Puskas

To be fair to SCS, Gerrard is by some distance the best player in the England squad, so you can see why he'd want to play him, especially in a 'must win' match. I expect Gerrard will play both games.

Small recommendation: You have chosen to ignore all posts from: Kaizer. It helps, believe me.

I'm convinced that Gerrard is secretly hankering to be back on the right wing. Well I don't know why I play here tonight, I got the feeling that something ain't right, I'm so scared in case I get caught upfield, And I'm wondering how we'll defensive(ly) shield, Yoss(i) to the left of me, Jermaine to the right, here I am, Stuck in the middle with you. Yes I'm stuck in the middle with you, And I'm wondering what it is I should do, I can't sit out on the wing any more, Man, this tactics s**** is a bore, Yoss to the left of me, Jermaine to the right, here I am, Here I am, stuck in the middle with you. Trying to make some sense of it all, But I can see that it makes no sense at all, Is it cool to go to sleep on the floor, 'Cause I don't think that I can take anymore Yoss to the left of me, Jermaine to the right, here I am, Here I am, stuck in the middle with you.

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I was wondering the same thing. Rafa still has a few contacts at Madrid I believe...

I don't think that applies in full to the new EU countries yet - not even the ones that joined in 2004. I guess there's a 'transition period' or something. There's a few non-EU countries that get the free movement of labour privileges as well.

Hungary beat Italy 3:1!!

I am so f***ing sick and tired of all this harping on about rotation that I have been 'inspired' to write a song - specifically about Rafa's rotation policy. You put your Gerrard in, your Gerrard out In out, in out, rotate him all about You do the Rafa Rotate and you change your team That's what it's all about Whoa-o the Rafa Rotate Whoa-o the Rafa Rotate Whoa-o the Rafa Rotate Gerrard in, Crouch benched Raa raa raa You put your Riise in, your Riise out In out, in out, rotate him all about You do the Rafa Rotate and you change your team That's what it's all about Whoa-o the Rafa Rotate Whoa-o the Rafa Rotate Whoa-o the Rafa Rotate Riise in, Crouch benched Raa raa raa Repeat for: Finnan Leto Leiva Babel Torres Kewell Pennant Agger Reina Repeat until: All the journalists' ears start bleeding.

Work permits have nothing to do with the EU bit, they are arranged between countries. UK folks don't need work permits to work in Hungary , so Hungarians don't need work permits for the UK. However Bulgaria and the UK don't have a similar reciprocal agreement.

You could almost hear Ben Haim's thought processes: "The boss said to shepherd this lad Torres onto his weaker left side. That worked... err... actually it didn't." Quality finish. As well as scoring a few I think he'll win us penalties and free kicks in dangerous positions because centre backs are going to be s*** scared of him.

Just drop the 'and': We've got Finnan and Agger Aurelio, Carra And Pepe Reina in goo-ooooo-ooooooo-ooooooo-al No charge

Crap article, as per usual. Looking at what Benitez actually knows: "We can challenge Manchester United and Chelsea, but only if the new players settle down and we start the season with confidence," says Benitez. "That only comes with winning matches. The team has a clear idea what to do, and now we must do it. "I don't want to say we can't win the league. What I say is we must try everything possible to do it, but we know how difficult it will be. "A lot of teams have spent big money. Manchester United have spent more than any team, and Newcastle, Aston Villa, Tottenham and Manchester City could all be more competitive. "I hope the league will be more open because it's better for the Premiership."

That's quite a good article (grammar errors aside!). It demonstrates that it is possible to make stats both interesting and relevant. The key point is right at the end - Chelsea, Man U and Liverpool rotate their squads an identical amount in the league, it's just that the Chelsea and Man U squads have been a little better than ours up to now. It was also interesting to note that Man U's squad cost double the amount ours did, and Chelsea's triple.

Some 'news' services are claiming we told Man City that the asking price is £12m. So it looks like we would be prepared to sell him if a club matches that price.

He's a real clean sheet man Living is his clean sheet land Saving shots and set pieces from everyone Doesn't need to do the Du Just knows where it's going to Saving all those penalties from everyone Clean sheet man, keep saving The stopper we've been craving Clean sheet man, the ba-a-a-all is at your command

There's lies, damn lies and statistics. You can make statistics say anything you want, with a little tweaking. Whatever your position is, you can find stats to back it up. For example: 'Crouch is s***' He didn't score in his first 18 games. He has 13 league goals in 64 league appearances. 'Crouch is super' Crouch has scored 31 goals in 72 starts for Liverpool (including a very rough beginning where he didn't score for his first 18 games). He was subbed off in 51 of those games. Not counting his league appearances, he has scored 18 goals for Liverpool in his 34 other games for the club. He has scored 12 goals in 19 internationals and holds the record for the most goals scored by an England international in a single calendar year. Just remember that 73.4% of statistics are made up on the spot.

I think Yossi took a lot of the set pieces for West Ham. He might be a useful option for whipping free kicks in from wider areas.

And what exactly is wrong with Hungary of all places, may I enquire?

I've added italics to highlight a couple of points in the post above. Our initial proposition is that Kaizer can actually do maths. Assuming you win every single home game that's 57 points. That's 23 points short of 80. So the minimum number of away wins required to hit 80 points would actually be a grand total of 2, assuming you draw all rest (57 + 6 + 17 = 80). The minimum number of away wins required to hit 85 points is 5 (actually totals 86 points). 5 is not the majority of 19. Even if you go for the more realistic 15 wins, 3 draws and a loss at home (48 points - Chelsea got more than that at home a couple of seasons ago), requiring 37 to hit the 85 total required, you would need to win only a minimum of 9 matches away, drawing the other 10. 9 is still not the majority of 19. Even if you take your (debatable) 85 point target as a 'given' requirement to win the league, and you don't win all your home games, the statement 'you will have to win the majority of your games away to win the league' is still false. On the (admittedly probably unfounded) assumption that Kaizer actually did any maths before stating 'You do the maths.', we have also demonstrated our initial proposition - that Kaizer can actually do maths - to be completely false. You don't even need to do maths for this next bit, all you need is Google - the most recent team to do it was Man U, who won the 2002-3 title with only 9 away victories - i.e. less than the majority of their away matches. They are a good example because they won the title a number of times in the 90's/00's with less than 10 victories away from home.

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James Josemi Babb Paletta Ziege McAteer Ince Diao Gonzales Bellamy Morientes Paletta still has a chance to redeem himself...

What we were lacking last season was the player(s) who can come up with something a bit special to win a match - all by themselves. Last season two of our most creative players in Kewell and Garcia were injured for most of it, and Gerrard had to shoulder most of the creative burden - with Pennant helping out when he came into form later in the season. Man U have this creativity in spades - any of their front three can beat a man one on one, plus they can all pass, and they have Scholes and to a lesser extent Carrick behind that picking people out with clever passes. Chelsea also have a few players capable of moments of individual brilliance - Drogba and Robben mainly, with Essien and Wright Phillips chipping in occasionally and Lampard scoring the goals from midfield and taking the set pieces. We have Kewell back, and we've added to the ability to both beat a man and pass the ball with Torres and Babel, and some more clever passing and movement ('game intelligence' as Rafa calls it) with Benayoun and Voronin. With Mascherano available we can also push Alonso further upfield as well. So we're not just reliant on Gerrard and Pennant for the creative spark any more. It all sounds good on paper - we'll have to wait and see if it actually earns us more points on the pitch!