The College Dropout

Erm... he's slower than Duff?

yes No it isn't. since when? BTW I'm basing this on seeing Tony Norman sent off for Sunderland for a simple catch, way back in the day I refer you to: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/3586054.stm Sounds like a different interpretation to me What do you mean? Well what we have here is examples of both a yellow card and a red card given for the same offence. Who's to say which is right, unless you can produce a rule of course It's treated exactly the same as any handball. Page 110: http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/affederation/federation/81/42/36/lotg_en.pdf It's not though. The vast majority of handballs are just freekicks. If a keeper tocuhes the ball out of the box, he's lucky to escape with a yellow card. Yeah that's because goalkeepers are the literal last line of defence. If he handballed, it's probably to prevent a GS chance.

Why? Realistically he's finished as a regular for a good PL side. The best he could hope for would be back up at somewhere like W. Ham or regular stuff at Hull. Not comparable to something like the Beckham situation where he could've played for a CL side for atleast 2 years.

It may well appear to be a "piss easy" league to us right now, but let's see if folks still feel that way when the threadbare nature of our squad combines with fixture congestion, injuries, fatigue and the onslaught of a potential Cup run as well. All of that will take its toil, and if you add in the possibility that we could also be facing all of that without the services of Taylor, Coloccini, Ameobi...whoever else that may be sold... Don't let's go counting chickens just yet, eh? True. But as long we can keep this squad together we should do well. We have players who are either too good for this division, or very good in this division, not many in this division can say the same. Other teams who are not as good as us will get injuries too.

Piss poor in the air. Shaky on the ground. Sell. Sell. Sell.

He's a bad apple. Sell him.

Disagree. I've always said Barton should stay. Right now we'll get maybe £2-3m for him at best, then who do we buy instead? Please give some suggestions, because it's getting really tiresome people saying "Get rid of '______' " Yet you rarely see anyone suggest a replacement. Barton has talent, he was one of City's best players before he was sold and has a bit of quality we will need, as well as grit and battle about him. Yes in an ideal world we should get rid of him as he has been nowt but trouble, but in the current situation I'd rather keep him than lose another body. If we sold him for £3m we'd save over £5m which isn't bad tbh.

Scared of Joey or something? Shola's still shit.

Unless one of the others drastically improves I can see it being Barca v. Big 4 again.

Also represented in the last 5 finals, and three of four semi-finalists for the last three seasons. Barca, AC Milan and PSV are the only non-English sides to have knocked out an English club in those last three seasons. Barca's sweet, sweet victory last night and their semi win against Chelsea were the only times an English side has been beaten by a continental side since the 2007 final, I believe. Barca and Milan are the only non-English sides to have appeared in the final since 2004. That's pretty dominant. How much of that is down to timing and circumstances with respect to the other major competitors though? Real Madrid are going through a rebuilding period (and even though they're s*** at the moment, the best player in the Premiership playing for the biggest club in the Premiership is desperate to sign for them), a result of their constant chopping and changing and undermining of their managers since Del Bosque. Milan and Juve were hit hard by the match fixing scandals, which has propelled Inter to champions when they never had the team to be that in the first place. Both are also in the process of rebuilding their teams. That's three clubs who would normally be looking to challenge for the CL, and would provide strong competition for the top Premiership sides, yet for different reasons unrelated to the emergence of Premiership clubs, they aren't able to do so at this point in time. These three clubs are giants in the game, and will always attract the best players, so it's surely only a matter of time before they get back to their previous standards. Arsenal's & until this season Liverpool haven't been able to really challenge for the PL. They've handled all foreign sides before them except PSV.

£35m on Anderson and Nani. Doesn't look like it was too well spent, as unless they improve signficantly they won't be replacing Scholes/Giggs in the next season or two. Anderson looked a good signing last season, lost his way this year a bit. Still hope for the lad but Nani? He aint good enough. I thought Anderson might be able to become as good as Essien, not too sure now like. Essien just gets better & better. Man Utd. outclassed but I don't understand how anyone can say it was a great final. Barcelona created a good amount of chances but they didn't tear Man Utd open the way I would've enjoyed (like they did to Madrid). There wasn't loads of great passages of play either. Would've preferred a nervy display and someone nicking it at the end. Last years final was more entertaining. Well done Barca all the same.

