Poolfrog

There is no accepted role for a No 10 these days and never really has been, so I don't understand what you mean. When I first started going to games in the 60s when numbers more or less indicated where a player played, unlike today when numbers can mean anything, No 10 - or inside-left as it was known - could either be a second striker in support of the centre-forward (no 9) or as a midfielder, like our own Jimmy Melia. In fact Liverpool were the first to introduce numbers that didn't indicate fairly accurately where the player played according to the conventions of the time when Tommy Smith played as No 10 but also as a twin centre-back - a previously unknown concept. In short, saying Gerrard should see himself as a No 10 is meaningless

Well we'd only be copying Man U's performances at Anfield over the past few seasons: get everyone behind the ball, play one up front, play Rooney very deep on the left, scarcely cross the half-way line and hope to steal a goal from a set-piece. One thing that puzzles me is that their style of play is never criticised when they do this. It's a funny old game isn't it?

You obviously haven't seen Man U's completely toothless performances this season. Without Ronaldo they look average. They were lucky to get a draw at home against hopeless Newcastle and were given a football lesson by the 5th placed Russian team in the Super Cup. They only managed to scrape a 1-0 against Portsmouth who were enduring their 6th successive league defeat

They haven't got a prayer of signing Torres, Fabregas or Ronaldo no matter what they bid. They only got Robinho because he painted himself in a corner with his press conference saying he wanted out. Unfortunately Chelsea refused to up their bid by £4m to match City's bid, so he had nowhere to go. He would be an outcast at Madrid. So he opted for City and got £10K a week more than he would have done at Chelsea. No self-respecting top class player would go to City in normal circumstances (and to be honest, Robonho wasn't exactly tearing up trees in La Liga or the Champions' League). I confidently predict now that they'll do well to get in the top 6 this season. If they do so it will be a major achievement. The ridiculous hysteria in this thread beggars belief

How do you work that out?? Although we were fourth last year, we were third in both the previous two seasons. Know your club, sonny

Barry was totally ineffective today and showed why he's no £18m player. Alonso was far more involved

I think you'll find that a defensive midfielder plays deep - hence the description "defensive midfielder"

He's been on the pitch for about 5 minutes this season, so to say he's been woeful is a tad harsh

That would be "suitors"

Arsenal did indeed lose and were absolutely dreadful. Chelsea might have won, but were totally outplayed by Wigan with Cech being their best player. Man U were awful against Newcastle and scraped through against a woeful Portsmouth (who've lost something like 6 league games on the trot now). Basically, all the top teams are well below par so far this season, but it's a pound to a penny that only Liverpool fans' fora are slagging off their own team and spouting gloom and despondency after 2 games. It takes about 12 games into the season before any kind of pattern develops and teams assume something like their likely place in the league at the season end, ie the crap teams will be losing, the good teams will be in the top 6 and the Newcastles, Man Citys and Villas will be where they usually are in the middle There's far too much instant condemnation in this thread in particular and on this site in general

First of all, Arsenal do have slow players, Fabregas being the prime example. He's as slow as continental drift, but obviously a decent player despite that. Secondly Arsenal don't play it simpler with fewer touches. On the contrary, their biggest failing is that they over-egg the pudding and take an eternity passing the ball sideways in the middle third, so that their opponents can get back in numbers. Then when they get near the box they try to walk the ball into the net. If they did play with fewer touches they'd be vastly superior to what they are now.

Who cares? The role of captain is meaningless these days. All it amounts to is calling "heads" or "tails" at kick-off time

I recall his "taste" in suits. Just after he'd signed for Arsenal I was going off on a cheapo charter flight to Rhodes with the family when someone said that Nicholas was at the check-in desk (couldn't imagine a premier league player on a charter flight to somewhere as mundane as Rhodes these days!). I looked over to see him standing there desperate to be recognised in a garish white suit with sunglasses on top of his head (a sure sign of a card-carrying, 24-carat w*****). I declined my wife's request to get his autograph for her friend's son - "not in a million years etc" - and he looked extremely pleased with himself when my very attractive, blonde, mid-20s (then!) wife asked him to scribble his mark on a piece of paper. Coincidentally, Bruce Foxton of The Jam was on the same flight. Charter flights to the Med just aren't the same these days!

