Fagan

thought it was very disappointing, mainly because BBc has been plugging this programme and hyping it for quite a while now. firsty, it was very short in length, and it was on far too late. also,there was v little content in it, which is why a lot of the show's valuable time is taken up showing lineker going to the house only to be told to come back in a few hours cause maradona wasnt there. there was nothing insightful at all, nothing i didnt know before. the actualy questioning/interview seemed to be a minor part of the programme and the least interesting part. it was v interesting to see the levels of adoration he still commands, v interesting to see him at the Boca game and playing indoor football. but other than that, for a programme BBC hyped so much it was an anti-climax to say the least. Lineker was poor, he seemed to have his questions pre-prepared and had no scope to deviate from his prepared questions or even delve further or pursue an answer that maradona gave

no way 5-7M. i'm thinking 4M will be the price

Basically, he recounted the story of what happened. That the attack took place, Michael was asleep and witnesses have testified as such. How Sankey confessed. How shockingly the case was dealt with, how it based entirely on eye witness accounts and how those accounts are very questionable. How the media in the country was disgraceful. And how there was no forensic evidence connecting Michael to the case. How the line up was with 3 other Bulgarians and he was the only one wearing a white t-shirt which they made him wear. Basically he recounted the story and how unjust it is. Said that the family will now appeal to the court of justice in Luxembourg and he stressed this is not just a Liverpool issue, its an international issue as people travel to Bulgaria all the time and their legal system is so obviously unjust and corrupt that it affect everyone. Said the government haven?t done anything yet despite assurances work was being done in the background. its unbelievable really. the court of justice will have to throw it out and the familt should be given massive compensation as a result

WWW.NEWSTALK106.IE paul kelly from the campaign speaking now

deCent artiicle i should say... Underrated XI

yes, although as a side point i dont think gerrard would have gone to chelsea for the money, he wanted to win trophies, but thats irrelevant for the purposes of this argument. that fact that chelsea were abel to wave such a wad of cash in front of any of our players, and our captain and best player in particular, and also promise them almost guaranteed freshly bought silverware i think forced the club into making radical changes to ensure not only that we convinced such players that we were gonna compete with chelsea but also that we actually followed through on such promises, and as a result, we sacked GH, got rafs in, our looking for extra ways of raising capital so rafa can buy the players he needs to compete with chelsea. thats why in a perverse way i was suggesting they have been good for us i feel like im repeating myself at this stage i disagree strongly because as i have said, i dont think we would have got rafa in that summer because there would have been no chelsea to buy gerrard or to be walking away with the league every season.

Noone can argue with that statement i was just wondering if people thougght that they made us buck up our ideas that all

yes, precisely my point

i dont think theres any debate that if GH hadnt been sacked stevie would be in a chelsea jersey now, whether it was last season or this season

obviously.. but the point was/is; would we have sacked GH when we did and got benitez when he was available were it not for the very real threat of chelsea's new found dominance? did the fact that gerrard was going to leave for this new massively rich club make it an immediate imperative that we got rafa in when he was available. its open for debate that had chelsea still been the rubbish nowhere men that they were before abramavich that GH might have been given 1 more season as we may have been looking a lot closer to catching up with united and arsenal rather than being way behind the chelsea revolution. thats the point, did chelsea's transformation make the board get their sh*t together and give them a rude awakening. obviously rafa is the man behind our success but were chelsea the catalysts in causing rafa to become our manager? that's the question im trying to raise

I can just see him lining up for man city for some reason.

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Yes but, that summer Houllier left, Owen and Gerrard we're on their way out of the club. Because of Chelsea's millions and they likelyhood of them dominating, it was looking less and less likely that we were going to be in a position to challenge. Gerrard was gonna go to chelsea had GH stayed, Owen, well he was gonna go anyway as we saw. so i think the arrival of chelsea on the scene. or the arrival of abramovich, meant that Houllier just had to go, there and then and Rafa was available that summer. were it not or chelsea i believe GH would have been given another year and more money to turn it around and we would have missed out on rafa, and possibly ended up with the special one or somebody else. somebody less able than rafa is what i mean. I think we would have gone on believeing that we were on the brink of challengin united and arsenal and not enforcing the radical changes that have happened, and needed to happen. It was all about timing i believe and chelsea;s money forced us to act at that crucial moment, otherwise we would have lost stevie to them, and still have a lot of the GH buys in our squad

"Benitez strangles Cisse after yet another invisible performance"

Does anyone else think that Chelsea?s Russian revolution have actually been good for us? There is certainly an argument to be made that they have given us the kick up the backside we needed. If abramovich had not arrived on the scene then it?s not unreasonable to say that united and arsenal would still be the top 2 teams and we might still have Houllier in charge and our hand may not have been forced to go out and get Benitez at the time when we did. We could have actually ended up with Mourinho possibly. Its much harder to improve when your at the v top like Chelsea and for us I can only see us striving and achieving to get the level of domestic dominance that Chelsea enjoy, that sort of standard would not have happened had it not been for Chelsea I think. As much as I hate Chelsea and think all their money is horribly bad for the game, the money had already ruined it long before they came on the scene. But they have the raised the bar and we as a result have a manager who is far more capable than fergie or wenger of closing the gap. We now, when bringing in new players, have to bring in quality and class that can immediately make an improved impact into the first team, and we have also seen the massive benefits of having a strong bench like Chelsea and as a result we have a much improved squad. Would we have made such dramatic improvements had it not been for Chelsea? Would we have got rid of Houllier that summer? Would we be desperately seeking investment in order to invest heavily in the team?

possible outsiders like darren bent might get a shout? owen will make the squad, hes got plenty of time. i think if sven picks rooney in the squad now he is taking a massive gamble.

where would you have heard rooney is a doubt

mourinho claims he was told by a united official that he'll be ok it looked like a lateral ligament injury, if its not serious it could mean 3 weeks out, if it is it could be up to 2/3 months i know cause i had it. twice

come on boys, lets get another 1 or 2 so we can pip united on goal difference

well i for one hope hes ok, im nt english so have no vested interest. but the world cup is the stage where i like to watch all the worlds best players on the big stage. and rooney is one of them. also, i'll have to listen to all the 'if rooney had been fit we would have won it' crowd

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i'd have ronaldhino, just... but id rather have maradonna