Donkey Of The Month Awards

[Alex.]

here's your donkey at yesterday's ferrari meeting

 

[Alex.]

ignore

 

[Smallhorses]

Can I nominate CCX for putting an unexplained picture in the Donkeydom thread....... Twice!

Is that former DOTM (January) Michael "nutmeg" Ballack?

 

[Alex.]

sure is

 

[Touring Mars]

Ahem, and this is the guy who claims he can't afford a house in London! What a 'donkeyhole'...

 

[Sureboss]

Calderon for sacking the bloke who won him the title 11 days ago.

Capello is one of the best in the world.

 

[Smallhorses]

Well, the Premiership season is up and running again, and there's already signs that we're going to have a bumper year for Donkeys!!!

3 nominations for this weekend alone, for the inaugural 2007-2008 Donkey Of The Month award for August 2007.

1. Martin Laursen (Aston Villa) - Opened Liverpool's Premiership goal tally for them by stabbing a cross into his own net!!

2. Jens Lehmann (Arsenal) - Under a minute into Arsenal vs. Fulham game, in front of a home crowd, he makes a huge hash of a backpass clearance and gifts the ball to Fulham's David Healy to slot home!!

3. Dave Kitson (Reading) - In much the same way that Sheffield Utd's Keith Gillespie did last season, Kitson puts himself in with a strong shout for August's award with his efforts, all 37s of them in the Reading vs. Man U game. Brought on as a 72nd minute substitute, he barely made it into minute 73 before being dismissed with a straight red card after a nasty sliding lunge at Patrice Evra!

 

[<_Spike_>]

Well personally my vote falls with a Championship player myself lol, but on a Prem level it's hard to pick so far...I'd be stuck between...well...I'd be stuck between all 3

 

[Smallhorses]

Wow! Having now seen Laursen's goal for Liverpool, I should edit my post above! "stabbing the ball into his own net" seems to describe an unlucky deflection of an outstreched leg, whereas Laursen's finish was a screaming shot that many a striker would've been proud of!!!

After tonight's games though, it seems like a goalkeeper is destined to win in August, with Tony Warner (Fulham) the next nominee, after the clanger against Bolton!

Warner looked to have gathered Nicky Hunt's long throw safely, but as he went to throw it clear, it slithered out of his grasp and rebounded off Zat Knight's back straight to the feet of Helguson.

The Icelander marked his first Bolton start with the simplest of finishes against his former club.

 

[Dave A]

You could alway look in Nugents direction, he missed an easy shot but the real clumsy bit came afterwards when he found himself in a 1 on 1 with the keeper and then....


...Tripped over his own feet.

 

[Smallhorses]

You could alway look in Nugents direction.....
...Tripped over his own feet.

Way to impress the England manager with a friendly and a couple of qualifiers coming up, and the #1 choice striker out again with a broken foot. (Again!)

 

[Smallhorses]

Wow, there's just a bumper crop! This is always the way it seems to start out, and then Donkeydom tails off towards the end of the season!

Is noone else playing this anymore? Oh, well guess I'll have a winning nomination for this month!

Here's the latest!

The first substitution of the afternoon saw referee Lee Mason limp off, to be replaced by fourth official Andy D'Urso after only eight minutes.

Fulham opened Boro up down the visitors' left flank to take the lead on 16 minutes, but at a hefty price.

Simon Davies found Alexei Smertin in the inside-right channel and his cut-back found McBride unmarked, but as the USA international tucked the chance away unchallenged from eight yards, he buckled in pain as his left knee gave out.....

The football-based episode of Casualty continued when Bouazza was forced to leave the game with a shoulder injury, to be replaced by Clint Dempsey.

Some of the journalists at BBC have a wicked sense of humour!

So it seems we may have a Referee for this years Donkey match, Lee Mason! 👍

Also Fulham's Brian McBride becomes the next August nomination, in with a strong shout (a la Alan Smith for Man U from the other season) for dislocating his own knee in the process of scoring!

