Lee Trundle
6:34 Wed May 17
Re: Rice Rice baby
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Capitol Man 6:25 Wed May 17
"Still better than the Intertoto!"
This will likely get swindon hammer on here to bore me to death, but both are/were UEFA's 3rd tier competition with both leading to entry into the Europa League.
So not much difference part from the length of the competition.
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british is best
6:29 Wed May 17
Re: Rice Rice baby
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Some of the comments like clubs like us . really is a kick in the nuts . A London club with an average attendance of over 62 000 . Will always attract players. Check out how many clubs that average as much as that . West ham Uniteds downfall is the ownership. And always has been.
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Capitol Man
6:25 Wed May 17
Re: Rice Rice baby
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Still better than the Intertoto!
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Nagel
6:04 Wed May 17
Re: Rice Rice baby
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I reckon the Conference League will go down even further in most people's estimations when the new European league formats come in the year after next. Both the CL and EL will have 4 more teams each, so likely to be fewer bigger teams in the ECL. Also none of them will be dropping down to the EL or ECL if they don't make it through the group stage, like we had this year with the likes of Lazio.
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stewie griffin
5:56 Wed May 17
Re: Rice Rice baby
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the reward for winning it is a place in the Europa League which, up until two years ago, was also a joke competition which everyone who qualified for was desperate to get knocked out of.
Oh how we laughed singing 'Thursdays nights on Channel 5' when Spurs had to play Tromso next to the North Pole.
As said, like the europa league, it might eventually grow in stature but the standard of opposition has been atrocious. Genuinely awful. You take what you're given i suppose, but I'm also not reading much into Roma winning it last year - they lost 6-1 to Bodo/Glimt because they didn't give a shit about it until they suddenly found themselves in the latter stages of the competition and figured they might as well try and win it. That's how the Europa League always was as well, Fulham made the first final but its gradually got better.
As i say, its great, opportunity for us to win a trophy etc - but not buying that winning this trophy here will outweigh other trophies elsewhere; its just not important enough.
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Side of Ham
5:51 Wed May 17
Re: Rice Rice baby
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We are fast moving towards the confirmation of elitist football where the likes of us will come up short and probably find it hard to exist as we currently do.....you won't get 60,000 plus want to support a club that is one of the clubs that a player like Rice shouldn't spend his career at.....most youngsters will want to see the best in the best teams not a club that supplies these players to the elite.....
....modern football is elitist shit.....Rice is just doing what he has to do....rightly so.....
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Eerie Descent
5:49 Wed May 17
Re: Rice Rice baby
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I like the way Roma winning it has suddenly made it sexy.
When was the last time they won something before that?
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easthammer
5:38 Wed May 17
Re: Rice Rice baby
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ES
I have no problem with Rice having lofty ambitions, just that he can't be seen as a West Ham legend if he leaves to fulfil them.
SG
I don't disagree that the Conference League is not that great but it is a bit more than Tin Pot. The reward for winning it would certainly suggest otherwise. And us winning it following Roma last year would lmo only add to its kudos.
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Capitol Man
5:37 Wed May 17
Re: Rice Rice baby
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He's served his time and didn't jump at the first offers that came along, unlike many of his talented predecessors.
For that you have to respect him - but as someone else said, unless you're Real Madrid or maybe Barcelona someone else will always come along if the payer is good enough.
And this is their job.
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stewie griffin
5:21 Wed May 17
Re: Rice Rice baby
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easthammer 4:40 Wed May 17
Re: Rice Rice baby
rather overstates the 'achievement' of winning the conference league. It might grow in stature over the years, but for right now, its a tinpot competition, let's be honest.
Would have been harder to win the Simod/Zenith Data Systems Cup back in the day.
Basel, our likely opponents in the final, are 6th in the Swiss league, 26 points behind the league leaders, the European behemoth that is Young Boys.
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El Scorchio
5:14 Wed May 17
Re: Rice Rice baby
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If we were in a position to win trophies, he wouldn't be going anywhere. We aren't, so we can't match his ambitions. It's as simple as that. Does he want to be looked back on like Harry Kane? (Never won anything so not a top class player and afraid to really test himself) or go off and win a bunch of stuff? I don't think it's wrong of him to have lofty ambitions and want to fulfil his potential and win stuff in most likely one of the best sides in the world and I'm not going to call him a traitor or mercenary or coat him off for that. He's just not going to be able to do that here. Certainly not under Sullivan and Moyes.
We've just got to maximise what we can get for him and not fucking waste it. If Sunday is his last home game for us, then that's that. How he acts after the final whistle on the lap will tell a lot about if he thinks it's his last game for us as well. Last season despite the talk, it was clearly a player who was going nowhere.
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BRANDED
5:00 Wed May 17
Re: Rice Rice baby
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Almost all players now days are mercenary. However, give a player a chance to be at a club that actually wins things and they almost certainly will take it. Rice has worked his socks off for us and been consistently our best player. He has chosen to have a lower wage for a couple of seasons knowing he will have a few being paid a kings ransom. If I was him I'd want to play in a team of brilliant players that improve me and play for a manager that improves me.
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easthammer
4:40 Wed May 17
Re: Rice Rice baby
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For me, a big part of being a Legend is staying with a club for the love of it, despite being pursued from elsewhere. Exactly what Rice is not doing if he goes.
Rice could have £200 grand a week, be captain of a side he claims to love and have a good international career.
The cost to him may be missing out on playing in the Champions League. Going to Arsenal may increase his chance of winning trophies but will not be nailed on.
If he wins the Europa Conference League with us this year and then goes on to join a "top" club that routinely wins bigger trophies when he retires what would be the best memory?
Personally, I have always enjoyed achieving when it is less likely that you will.
Amongst my favourite sporting achievements are Third place in a petanque competition in France and winning the Hornchurch Charity Shield while playing for a junior football side which when they did was the first non-senior amateur club to get their name on that not-so-illustrious trophy.
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Side of Ham
2:58 Wed May 17
Re: Rice Rice baby
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I'm calm Bumpkin' Boy.......
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swindon hammer
2:56 Wed May 17
Re: Rice Rice baby
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Calm down Snidey.
Hopefully he will join a team like Man City or Real Madrid and then Football will be the winner!
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Side of Ham
1:54 Wed May 17
Re: Rice Rice baby
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No one has said they will blame Rice for wanting to leave........as usual looking for a row about something that hasn't been suggested....
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swindon hammer
1:52 Wed May 17
Re: Rice Rice baby
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“Would Bobby Moore have stayed with us if he’d been playing now?”
No. Bobby wanted to leave us in 1966 to join Tottenham after we had just won the FA Cup and Cup Winners Cup.
That does change the fact that he’s a club legend though.
You can’t blame Rice for wanting to better himself.
No different from Bobby, Martin Peters, Cottee, Lampard, Rio, Carrick, Cole, Johnson etc.
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Coffee
1:48 Wed May 17
Re: Rice Rice baby
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Bloody hell, you've got a good memory...
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legrandefromage
1:43 Wed May 17
Re: Rice Rice baby
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Coffee - didn't he change his mind when some kid called the club from a phone box and begged for him to stay?
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Coffee
1:43 Wed May 17
Re: Rice Rice baby
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VickyPkVillageIdiot 1:38 Wed May 17
What matters is the style with which PDC achieved fuck all.
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Side of Ham
1:43 Wed May 17
Re: Rice Rice baby
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....but the fact is he didn't.....and no one is saying players like people won't feel the need for a change.....but something kept him here even if that deal didn't come off....
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