Bo Benn

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Best keeper we've ever had

aw crap...

Just gave me an idea. Instead of boycotting the club we should urge the fans of the Stars and Rangers to boycott their club, which won't hurt our club but definitely hurt Hicks' wallet and my guess is that if he is forced to sell one club ours will be first on the list A very bad scenario now would be if Gillett opts to sell and Hicks stays. If the new 50% owner bows to Hicks and runs the club his may or even sells shares to him we would well and truly be in the s***. I've heard a lot of voices before saying Gillett is as bad as Hicks, but especially since the latest stuff going on at the club I cannot see that being the case any more. GG was very much at fault in the Klinsmann 'incident', but opposed to what that Spanish news article says a deal was never about to be struck unless but a mere contingency plan if Rafa pissed off. Which he didn't. Also both GG and TH are the makers behind how the club is financed these days, which is also a shambles but from a business perspective it's at least a sound way of running things. And by all means both Gillett and Hicks are both business men. However Gillett has much more politically correct way of doing his business, he keeps his mouth shut about business affairs and doesn't make rash outbursts about the running of the club. No doubt in my mind anyways who is the lesser evil of them two. (sorry if this has been pointed out before. It's a long thread, have only read bits and pieces of it)

Babel proved once again he is very good at killing off opponents when they're lying down and begging for mercy. I like to think it has something to do with his strength and pace being fresh off the bench against a tired and attacking minded defence. Unfortunately don't always have the luxury of comfortable leads to keep Ryan on the bench. Since we reverted to our current formation I think Babel has played very well on the left hand side off Torres and we've got some good results sometimes against very good opposition (only loss came against ManU). Babel is without doubt our best player on than left sided position, he has played well, we've won matches, I even see a great improvement in his defensive abilities, I could score a few more goals can't object to that but other than that he warrants his place in the starting XI

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yup. But while that being said sometimes I feel more comfortable with Arbeloa, even on the left side.

I don't thinks so. Not saying he had a very good game but not worse than Kuyt and not a hell of a lot worse than Torres for that matter.

Gerrard Carragher Torres

He's a f***ing star. Haven't had a bad game since we reverted to our current formation. And he will only get better.

I thought Kuyt had an absolute mare the first 30 minutes, I know the whole team was having problems but for some reason Kuyt stood out for me. He seemed to lose every ball he got. Then raised his games along with the rest until HT. Was brilliant in the 2nd half.

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I dare to predict a pretty much unchanged XI from the first game

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oooh, but what a move it was. watching the slowmo of that goal makes me warm and fuzzy inside

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Reina Finnan-Agger-Skrtel-Arbeloa Alonso-Macherano Kuyt-Gerrard-Babel Torres

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why does it say 07-09 when we switch every year?

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Why are the white team players congratulating the penalty taker?

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What is the ref supposed to do? Hlebs legs suddenly disappears from underneath him but all he sees is Kuyt having his arm around him. His conclusion is probably therefore that Hleb goes down out of poor balance or he's diving. A little bit of holding goes on all over the pitch during a game without anyone considering it to be a free-kick, the tricky part for the referee is when he has to assess is when a push/hold is forceful enough to be considered a foul. In this case Hleb plunges to the ground in a way that seems unnatural for the force Kuyt is applying (as mention before in this thread). Very difficult to call a penalty then. Even though it probably should have been given. It is sad though that players seems to forced to fall to the ground in order to get a penalty these days. For instance I wouldn't have complained if Rooney had got that penalty against us early in the Man U game.