However, Fulham's Tony Warner seems determined to win this month as for a second game in succession:

A howler from Tony Warner handed £6m striker Mido a goal on his debut, when the ball squirmed out of the Fulham keeper's grasp.

2 embarrassing fumbles in 2 games! Someone must have buttered his gloves!

 

[Only_in_f1]

Im watching that game on Match of the day now.

I'd add Clint Dempsey to the Donkey list.
Shocking miss. 5 yards out about half the goal free right infront of him.... Puts it wide!

 

[Smallhorses]

Meanwhile, Wenger admitted that Lehmann was "extremely down" after his costly error.

It was the second time this season the German has been punished for a lapse in concentration.

On the opening day he gifted a goal to Fulham's David Healy but Arsenal recovered and went on to secure a victory.

Wow, 2 goalkeepers neck and neck so far, it seems Jens Lehmann isn't content to concede August's Donkeydom award to Tony Warner yet and has jumped back into the race in style!

Will have to wait until later to see Liverpool vs. Cheatsea highlights before passing judgement on GV's nomination below, although having spoken to my fervent Man Utd supporting father-in-law, who hates Liverpool and hearing him say it was no where near a penalty, I'm inclined to agree already!!

3 referee nominations already too!
Lee Mason : Going off injured after 8 minutes (Fulham vs. Middlesbrough)
Andy D'Urso : Not awarding Fulham's late equaliser when the ball crossed the line! (Fulham vs. Middlesbrough)
Rob Styles : Exceedingly dubious penalty decision, and appearing to book Essien twice! (Liverpool vs. Chelsea)
A hotbed of activity, and we're only halfway into the first month of the season!

 

[Alex.]

rob styles wins

 

[Jimmy Enslashay]

Well let me see..

• Jens Lehmann seems intent on sabotaging Arsenal's season. I'm absolutely baffled at how he did that.
• Brad Friedel at the other end seemed to be wearing the same buttered up pair of gloves that Jens Lehmann was wearing, as well.
• Rob Styles was clearly drunk as he refereed the Liverpool-Chelsea game, and so was his best friend Yellow Card.

 

[Smallhorses]

You're forgetting Tony "The Fulham Fumbler" Warner there surely!

 

[Jimmy Enslashay]

I was talking about yesterday's matches, but I think it's going to come down between Rob Styles, Jens Lehmann and Tony Warner.

What is it with keepers this month? Some of the commentators have been saying the same thing.

 

[Smallhorses]

I was talking about yesterday's matches......

Yesterday? Damn you Aussies and your speeded up time!
We've still got 5 hours of today left over here!!!

 

[Jimmy Enslashay]

Get with the times.

 

[Smallhorses]

Well, I've finally seen the highlights.
Wow! Didn't realise there were new rules for 2007-2008 season.
Apparently if you can jump over the ball in the opposition penalty area, it's now worthy of a penalty reward!

I've openly criticised (in this very thread) the diving antics of Arjen Robben and Christiano Ronaldo, but, wow! To be honest even Jaques Cousteau could learn a thing or two from Florent Malouda! The challenge he tried to get Alonso booked for? He lands, 2 feet on ground, realises the ball is gone, then picks up both feet and crumples like a sack of wet lettuce. Some minutes later he does the same to Pennant, but this time the player reacts, and goes in the book. Minus marks to Pennant for reacting, but still a second bookable offence for simulation by Malouda which goes unpunished.

