ohmelads

Aye hopefully the mackems will be torn a new arsehole in front of their own fans.

Counter argument to that of course is that in Spain, there aren't the same four teams at the top of the league every year, and last season the title race went down to the last 30 minutes of the season. And I'd argue there's more variety in Spain. Benitez's Valencia played very defensive football to win the league a few years back. Villarreal have a very South American flavour and broke into the top four on a limited budget, much like Sevilla. Both those sides play attractive football, as do Zaragoza, while you have Osasuna who are like the Bolton of Spain, and Atletico who are a bit like the Newcastle. And they've had the kind of shock upsets like Zaragoza beating Real Madrid 6-0 two seasons ago, or Getafe hammering Barca 4-0 last season to overcome a 5-2 deficit in the previous leg. In Spain, after Barcelona and Real Madrid, there are any of a number of teams who can finish in the top 4. The competition is so fierce that even Valencia won't be taking anything for granted. Zaragoza, Sevilla and Villarreal are not to be underestimated and Atletico have invested heavily once again. I wouldn't swap either, but the Spanish league has it's plus points.

I'd rather wait until the next transfer window if we have to and sort out the right back problem once and for all. Signing Johnson because he's supposed to be better than Carr could leave us with a player on biggish wages for several years who isn't up to the job, we're back to square one, a few million poorerand have a player we can't shift. Johnson has ability on the ball, but off the ball he's definitely dodgy and we've had too much of that.

You have to remember than Anfield and Goodison are not in the heart of the city like St James' is. This is further out but not the end of the world. Could Everton fill a 50.000 stadium though? Can't see it myself, not unless they're doing well every year.

Strikes me as a bit odd to take a matter with your own club to an arbitration panel after they explicitly said they wouldn't do a deal, just to procure a move to a rival club who finished more than 20 points below in the league. Man Utd have just won the league, big clubs in Spain (his native tongue) were interested and Heinze isn't a boyhood Liverpool fan to my knowledge. Why was his heart so set on Liverpool from the start? Seems a bit strange to me. Benitez usually speaks sense but he's clearly stressing and diverting the issue as much as he can, we'll see what comes of it all I suppose.

Good read that, though I think he's underestimating Real Madrid.

It does look suspiciously like Heinze was tapped up the way he was pushing so hard for a move despite no deal between the two clubs and his manager even insisting he will not do a deal with Liverpool. Benitez's comments on the fixture list are the same ones we heard from Mourinho a couple of season's back. His comments on Tevez and Mascherano are silly, Liverpool set a precedent with the Mascherano signing by bending (breaking, basically) the rules. Another club comes along and takes advantage of exactly the same thing and Benitez is complaining, it's mental.

While I don't agree with the original post (assuming it isn't a wind up), it's a bit premature to laugh at him just two games into the season. He might be right. There are different ways to take a club forward, who's to say that Allardyce/Mort are going about things the right way? Spurs went for youth and have moved forward, Arsenal went a season unbeaten with a young side. Man Utd dominated the league for a decade with a young team which grew up together. On paper I'm reasonably impressed with this transfer window, but that doesn't mean it'll pan out that way. Two years ago we signed Emre, Parker, Luque, Solano and Owen. At that time it was hard to take a step back from it all and those who moaned about a lack of investment in defence were thoroughly criticised for "whinging", it was a lot like this thread now. I was one of those who thought it had been a very good transfer window and that a good season was ahead of us. How wrong I was. People are putting an awful lot of positive spin on our signings, but it's easy to see why people might have reservations about every one of our signings. A combination of age, injuries, attitudes and Premiership experience raise question marks over all of them, not to mention the type of players we've signed and the type of players you might believe we need. Some believe we've lacked pace and flair for years, and it's true that it was these attributes which rose us above the dross under Bobby (Bellamy and Robert espescially) and it's done the same for Spurs. Whether these signings will lift us above the dross or cement our place amongst it remains to be seen. I think this has been a productive transfer window but I'm remaining cautiously optimistic. I can fully understand why Sam has gone down the short term route because as he said when he arrived, his first priority is to keep his job.

