Tyler

was meeting tonight called to placate rafa or for some other purpose

van der sar, hargreaves, carrick, scholes, tevez wouldn't get in ours

shareholders agreement will almost certainly guarantee each of h and g two board seats each will also have various veto rights at this stage i don@t know what is going on but somebody needs to mediate to allow hicks to sell but save face at the same time it may be that back to back agreements are put in place so that g sells to h and then h sells to dic. i don't know but hopefully all parties have vented this week and next week can move on to do the deal that needs to be done

anybody think hicks is waiting to see if we win the champions league if we do - prize money, prestige etc may mean higher valuation all the allegation and counter allegation suggests that this is going to drag on for a while yet. i cannot see how yesterdays call helped his position

location of the finals needs to be looked at istanbul paris athens moscow apart from paris they are outlying reaches of europe and areas without infrastructure to support the finals uefa should but won't have a shortlist of three or four centrally located european capitals/major cities with infrastructure to support this where final is held every year in rotation places like barcelona berlin paris milan other main problem and this applies to nearly every major event is that ticketmaster and the like seem to be run for the benefit of ticket agencies who are able to buy up blocks of tickets and flog them to the corporate sector/travel agents

Parry could have been absent if he wanted to have been - personal reasons whatever. The fact that he chose to sit beside Gillette in such a public fashion was, in my view, designed to send a clear signal.

when there is a boardroom battle Chief Exec sitting next to one of the Club Owners is a deliberate and public demonstration Naieve to think that everything we see and hear in this is not calculated and orchestrated.

Parry was sitting beside Gillette on Wednesday which was a public demonstration of where he was at. This has probably led to the latest outburst from Hicks but is difficult to know what is motivating this and at this time. Combined with the DIC statement earlier about pulling out "for now" I don't really know how to read it. For the moment given success on the pitch we are ok but this could be a very destabilising influence if it drags on into close season and could see another team approach Rafa and could mean no monies for transfers. Not sure how it will resolve itself but I do know that statements to media like this one and DIC one are designed to bring about a course of action which is not always the course of action requested. There is a game being played here and longer it goes on more the club is damaged.

when ferdinand and vidic are playing they look secure at back without one and they look like conceding

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I'd take 4-0 from the first leg seriously if we can go there with a lead we have a great chance they don't get beat at their place too often but we could get a draw have a feeling this will come down to away goals and could go to penalties again arsenal games were like blood and thunder fa cup games. these games likely to be tight and tense given its a semi final and recent history. i think they will be happy that they can beat us at their place and will try and get an away goal in first leg and then take a 1-1 or 2-1 defeat back to london

brady missed the editorial meeting before the show and felt he was set up also funny when brady let slip chelsea were through although rte had kept result until after they showed highlights good tv o'herlihy as host is the man who knows nothing and says as much and asks them for their views i think they have got lazy as pundits though dunphy has a pre-ordained view most of the time

Chelsea have been made favourites for this. Which is good.

Another massive game, this time though second leg at their place. Will be interesting to see how we cope there this time. When we play United could await the winner which is going to be a huge incentive/distraction for us more than Chelsea. Rafa sure has restored exciting and great times to this club. Take it all in because we could look back on this in ten years and wonder how we took our strength in Europe for granted.

great thanks

Strachan explained the system perfectly last week and explained why it failed for their goal its about holding your nerve he said and not getting drawn out of your zone its downfall is that zonal marking can be vulnerable to a ball to edge of area btw - we were playing a combination of zonal and man marking last night a few times hyypia and aurelio swapped zones depending on proximity of arsenal players

Anybody know if our second leg is 29th or 30th

we never stopped attacking even when we went ahead this is different team/system than we have seen reminded me a bit of GH Uefa cup final win. Will be interesting to see how we approach semi final. I thought crouch did well, allowed torres to run at them from left side and drift out there. Crouch worked hard and closed them down when we didn't have the ball. we didn't have an outlet in left midfield really was a very attack minded performance by us once we equalised we immediately grew in confidence and they floundered. they were passing ball very well for first 30 minutes but after we scored they looked shaken

Crazy having Brady analyse Arsenal matches. He can't be seen to associate with any criticism of Wenger while he is on the coaching staff Dunphy lost the plot but interesting thing was that they have scripts and editorial meetings before matches

some lessons to be learned we seem to have a mentality in europe never look beaten

left midfield is not a postition he can play

he was fantastic in that role provided an outlet so many times when we had ball and ran his heart out when we didn't

babel tried to stay on his feet that's why he got the penalty

need to steady the ship before they get a second they are tearing us apart

will be surprised if crouch starts think he will be brought on if we need a goal i am expecting same team as first leg with maybe benayoun for babel