Damian_de

It were.

He was excellent tonight.

Given the context... excellent effort from everyone. Thought Rafa got the subs absolutely spot on, especially N'gog.

well played Bert.

If Degen'd lashed that in he would have become a legend there

If that is the team it's surely 352 rather than 4231?

It's not Rafa who's poor at motivating the players, it's Carra. True. Rafa wanted him to fill people in after the match, a la Pellegrino, but he wouldn't. I know he tried it on the pitch at WHL, but we could do with him kicking some a*** right now.

I hope it is that team gibo posted, it'll be boss and we'll win. Can't wait! (seriously, I can't - more footie please!)

Looking forward to the match immensely, after all, the Reds are playing, and it's always a privilege.

I can't offer you any evidence that you would consider categorical, but genuinely i think yes.

See above.

What if it's a million down and 8 in clauses? Suddenly doesn't sound mad to refuse it. No one knows how the offer is structured, and therefore can't really have a reliable opinion on it.

In context it was Saachi talking about the individual trumping the collective, and was reactive because of the team dynamic with too many marquee players, quite the opposite of what you are intimating I think?

Good read as ever from him. The stuff about Saachi is taken straight from his book if I remember rightly, and is a bit of hyperbole for me - tactics have moved on, certainly in the UK, but also in response to rules changes. Saachi's Milan could pass back to the keeper, played a different offside rule, and could tackle from behind, for example. So at the very least we see tactical changes to accommodate those changes in the laws. Rafa is of course a big Saachi fan, and you can see that as has been pointed out already in his need for the individual to be subordinate to the collective, and it is interesting that Rafa has also spoken at length about the need for pace and power, and the need for skill, and that the players that are about both are the ones we can't afford (very often) - we bought Nando of course, players like Essien, Drogba, Rooney, Ronaldo, Eto'o and so on. In the 'Brilliant Orange' book there's a great section about a Dutch guy who does his football photography from up in the stands to get whole pitch shots - what he calls 'moment of tension' - not the close up of the scorer celebrating, but the moment where the story on the pitch suddenly changes. He really loathes newspaper editors who only want the picture of the hero rather than the real art of the game as a whole. Same thing with the tele. But yeah, I like to blame TV for a lot of what I don't like about footie these days, and there is a lot. I was recently watching a bunch of old world cup footage on youtube and the games just seemed more exciting some how. Holland - Brazil in 1974 WC was brilliant! It's true, you could clearly see that the skill levels were similar to now, but the physicality was a world away, although some of the tackling was absolutely brutal.

Rooney will be around for a while of course. I suppose you'd be looking for Micah Richards to get back on track, and players like Mancienne, Gosling and Daniel Sturridge to step up. Joe Cole and some others could easily play at WC2014.

He's alright and doing OK with Villa. Quite like him when BBC has him on for the world cup.

Reina Torres Gerrard

A few scary moments but I thought we played quite well, and with more quality out wide that would have been put away a lot earlier IMO. Credit to Pepe, not much to do except 2 absolutely blinding saves.

Rafa is hoping for a draw, suddenly he changes his mind! Such is the way of these inscrutable foreign types.

Think the stat was 6 shots each on goal

Agree its the wide attacking areas where we're lacking tonight. Never heard that before in the last decade or so

Dunne up to his usual

One to watch: Lucas!

WTF? Pachecho coming on? Is Rafa mental, what's the point of only giving him 10 minutes? * *

To annoy the Internet warriors. He does a few of them every match.