Big point. He's our engine room, he's the one that is meant to drive the team forward and that's never been his game. Butt is a shit player now but he has too much responsibility at this club. Signing Kevin Nolan was one of the worst decisions in recent seasons.

To be fair to Oba, he's been struggling with this groin/hernia problem for most of this season. He's also been struggling due to his lack of a brain and the required ability needed to be a top level striker. True. That doesn't negate the fact he'd be better if he was fully fit.

Dyer was really rapid with the ball at his feet come to think about it. Didn't have any tricks or anything but he could plain skin opponents.

Yep. Robert is the definition of a "match-winner". That team was full of em to be fair... definite top 6 player.

Nah all the AV players on the pitch would do

The only redeeming thing they have is that if we continue to lose, so can they and they will stay up.

All it takes is 1 Barca goal then you can't really see Chelsea winning it. At any score other than 2-0 or better, Barca scoring really tilts the tie in their favour. Any other would mean Chelsea coming to play football and they'll probably get whooped trying although it would make for a fantastic match.

For all their fantasy football though, the performance against Chelsea wasn't that different to the 2 against Man Utd last year; and I'd say in broad terms that comparison is valid. If Chelsea are defensively on their game, Barca will find it difficult to carve out clear-cut chances. Again - I hope that isn't the case. Man Utd actually had a few chances (with the penalty being one) whilst Barca's best chance was an Eto'o shot that wasn't close. This year, they had a lot of chances and I think on another day, it's 2-0 or 3-0 pretty easily. You had Eto'o's 1v1, the Bojan miss, the possibly penalty. This wasn't Chelsea totally shutting Barca out. This was Barca missing a few chances coupled with lots of last-ditch tackles. Nothing like the semi last year where Man Utd's defense truly shut down Barca. Agree with this. Eto'o had a 1v1 saved as did Hleb, Bojan missed a sitter and Henry should've got a penalty. I DO NOT LIKE BARCELONA but the media's bum-licking of the 0-0 is astonishing. Also Chelsea are not a very atheletic team. Take Essien away from that midfield and it can look a little tired.

Maybe i should have clarified: over the last two seasons, not the last game played. He'd still be up there. Have a go at Duff for being s*** all you want, but he puts the effort in, something a lot of our other players need to do. There's far better players than Duff in the side, but none of them have the heart he does. Well, not many of them. He's a winger, he's supposed to produce in the final third. His best perfomances have come at left back, so yes I agree he puts the effort in. I disagree. It always appears that we miss Duff when he goes to left back or is just not playing. Out of the squad he is probably the last player I have any beef with. Anyway, that's besides the point. I always think Enrique covers alot of ground. Erm Duff is largely shit. He doesn't score enough and most of the time he rarely looks a threat. Not the player he was 5 years ago... or the player Milner was last season. I'm pretty certain he earns much more than the likes of Ashley Young.

Chelsea are rather strong at the Bridge, i'm sure you know this. I doubt they'll get pasted. Defensively Barc aren't the strongest. Whilst i'm confident Barca will score, i'm also confident Chelsea will score. Totally in the balance.

Sounds like the truth hurts tbh Erm, there are many more important than football that a person could spend the money on, especially in these uncertain times. I love NUFC but NUFC doesn't pay my bills or feed my young family but £600-800 does help.

His debut. He had a dodgy debut. Never did understand why people came away from the Man Utd match pleased with him, he looked like Bambi on ice more than once. I excused it on the grounds that he'd had about one day's training in him, but still... Yep. Didn't look convincing at all.

If Geremi played regularly Owen would score more goals. Technically & creatively he's one of our most productive players. But he can't run... or move.

Me.