Steven Gerrard: Liverpool captain to leave at end of season
Steven Gerrard has been with LFC for twenty years. Let the editorials commence
Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard will leave the club when his contract expires at the end of the season.
Gerrard, 34, became free to sign a pre-contract agreement with an overseas team on Thursday and is believed to be wanted by clubs in the United States.
The former England skipper, who made his Liverpool debut in 1998, will not move to another English club.
Liverpool offered midfielder Gerrard a new deal in November and will make a statement on his future on Friday. NGL, I was expecting him to leave in the January transfer window
Frank Lampard lambasted by football fans in New York after snubbing them to stay at Man City
The Gerrard news passed me by because this is the drama I've been following
Manchester City have extended Frank Lampard’s contract with the club until the end of the season following 48 hours of negotiations with the Premier League ahead of the expiry of his short-term deal at the club.
The 36-year-old was due to officially become a New York City FC player on January 1 after agreeing a move to the newly-formed MLS franchise — owned by City owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan — in August.
But after scoring six times for Manuel Pellegrini’s team since moving to City, the former Chelsea and England player has thrashed out a deal to remain at the club until the end of the season and will therefore miss the start of New York’s inaugural MLS campaign, which begins in March. Lampard’s failure to complete his move on schedule provoked an angry backlash against both the player and Manchester City from football fans in the United States.
businesses are refunding shirts, NYers are up in arms because they're a 'big city' not a feeder farm.
The League Table as it stands on Jan 01, 2015. Chelsea is on top- alphabetical order
Chatter from the sidelines
Arsene Wenger, Jurgen Klopp and the Managers Most Likely to Move in 2015 yes, it feels like it
Statement on the Lampard Loan Extention (sic) this is by third rail, an independent supporters group
A tale of two cities: Frank Lampard loan shows Manchester trumps New York read more
Frank Lampard staying disaster for MLS read more
Transfer rumours: Manchester United planning huge bid for old boy Paul Pogba Huh. They had him in their academy, let him go, and now have to buy him back
Jose Mourinho: Referees must offer Chelsea more protection or Eden Hazard could leave English football All Players matter, Mourinho. Why not call attention to it for all forwards?
Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho blames 5-3 Tottenham defeat on 'slow' referee Phil Dowd Mou was being a mean girl to Dowd yesterday. He called him slow and fat. I half expected him to say, Boo, you whore
REPORT: PODOLSKI STORMS OUT OF TRAINING, NOT IN SOUTHAMPTON SQUAD someone spat his dummy, then?
Atletico de Kolkata's Borja Fernandez joins La Liga club Eibar Atletico Madrid has club in India?
La Liga Preview: Atletico Madrid v Levante Will Torres feature?
Popularity of La Liga leads to greater uptake of Spanish in UK schools well, good
Twitter Reacts to Steven Gerrard's Potential Exit from Liverpool read more
Arsene Wenger: Fan arrested for confronting Arsenal boss good, you don't go to the manager's dugout!
Pictures
Stoke City vs Manchester United
The First game of New Year's Day.
You scored a goal, Falcao, you're one of us
You tell van Persie what for, Begovic
Stoke drew first blood, the game was pretty bad tempered, tbh. But then when you go to play Stoke, you pack ass kicking and lollipops- but leave the lollies
Stoke are a physical team. You come prepared to battle
Liverpool vs LFC
Let's get this out of the way. Gerrard is leaving. The last of the one club men. When the news has settled, I'll round up the most thoughtful articles about him in a later post, k?
So. Liverpool. To be honest, I was wtf'ding once I saw our starting XI. Rodgers out tinkered himself yet again, and prepared for the worst.
The first penalty LFC got was undeserved, and the second one yeah, fine. Oh, now that Gerrard has given notice to leave LFC, enjoy the pictures of him in a red shirt. I hear Galaxy is sniffing for his signature
There's a reason why Liverpool is called penalty pool
Why would Rodgers play Hendo out of position? Whyyyy?
I am happy for Leicester Foxes, NGL. The players have played hard - but haven't been able to finish, and for the players that could help the club, Chelsea swoops down and snatches them from their grasp. Boo to LFC underestimating the likes of Burnley and Leicester Foxes. You really didn't think that the bottom teams would scrap and play out their skins to stay in the league?
So yes, let's hear it for Leicester Foxes and boo at LFC's arrogance. You're not the team of last year, and Rodgers makes me SMH
Aston Villa vs Crystal Palace
Pardew having a butcher's at his new team in action. He begins work today
Crystal Palace in yellow, Aston Villa in claret. The team named first is the home team, and the one second is the visiting team. The score was 0-0. The match from the little I saw was middling
Clark subs for Vlaar, Aston Villa's captain
Guzan, the no. 1 goalie in the sticks for USNMT- does his day job
The match report makes dire reading. Both sides are frail in defence, blunted in offence, but Crystal Palace is glad to have Pardew, legend and club captain, back to lead them
Hull City 2 vs 0 Everton
Oh, Everton! You are seven points from relegation. Phil Jagielka can see relegation from his house
I mean... Hull? NGL, Hull isn't a bad side, but they aren't a side that you give three points to, for real
Martinez, why are you doing a Klopp? That is not the way to go!
