carrafan

Of course you did. Half your squad havent hit puberty yet.

Torres Arbeloa Alonso.

I'm one of Keane's big supporters but he was utter s**** today. Made nothing runs, took the wrong decisions most of the time and got in Torres' way a lot. Think he's still stuck in that role where he led the line for a while. Keane was rightly told to come deeper in the 2nd half to provide an option to our midfield and to prevent us from just going long all the time but wasnt too good at it, we of course missed the runs from Gerrard when he had the ball with his back to goal. I'm not sure what Kuyt did today. He didnt stay wide to provide width, but he didnt make too many smart runs into the box either and i quite expected him to have the beating of Konchesky in the air but we never tried that trick. Agger and Lucas gave the ball away cheaply too many times in the game which just allowed Fulham some free time on the ball on occasion we would have normally looked to have counter attack. Babel only played for 20 minutes but i've never seen a player that disinterested in a game.... okay maybe Torres in that Carling Cup game against Spurs. Lucas wasnt as bad as some make out to be fair, he doesnt have the passing range of Alonso and was never going to replicate what we missed. On the other hand he won some good 50-50 headers, was defensively okay and made some nice tackles. Reina, Arbeloa and Torres were our best players on the pitch. Them and Alonso. We lost two points because of 2 main reasons, IMO:- (1) Lucas and Mascherano starting in midfield with no Gerrard to create space by coming deep. Neither played enough through balls to our wide players to stretch the game and when they did, 9 Fulham players were behind it.. while not making space themselves when our centrehalves had the ball. (2) We never won the 2nd ball enough, both defensively and during times when we attacked. Fulham were brilliant at it with both Hangeland and Hughes heading the ball neatly to their teammates even when under pressure from our forwards. Of course, our midfield should have been closing down that option, we were poor. On the other hand we just kept giving the ball away due to Johnson's workrate and Zamora's presence, i'm sure Rafa will have a word to our players to improve in that area. We didnt win today because we didnt do what we do. Win 2nd balls, pressurize the other team off the ball all the time and score our goal through a bit of quality. Luckily, both Chelsea and Arsenal havent captialised on our mistakes. Btw, Johnson reminded me how much of a diving c*** he really is. That dive to win a freekick just outside our box when he wasnt even touched was just sad and a foreigner would get lambasted by the media for it....unless its was Ronaldo.

Agger and Lucas have given away the ball a lot today. But Lucas seems to have grown some balls and has gone into 50 50 headers and won some of them, he's also won the ball off tackles, hasnt been as bad as some of you make him out to be. Keane on the other hand has been abject, he hasnt been a presence at all and has chosen the wrong option too many times. I wont be surprised if he goes off at the hour mark with Kuyt brought inside to be replaced by Benayoun or El Zhar or someone.

Lucas' first league start of the season?

You know about his plans for tonight?

He's like the opposite of Kerlon. The chances of his opponent breaking something are great.

Well, Riise has!

He was a huge part of our midfield in the season we came third, only a point behind united. Rafa then managed to get Mascherano who was equally rabid but an even better tackler and better on the ball. Momo's Davids look was boss.

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He thinks he's Roy Keane. Thank god we didnt buy him when we were linked with him. Talks too much.

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A bit surprised that he prefers Capello to Houllier.

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I heard Torres was unhappy because he didnt start against Bolton. Now he wants to play for Crewe.

He had a very impressive goal scoring record for every club he played for.

Kuyt scores for Holland. Good on him. JAR got sent off for Norway too.

Yeah? Hmm. Remember reading some article where he said so, when he was here though.

To be fair to Momo, he had just come back from an eye injury and wasnt seeing well under lights.

Think we just got a bit lucky with Alonso. Rafa wanted 15 million plus for a player who granted had injury problems the season before, but was out of form so that we wont make a loss on him. Both Juve and Arsenal were interested in him but werent ready to pay what we wanted. Now Alonso has suddenly hit his best form of his career and only we have come out of it positively.

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What a rubbish article. Funny how some absolute no marks are allowed to have pot shots at great managers like that? I'm all up for having resonable doubts but some of the stuff in there is ridiculous. Its a bit like 'experts' questioning Rafa on his zonal marking with the argument that 'space doesnt score goals, men do'

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