genghis

Less than we did, that's for sure

Seconded.

Whatever makes you think that? 'Manager' choosing players to buy and flying in for the big profile games, much as JK did when managing Germany... a non-entity coach to 'focus on coaching and training the players' (to coin a phrase) and cause no fuss. Perfect. Plus I'd imagine Jurgen would ask for a much lower salary than, for example, Rafa or any other top-line manager. What's the problem? All that matters is keeping the club solvent and in the Premiership with reasonable crowds for 5 years until the loan is renegotiated and/or an exit strategy can be completed.

Try Sopcast channel 35423 It's Dutch, but at least there's a picture

I need to mocker the sh*te dream I had about this last night: Mancs two up inside 15 minutes, both crosses to the far post, to Reina's right, from which we don't recover and get battered. Weirdly, the Mancs were playing in blue.

Tears in my eyes reading that.

Hey - I *am* enjoying the win Just want to enjoy one at the weekend too... ...and Ryan gets his customary supersub goal with an excellent finish - and someone's just won a bet about the score. Burn the witch!

The horrible twist to his knee after 2 seconds looked like a knock to me

What are you talking about? Growler asked a totally reasonable question about consistency; if you bring Gerrard off when we're losing, using the argument that you're saving his energy for a big match coming up, then it's totally and utterly inconsistent to leave him on the pitch when we're cruising, you could easily rest him, and there's an even bigger match coming up at the weekend.

I hope to f*ck Rafa does at least 2 of these soon. Would be obtuse not to. Deffo get Torres off for Babel ASAP. Cold night over there, I could imagine a speedster like FT could pull something once tired...

Niang should be red carded now for 2 ridiculous dives

We really could be 5 up - 2 more for El Nino and 1 for Kewell. And that Gerrard FK.

Oh and that Torres boy might be OK someday. (Psst - anyone know of a scientist close to accelerated human cloning?)

So let me see: Givet hacks down Steve through on goal= no card Givet jumps in with 2 feet at knee-height on Benni = no card Carra tries to block a ball at waist height, gets some of the ball = yellow card

indeed. 3 peno's not given for us, all stonewall. 1 given for them that wasn't anywhere near. But don't forget, luck evens itself out, and no refs are ever biased, etc and so on C*nts.

whoosh...! ...rare for you Mr Am Rhein

It's not the dog in the fight, it's Fernando Torres. At any given moment, Fernando wins every fight, whether or not he is in them. Fernando does not use Google. He knows where everything is on the internet, because he invented all of it. Fernando Torres can live with and without you. He also shot the sheriff, and the deputy. E=M x Fernando Torres. It is not squared. Torres cannot be squared. God does not play dice. He asks Fernando Torres what number he is thinking of.

Sadly, I'm with honourablegeorge and david hodgson on this. Does anyone think that senior managerial figures - the chief execs and club manager - can get as far as a public spat played out at press conferences and interviews without there being some major stresses behind the scenes? For both sides to be prepared to make such inflammatory comments means there's been strong disagreements about the running of the club for some time. No senior business figure near the top of a business worth half a billion quid would do such things on a whim. A storm in a teacup this isn't.

officials radar been sh*te all day - no change there, just this time in our favour

no, no, it's OK. We can keep arsing them up, as the lino apparently thinks that 2 yards behind play is offside. Again. (See also: Riise about 10 mins ago - comically poor decisions)

aye. Must have been half a dozen small, but sh*t decisions so far. Apparently Crouch is a 2 metre tall porcupine, as he can foul people with his back, side and shoulders.

in a nutshell. Has worked hard today, but don't know if any of his crosses have even got into the box.

I think I've said this before, but although JAR has many good points - his running, crazy goals and stamina - his lack of touch (especially on his right foot) and more importantly poor positioning make him a poor choice in a footballing side. Just to be clear, by positioning I mean the ability to know where trouble might develop in a second or two's time, where the oppo will be looking to go. Finnan has it, Didi had it like telepathy, and Riise has none of it whatsoever. As a defender he relies entirely on marking/tracking players, which against good teams means trying to put out the fire rather than stop it sparking in the first place. While we were a purely counter-attacking team under GH and early in Rafa's reign this didn't matter so much, as the back 4 hardly ever moved up the pitch, and once the defence got the ball, a lot of the time they'd launch it up the pitch, meaning lacking subtlety was not a problem. However if we want to play the ball out of defence, and use our wide players, we need fullbacks with good technique and the sense of when to overlap, when to hold back, and the reliability to play the ball short to our midfielders and not either sell them a hospital pass, or just not get the ball to them. In short, we need the whole team to make decent decisions whereever they are on the pitch, and enough technique to carry them out most of the time. Although JAR is a great athlete, I don't think he succeeds on both those points.

That actually made me laugh out loud. In other news: don't think I've ever seen a player so limited playing at the highest level. Incredibly poor ability at moving a football in the desired direction. Or trapping a ball. Or thinking. And for total brain-fade, show him on to his right foot: instant panic. Great athlete though

I've tried to take a breath and think about this, but can't see any justification for not playing our best team. What will be the point in keeping Torres super-fresh if, say, in a month's time he gets knobbled by a Savage or a Neill and is out for 8 weeks? We'll certainly wish he'd played in every game to that point, as he'd suddenly have an 8 week rest. Or what (as said above) if he suddenly hits a massive trough of form where he can't hit a cow's a*** with a banjo, but is really fresh & fit? Not much good either is it? As Big Stuff said, when a player looks really on form, you play him, and you just wing it later down the line if your top players get tired - that's when you 'prove' you've got strength in depth. Playing the lesser players when your best ones are available is acting as if the sh*t has hit the fan when it hasn't. Use the players to get the points in the bag while you can. 3 points today against Brum counts just the same as 3 points in April away against Spurs (for instance). Why worry about not being able to compete for the latter in the future at the expense of not actually getting the former now?