It's no longer the Premiership, so nor can it be described as PS. It is the Premier League - nothing more, nothing less

Load of tosh in the main. Masses of inevitably biased opinion and complete speculation on the worth of incoming players, allied to even more complete speculation on possible tactics all disguised as fact. All this kind of stuff which appears in many papers pre-season isn't worth the paper it's written on. Basically a journo - who will have his own prejudices based on who he supports as a background note - decides first who he thinks will finish where and then thinks of a narrative to support it, not the other way round

I've just come back from Vancouver. Although we're not in the season yet I remember from previous trips that it wasn't too hard to find English football on TV there in the season. One bar we were in this time even had banners of all the big Premier League teams on the wall - can't remember the name of it though In fact in the smallest places in N America it's usually fairly easy to find footie on TV. When we recently crossed the border into Washington state from British Columbia on the day of the Euro 2008 final, having factored plenty of time in to get to see the kick-off in Seattle, we were horrendously delayed by the US customs area being completely re-built, so all the traffic was funneled into one narrow lane. I think it took us 3 hours to cross. So we stopped at a one-horse town in northern Washington state and in the main street we saw bar called the Sports Lounge. As it was mid-day there there was just one punter watching recorded baseball from the previous night on one of the dozen or so TVs. We politely asked the delightful and friendly barmaid if we could have the football on one of the TVs (there were five of us supporting teams from the dizzy heights of Liverpool down to lowly Gillingham). She looked in the listings and couldn't see anything so was good enough to phone her sports loving boyfriend. Unfortunately, she said, her boyfriend told her there was no football on at the moment just some "soccer" game! We of course never use the dreaded "s" word so explained that was what we wanted. So even in the middle of nowhere it wasn't too hard to get to see the game and I've never failed to find a live Liverpool game in any of the 50 states that I've now been to - or in the various Canadian provinces I've been to either

Yes, but let's not forget that 83.7% of statistics are meaningless

Tommy Smith was a superbly creative player with a fantastic touch on the ball. The fact that he was a hard man too is neither here nor there. Having watched Smith's entire career I can't recall anybody in the same era playing centre-back who was as comfortable on the ball as he was - and that includes the very over-rated Bobby Moore

Carragher looked like a penalty-kick waiting to happen in many games last season - and his carelessness resulted in a few that were given as I recall. He's slowing down markedly so I expect him to struggle to hold down a regular centre-back spot this season. He's been a good servant over the years but time's very evidently catching up with him. This not wild criticism, just an acceptance of the inevitable and based on what he actually did last season rather than a romanticised view of him based on performances in previous seasons

"Tidbit" - now there's one of my least favourite Americanisms, but some way behind "snicker". Why won't they stop mucking about with perfectly good English words?

Who gives a flying one about shirt numbers? Any player that was immature enough to want - or not want - a particular shirt number will reveal himself as a bit of an immature idiot. No shirt number ever scored a goal or won a game - it's the player, not the number, that matters

I'm more convinced than ever that the average age of people on here is 17 and three-quarters - all this talk of best seasons being in the eighties or in the last five years. The best season for me was 65-66. It was the first season my old man would let me go week in, week out to Anfield. We'd won the cup for the first time ever a few months before and my first home game was to see us beat Juventus in the Cup Winners Cup 2-0, turning over a 1-0 deficit from the first leg. Juve had an awesome team in those days, far better than any team they've had since, despite their relative lack of success in the European Cup/CL, so it was a hell of a performance. Also we were to go on to win the league that season for the second time in my lifetime (and went on to win it a further 11 times if my arithmetic's right). After that it must be 78-79, when we broke all the records, gaining what would have been 98 points if there had been three points for a win. We scored 85 goals and only conceded 16 (and only 4 conceded at home), so a goal difference of +65.

Well I'm an OOTer from Surrey and I get it. Colomendy - an establishment owne by Liverpool Education Committee near Loggerheads in N Wales, between Mold and Ruthin where Liverpool schoolkids go for summer camp etc OK I confess, I was born in Liverpool and went there several times with my school - Alderwood Avenue in Speke. In fact I was there when the 1966 World Cup Final was on and the teachers wouldn't let the kids watch it on TV. Because radio reception there, nestling in the Clwydian Hills, wasn't the greatest, through all the crackling and interference we were all convinced it was Roger Hunt who scored a hat-trick

I must say I agree with you and can't join in with the apparent Barry and Keane love-fest. Barry is way overpriced at the quoted £18m and Keane is worth about half the quoted £20m, given the ridiculously inflated fees demanded by English clubs. Keane spent a lot of time either on Spurs' bench or was hauled off in a lot of games, so how come he's suddenly worth £20m?? Beats me

No pal, not a "posh spaz" - but thanks for illustrating your lack of tolerance - in fact I come from a large family of Irish descent and was born in the very working-class district of Edge Hill. That's in Liverpool, by the way