goodrobotusses

Think he's one of those types with loads of natural ability, but completely impossible to fit into a team framework, short of building a side around him.

My thoughts exactly. Think he'd be a cracking bargain (assuming he'd stay fit and take a pay-cut). No real pace to lose, so age isn't really a factor (aside from injury potential, I guess) - still one of the best finishers in the game, and fantastic at holding the ball up. But yeah, he'd nearly never play alongside Torres unless we were maybe desperately chasing a game with 10 minutes to go. I'm sure if we signed him the media would be all like, "Torres and Van Nistelrooy - lots of goals", but you can probably count on one hand the amount of times we've played two out-and-out #9 strikers in the same side under Rafa (the odd occasion Crouch and Torres played together in a 4-4-2). Of course, after 3-5 games of them not playing together the media would jump all over Rafa for it. In my opinion, though, he'd be a fantastic option as a back-up to Tog, also offering us the chance to rest the kid on occasion (which, judging by his recurring muscle injuries, he bloody needs sometimes).

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Jonathan Wilson had some comparitive numbers in Inverting The Pyramid - which I don't have to hand. The best I can offer is an article detailing how much more strenuous the game has become even within the last 5 years... http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/foo...ticle722711.ece

The league is a lot harder to win post-Abramovich though (not to mention the effect Man City are going to have in the coming years if they manage to break into the CL). I honestly believe that nearly any other manager inheriting the squad Rafa did would have seen us spiral horribly. The progress we've made inspite of limited resources has been far more impressive than people give Rafa credit for. The guy isn't perfect, and he can be infuriating in his methods, but I'd rather have a guy with a plan and an ethos than some Redknapp-esque chancer. We're walking a tightrope at the moment, but I really think we'd be b******sed without Rafa, and that this is just a blip.

I get what you're saying, and I agree it could have been anyone, but I just don't think there's a story in this. Putting him on that pitch for a longer period of time (when we were winning anyway) might have constituted an unnecessary risk. Asking him to trot about for 30 seconds as a time-wasting exercise wouldn't. I guess he was the most obvious like-for-like replacement for Gerrard... but I'm just supposing here. It's a bit of a non-event that folk are getting all hot and bothered about because they've just seen a s*** game and us going out of the CL, I guess.

Nor Liverpool, it seems.

Valencia should have sacked him the season after they won their first league title under him because they finished outside of the Champions League spots. The Rafa ship had totally sailed for them... all the way to the league and UEFA Cup the next season.

Uh, the modern game is way, way in advance of the olden days both in terms of pace AND stamina. You did catch the bit about midfielders today running twice as much as they used to, right? Today's players are athletes - they have to be. Players before could get away with pie and ale because the physical demands of playing weren't as great as they are today. And I never claimed that Debrecen were one of Europe's top sides. It was a s*** game and we played crap, certainly, but the result was there to be protected with a minute to go. It was the professional thing to do - nothing more, nothing less.

Does it honestly matter who it was? It was 30 seconds of jogging around up front. That said, given the mood among some folk, if Rafa had thrown Spearing on to waste time at the end people would have been complaining that Aquilani was being treated like a dog.

By playing a game that was a lot slower than it is today? Doesn't matter that a modern central midfielder can run 10km+ during a game, where as 'footballers years ago' would have done well to get through 5km, nor that Aquilani has had a long lay-off and is short of match fitness and body conditioning (when an athlete's muscles are most susceptible to strains and tears), nor that the pitch was a bog which would have made a muscle injury even more of a possibility... nah, just whack him on from the start. Oh, and the subbing him on was a time-wasting exercise with a minute left, before anyone jumps on that.

No. Not in the slightest.

Feel sorry for the guy - he's basically taken the bullet on behalf of all the cretins that have run that club into the ground.

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"What does PB see when he's on his exercise bike at home? PB literally bettering himself."

Not awful, jovially?

The best part of this story is the fact he's been replaced by a dude named Leonid Slutsky.

That Altidore story is hilarious. The guy apologises to fans/teammates for being late via Twitter, and Brown fines him for not keeping it "in-house"? WHAT WAS THAT HALF-TIME RANT ON BOXING DAY, PHIL?

I thought overall it was decent enough. Don't necessarily agree with it all, and I think a couple of things have been missed out (the "outburst" at Ferguson always seemed more a ploy to take media attention off Gerrard and the charges against him last season), but I think the only really bad thing about it is the sensationalist, misleading title.

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Bossed it second half. Him, Pirlo and Ambrosini were all very good. Ronaldinho had the odd moment in the 2nd half also, just such a shame that he's let himself go to the point his explosiveness and acceleration have gone. He's still got the technique, but I don't think he'll ever get back to being what he was a few seasons back - what a waste.

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