

But then voice over man would be out of a job and no one wants that

 

[Robbo]

But then voice over man would be out of a job and no one wants that

Maybe you could start speaking Spanish and then employ him to do all your talking for you!

 

[Yas786]

more random nonsense

Oh STFU DM, you talk so much crap its not even funny

 

[JohnnyG]

I'm unconvinced right now. Not sure what his wages are? If we could buy him at the end of the season for £12ish million I'd be happy. I don't feel his form is anything like what it was before december. It's easy to forget how young he is but that people have stopped banging on about Chelsea being mugs for not having him I think tells the story or his season.

Watching him for the rest of the season will be interesting as we drop from contention for champions league, I think he wanted to prove a point to Chelsea but maybe that fire was waned a bit. Jose clearly has an issue with him.

"Romelu likes to speak. He's a young boy. But the only thing that he didn't say is why he went to Everton on loan.

"My last contact with him was to tell him exactly that. 'Why you never say why you are not here?'

"It's something that he should say, because he likes to speak, the reason why he is not with Chelsea and he is in Everton."

Either way he's a short term fix and we need to prepare for life without him. He's been good for us but I wouldn't want to pay 20m for him and still don't think he's good enough to play consistently for Chelsea up front. They need replacements but I think they will look elsewhere.

If we were to sell him I doubt we'd let him go for less than we paid for him (£18m?) no idea what his wages are either.
The talk about him has definitely calmed down and hopefully it's just a bit of mediocre form he's going through as he's a talented lad that's for sure.

 

[drunkenmaster]

That's all totally fair enough - I can sympathise quite easily. However, if you're being paid large amounts of money and it's job related, you'd think a greater effort would be made to learn and at least try. On top of that, people who know Pochettino have said his English is more than fine. As for confidence though, isn't a management job in football a lot about confidence? I doubt he lacks it.

Confidence isn't an all defining things, strikers are probably talked about in terms of confidence more than any other type of player, Eto'o scored a hat trick and yet was like a little shy kid in front of the camera.

Realistically the press believe press conferences are a major part of his job, in reality, if a manager never once gave a press conference or interview nothing at all would change in terms of the team. It's a ridiculously minor part of the job.

Also in terms of speaking English to a friend, well I think the forums are a pretty major example. In this forum my mind was thinking ahead of my hands, even though I compared Mannone to other keepers, I wrote striker instead of keeper accidentally, and the people that WANTED to make a big deal of it, did so, even though it was patently obvious what I meant.

In his day to day job, not a single person at the club, or other managers, or other players have any need or want to what I would say was purposefully misunderstand someone. The press is another matter, put it this way a English manager who knows no other language can get words jumbled up in front of the press, say the wrong thing and the press will try to tear them a new one. Really it's an excuse to buffer himself from the media, and I have no problem with that. The press in general, particularly the gutter press who focus more on football, are pathetic, I'd do everything possible to give them as little ammunition as possible.