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Carlitos. Love that guy. What I'd pay to have a guy like him on the pitch. He can do whatever he wants if he grafts that much with that much talent.

A football club is all about identity, name change would kill everything. The name change from St James Park killed a bit inside of me and until today it's still doesn't feel as St James Park. As for kit colour, sure 2nd and 3rd kit can be whatever don't actually give two fucks about it. But we're black and white at home and if it ever changes somebody needs a whooping.

Looked like a pen.

Absolutely, it's still not a terrible result.

Scolari released 8 players on his list to the World Cup. His four captains Fred, Julio Cesar, Thiago Silva and David Luiz. + 4 London based players Willian, Ramires, Oscar and Paulinho. No complains this far. Really glad he opted for Willian and Ramires they offer something different to the Confed squad.

Rather be a mid-table side.

Think they just lacked intensity. I've seen them play in the leauge and earlier in the season in the CL with much more intensity. Credit to Real for doing a good job, but at the same time Bayern are in just some bad form. Winning the season to early might've loosened them up a little. Think we'll see a much better Bayern next week, if that will be enough I don't know. Do you not think it might be more of a problem with not being able to break down organised defences? Why would it be? They've scored agianst every team they've played this season including Chelsea, Arsenal, Man Unite and City and have scored twice or more against each and everyone of them. Teams always defend against them and they've won the league with plenty of games to play. I think they lacked intensity yesterday and met the best team they've played all season. Let's not forget Real were close to going out to Dortmund despite being 3-0 up in the first leg. They where as close as going out to Dortmund as Bayern where to Arsenal last season. They thoroughly outclassed BVB at home and plain old didn't turn up in the second leg. I don't think that performance is a fair barometer of Madrid's ability. Madrid are the best side in the world on the counter. They are likely to score another in Munich... will Bayern win by more than one goal? I hope not. Oh absolutely, I still think they'll beat Real. Will have to see by how much, but don't think the result is as bad some has made it out to be either.

Frightening how wrong all this is. How is it wrong? I'm not saying he got them into the PL, I'm saying he set a foundation for the club and took them from League one to a playoff challenger in the Championship. Also there's no way you can't agree they didn't have the worst squad in the league year after year. a) He didn't "basically make them a Premier League club", they had two managers after him. b) He didn't "win the FA Cup while keeping Wigan up" c) It's not Everton's highest ever points total. It was all wrong. Incidentally, if you're going down the route of "Martinez built Swansea even though he didn't have direct influence on promotion", then I'm afraid Moyes completely blows him out the water as far as Everton are concerned. Really, didn't know they achieved more under Moyes tbh, that's surprising, what season was it? They must be pretty close to it now though It's their highest in the PL era. It was my understanding that it was higher than Moyes ever achieved at any rate (which is all that really matter for this debate) Wullie didn't get my points, should've made it clearer initially although I didn't know he'd read into them so literally.

Frightening how wrong all this is. How is it wrong? I'm not saying he got them into the PL, I'm saying he set a foundation for the club and took them from League one to a playoff challenger in the Championship. Also there's no way you can't agree they didn't have the worst squad in the league year after year. a) He didn't "basically make them a Premier League club", they had two managers after him. b) He didn't "win the FA Cup while keeping Wigan up" c) It's not Everton's highest ever points total. It was all wrong. Incidentally, if you're going down the route of "Martinez built Swansea even though he didn't have direct influence on promotion", then I'm afraid Moyes completely blows him out the water as far as Everton are concerned. Really, didn't know they achieved more under Moyes tbh, that's surprising, what season was it? They must be pretty close to it now though It's their highest in the PL era.

What are you on about? Not spending loads of money? Haven't they spent for like £25m more than they've sold for this season? They're a newly promoted club. Anyway, they've signed some good players. Long and Huddlestone are Premiership players. They look like they'll survive for a while. Being a newly promoted club doesn't mean much when you've been in the league just couple seasons back and have invested a lot into the club. Wigan basically had a net spend around £0 during Martinez time did they not? I'm asking since I remember seeing something close to zero compared to other clubs. Look at how much Bruce has sold players for the past two seasons at Hull also. It would be like saying Hughton/Pardew is better than Martinez because we finished higher than Wigan.

What are you on about? Not spending loads of money? Haven't they spent for like £25m more than they've sold for this season?

Alright, still two completely different squads with completely different resources. In any case, Bruce teams style has never appealed to me. He's an okish manager, but I think he's destined for where he is lower half side.

Frightening how wrong all this is. How is it wrong? I'm not saying he got them into the PL, I'm saying he set a foundation for the club and took them from League one to a playoff challenger in the Championship. Also there's no way you can't agree they didn't have the worst squad in the league year after year. a) He didn't "basically make them a Premier League club", they had two managers after him. b) He didn't "win the FA Cup while keeping Wigan up" c) It's not Everton's highest ever points total. It was all wrong. Incidentally, if you're going down the route of "Martinez built Swansea even though he didn't have direct influence on promotion", then I'm afraid Moyes completely blows him out the water as far as Everton are concerned. On the last one I meant in the PL era, I'm not talking about the 40+ games era as that's no fair comparison. Should've made that more clear. Also, you're reading to much it literally on the b), I'm well aware they were relegated the year he won the FA Cup, I was talking about keeping them up for 3 seasons or so. But I get it, you've switched the words around, should've made it more clear, but since it's not my first language sometimes the sentences are built differently.

