The College Dropout

He hasn't been convicted of anything so he hasn't been proven to have done anything wrong. Plus the Barton twitter stuff was bigger than just his individual statements.

The new lads are all quite handsome. Cabaye Santon Marveaux Abeid Sammy makes you appreciate exactly how handsome Shola actually is. Oh yeah.. no homo.

I think it's a good signing. Yossi is a true professional. Rosicky (arguably Arshavin too) is finished and they need him out the squad. Straight replacement for one of them. Still need some more players though.

Calling him Dyer is a big compliment at this stage.

They must be looking at how much 20m can do for them and not how easy it is for Mikel to obtain. They could make that 5 times over with some ease. It sounds perverse but that sounds like good news.

I can't remember seeing a player run as fast when he chased that ball down. Everyone pretty much went ''WHAT THE f***!!'' Including Sagna. Aye I was bad laughing, it was a genuine shock moment. What do people think of his general play? My brother reckons he's a bit lazy. He didn't seem all that lazy. There was one moment where he chased down a ball and it bounced in a way that made him think Sagna or whoever had got the ball and he just stood still whereas if he'd turned around he'd have seen that he could have got the ball. When an attacking move broke down near him he'd start walking back when he needed to have ran. He did this at least 3 times.

Cabaye took a corner and a freekick. Both shit.

Don't know where these good ratings for Raylor are coming from. Within 10 minutes it was obvious he was our weakest link and Arsenal continued attacking his side. Gervinho and Arshavin beat him a good 3-4 times but wasted the delivery. As the game went on Jonas protected him greatly but Raylor was still shit.

That side was our most athletic in recent years. On the break, simply terrifying. He wasn't Paul Scholes but looking back he was a fantastic player for us. Simple passes but always looked for the ball. Solano-Dyer-Speed-Robert the best midfield we've had in a long time. We've had plenty of CM's since. Jenas, Parker, Butt, Smith, Geremi, Bowyer, Barton and many more. However none proved to be as good for us as Dyer. Out of everyone from that midfield/front 6 Dyer's contribution has been the most overlooked.

Predictably not overly impressive but nor worrying either. It might be that he just needs time to adapt to the pace of the Premiership but he doesn't seem to have a great engine on him. Joey picked up a lot of his slack but he may just need extra fitness. Kept possession well and got better as the game went on. Having Shola upfront doesn't really help. Definitely think we should play with a 3 man midfield.

Sturridge on more than Smith, Colo & Barton? Pretty sure atleast one of those lads will earn over 50k.....

The worst teams to watch are Blackburn and Brum so I hope they go down. As pathetic a team Wigan are, they are entertaining even if it is just getting beat 4-0 3 times a season.

If Fergie really wants one of their players he'll sign him. Carrick, Berbatov & Keane all sold for big money top top 4 sides.

I don't think we need creativity in the middle tbh. If we have an energetic central midfielder who is comfortable playing a short passing game we would be fine. We need creativity from wide areas. kranjcar is a great call. More than anything we need options. Right now if the midfield 4 isn't working then we will struggle.

Matt Jarvis would be excellent. O'Hara too. Truthly N'Zogbia is the best player mentioned there. If he or Rodallega has a good game, Wigan get points. Not sure about his attitude though.

Yeah, but some guy in League 1 dived last season. So that makes it okay those Barca players to do every day. No one's saying that. You mouth off about Barcelona diving then when you're given proof that premier league players do it aswell you get defensive. Grow up. Everyone knows that Gerrard and Rooney can be diving c***s. No-one is denying that, the issue is that a team of Barcelona's stature shouldn't have to resort diving to try and influence a game. Every team does it to influence a game. But Barcelona look to do it at EVERY situation. Often with the aim of getting players sent off. Doing it for penalties is much more understandable than some of the shit Barca do.

Lead Argentina to the WC and he's the greatest to me. That's just how it is. He's been better for Barca than Zidane was for Madrid or Juventus. However Zidane as a WC winners medal, 2 finals appearances and 3 finals goals. To me, that cements Zidane for me over Messi.

Taylor is clearly a cock though.

But as for Colo, an excellent footballer. Probably a better footballer than he is a defender if you understand me. He's gotten better with the "hustle and bustle" of defending in England but still not great. The rest comes easy to him.

