schmuckdonald

There's no merit in playing Babel on the left at home against Stoke who are going to play a 10-0-0, it isn't conduscive to his game whatsoever. Beanyoun should start if Riera isn't fit.

What then Torres and Kuyt up front, then who do you put on the right? We're doing this all on the basis of one game. It'll take some time to get into our stride, but we'll be alright.

My point was that it wasn't our strongest XI, which is what was implied in the post I was replying to. FWIW, I think our first choice is Reina; Johnson; Aurelio; Agger; Carragher/Skrtel; Mascherano; Aquilani; Kuyt; Gerrard; Benayoun; Torres. Bench: Cav; Insua/Dossena; Carragher/Skrtel; Lucas; Riera; Voronin; Babel. Then obviously the reserves would be: Insua/Dossena; Kelly; Degen; Spearing; Plessis; N'Gog; Nemeth etc.

Yeah, Aquilani's debut was something to behold. And Agger and Auerlio playing the ball from the back, stopping Carra from f***ing hoofing it every 5 seconds. And Riera completely f***ing Corlucka for 90 mins.

Can't shift him because of his wages or something.

To be fair, today was a bit of a freak occurence where all of our distrubutors were crocked. With Aurelio and Agger in the team we should be much better and i'm hoping AA as well. They give a better balance to the side. And starting Yossi will make us fair better as well. This post makes me miss Xabi.

Lucas didn't put a foot wrong all game. Him and Mascherano didn't look over-awed against a tough combatitive midfield and they faired pretty well, even when we were trying our very best to impersonate a laurel and hardy sketch in the first half.

Sack 'em!

Skrtel and Agger will be eased into first choice CB pairing. They need someone to organise them, i'd imagine Skrtel is being groomed to take that mantle and Carragher will start to be used sparingly over the next couple of seasons. Agger's injuries are a worry, mind.

Glen Hoddle can f*ck off the cripple baiting f*ck. Spurs squad is categorically not stronger than ours.

Lucas Reina Yossi

How can people really be going on about Lucas and Voronin when Lucas was MoM for us and Voronin played for 10 mins and did WELL?

Stuttering out of the starting blocks. Looked clueless in the first half without a decent outlet in the centre of the park. Yossi made a world of difference. Lucas played well and gave a s*** and it was good to see him stand up to Huddlestone who probably wanted to eat him. Johnson faired well at right back, as well. Babel looked clueless, but again, he was on his own. We just didn't look cohesive until Benayoun instigated the play in the last 30 minutes. Only the first game, we'll get better.

Melted down and turned into glue to keep Voro's boots together.

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And on the other side of Manchester, Hughes is trying to challenge him for c*** of the week: "The headlines were quite predictable. I am not surprised David feels a bit aggrieved with the situation, you always are when a big club comes along trying to acquire one of your better players. I could pick up the phone and ring David very easily. I would ask him whether I could have his player, he would say no and I would have to put the telephone down. What would be the point of that?"

Pretty decent front line.

Going back to the El Zhar/Hammill argument itself, could it not go down to attitude inasmuch as El Zhar listens to orders? He seems to go on and do his job every time, maybe Rafa didn't think as much of Hammill doing that. El Zhar can just do that Nunez-esque role of holding position and keeping play moving without being spectacular.

Rafa lit a fire under Alonso' ass last season, he'll do it to Masch this season.

Scott Minto is a personal favourite on that front.

Pretty sure that that was reported in a scummy newspaper and doesn't deserve credence. Sky Sports appear to be compltely wrong about everything this summer. For the record for £20m i'd probably go Tuncay (£5-8m), Turner (£8+m) and maybe a couple of kids that no one in the world but our scouting department knows about.

Seems like the Championship is his level. As people have already said, for his age and the type of player he is he should have set the Championship alight by now to stand a chance. I'm not overly keen on El Zhar, but if it were a choice between the two i'd rather Nabil.

Degen will probably be back-up RB. We'll bring in a 4th choice CB and maybe a utility man or an attacking midfielder. Maybe. I don't know, really.

...

Victor Valdes isn't top 5, but he is probably kicking about top 10. Comparing him to Brown and O'Shea is a bit ridiculous.