No fighting spirit. This is after Hull's first goal. You'd have thought it was 6-0 then. Lads
Elmohamedley(sp?) crows after drawing first blood
Let my people go, says Tim Howard
Man City 3 vs 2 Sunderland
Frank Lampard. Between Chelsea fans meltdown and MLS meltdown to his actions as of late, it's been fascinating to me
Sunderland came to play yesterday. Actually, yesterday marked the most goals scored ever during a New Year's fixture
It was a hard fought game. From arial challenges to tackles
Manchester City they say, has no strikers. Jovetic gives it a go
goals like this are the reason why Toure will be missed when he goes to African Cup of Nations
Newcastle 3 - 3 Burnley
What is there to say about Burnley? Apart from the fact that I can't spell their name right? The side refuses to be relegated, and are fighting tooth and nail to stay in. They like it here
Hey up Boyd
Newcastle is managerless at the mo. Their year is going to get interesting!
Taylor of Newcastle drew first blood, but Newcastle had to be content with a point
QPR 1-1 Swansea City
Wilfried Bony. Swansea's forward, came off the bench to take them from behind into a tie and a point
The refereeing in this game was shocking.
The goalie had a handball outside of his area, and should have been sent off, or even carded. Nope, no one batted an eyelash
Swansea was down to 10 men when Routeledge got sent off for kicking at Karl Henry when he was lying on the pitch
Routledge got a red, which was deserved, but the QPR goalie escaped his, so people are crying foul
West Ham vs West Brom
A new manager is in town for West Brom, and they showed it
Berahino drove drunk. End
Sako got a point for West Ham. Most people are pretty neutral on the Hammers over here. They'll rage at Chelsea, LFC and Arsenal, but you say, 'West Ham' they go, 'they're all right'
Southampton 2-0 Arsenal
Arsenal lost, because of reasons
woeful defending, screamers everywhere
That being said, Southampton is a team that's growing by leaps and bounds
Mane opened up the blood letting with his goal. He and teammates celebrate
Diagram of Mane's awesome goal
Southampton's Tadic celebrates his strike. The Saints want a CL place, and they are hustling to get it
Sanchez had to work for Giroud and Welbeck's absences
Spurs 5-3 Chelsea
A bit of back story between Mauricio Pochettino and Jose Mourinho, for context if you will. When Mourinho had his adventure in La Liga, he met Pochettino who was the coach of Espanyol, a Catalan outfit. The four times they met, the four times Pochettino lost
Mourinho, when asked, doesn't consider Pochettino's loses in Spain as a part of their record, since Mou was in charge of Real at the time, and Poch in charge of Espanyol who were going through some financial troubles which caused Poch's best players to be sold under him. Mourinho encouraged him to come to the PL, and when word came out that Southampton was looking for a new manager (much to the consternation of Saints fans, who liked their old one), Mourinho called Southampton and told them about Pochettino, who got invited for an interview. So yeah, the affection between the men is real
Pochettino has also drew plaudits from Guardiola. Guardiola says that Pochettino's teams will look for you, and come at you. They will hound, press, possess and suffocate. Yesterday's game with Spurs shows the sort of style Pochettino expects his players play in.
Lloris and Bentaleb celebrate after Tottenham scored the second goal
Rose and Erikson of Spurs laughing like naughty boys. What's nice about the improving (not there yet!) Tottenham side is that Poch insists on teamwork, that everyone shouldn't be a passenger. They're getting there. For instance, Erikson was good, but not outstanding, but that didn't matter because everyone else stepped up, and you didn't notice that Erikson was anonymous in this match
This might have been their third goal. The lane was rocking! I could feel it through my TV
Chaldi, Kane and Vertongen(sp) were in beast mode yesterday.
Stage 5 Harry Kane! It's nice to see a homegrown English forward who's getting the plaudits. Academy lad, who Pochettino eased into his starting XI (came on as sub at first, then played Europa games). I am like the English newspapers with puns today, leave me alone
Happy New Year indeed! I'm glad that Spurs showed up, that Chelsea got beat, Poch got a scalp from Mourinho. I'm just glad that Spurs have gotten over the Bale blues. That people are realising there are other talents at the Lane
Hazard was easily the best player on the Chelsea team. Townsend took his eyes off him for one second, and bam! Goal in the back of the net
Case in point
According to Mourinho, Eden Hazard is an endangered creature. Won't you sign a petition to save Hazard today? Your signature could save a life
John Terry walks away after the match
Diego Costa is... Diego Costa
Vertongen(sp?) and Costa
Match score! Wow. I'm relatively neutral on Chelsea fc, but I'm glad that they got rocked. Getting a PL title should be the result of active, healthy competition, not a freaking coronation
OP: Yeah, this was a long post. Sorry. But ten matches were played yesterday and drama was everywhere. Any editorials on Lampard's staying at Man City can you link them here, please? I'd like to read them. Thank you so much, if you can!