goodrobotusses

Good to see his handballing instincts are still intact. Never seen a player handball so much in my life. Always did it for us, and always got away with it, which was nice. Was also pretty funny when one of his handballs for Villa led to a goal that beat Everton a couple of seasons back.

Fabregas - like so many Arsenal players under Wenger - has this wonderful habit of throwing his toys out of the pram and crying like a little girl when things aren't going their way. I don't quite understand what Arsenal want, for teams to go "oh, well you're a great footballing side, so we'll just stand back and watch while you guys get on with things"? Arsenal, instead of moaning, should take it as a compliment that 9 times out of 10 teams have to work so hard at stopping them from playing their style of football. And the point about pre-Wenger Arsenal is something I've been trying to get across to Arsenal fans for years. Short memories. Hell, if Arsenal are such a bunch of footballing purists, perhaps they should consider giving back the FA Cup they won on penalties against Man Utd a couple of years back, when they pretty much sat behind the ball for 120 minutes.

That's what I was thinking. Very calm and assured.

Thought this as well. Was bizarre seeing the team that had been chasing the ball for most of the game have more energy at the end of the match than the team who'd had most of the possession. Great argument for rotation, eh? Really think we should play mostly bench players on Saturday. Arsenal's squad isn't deep enough to do the same, plus they have the league to focus on still. Leaves them with a choice of playing kids on Saturday, or having a knackered team versus our fresh lot on Tuesday.

That said, in a team that can be as static and rigid as ours, Hleb would not be much of a success, whereas Bentley might be more of a success with a limited game of holding width and getting crosses in.

Hleb is better than Bentley - more guile, better technique, excellent ball-carrier. He doesn't score enough, no, but he has an ability to unlock packed defences with his dribbling and movement that Bentley doesn't.

That's my take on it too. I like Yossi, but I think Kuyt is largely being picked because he has the discipline to hold his width, whereas Yossi always tends to drift inside.

Excellent news. Hope he sees out his career with us - been our best defender this season.

I imagine we'd let him go for about £5million.

Jesus, Inter DO get a lot of penalties, don't they? I sent this text to my brother during the game last night: "Ibrahimovic seemed to have Del Piero Syndrome - useless in big games." To which he replied, "Yeah, maybe it's his enormous ego throwing him off balance." Raised a chuckle.

Great game... apart from that suicide pass. Lad looks quality though - very pleased with him.

Aye. It's just part of the national malaise - that whole "we're English and we'll do things the way we always have" thing. So that means generalisations about football, based on very narrow old-fashioned viewpoints. England, football-wise, still hasn't (and probably never will) move on from the Peter Kay ad "'ave it!" idea of the sport. It's the same thing with youth development in this country - we're so set in our ways (when I say we, I mean they - the idiots), and so blindly arrogant in the thought that Ingerland is the greatest country ever-ever-ever that anything 'foreign' or 'different' or just plain intelligent is either viewed with mistrust and disdain, or more-often-than-not simply ignored (presumably because 99% of people would get a migraine when trying to open their mind to new ideas). If you look at the best English football journalists - pretty much all of them cover foreign leagues and are that much more enlightened about the sport as a result. England/Britain/whatever is just a terribly, terribly old-fashioned, xenophobic and arrogant nation, with hardly any justification in being so.

I like Benayoun - decent squad player. Pennant being sold wouldn't bother me in the slightest though.

Off the top of my head we have played different versions of it against Arsenal home (Kuyt right, Voronin left), Wigan home (Pennant right, Kewell left), Newcastle away (Kuyt right, Kewell left), and Reading away (Voronin right, Crouch (!) left), plus all our recent games.

Similar, but not the same. Previously when we've attempted a 4-2-3-1 it's been an attempt at recreating Valencia's system, with Gerrard as a second striker like Aimar did, and us playing more of a 4-4-1-1 most of the time. This, though, actually reminds me quite a bit of the system Roma play... -----De Rossi Pizarro Taddei Perrotta Mancini -------------Totti Okay, on paper it's exactly the same. But the difference is that instead of your middle player in the '3' being a second striker, he's more of a centre-mid with free reign to bomb forward from deeper positions in support, with the wingers playing more in advance and with license to cut inside so it's more like a 4-3-3 or 4-2-1-3. It definitely suits Gerrard far more than playing as a second striker, where he tends to play whole matches with his back to goal, therefore dulling his potency in attack. It also seems to suit Babel a lot more too. Happy days.

Or because we're playing 4-2-3-1 at the moment...

Aye, overhead kick.

It's amazing how the Mail can even take something like our boardroom issues and turn it into an English vs. Nasty Foreigners taking our jobs diatribe. Utter c****.

It's a bit dense, but it's the most ridiculously comprehensive statistical site I've seen: http://www.rsssf.com/ Just click on the link 'Guide To The Contents', for Kaizer-esque statto-ness.

We went to Juve in '05 after a 2-1 win at home, and got a 0-0 in Italy. That said, I don't think we'll try to play with our backs to the wall from the off. Reckon we'll play a controlled game, stifle them in midfield, and try and hit them on the break. It won't be defend, defend, defend (at least initially, depending on how things go during the game), but it won't be gung ho either.

Think my first choice would have been Ramos. Still is. And though it would be funny if he dumped Spurs after the way they treated Jol, I doubt it would happen. Elsewhere, I reckon Mourinho would take it and he'd probably win us the league too, but he's an utter w***** and his teams aren't exactly easy on the eye - after GH and Rafa, it'd be nice to have at least SOME aesthetic value to our football. Hiddink I'd take, though whether he'd a) want it, and b) want it long term, are up to debate - dude's getting on. Here's one, just to jump outside of the box - Pasquale Marino at Udinese. No expertise on my part here, only the fact that I've watched Udinese a couple of times and they punch above their weight and really go at teams. I guess I'm pretty much basing this on an article by Marcotti. I know people hate him, but it was an interesting read: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/col...icle3300683.ece He's got a good record at smaller teams and seems to be working he's way up quietly in terms of success in Italy. Of course, he could end being a dud, probably doesn't speak English, yada yada... But hell, I'd stick my neck out and say I'd be far more excited about him than any number of dodgy English coaches and the numerous ex-players that usually get suggested in these types of discussions.

Riise can kick a football really, really hard and has very good stamina. When he concentrates he can also be decent enough defensively. The problem is that he has no semblance of a footballing brain (the non-stop hoofing and shooting from stupid places) and an apparently pathological fear of his right foot. One-footedness in itself isn't that big a deal - 90% of footballers in England are one-footed. The problem is the extent of his one-footedness - he can't even nudge the ball along in a dribble with his right foot. That is what's shocking - the fact he can't use his right to get the ball onto his left... he has to adjust and move his whole body around the ball, rather than simply knock the ball a foot to the left. It makes him completely and utterly limited as a footballer. Oh, and he has a tendency to s*** out of challenges too.

Seems to be more box-to-box in the style of Ruben Baraja than Gerrard. Less all action, more subtle with good appreciation of what's going on around him.

It's about damn time too. I guess the Premier League decided to use a sensible idea to offset the stupidity of this extra foreign game idea.

It's a shame for the bloke (and us) - he's a very good footballer (when fit). He was very good at Valencia, and has shown in glimpses that he can be for us. The problem seems to be that every time he comes back from injury, it takes him a few games to get up to speed, then by the time he's started to find his form, he gets injured again and the cycle starts all over again. Very Michael Owen-esque.