Armin_Tamzarian

The two positions aren't mutually exclusive. You can agree with Lawrenson that they shouldn't have announced that they would appoint a new man before the tournament. You can also agree with Hansen that once they did decide to appoint before the tournament they'd be better off getting it over and done as quickly as possible.

If anyone is round the HJC 1-15 today and fancies carrying a large banner over to the Kop I'd be grateful. If you then feel like coming in to the stadium and helping me unpack and repack it prior to launching it I'll be even more grateful. If you can hang about after the end of the game and help repack it a third time so it's sorted for Cardiff I'll have run out of gratitude but may manage an ambivalent nod and grunt.

No.

Problem with that statistic is that he's the second best of an underperforming bunch. As a team we've created a lot of chances this year, all the strikers who've played up front have had a decent number of chances in virtually every game. Where they've fallen short is in the ratio of chances converted. Cisse is one of the worst offenders in that regard.

I'm sure he'll deflect any controversial question so I'd probably ask him his best memory of his Liverpool career. Also, if he could pick any striking partner in world football who would he like to play alongside?

I wouldn't mind seeing Anderson get a cameo but given that Portsmouth will be playing for their premiership survival we might get in trouble if we pick too soft a team.

The choice of players is moronic. Aside from an excellent finish Harewood was poor in the other semi final and Kewell was the best man on the pitch at Old Trafford. Depressing to see the FA as highlight obsessed as the the worst tabloid.

CFC-Net were very helpful when we were spreading the word about Steve Cook. That certainly won't be forgotten. Every contact I've had with them has been very positive and it's obviously the pre-eminent independent Chelsea forum. It's plain to see the amount of work that's gone into their site so it's easy to understand the strength of their reaction, although I think they made a mistake in making it so public, for strategic reasons really. I've visited their forum recently but it didn't seem a good time to post. The generalising about our support over there is unfortunate, but in the context of our playing Chelsea in so many important games it's probably inevitable. What is truly depressing is the trotting out of the hoary old lies about Hillsborough, a tragedy which should transcend team rivalries but is increasingly being brought into an overheated and damaging debate. Hopefully wiser counsel prevails over time because with the two managers we have it's likely we'll be seeing a lot more of each other across a football field. I love rivalry but there's sufficient tension on the field already without adding fuel to the fire. Hopefully with our respective end of season program and then the World Cup relations between the supporters will simmer down.

No wonder the poor lad can't shoot straight.

That's not a nice thing to say about the hardworking Rawk admin team...

Morientes has been a disappointment, but at least he runs as best he can and tries. Cisse was shocking today, absolutely shocking. It's not the first time. How a player that's just come on in such an important game can be so lackadaisical is beyond me. I'm long past making excuses for him and I want him out of the club.

As said previously YNWA was played immediately before Blue is the Colour. I must say BITC did seem as if it were being played louder, but then we were well ino YNWA before the record started, and we'd not stopped singing anyway, was really deafening in East stand upper. Fair play to the OT announcer. At the end they played Rocking all over the World, YNWA, La Bamba, Sloop John and more. Was a brilliant experience to be partying there.

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It's a quintuple bluff to deflect attention from the Jody Morris swoop.

Sven will definitely take 3 keepers, he'd be foolhardy not to and he's hardly got a reputation for risktaking. With Kirkland and Dudek hopefully moved on in the summer I hoped Carson would settle into the number two role. If he understandably prefers to play and we just need cover how about WEsterveld?

Any pub that might have been safe before being named on the internet will automatically become dodgy. If you or people with you don't know Manchester you're probably better doing your drinking outside. I don't think a public message board is a good place to plan something like this, who knows who is reading?

Unfortunately a fight then broke out between the lads waiting to get the gloves Was still kicking off as I ledt the stand.

Or a mutated hybrid of the two; The Bellapant, a drink driving nightclub fight starting monster with neon bling encrusted tusks and a high pitched roaring whine that freezes defenders in their tracks. Ready the test tubes Paco...

It says a lot for the lad that he doesn't let the red arrows all over the pitch put him off the game.

Last year someone who speaks to the manager on a regular basis told me that Rafa was unhappy with Pongolle's attitude. I was surprised and a bit gutted because he's someone I like as both a player and a person. Rafa's criticism was that Pongolle felt that he knew it all and he wasn't as interested in learning as he should be. It was round about the time that Cisse, Baros and Mellor were all unavailable and Pongolle had a shot at leading the line. He didn't really impress but no-one who saw his Olympiakos performance would be in any doubt that he's a player capable of changing a game. After that I thought he would figure more and more in the Liverpool side and if it hadn't been for his injury perhaps he would. Unfortunately what has transpired since then suggests he has no future with us. Perhaps if a buyer had come in for Cisse Pongolle would've had been tried in the right wing slot, he's better suited to it than Djibril. Sending him out on loan suggests to me that he doesn't have a future with us, likewise with Le Tallec. Perhaps as another managers proteges there was always little chance of them succeeding under Rafa. They've both got real talent but I don't think Le Tallec is suited to out league, Pongolle could be a good player but I think he'll move on at the end of the season. As to price, I doubt we'd get a lot more than 2m simply due to his lack of appearances. One good season for Blackburn and he'd be worth 3 times that.

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I agree with David's assessment. The only part of the team which has failed to at least meet expectations have been the forwards. If Morientes, Cisse and to a much lesser extent Crouch had managed to take a better percentage of the chances created I'm certain we'd be World Champions and possibly still in the Champions League and in second spot. One thing which shines through from the performance on the pitch is the hard work which is clearly going on in training. This is an increasingly well drilled and prepared group of players. Well done Rafa and his backroom team.

The bloody fool's blown his cover! Get out man before night falls and it's too late...

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