Poolfrog

As someone who was actually at Hillsborough in Leppings Lane I don't know what your point has to do with anything. The fact is that it was entirely one person - Kelvin Mackenzie, editor of the Sun at the time, who led with the now infamous stories about the behaviour of the Liverpool fans. It wasn't the whole News International empire that decided at a corporate level to put those stories out. I don't care if someone wants to buy the News of the World or not, but it's a bit simplistic to say that it's the Sunday version of the Sun.

Arsenal have played teams that will struggle to attain mediocrity this season - and three of them at home as someone said. Rather than being a great result against Portsmouth I would have thought it was entirely expected. Portsmouth are very modest and I expect us to win at their place by a couple of goals. Indeed Portsmouth missed several very decent chances themselves yesterday, without ever looking like a team that will rise higher than 8th or 9th in the table at best. So I can't see how Arsenal's start is arguably more impressive. We have at least played (and outplayed - and were robbed by a refereeing decision) one of the teams pundits tip as likely champions, whilst also beating Villa away. Although it took a late free-kick to win that game we comfortably outplayed them, whereas Chelsea were made by Villa to look like a load of clueless scufflers hoofing high balls up to Terry in desperation in the last 15 minutes.

Well if Ashley Young and David Bentley are more deserving of an England call-up, then I don't know anything about football and have clearly learnt nothing in the 42 years I've been going to watch Liverpool. Pennant's been easily the best English winger in the few weeks this season has been going - not to mention how well he played for much of last season. I say this and I'm not particularly a fan of his but you have to give credit where credit's due.

We've actually won it 13 times in my lifetime - 14 times by next May!

As a born and bred scouser I couldn't care less where our players are from. It's how they play that matters. It didn't do us much harm 21 years ago when our double-winning team played in the cup final without any local players. It didn't matter then and it doesn't matter now. If there is another local youngster in one of the junior teams he'll make it if he's good enough

If it was a hairline fracture I could believe it, but in my own situation the x-ray showed the bone to be in three main separate pieces with assorted small bone fragments here and there. So if Beckenbauer (or Gerry Byrne's) was like yours then perhaps they could play on. If theirs were like my injury it would not have been possible

Having broken my collarbone five years after Gerry Byrne did his, my admiration for him knows no bounds. Unless you've done it yourself you wouldn't appreciate that it hurts like crazy and it's painful to make any movement at all as any body movement pulls on the shoulder muscles and, hence, the collarbone, so playing football with a broken collarbone must have been excruciatingly painful. The only difference of course is that you can't physically stand, much less run, with a broken leg, but from my own experience Byrne's pain must have been extreme and in no way would anything relating to the term "easy" to play with such an injury be accurate.

To be pedantic, the tune is not "Z Cars" but is in fact called "Johnny Todd". It just happened to be adopted by the sixties TV series, which was set in the mythical Newtown, supposedly based on Kirkby. So the TV show adopted the traditional tune rather than originated it. On your other point, it is a media myth that Merseyside derbies are all brotherly love and very friendly. I've been going to them home and away since the mid-sixties and there has always been an undercurrent of general animosity and outright hostility between the fans.

We would actually already be above them - with a game in hand - if it wasn't for Rob Styles, so they should aspire to stay near us, not the other way round

You have to remember that the average age of the more irrational element on here appears to be about 17 and a half. Concomitant with that is a propensity for instant knee-jerk reactions. It's entirely logical therefore that they would write off a player before he kicks a ball for us. That kind of groundless analysis is all over the place on these forums

I'm old enough to remember the Chisnall transfer. He was indeed no good. With regard to Macari, I think you're a tad confused. We were vying with Man U for his signature from Celtic, so his diverting to Old Trafford is not an example of a player we nearly signed from Man U; we nearly signed him from Celtic

That would be "shoo-in"

Riise is not forum scapegoat, just the scapegoat of a bunch of saddoes. I don't remember too many complaints when he scored the winner at Barcelona. True supporters don't have scapegoats

Well one thing's for sure, there will be many on here who won't be patient with him. This forum is home to the most negative fans to be found anywhere.

