Mikey

That's even more Toss

What complete and utter TOSS. He's gradually gone downhill since his first season when he was new to the league, as players have got used to him he has been less and less effective, the number of MoM votes he's had is irrelevant when you see who some of the Whoppa's vote for. Gerrard is World Class, Alonso is a good player, you need to get up your own a*** less.

Whats your point exactly? Scholes and Carrick are both faster and far more mobile than Alonso, my post was in response to Alonso being compared to Carrick in these terms. Also, if you take the rest of the United side(or anyone else really) and compare it to ours the only players close in terms of pace and athleticism are Gerrard, Torres and Masch which kinda proves my second point. Regarding player intelligence being directly related to ability(your point), Joe Cole can hardly utter a sentence, John Terry is thick as F***, as is Beckham, Damien Duff, Ashley Cole, Lampard, Rooney, Ferdinand etc, etc. Our defensive record has been excellent until recently, with the entire team working very hard and defending deep. Some think this contributes to our poor attacking play with little threat from our fullbacks, poor distribution from CB's and defensive midfielders either defending the edge of our box or dropping so deep to get the ball off the CB's that our striker(s) left isolated and we hoof far too much. This season we look remarkable easy to score against. I think Xabi is too slow and immobile to be a force in the PL, I think he's been found out and teams know how to reduce his effectiveness, and he's coming deeper and deeper to try and find space and as such is far easier to defend against. I'd sell him for the right money but remember - Its only an opinion!

What s****; every team in the league has pace, and lots of it, all over the park except for us of course. You could MAYBE fit him in if everyone else was quick, but we played Xabi, HK, Kuyt, Carra and Sami all in vital positions and all as slow as F***. Just out of interest, if teams all have fast strikers why don't we need fast defenders??

Carrick's far more mobile than Alonso, he covers the ground better and is faster. I suggest you actually watch players before you try and slag them off to make Xabi seem better.

This was all said in the Alonso thread and those of us who questioned Alonso's performances were savaged because of it, he ain't mobile enough for the PL and very few of the top sides(NONE?) play with a deep lying, quarterback type in CM like we try to do, mainly because it's too easy to counter - as we're finding out. I also don't think you can carry 3 of your 'creative' players with such lack of pace as we tried to do with Xabi, HK and Kuyt. It's not all about pace, not totally, but was that the slowest side ever to play in the PL? Take out Stevie and Torres and they were all tortoises.

New prediction No-one in, everyone out!

Distinct lack of apologists claiming that only part of the debt being on the club was a good result, now that the Texan has confirmed what everyone with half a brain knew anyway, that we were going to buy the club for them. w*****s. and you can make your own mind up who I'm on about as well.

Right; Delighted with the 'NEW' stadium design, can't see what the delay was all about and would love to know how many millions that has cost to 'change'. The £350M refinance package includes £60M to get the stadium build started and £45M for player transfers, surely this reduces the final cost of the stadium which will cost under £300M in total to under £235M? Also the £45M will be for new transfers or to pay off this years business? If the latter then whats happened to the money we've received for player sales in this time? Anyone that tries to make out that the £350M being split between us and Kop holdings somehow means we're not responsible for all the debt is blatantly wrong yeah? Kop holdings only asset is the club, they have no other form of income so how are they going to pay the repayments on the £200M+ unless they take money out of the club, money which isn't there at present? H&G have no means to raise the money for the rest of the stadium having struggles so much to get this loan? I don't want Rafa to get an extension as I think our performances in the PL since he took over are just not good enough - I do not want to accept us becoming a cup team.

Doug Ellis on SSN this morning saying he refused to sell Villa to them because they would obviously put Villa into loads of debt to pay for the purchase, says they offered £20M more than Lerner but he refused it because "He hadn't worked so hard for so long to see this happen to Villa". FFS 'DeadlyDoug' could smell a rat yet Stan and Ollie couldn't - I f***ing despair.

Forgive me if this sounds a bit thick, but does it really make any difference who the new loan is secured against, either the club or the scam company they set up - Kop holdings?? We all know that the money to service the debt will come out of any profits we make in the end anyway, and will take said monies away from strengthening the team. Seriously, if Hicks and Gillet refinance then I believe we are finished in the short term.

To be honest, its when you start looking at both fullback areas that you start to realise exactly how much money needs spending on the team to get us near the top again. RB - Arbeloa(suffering from playing too many games/2nd season syndrome?), Finnan(getting on and suffering more with injuries) LB - JAR(Average at best), Fabio(Made of Glass), Arbeloa(See above), Insua????? We could easily need two top class fullbacks within 12 months, as well as LW/RW/Striker at least.

Classic quote!

You're not holding your breath are you? It'd take Gandalf, Harry Potter and all his mates to turn those two into decent players.

Why not k****ead?

Mr Softlad to you k****ead.

See, he is s**** afterall!

They do, at least Bellamy would be quick and injured. And can we all agree that I've not been having a dig at Alonso?

I know it's not the right thread but if I had confidence that Rafa would pick the best side from now on, I would be quite relaxed with that.

Yeah, well now you do pay more attention! Does anyone remember me saying we should keep Bellamy and sell Kuyt last season?? obviously I know what I'm on about!

Your opinion mate, one not shared by almost the entire footballing world though. If they were both available in the Summer Essien would be wanted by every top side out there and would fetch upwards of £30M, Alonso would go back to Spain to Athletico or someone for about the same as we paid for him. But you keep thinking Alonso is better than Essien.

So you agree that Essien is more versatile than Alonso as well? How does him being able to cover a variety of positions to help his team in emergencies make him worse than Alonso who can only play one position? You are starting to sound silly now.

So calling him a good player who lacks pace and mobility is running him down??

Not you Freddy, because they're all idiots aren't they until they write something complimentary. For the PL Essien is a far better CM than Alonso, so's Gerrard - always has been aqlways will be.

I know, the other competitions don't count anymore then? According to posters on here Gerrard had a poor season last year and Alonso was "Cracking, one of our best players", Gerrard outscored Xabi 3 to 1 over the season. Take off penalties and goals from his own \half and what does that leave?