Damian_de

Good effort - faded, and will likely shoulder a bit of the blame. But he definitely has the attributes to serve as the focal point in our attack.

Read what you just wrote there and have a think about it. He's had 5 years to assemble a squad... and has been doing rather nicely until getting utterly shafted by the owners. Get a grip, man, it's now that a bit of faith actually matters!

You sure thats the doom and gloom edition? Or is that the next one?

Loblaw for President! Never seen purer BS.

We aren't out yet, and yes, this is all down to the owner situation. Cheers

What, like in 2006? Or 2002? or 1998? I think they might do OK next time around, as you say, very good manager and favourable conditions, but there are plenty of things need to go well for them - a keeper needs to step up and perform for 7/8 games, Ferdinand might be shot... France managed to win it without a quality striker, but they did have ZZ in behind...

We sold Alonso for a world record fee for someone in that position, spent nothing like as much on a replacement, and then the cupboard was bare.

Poor performance for sure, but I would imagine we practice 3 at the back in training quite a bit, so unlikely to have been out of the players' experience.

Excellent pun about Dossena? Thing is, with the Keane and Alonso money disappearing into a black hole somewhere, you can't blame Rafa for refusing to strip the squad any further if he didn't think he'd see the money come back for reinforcements. My point being the balance looks off because he probably thought there'd be money for one or 2 more in the areas we are short. There's a reason we don't have those players, or players 'like' those, and that's because they are a million miles out of our reach financially at the moment, and are too good to be bench players. They aren't back ups, and they are very expensive. There aren't many players of that quality around, and this summer we had the Real Madrid/Man City silly season - hardly anyone bought players of that calibre. I know we're all disappointed with the form this season, but from Rafa's perspective he is trying to build a squad which can win the league, and that can't be done over night. You add to what you have piece by piece. This summer the obvious big piece added was Johnson, and hopefully Aquillani will also be a key player in a squad that can challenge. Added to that a lot of the crucial pieces already in place were tied down to long term deals (although we all know that shouldn't have come out of the transfer kitty, but there it is). So yeah, we're lacking in cover for Torres, but IMO Rafa isn't 'mad for blowing all his cash on a full back' (who we needed), he's playing a longer game, building a squad piece by piece, unable to spunk £100M+ and buy a team like Chelsea/Man City. He knows we need cover up front, and we need more creativity from wide, he just doesn't have the money to buy it all at once. In the past he strengthened the squad generally, buying several middle price and quality players at once, but now we are at the point where we need to be adding quality. Reina, Aurelio, Insua, Agger, Skrtel, Carra, Johnson, Lucas, Mascherano, Aquillani, Riera, Benayoun, Kuyt, Gerrard, Torres - all those are capable of playing a role in a title challenging side in my opinion, and most if not all are on deals with several years remaining. We need a bit more, but given the circumstances with the owners, what choice is there but to add the rest one piece at a time, while trying to keep hold of what you've got?

But they still don't have a single result against a quality side to suggest they can do it...

You can't mean that, surely? Dead man walking with the fans? Or the owners - don't think they'd dare. Anyway, agree with the comment about this season being secondary to getting rid of those 2 c**** at the top, but honestly, I think they won't be moved that quickly, and to a certain extent it'll be on their terms, i.e. they'll sell for a profit. Obviously we're saving all the good stuff for later in the season when it matters... but we have played a lot of games away, without Aquillani or Mascherano (either in body or sometimes in spirit) and haven't had much luck at all. *shrug* It WILL get better. And anyone saying it's Rafa's fault, have a word with yerself!

I know we're 1-0 behind but I don't think they've done a great deal, and we're definitely still capable of getting something out of this. Yossi or Jonson looking most likely to provide.

played Johnson.

Right, get Xabi on for the second half.

I think it's fair to say we don't exactly look composed on the ball at the back.

very close from Aurelio

Free kick for us dead centre

Definitely in with a chance - goal aside we've had all the ball really, couple of half chances.

Not quite sure where the England optimism is when they've lost aganst every big name they've played under Capello (Holland excepted...)

Don't think there are any. A few come close - Rinus Michels and Arrigo Saachi both managed Runner UP in the WC, and Beckenbauer won the UEFA but not the European Cup.

Partly to do with the fact that they had beaten Inter, wasn't it? And therefore a very personal kind of revenge for Shanks.

They're just cuddling up

Really enjoyed reading that, thanks for the link.

Barclay also wrote a piece in the Times this weekend arguing that the seeded draw FIFA have just come up with for the European zone runner ups is fair, but that he'd like to see Ireland get through (presumably because they speak English). (NB: no slight on the Irish there, but slight on Barclay for trying to have it both ways).

Tell you what, that was absolutely shocking from Ferdinand there. He can defend against Nando like that as much as he likes.