Boro look very vulnerable and if we get at them I think this is a very winnable game as far as away games go. Without Huth and Woodgate their defence looks very dodgy and without Viduka and Yakubu you have to wonder who will be putting the chances away at the other end. We have to go for 3 points here, and I think 4-4-2 would be the best way of achieving that because it would play to our strengths and would ask more questions of their defence. A point wouldn't be a disaster, but it wouldn't be a great achievement either given the circumstances.

Owen was quite encouraging tonight I thought. Yeah he showed some good movement, just lacked the sharpness, hence his missed chances and a couple of narrow offsides. Still probably a couple of weeks behind Smith, Martins and Ameobi in terms of match fitness but he's getting there. Viduka on the other hand has looked well off the pace, not sure whether it's a prolonged rest or more games that he needs. More games might make him more burnt out, but the longer he's rested the longer it'll take to get him fully fit again, bearing in mind he hasn't had a proper pre-season. Either way, it could be a while before we see the best of what he has to offer.

How can you possibly overlook the prolific Giuseppe Rossi.

When all are fully match fit I'd say Owen and Viduka. At the moment though they look the least match fit of our strikers.

I remember the big screen next to St John's Shopping Centre was still displaying BBC News 24 a week behind reality, which meant they were reporting on Bigley as if he was alive days after he'd been killed. It seems to have 'caught up' now though, you don't get last week's football results as breaking news! You're right though, I was living in Liverpool at the time and I don't remember the Bigley thing being anything like as big as it was made out to be on national TV. I think a lot of the reputation Scousers have is perpetuated by the media. We're often portrayed as being simple in the media ourselves, like the guy off "I'm Alan Partridge", and many southerners tar us with that brush, yet when they come to see the city for themselves I'd say the majority leave with good things to say. The same can be said of Liverpool. In general I have found Scousers to be humble people, happy to take the piss out of themselves, much like Geordies. They are very parochial with deep-rooted anti-London views, but so are we up here if not moreso being further from the capital. I do find Liverpool fans to be a bit arrogant, but I've had the same problem with Mancs - it goes with the success I suppose. As far as the people of the city go, I never had any problems. Give me a Scouser over a Cockney any day.

I don't see what's wrong with the memorial that's already there. Move it to the new stadium and you'll keep the most people happy and offend the least people as well - seems the sensible thing to do.

Exactly what I was thinking. It'd be disgusting double standards not to tbh, they'd be in for a lot of criticism.

Sums up my thoughts entirely. Rozehnal didn't take enough responsibility in my eyes, both in dealing with danger and clearing the ball safely. He was hoofing balls in the air as much as anyone. Too early to judge him, but to see him get praise and Taylor get criticism is totally unfair when Taylor was always in the right places and playing it out along the floor. Rozehnal has been careful to play it along the ground in pre-season, but being closed down in the Premiership he was as quick as anyone to resort to the long ball, which was a bit disappointing. Basically I think he's getting the benefit of the doubt because he's a new signing, so Taylor becomes the scapegoat (even though we kept a clean sheet). Some of the criticism I've read of Taylor in recent days has been totally disproportionate to his performances, it seems some people just don't like him.

Well we're level with Liverpool and above Man Utd with a game in hand. Think we'd have taken that!

I queued for about 20 seconds to get into the east stand. Same here, big queue when I arrived but I was in within a minute.

He'll get a reputation as a diver soon enough, no doubt about it.

To be fair to the three midfielders, there was no movement at all, nobody running into space. We didn't have any runners from midfield looking to get on the end of crosses, mind. All too easy for Villa.

Media overreaction to follow.

Man U will be fine, the important thing is that they're still playing bloody good football, dominating games and have key players to come back.

Man City 1-0.

I don't think Smith had a bad game, he broke up the play and tried to move it around but it was the shape of the whole team that was the problem. I realise people will look for scapegoats for a very tepid performance but we were playing with one up front and one genuine winger, we played too deep and lacked pace and movement. Smith wasn't brilliant but he was no better or worse than most of the team. Villa's performance and our tactical problems stifled most of our players, not just Smith.

All what negativity?