Alonso had a very decent game. What you're overlooking is that a lot of idiots post on here and they must have a hate figure. Riise gets it no matter how he plays and also Alonso to a lesser extent.

f*** me, we've only played one game of the season and you're asking why aren't we clinical enough. I'll give you an answer if we're missing chances and struggling in the league after about 10 games. The level of debate on here is laughable sometimes

Quite so but, regardless of false perceptions, it does not alter the fact that they play extremely negatively when the mood takes them, they do not always seek to win by exciting attacking football despite the media myth about this and, it goes without saying, usually get their come-uppance when they play any half-decent European side, particularly away. And I would also say that their Milan away perfomance was somewhat worse than "limp". Indeed they were completely destroyed to use your description.

Let's not be brainwashed by the media about Ferguson's team's way of playing. I keep seeing they play this wonderful bold attacking style. However when they play us at Anfield they get everyone behind the ball, play one up front, pack the midfield, play Rooney in a deep left-side role and, basically bore the a*** off everyone watching. It worked for them in that they somehow stole an unlikely victory that their negative approach hardly deserved last season and to an extent the previous season when they played the same negative 10-men behind the ball approach and ground out a stultifyingly boring 0-0, although they got their come-uppance when we beat them with Crouch's goal in the FA Cup. But of course this is all part of Ferguson's brilliance whilst if Benitez uses similar tactics he is derided as negative and unimaginative. It's a funny old game isn't it?

Beckham's set-pieces aren't all they're cracked up to be. I think the statistic is something like he scores from about 1 in 19 free-kicks, which is a pretty poor return. His set-piece magic is just a media myth - all part of the massive hype surrounding this very pedestrian player

How do you think that those two considerations are mutually exclusive? And for what it's worth I personally think the ageing Argie Man U reserve is s***e, as he showed in the recent S American tournament.

Last time I looked Torres had an excellent World Cup, scoring three as I recall, which is precisely three more than Rooney in the same competition, to name but one over-hyped player from an opposition team. So if Torres is unproven, having performed superbly at World Cup Finals level, Christ knows what more he has to do - or what level you're on about

How have Man U signed better players? By what yardstick? I didn't see Anderson tearing up trees for Porto and Nani hardly had Europe's elite falling over themselves to sign him (I saw him in the U-21 tournament and he was quite poor). As for Owen Hargreaves, 2 (or was it 3?) fair games for England and he's suddenly a world-beater after plenty of hopeless performances. Ferguson's team didn't show much urgency and adventure at Anfield with 10 men behind the ball, playing extremely defensively and seldom attacking, before stealing a game and he didn't do too badly out of it at the end of the season, so perhaps Rafa should adopt the same policy?

Stick around and you'll realise that this forum has probably the most miserable, defeatist shower of any Liverpool site. Hardly any points worth considering are made. As you say, we're already out of the race according to this lot. Rafa hasn't got a clue - too much rotation, you see. And if only we had a proper right winger (cue someone to say we should lash out £12m on "SWP"). Also we must sign, injury-prone, 29 year old Man U second choice left-back because he's one of the best players in the history of world football. It's all so frigging predictable.

"Amazing" overstates it massively. He was solid, but his sole way of playing is if he doesn't get a tackle in he just chops the player down. He's hugely over-rated and he would add nothing to our squad from the way ge's been playing last season and from his laughably bad appearances in the recent S American tournament. The thick end of £7m for a player like him is lunacy. Man U fans must be laughing their heads off

You lost me the second you deferred to the self-appointed Thought Police of "RTK". As far as I can make out if "RTK" come up with an idea to tell me what I can and can't do then it's always worth opposing, so getting "RTK's" input on this should alienate just about everybody and this idea will deservedly be dead in the water