Poolfrog

Frankly you could say the same about Brown, Carrick, Hargreaves, Scholes, Park in terms of our team. They are all very mediocre players - not forgetting that Pique bloke who played today and the likes of O'Shea and Saha And let's not forget the alleged world-class striker that is Rooney. His two goals the other week took him to 10 for the season so he has now climbed above the legendary Dave Kitson of Reading in the goal scoring chart and has at last reached 50 career league goals after, what is it, 4-5 seasons now?

"Absolutely battered" is way OTT. They only had 3 shots on target all night and one of them was a goal in the second half, so it's not as if Reina was flinging himself round making great saves for 30 minutes. The possession stats in the first half also didn't reflect your "absolutely battered" description The trouble with Arsenal is that they faff about too much in parts of the pitch where it doesn't matter. 3 shots at the business end in a game you must win or get a high scoring draw simply isn't good enough

Someone on TV said this weekend that they've scored 7 of their last 8 goals (or possibly it was 6 of the last 7) from set-pieces. Says it all really. In both games against us in the last week it's not as if Reina has been over worked exactly. A few half-chances is all they've mustered and - although it's never commented on by the TV pundits, naturally enough - they spent long periods as both games progressed just hoofing it forward or getting it wide and crossing. Hardly fantastic football but of course to say that against the media darlings would be considered heresy

I have no problems with it

In the 89 example the Everton player was still on the pitch when McCall stabbed the ball forward and jumped up to let the ball pass under him. In those days there was none of this active/inactive nonsense. By the interpretation of the day he was clearly offside, but the officials failed to spot it - as simple as that

It's taken some doing, considering the mountains of guff spouted on here, but I believe you deserve the prize for the daftest stance ever taken on any subject on this site. If you can show me a single example ever - and I'll give consideration to any merely anecdotal example - in the history of football where a player not on the pitch was deemed to have played another player onside then I'll come to wherever you live and buy you a pint - or a bottle of panda cola if your interpretation of football laws is in any way indicative of your age

I'm guessing here but I imagine he was replying to a question from a journo rather than issuing a statement off his own bat, so probably not precise to say he "should have left it" Benitez strikes me as something of a gentleman in interviews and is always extremely courteous - so I have to confess that I'm not familiar with this "...petty, at times vindictive streak..." that "...irritates..." you so much

To say that we "...let Everton come at us..." in the second half overstates it somewhat. They were completely toothless and never looked like scoring on their occasional forays into our defensive third. It was one of the easiest derby matches I can remember

I think it was Gerrard. After giving them yet another free kick in the second half I could see Gerrard clearly mouth to Bennett from just a couple of yards away, "You're taking the f***ing piss". It was very clear

Yes, that had me surprised too. Apparently Mascherano - first name on the Argentina team sheet, who played every minute of the last World Cup - is not worth £17-18m according to Nicholas. I wonder what his views are on the pedestrian Hargreaves and Carrick - fringe players for a struggling England team - who both cost similar fees?

Of course it's just possible that the "doomed policy of rotation" has led to certain players being fresher now, exactly as Benitez said would be the case. But, hey, what does he know compared with you?

Well we're still swapping Lucas and Alonso in midfield. Do you include Inter Milan in your description of "poor" and "off form opposition" incidentally? Imagine what we'd have done to them if we had improved lately

Rotation has been happening to all teams in the Premier League all season. Man U haven't played the same team in consecutive matches since August and Ronaldo has been rested more often than Torres. Rotation is a fact of life for all top teams and it will be the same next season and the season after and the season after........

Only two games - Portsmouth away and Birmingham at home. He was also injured for 4 games. Ronaldo has been "rested" 3 times for Man Yoo, but this fact doen't seem to exercise the minds of pundits too much because Benitez is clearly a foreign fool who rotates too much and leaves Torres out too much blah, blah, blah

His company might even be the biggest individual shareholder but the fact remains that they are a minority shareholder and it's not "Murdoch's Sky TV" as is often bandied about - a bit like Rafa and rotation if I may make an analogy!

Murdoch's organisation only owns either 37% or 39% of Sky TV, I can't remember which. People talk about it as if Murdoch himself sits in on editorial meetings. He's just a minority shareholder

Henry's being played on the wing, a completely different role to the one he played at Arsenal where he played up front and could wander where he liked. He's still a class act and if he played in the same role for Barca he'd be as successful as at Arsenal. He's still managed to score something like 9 goals I believe this season

How come then if he was running amok they only had two shots on target all night long and only forced two corners? Scuffling around to no great effect would be my perspective on Zanetti's game. Vieira was anonymous and looked a pale shadow of the player he once was. Lucas had a fine game in midfield and Mascherano was immense - the best player on the park by some distance

I suppose when the clearly selfish Finnan stops being injured Rafa will stop "pissing about with the full backs". Reina only made two saves - only the early shot from I believe Cruz extended him. I thought we were generally very comfortable. We were never really under pressure at any stage

Exactly. I wish I had a pound for every time I saw someone on here slate Benitez for "only playing one up front". Now the very same formation is being hailed as a master stroke

A pedant writes: Hargreaves is Canadian

Can I thank you on behalf of my 61 million compatriots for your searching, rapier-like insight into our collective psyche - but just what precisely have your incoherent ramblings got to do with Richard chuffing Keys???

The obsession with Rafa's rotation policy that annoys people is because it's downright wrong. ALL the top managers "rotate" it's just that they only use the dreaded "r" word in association with Rafa. I wasn't surprised to read the other day that Man U haven't kept the same line-up for two successive games since August. But I've never once heard his constantly changing team selection as "rotation". I've no idea about Arsenal or Chelsea but I wouldn't be surprised if they too had a similar record of constantly changing line-ups - it's what all top managers do in the modern game - but the word "rotation" is never used in relation to these teams it is used exclusively - and pejoratively - in relation to Rafa's team selection

Well they were a distant 15 points behind us two years ago in 4th place and also behind us last year, so the poster's correct

I know that he won the Super Cup in 2001 at least, beating Bayern - the European Champions - 3-2