genghis

It's amazing isn't it? With such a clueless dummy as Rafa in charge somehow we keep stumbling blindly into Champions League finals - the luck of the man!

Is all right. And I may start posting even less than I already go as John L seem to say all the stuff I want to The big thing to disagree with Heighway over is that the manager *should* have the final say in all aspects of playing team - at the end of the day any player at the club from youth through to first team could (theoretically) be put on the pitch by Rafa for a competitive match, and if they are not striving for that, and the system they are in is not making that happen in a way that the boss needs, then it's wrong. Anyone worrying about what happens to the youth system if Rafa goes is putting the cart before the horse. First up we'd have much bigger problems than our youth system if Rafa suddenly disappeared, and second while a manager is at a club *everything* is subordinate to their vision of success. That's just the way you have to work. It is necessarily gambling on one bloke's vision, but better to do that wholeheartedly than to always be only half-backing them in case they disappear. By that logic you shouldn't give them a full transfer budget either, in case, say, they sign some really expensive striker who turns out not to work in another manager's team at all. Oh, hang on.

Quality Oh and in light of the succession of players who say they want to leave/not come here because they want a better chance of challenging for big trophies, I'm seriously hoping that this summer a couple of Byg nAmyZ say they aren't coming here cos they want to win a domestic league title next year.

:D I knew a kid at school who did that once when we played another school packed with leg-breakers. Took some balls to do it age 15 or whatever we were, but he acted *really* camp, and it actually put them off going near him! Only downside was we were all cracking up so much we could hardly play properly. /arl git mode

Me too! Haven't been smoking for the past 6 months or so, but fully expect a repeat performance if we make it to Athens I directly attribute two of my "lucky cigarettes" to both Stevie and Vlad's goals in the final too.

I'm afraid I'm not posting this with a calm demeanour, but my blood's boiling about how the comments are going in this blog: more lies from those lovely people down the road Starts with the poster "jimmyjet" in the comments.

And because I believe in returning a favour, here's a link comparing the two goals, at a decent quality Messi vs Maradonna

You're a star, cheers. That was indeed worth watching.

Miserable buggers at YouTube have now taken it down claiming something about "intellectual property" or some such nonsense. What is this "copyright" of which they speak? Oh and does anyone have links to anyone *else* hosting the video that isn't YouTube?

Am I the only one who thinks deep down Chelsea will have been sh*tting themselves ever since it became clear we're playing them? They must dread it. They know we're a hard, hard team to play against, and that Rafa seems to have worked out how to play against Mourinho's "tactics". Yes, they might yet beat us, but I'll guarantee that before the tie kicks off they would rather be playing almost any other team - including Barca. Sometimes we forget a) how good we are in Europe b) how much everyone else realises that. Oh one last thing - if you think Chelsea hate playing us, can you imagine how much Milan don't want us to get through? At what point in the final would they stop being nervous? 1 up? 2-0 up? 3-0? Nope Plus of course the Glams will just be dreading the biggest nightmare possible for them - Robbie scoring the winning pen and giving it 6 fingers If we lose to Chelsea or the Mancs, we can shrug and point to our FIVE EUROPEAN CUPS, and know we'll be back in the last 4 more often than not over the next few years.

From what I've seen Hunty La (!) isn't slow, he's just too big to have the explosive acceleration that the wee fellas have - Eto'o/Owen. (Don't ask me to explain Henry - he's just a freak ) But I truly think Klaas is indeed class, and strong enough to succeed in England. And more likely to do so than Villa or Torres. ,

except that Reina came to us with a rep for saving penalties in Spain... and Jerzy's had his time in the sun where that's concerned

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Foster = plays a lot of Champ Manager

no, but he might just be the new RVN. Does look worringly like a complete package, though of course he might end up being the new Kluivert

'Brutal' referred to how tough the Ajax academy were on youngsters while they were there, not so much the eventual selection/rejection. I can remember watching one of the 1st team full-time coaches laying in to a team of 13 year olds, telling them they were skilless, not trying, a disgrace, and none of them would make it. That was a half time pep talk! But yeah fundamentally agree with you that it's required. No use taking on youngsters who don't have the mental resilience to cope with failure and criticism, as they can be sure to get a load of that as pro footballers.

For starters, that Indy article is utter, utter shyte. Total speculation. But anyhow.... Brilliant , and accurate with respect to those yellow shoes... I think it should be clear to anyone who's watched football for a couple of decades that he *is* class. He's got great technique, decent pace, superb awareness, and unlike a certain super-spider *does* seem to have complete control of all his limbs at all times. Oh and when he heads a ball, it stays headed, generally towards one of the corners of the goal, rather than looping softly towards the goalkeeper. How many goals he's got for Spurs - does that really matter? Does he have Alonso, Gerrard, Garcia and Finnan playing behind him? No has the very average Spuds midfield. Crouch has many, many talents, but too often he doesn't score when the chance is excellent, and does score when he shouldn't. We need the exact reverse of that. As for these mythical goalhangers - all the top teams don't seem to have them; they have all-rounders, strikers who link play, or work hard, or both, who also happen to take a high percentage of the chances that fall to them - Henry, Drogba, Rooney... Anyhow, in a nutshell, yes, I'd take Berbatov over Crouch. A better overall player. And if we didn't already own Crouch, I don't think there would be such a divided opinion.

I'm sure fyds could confirm it, but as far as I know, many hundreds of players go through the Ajax system, and only a handful make the 1st team. There was a documentary on it a few years back, and it was pretty brutal. Way less than 1% of the youngsters on the books turn pro as far as I remember - and that's after a pretty rigorous selection process in the first place.

Jol is a monkey, really. That all stemmed from the fact that Tainio has been walking in treacle for the past 20 minutes, couldn't close down, and couldn't control the ball when he was given it 30 secs before the goal.

y'know it's Jol who's the bottler. When Spurs are in a good lead he never knows what to do, and here they are dropping so far back, away from their forwards, it's just inviting Chelsk to recycle the ball after every attack. Pah!

'kin 'ell it's like being here when GH was in charge - lots of people whinging about not playing "the beautiful game", despite us racking up trophies! What Rafa proved over this tie was that a good, pressing, well-organised team that breaks quickly beats a 'total football tricks and flicks' team a good deal of the time. Just like we used to do, and just like many other teams have done (Milan, Man U from the 90s, Arsenal from the early 00s). All this rose-tinted hankering after the Brazil side of 1970 is actually pretty funny.

I'm sure Moany will, given half a chance, and $30m. And then he'll leave him on the bench for 18 months.* *© Shaun Wright-Phillips

Taxi for Txiki.

Water running uphill, cats chasing dogs, it's the Book Of Revelations, I tells ye - Riise scored with his right foot! Mamma, I'm scared...

respect! and as an aside, French police in being c**ts shocker. Very glad that things didn't get really out of hand - despite the mancdom, have a fair few friends who support the wrong club, and some who were over there last night. Hopefully this might stop the d*ckheads chanting 'murderers' and 'justice for the 39' etc. That is all