The penalty decision, well, it was second half, and clearly, as Jimmy Enslashay even as a Chelsea fan, has said, Rob Styles had finished the bottle of Smirnoff Black Label that he'd started before the game, at half-time and began to hallucinate good and proper!
If the jump was a dummy, then by all means, wave play on. If they score fine, good goal. 👍
To award a penalty for jumping over the ball and into a defender while the ball is way, way past and almost on the toes of another striker? WTF!!!! 🤬 cheating C-U-Next-Tuesday! I'm not sure who's worse, Malouda for doing it or Styles for awarding it! 👎

Oh well, hopefully the referee's association will look at the performance today, and ensure that Styles improves throughout the season with regards to watching the game he's supposed to be refereeing instead of listening to "The Archers Omnibus" on Radio 4 through his headset during Sunday games, and makes sure that other referees keep an eye out for blatant bad sportsmanship from Mal-Odour.
To think Liverpool wanted to sign him at one point?
Having seen that, I'm glad we didn't.

 

[Touring Mars]

Managed to miss all the excitement at the weekend, save for the fact that I heard all about it today and it certainly sounds like Lehmann is first in the queue for the August 2008 Donkey of Shame, with not just one glaring screw-up, but two already

 

[daan]

Alan Hansen for the "candle incident"?

He appeared on MOTD2 last night with what looked like a beaten up face. The explanation given was that he got covered in wax from a candle....

Or was he just drunk?

Failing that, my vote goes to Lehmann.

 

[Dave A]

Tevez for missing a crucial header frm a couple of feet away.

The whole Man U team for their incredible ability to outplay a team in so many ways but failing to shoot on target.

 

[Smallhorses]

Referee Styles dropped over error

Not much help to Liverpool, but at least no-one in next weekend's games will get similarly cheated!
Now if the Premier League would just stand up and force Chelsea to drop Mal-Odour for a few games for blatant play-acting, we'd all be a little happier!

It's kind of funny that Jose Mourinho once again had the audacity to accuse a couple of Liverpool players of trying to con the referee (which to be fair, they were, but only after Mal-Odour had managed to get away with it twice already! ) but was happy to totally ignore the fact that the most controversial incident in the game was caused by one of his own players blatantly conning the referee!

 

[Jimmy Enslashay]

I think the thing that Malouda has over Robben and Ronaldo is his ability to maloude the sights of the referee while he dives.





Sorry.

 

[Smallhorses]

May have to nominate myself here for not understanding the pun!

Not sure if Maloude = Delude?

Or Maloude = Occlude?

I guess both would fit! 💡

 

[Jimmy Enslashay]

Elude!

Me and my best-mate, when playing football games, love to maloude people with Malouda. It's been a tradition for quite some time. He's very malousive.

 

[Smallhorses]

Elude!

But of course! Like this....

 

[Smallhorses]

So, we're into September, there's been 2 England games, and staggeringly not a hint of Donkeydom from either by an English player! Wow!

So who is going to take August's prestigious award?

A recap of our nominees:

Martin Laursen (Aston Villa) : For his netbusting own goal in the Liverpool game.

Jens Lehmann (Arsenal) : Two calamitous goalkeeping errors in as many games.

Tony "The Fulham Fumbler" Warner (Fulham) : Ditto

Dave Kitson (Reading) : A 37s substitute appearance before receiving his marching orders in the Man U game.

David Nugent (Portsmouth) : One-on-one scoring opportunity, and trips over his own feet.

Brian McBride (Fulham) : Scoring a great goal, but putting himself out of the rest of the season in the process by dislocating his knee unchallenged.

Clint Dempsey (Fulham) : Missing an open goal from 5 yards out.

Brad Friedel (Blackburn) : Conceding an equally shocking equaliser to Arsenal after Jens Lehmann had gifted them the lead.

Florent Malouda (Chelsea) : Having collapsable legs and an apparent fear of the football.

Carlos Tevez (Man Utd) : Missing a staggeringly easy header from just feet away.

And the referees nominations so far:

Lee Mason : Going off injured after 8 minutes (Fulham vs. Middlesbrough)

Andy D'Urso : Not awarding Fulham's late equaliser when the ball crossed the line! (Fulham vs. Middlesbrough)

Rob Styles : Total loss of plot, and subsequent 1 game ban for his performance. (Liverpool vs. Chelsea)