betterman

Given would be second after Pepe mind. He's been great this season too.

It does seem the most likely scenario unfortunately.

And we can start a new thread for it and contain all these pissing contests to it because it's spilling into lots of threads at the moment and getting very tiresome.

Since when is good news gossip

Set Pennant on fire more like. Seriously though are we that desperate?!

Now, now, I wouldn't rule out the gutless wonders just yet. They could well have won that game, and away to Man City is not going to be easy for anyone. Man United will get turned over soon and Chelsea will win four nil the same weekend and suddenly Chelsea will be brilliant again. Hard to see outside those two, but I'd still make Chelsea favourites. For example a serious injury to Rooney and it's curtains for Man United IMHO. I wouldn't say Arsenal are laughable either, taking that old advice about football fans in glasshouses. On other matters, Dindane's penalty and follow up were the laziest I have seen in a long, long time. Edit - Ah now I get the point of this thread and also notice it's not the all other games thread.... Apologies all round!

Exactly. No doubt we could and should be playing better than we are with the team we have, but as far as winning titles goes financial might will out in the end. As I said in another thread, it was what cost us last year's title. United had/have strength in depth we can only dream of. That's not Rafa's fault.

Things are very, very dodgy at the moment. We have three outstanding players IMHO, the obvious two and Pepe. When we put out our fully fit first choice eleven we're a match for anyone - not many would dispute that. BUT, when does that ever happen anymore? I'm fed up with injuries being used as an excuse, it's not an epidemic we have right now, it's just the way it goes. We lost the league last year because the eventual winners have a far better squad, we showed conclusively they did not have a better team. Look at the injuries they have right now - yet they just won four nil and are two points off the top. Arsenal would also claim to have far worse problems than us injury wise right now and with some justification. Chelsea will lose two of their most important players in January to the African Nations Cup. And so on and so forth... Again it's a matter of the depth of quality in your squad. We are threadbare and paying the price. This is not a knee jerk reaction, back at the start of this season many people who saw what was on our bench compared to the Spurs bench must have got the same sick feeling in the pit of their stomach. If you did you were not wrong. Man City have a serious squad now too, even Villa have options we would love to have. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not calling for Rafa's head or anything like that, I'm just saying - regardless of blame - we are in a serious situation right now and I'd take your hand off if offered fourth place I'm afraid to say.

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That competition you entered sounds worse than the World Cup!

Ibrahimovic is better than Lucas....

France got a poxy draw too. Was hoping they'd get Portugal's spot. If Spain take it seriously and get the required luck/dodgy decisions along the way I reckon they should probably win it. But, generally I reckon the overall standard will be s**** and we'll all be far more interested in the inevitable 'we should sign that Honduran left back for €17 million before Chelsea do' type debates.

Horrible might be overdoing it a tad

Ah so you're the Defoe inspired fecker who knocked me off my perch!

I didn't think you were. I'm just trying to be positive here and all the comments about the ref combined (my reply wasn't aimed just at you) kind of smacked like excuses in advance. Even if they weren't. Like reading comments after another s**** result rather than looking forward to another positive result.

Let's worry about the ref if and when we need to. We should win this one and win it well. I think we will.

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And slightly depressing too.

You are not wrong. I suppose there are two questions - how long he'll be willing to wait and how long he'll have to wait? None of us know the answers to those questions, but you are surely right that he too has a point where if there's still no trophies he may consider his options. But, everything he does (and says) is hugely encouraging in terms of his future at the club. The problem with your opinion is who the hell wants to think about that right now?!

"I have only been here two years, and not won anything yet, only scored some goals" great quote.

Blame Fernando Torres. If he hadn't emasculated and inflicted deep psychological wounds on a certain Serbian defender, that same centre back would have been Player of the Year. Not saying he should have been, just saying he would have been. Giggs has actually (in my uneducated opinion) been better/more important to his team this season than last.

I think Iniesta is just as good, if not better. Hard to separate the two though, pure class. And Messi is a deserving winner.

Paul McShane in 'thinks something through' shocker. It was a good celebration mind.

You'd put up with a lot for that.