Woodgate always looked a better centreback than Rio imo when they played together. The key with Woodgate was injuries - he started getting them at Leeds, and it only get worse with us. That, and Leeds' reluctance to sell him at the time (he was their "crown jewel", so they let Rio go thinking they'd build around the better defender) are the primary reasons as to why Rio moved on to a top CL club and Woodgate stayed (plus the offer from ManU was too good to turn down). He only came to us a few years later when Leeds' financial position became dire and Woodgate had struggled with injuries. £9m was a heavily reduced fee, one of the few times we managed to hold another club to ransom. On a side note, ManU paid a premium for Rio too because of the almighty wankathon that followed his performances in the 2002 World Cup, where he did brilliant things like closing a Nigerian striker down who he had let go in the first place - that wankathon was prior to getting raped by the Brazilians of course. Not that it was a bad deal for them, but certainly Rio improved with ManU and turned out to be good value because of his fitness and consistency on top of being a very good centreback. And it needs to be remembered that Real Madrid, a bigger and more prestigious club than ManU, signed Woodgate for more than what we paid, despite his constant/persistent injuries with us. If he wasn't a phenomenally good centreback, why did they do that, especially when they had signed Walter Samuel at the same time (one of the best centrebacks in the world prior to flopping there)? Dodgey handshakes and brown envelopes is the only explanation that would make any form of sense, and that would just be clutching at straws to avoid acknowledging how good Woodgate was for us. This is simply not true. Firstly they didn't play together enough times to truly gauge who was the better player. Rio joined Leeds halfway through a season and only stuck around a season longer making 50 odd appearances. In the whole 2 seasonsRio was at Leeds (he was there for less than 18 months really), Woodgate managed less than 30 appearances. So this argument is weak. The stuff about Woodgate being the "Crown Jewel" beign the reason why Rio left is a lie. Woodgate didn't leave earlier because he was always injured. He didn't make more than 17 appearances for Leeds for three seasons before we signed him. Had he stayed fit, no doubt he would've moved on earlier but this did not happen. Raped by the Brazilians? England lost 2-1 to a fluke goal. Got outplayed in the middle but defensively they where solid for the whole tournament. Furthermore, in the last decade the best England defensive performances have come with Ferdinand playing and the vast majority of the worst when he has been injured, the World Cup or the final EU qualifying defeat to Croatia for example. Over the last decade, Manchester United have been a more succesful side than Real Madrid. In that period, Madrid have made horrible signings and although he was a quality player we must remember that Woodgate was a flop over there. If we want to use transfers as a sign of legitimacy, twice Rio Ferdinand has been signed as the most expensive dfender in the world. Also, the fact Alex Ferguson has made Ferdinand an integral part of his first team, rushing him back from injuries, tactically placing his bans for 10 years now is more external validity of the players quality than anything bestowed on Woodgate. When it comes to talent, I think Woodgate is the closest thing we have had in Britain to a defender of Rio's calibre over the last decade but he never substantiated it. Both defenders blessed with it all, pace, power, great in the air, good readers of the game. And moreover, legitimately excellent footballers. Touch, passing, carrying the ball, both could be midfielders. Also, Ferdinand has been better than Puyol and Terry throughout their careers. Puyol & Terry both need a pacy partner to sweep up for them. Both don't read the game as good as Rio either. You've never seen a Rio Ferdinand defence struggle. For this whole seson we've seen how much Terry needs a Carvalho type alongside him. Puyol has been dropped from the Barca side by numerous managers previously. Although unlike them, Rio is not a leader.

Not the worst player but worst value has got to be Michael Owen. 16m transfer fee. £20m in wages. We got £5m from the FA didn't we? Yet the net price has to be atleast £30m for which we got what... 20 goals?

Aye, no chance. We are talking the likes of Luque, Pattison, the kinds of players i've never seen have a good game for us. Viana minus injuries was promising his debut season. He probably holds the single worst performance but overall? Not a chance of being amongst the worst.

No member of the CL qualifying sides should be mentioned. Not Postman Pat or Bramble. And tbh neither should Butt. Signed relatively cheaply, a decent season but was held on to for far too long and was made to be the playmaker.