How is Bruce season with Hull anything close to having anything to do with Martinez at Wigan? I do agree that of course he bears some fault for the squad they had, I'm just saying people are extremely harsh and I've said it all along that with a club where there's a structure in place already and where only thing he'd have to care about was to help the team bring in players and manage the team he would succeed. Still don't agree that his record is mixed since he's had some type of success at all of the clubs he's been at until now. Have to remember that he's not been that long into management either and Baines interview the other day about how Martinez believes in his own philosophies rather than how other team plays is refreshing.

You know they'd just finished 8th in the Championship when he left there, right? I know, but you missed the point. He set the foundation and built for the long-term, do you think it was Rodgers who built that PL side? Who made them who they were? Who took them to 8th in the Championship for nothing? He's a man that doesn't just makes plan for his team, he makes a plan for the long-term for the whole club, insisting in facility and youth improvements throughout the structure. I didn't miss the point, I just wasn't sure if you actually knew the fact. Anyway, I do think that Rodgers made them a PL side with his style of football. Fair enough if you think that, although I'm pretty sure Brendan at one point said that he was very thankful for Martinez establishing a footprint at Swansea which helped him succeed. Might be completely wrong here, but I'm close to certain it was right. (as I said though, might be dreaming on this point).

Frightening how wrong all this is. How is it wrong? I'm not saying he got them into the PL, I'm saying he set a foundation for the club and took them from League one to a playoff challenger in the Championship. Also there's no way you can't agree they didn't have the worst squad in the league year after year. Oh, and the bold part

You know they'd just finished 8th in the Championship when he left there, right? I know, but you missed the point. He set the foundation and built for the long-term, do you think it was Rodgers who built that PL side? Who made them who they were? Who took them to 8th in the Championship for nothing? He's a man that doesn't just makes plan for his team, he makes a plan for the long-term for the whole club, insisting in facility and youth improvements throughout the structure.

Moyes record is great while Martinez's is mixed? Right the guy basically made Swansea a Premier League club, he also won the FA Cup while year after year managing to keep Wigan in the PL despite having by far the worst squad in the league, he's also taken Everton to it's highest point total ever. I'm sorry, that's not mixed. He's won a title, he's won more points in his first season than Moyes ever did. When Martinez became manager they sold Valencia, Cattermole and couple other players that were there. After his first season they sold N'Zogbia, they then sold Moses. It's quite clear that he didn't necessarily build a shit club, a team of Wigan stature sometimes have to throw more money at players to attract them, so he gambled with his signings. He tried to sign cheaper players that could possibly pay off, some did some didn't. It was Martinez who brought players like McCarthy, Diame, Moses, Kone in cheap. Their recruitement style at Wigan obviously also meant some bad signings like Boselli, Di Santo and others. But I don't think it's fair to judge his ability to build a team at a club like Wigan. Matter of fact is that he's won an FA Cup, he's promoted a team to the Championship and set a foundation to a club that has become a relatively stable PL club and already in his first season gotten Everton's highest points total ever. Many people talk about Lukaku here, Lukaku there, but how about the fact that they sold probably Moyes favourite player at the club as soon as he arrived? I'd have Moyes here every day, but there's no doubt in my mind that if I had to chose one of them it would be Martinez all day long. Moyes also made some horrible signing during his time and I think there are few managers about who don't make bad signings.

Think they just lacked intensity. I've seen them play in the leauge and earlier in the season in the CL with much more intensity. Credit to Real for doing a good job, but at the same time Bayern are in just some bad form. Winning the season to early might've loosened them up a little. Think we'll see a much better Bayern next week, if that will be enough I don't know. Do you not think it might be more of a problem with not being able to break down organised defences? Why would it be? They've scored agianst every team they've played this season including Chelsea, Arsenal, Man Unite and City and have scored twice or more against each and everyone of them. Teams always defend against them and they've won the league with plenty of games to play. I think they lacked intensity yesterday and met the best team they've played all season. Let's not forget Real were close to going out to Dortmund despite being 3-0 up in the first leg. From what I understood Pep told his team to be more cautious with the ball because Real are the best on the counter. I think they'll have to force their hands next week and think it'll probably pay off.

Think they just lacked intensity. I've seen them play in the leauge and earlier in the season in the CL with much more intensity. Credit to Real for doing a good job, but at the same time Bayern are in just some bad form. Winning the season to early might've loosened them up a little. Think we'll see a much better Bayern next week, if that will be enough I don't know.

Don't worry about Bigi, he has a place in Pardews starting XI. Next season we will be playing Bigi - Abeid - Colback - Gouffran Sissoko Shola Will be immense.

He also won an FA Cup with Caldwell leading the defence. You could always find different ways to put it, but you can't deny he's done an extremely good job and had it not been for terrible luck (Neil will probably agree) in the beginning of the season CL could've been done and dusted already. The amount of chance they missed when the season began in the first few games was tremendous.

That's the beauty of the game as well, everyone has their opinion on how they want it to be played. If everyone thought it was all about the same shit it be an extremely boring sport.

Was 50 days on Tuesday not yesterday fwiw Shut up. 50 days I'm just waiting for the CL final. Only fun thing left to watch of this horrible season. Alan Pardew is a cunt. There got it into this thread as well.

I think football is subjective. I love watching Peps team, I don't think many on here understand just how hard it is to maintain possession that way while creating as much as they do. They weren't good yesterday, but dominating and dictating tempo and possession against possibly the 2nd best team in Europe is impressive. I do agree that it would be a horrible finak though, but that's more down to Chelsea not being a team who counters the same way Real or Atletico does. They're much more slow in their build up and really kill it early on. Atletico have immense pressing and think they could really get the better of Bayern. I think for footballs sake a full Madrid final would be the best, but for me and IMO Bayern v Atletico would be more fun, just as both teams are good at exactly the opposite things.