BG

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Two lists a year I think. New Year's one and a Summer one I think (??). They're announced in the paper but the person themselves gets to know a few weeks before.

I know what you're getting at though I never thought Mascherano's passing was too bad (the fact Guardiola wanted him would tend to support that). Obviously he's no Molby but nor was he Momo. I think that the club he's at is probably the only club in Europe where he wouldn't be a guaranteed starter. Whether or not that makes him 'world class' depends on one's definition of that elastic term.

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You've changed your mind - have you not read the forum rules? I've always liked Lucas, not just because of his obvious attitude, but because I thought that even when things weren't going for him you could see that he was a player who did most of the simple (and important things) well or very well. I agree that he's clearly got stronger and that experience has helped him a lot. He's also reliable in big games and seems to have a great temperament. In the big aways he's one of the ones I don't worry about. I think he'll be a fixture in the first team for years and he would be very low down the list of players I'd be looking to improve on. At the Chelsea game I was sat with their lot and his praises were being sung quite a bit by some of their fans. He would clearly start there ahead of Mikel. As a sidenote lots of Chelsea fans seem to think Essien is rapidly declining and certainly he didn't look right that day.

His knee is at a funny angle too.

Sounds like a good lad if the Elliot Wild thread is anything to go by.

Shame he didn't go to A&E with that. He'd still be there waiting.

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No sadly not. Malignant means it's invasive (ie it has the capacity to spread). The article says its grade 1-2. Normally that means that any spread is only local (ie no distant spread to other organs etc) but the article gives no info about the site and type of cancer so it's impossible to know really. Wish him well.

Was lucky enough to see both live a few times. I think Zidane has undoubtedly had more impact on the game than Ronaldinho over a longer period. That said I think Ronaldinho's best couple of seasons were unbelievable and in those seasons he was probably, though it's a hard call, harder to play against than Zidane. In answer to the OP I think Barca now probably aren't the best team I've seen - I think, as others have said, that Saachi's (maybe even Capello's) Milan may have been more ruthless. But van Gaals Ajax are the only team I've ever seen move it as well.

Plenty of our own fans weren't exactly slow to turn on a manager when a bad season followed a good one...

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Not the best from Kelly - man ran off him a bit too easily. Edit: offside? Edit again: no, onside.

On the way back from the game. One mistake apart today he was absolutely top draw: disciplined, intelligent use of the ball and good positionally. He will take a lot of shifting.

Clearly a very big fee. That said his age and his englishness are a guarantee of decent resale value. And on an optimistic note the king has twice before broken the British transfer record for Geordie forwards and it worked out pretty well both times...

What's up with Benzema these days? Isn't he out of favour at Madrid?

He has been, for about 25 years. I thought everyone had seen those adverts.