WelshSpikeMikey

Not me. We need a genuine right winger this Summer so I'd take Pennant. It would be hard to decide who the 'better' player is though, as they play in different positions. I'd rather Aimar over Steed anyway.

A. FA Cup + Super Cup + World Club Championships Runners Up. Last 16 of the CL - topped our group undefeated. Massive improvement on away form, and an improvement on home form consistency. 82 points - best in years. Best ever Premiership points total. Should've been enough for at least 2nd - very unlucky. Beat Arsenal, Man Utd and Chelsea during the course of the season - which shows we can match/better them in one-off games. Beat Everton twice ... we always knew we were better than them, though. Two brilliant "games won in a row" streaks. Also, the clean sheet run and the overall clean sheet record are nothing but exceptional. The defence as a whole performed so, so much better this season. Stevie G stayed. Rafa stayed. Fowler came back. Sissoko, Crouch, Reina and Agger. Our boss might not make emergency last-gasp signings ... but you can see why. Got it 100% right in the last two transfer windows. Gonzales getting us excited about next year. Same goes for "possible" signings .. Pennant, Alves, Bent etc. Gap down to 9 points with Chelsea. Overtaking Arsenal in the league. Most of us now believe that we can challenge for the title next year. And it's a realistic aim. Not asking a manager to challenge for the title in his third year... I wouldn't ever expect that. The fact that we know us challenging for the title next year IS realistic ... even though it probably shouldn't be, is very impressive. (if that makes sense) Excellent season. A few extras: Carra scoring this season, Gerrard's amazing goal, Pepe's celebrations vs Everton, Phil Neville's own goal and red card, Steve Finnan proving he's the best right-back in the Premiership, Crouch proving them all wrong, Kewell returning to form, Garcia knocking Chelsea out of another semi-final, Hamann and Hyypia still playing exceptionally well, Momo Sissoko returning after his eye-injury, the fact that we actually scored the odd penalty or two this year, Fowler scoring vs Fulham, the brilliant 20 goals in 5 games run, Gerrard on the right working out brilliantly, Rafael Benitez. That's all, folks. Just the title next year then ... (although a European Cup wouldn't be too bad on top)

Penalties are brilliant. Not good for the heart or anything, but you surely wouldn't swap them for a replay or something equally rubbish. Nothing better to watch as a neutral, either. And there's nothing really in football that tests calmness under pressure as much and gives keepers the chance to be such heroes.

That save onto the post was save of the season. I really don't understand how anyone can believe he should've saved their 3rd, either. I could almost understand some sort of argument if he was settled, as in it was a free-kick, but it was a cross that had him scrambling straight away. No keeper in the world would've saved it. Obviously it was a big mistake for the 2nd goal, but take that out and it was a fantastic performance. Solid from crosses be it catching or punching, and that's not bad when you've got Ashton breathing down your neck and you've already made a mistake. Good distribution as usual, some solid saves from free-kicks, an excellent double-save at the start of the second-half, plus that incredible one onto the post, and then penalties. Fantastic keeper - he's great.

His penalty was completely rubbish - but it really doesn't matter. He was sensational - fair play! Although, if we'd lost, then I'd not be anywhere near as comfortable with him missing that pen.

I don't think so. 4-1 and 0-3 evens out to 4-4. You haven't scored more than the other team over the 2 legs so why do you deserve to go through? Alright, you'd be a bit gutted because it would have to be an incredible comeback, but you'd go into the game knowing that you'd have to score at least 4 to go through directly anyway. You'd probably just be thrilled to still have a chance at going through after beating 4-1 down from the first leg! Doesn't the rule only exist to stop boring football, or something like that? I heard that it was so away teams would come out and attack teams a bit, looking for the away goal. The thing is, now the home teams won't attack as much for fear of conceding one, and to be honest, not all that many teams are all too bothered about looking for one in an away game. I'd much rather see a good old fashioned attack vs defence match if I had the choice, with the home team actually looking to win the match and make advantage of being on home soil. You might even get (away) teams trying to counteract it by doing some attacking of their own ...

Not all that bothered about this rule, to be honest. If they changed it then they'd have something like '2/3 yellows = FA Cup ban' because of the fact that if it were say 5/6 yellows before a player was banned, then he could get booked in almost every round of the Cup and still make the final, i.e no punishment. If they reduced it to 2/3 bookings though then everyone would be getting banned and a lot more players would miss Cup semis and finals, I reckon. What they do need to do is change ridiculous rules such as not being allowed to rescind a red card if it was two yellows. Two yellows is obviously not as bad as a straight red and yet you could end up being punished more for it.

To be fair, they didn't have a long time to take the news on board. They'll have had a week to get over it and he'll want them to go out with a bang. Where better than at Old Trafford? And they got a 0-0 with us at Anfield.

Immense save from Barry's deflected shot today. And don't let anyone kid you otherwise, letting the ball hit his heel was immense skill and not at all a misjudgement because of the sunshine.

Blackburn have just beaten Charlton, anyway, so they're back into 6th and have a game in hand, albeit Chelsea.

"The one that Mourinho got wrong". Yeah, cos all the games we've lost to Chelsea were just 'the ones Benitez got wrong', give us some credit ... f***ing ex-Liverpool players as well.

2-0 to Arsenal, quite comfortably. Hope I'm wrong.

I think [and hope] we'll see Garcia playing just off Crouch, Kewell on the left and Gerrard on the right.

Shouldn't have stood, but goals have gone against us in the past, and so have decisions when we're attacking [see the two rubbish offside decisions by the linesman today late on, Fowler's disallowed goals in previous matches etc]. Blackburn fans can moan about it, but it doesn't bother me, cos we won. Simple as that, really.

Newcastle now 2-1 up, oh well.

b******s - spoke too soon, 1-1 in the Newcastle match now. 2-1 to Fulham as well ..

Bloody hell. Glad to see Newcastle losing, though. And Ameobi being taken off is surely a blessing in disguise, even if they don't have any other strikers.

If Arsenal get away with [i.e win] playing Song Bilong and Diaby in centre midfield, Reyes on the left, Adebayor upfront, Djourou [who?!] and Flamini at left-back, then I won't be too impressed. Come on Pompey.

That was an absolute joke of a sending off. Pathetic.

Yes we've beaten all of the teams in the Premiership, apart from Man Utd and Chelsea, although we also beat them two in the FA Cup and CL. With Birmingham it was 0-1 [home] and 0-2 [away] last season, and 2-2 [away] and 1-1 [home] this season (with our score being first). Time to end the jinx on Tuesday ..

Yes, and he's much more of a c*** than Robbie Keane.

I expect every paper to pick on it and write report after report on how pathetic it is for weeks. Oh wait ..

I believe it was Roeder who got them relegated after they sacked Redknapp, despite him getting them upto 7th one season.

Nah, he'll be played at left-wing, right-back and then left-back just to see if Joe Cole or Jermaine Jenas can play in the attacking midfield role. At best, he'll play in attacking midfield with some clown like Rio Ferdinand alongside him making him and the rest of the team look as bad as possible.

Yes but Sven's going to see how good he is at left-back to accomodate room for Fat Frank in midfield.