windy city red

i dont think so, they still have to play man utd, arsenal and bolton thus making their fixtures tougher than ours. guessing whether arsenal is going to win champs league is a little premature now, i think their defence is still pretty shaky so the jury is still out. i'm immensely worried about our team though. we arent scoring through our strikers (even when its handed to them on a plate) and thats indirectly affecting the team on a whole. add that to the fact that everyone is pretty exhausted from this season's campaign, i just hope we have done enough to secure at least a top four finish.

no surprise there...everytime we are a goal down, the forum reacts like the club is one step closer to relegation...

cheers. amidst the influx of ludicrous comments, there are at least some sane ones around...

get a grip please. we beat juve and milan last season and i dont think our fans thought any LESS of their reputations... benfica played better over the two legs, get over it and lets move on.

me too! i am frigging at work!!!

haha, thanks for the honest reply...

fair point. but...are you really saying that because you have been watching them for a couple of seasons (and feel they deserve it) or because that will justify your loss to them?

dont understand... why is he presently out of favour with rafa?

I completely agree re cisse. trouble is i cant see him being a complete player with us and there have been numerous discussions on that! thought he worked hard today nevertheless so credit to him.

which is why as someone added he was our most dangerous player over 90 mins. i am in no way a supporter of cisse but whenever he uses his pace instead of doing 500 stepovers to beat someone, hes burned at the stake for using his STRONGEST asset. i dont give a crap how he beats the player as long as he does, giving him opportunities to cross the ball as much as he did today.

there are some very odd comments regarding cisse's performance today... i didnt know playing against an inexperienced fullback means you were suppose to skin him every time you have the ball...

if we continue playing like this in the 2nd half and a little bit more luck, we are bound to get at least a goal... cisse is surprising me today....may he continue.

so stubborn that he got rid of Josemi and Nunez after just one season? while nando scores way less than cisse, i think everyone can see that the team plays better as a whole with him than cisse in it. why cant you understand that?

I do agree to a certain extent that its starting to be a little bit of an excuse of us but your reasons are flawed and (understandably) biased against us. 1) you cant compare how much hes getting now vs how much he got at porto because the premiership and portugese league are vastly different in quality 2) you cant compare his accomplishments at porto compared to benitez's accomplishment at valencia for the same reason. You are underestimating how much $ helps. If handled wisely, it improves the team exponentially and buys the team ALOT of time before the rest of the teams can catch up( see chelsea now and ac milan in the past). If handled wrongly, well, theres newcastle and leeds. Chelsea has clearly set a new benchmark and I am sure it will only be a matter of time their quality will "taper off".

is true. as mentioned a thousand times before, for all of baros's faults, i dont think we would have made it all the way to the champs league final and won it. i shudder to think what would have happened if it was cisse who was leading the line..

chill... like mentioned by numerous posters, you were alluding to the fact that he probably only scored by t&*ting the ball really hard which is not really the case because he has scored some with finesse. and i just thought that was a tad unfair. and for the record, i'm in no way a cisse supporter. i was frustrated when it was baros and not cisse who left and that match yesterday confirmed my belief that cisse seriously lacks a good footballing brain.

ONE? perhaps you are the one pissed? the one statement alone invalidates your quite convincing argument regarding cisse...

yeah yeah yada yada. keep the smileys going eh? i will have my fair share of smiles when champs league starts again. you watching?

sort of but he has less flair and doesnt do that stepover nonsense. however, his crosses are way way better.

geographic proximity? yes footballing ability?definitely no.

dude, i think you need to go take a chill pill and rest. some of your comments about cisse are downright unfair. cisse's conversion rate for liverpool is apparently about 33%, 11 goals in 34 1st team appearances. so in that sense, its not much difference from owen's, thats if i got the stats right. for some odd reason, cisse isnt showing the same "composure and finishing ability " that made him top scorer of the french league. maybe he lacks a good footballing brain to adapt quickly to the premiership, who knows? but i still think that hardly constitutes calling him a mule...