alpal78

Disagree, there is a difference. Players like Maria and Marcelo for Madrid do dive but they don't roll around the floor trying to get the opponent sent off. Example when De Maria dived against Alves, he was frustrated and held his hands up but he wasn't clutching his face like Pedro did or his knees like Alves did. Cheating nevertheless but different degrees. Barceloa does it on purpose, their cheating is methodological and consist of two steps i) a player not only dives but exaggerates the 'injury' by holding his face (even when there is absolutely no contact) and roll around on the floor as if in terrible pain only to jump up shortly afterwards and ii) 4-5 of the other players consistently surround the ref and scream for him to take action. That's a different level of cheating that very few teams go to. I still think that when given the chance, they play the most beautiful football around but after yesterday's unsportmanlike behaviour, my estimate of this Barcelona team dropped by quite a few notches.

Had a go and with a set of admittedly freak results, we could end up bottom of the table. So we are definitely not mathematically safe! :frantic:

Can someone please send the link for the predictor. I wanna have a go myself, thanks

What an idiotic statement to make Now I know that you're not being serious. De Jong's tackle was a scissor tackle which is almost certain in most cases to break a leg. Pepe raised his leg but made very little contact.

c***...and that's before the rest. His lack of respect for the officials tonight was disgutsing If we had a player sent off for a similar challenge, I'd expect Pardew to have a go at the officials tbh. Give over, man. Challenges like Pepe's tonight can ruin knees and subsequently careers. What? Yes Pepe raised his foot but there was hardly any contact coz he turned at the last second and if anything it was his back that bumped into Alves. Of course just the way Pinto clutched his face when he ran into Pepe, Alves clutched his knees as if it was already broken. Yes Madrid players like De Maria and Marcelo are divers too but they don't go to the extent of trying to get opponents sent off. Just see how many players have been sent off against Barcelona and how many against Madrid. The number speak for themselves. Regardless of their sometimes brilliant football, the way Barcelona players time and time again crowded the ref trying to get a player off is an embarassment to football.

absolutely no correlation, you just can't accept that Barca are such outright cheats, makes me sick really

Barca are such a bunch of cheats, just don't see how anyone can praise their football so much when they resort to this sort of cuntish game plan of trying to get opponents sent off. That's the 3rd/4th time that a Real Madrid player has been sent off against Barca!

Is this confirmed anywhere?

True but the example of selling the whole team is a stupid pointless exaggeration

The Fat Cockney b****** will happily turn United into Liverpool's feeder club if the money is right. The same as 95% of clubs. I don't like Ashley or Lambyarse but not many clubs would have turned down that sort of money (8th most expensive player in history) for a young lad with half a seasons experience in the premiership. I could understand the derision directed at the board if we sold the lad for £10m just to make a quick buck but all players at all clubs (apart from maybe Chelsea and City) have a price. Especially if the player has indicated he wants to leave. Look at the ludicrous things Man City and Man Utd had to do to keep hold of their star players, we as with most clubs aren't in a position to do that. We tried it before and despite it working at first we started going backwards and the over spending wasn't helping buck the trend. If Liverpool came in with the reported £15m bid for our left back in the last year of his contract and not looking to extend then I couldn't really blame the board for accepting it. Good Post, totally agree with what your saying. Good thing Ashley's ass is so big so you can both simultaneously fit your cocks up it, like. This is so typical, personal attacks are used instead of having a logical debate whenever someone post something not along the lines that Ashley is the devil incarnate. Alterantively you get one liners cliche on bank balance that does not engage the points made. Cajun makes a good point (one that I've been making as well). The club's error is if they don't replace Carrol with a good striker of similiar or higher standards (that might be difficult for some though, coz they think that Carroll is one of the best strikers in the world! ) On the other hand, although Cajun has a point when he said that we would have paid over the odds had we got Carrol's replacement on the last day of the Jan transfer, I am still p*ssed off that we did not attempt to get Sturridge given the leverage that we had over Chelsea (though I suspect the deal with Bolton might have been done earlier). I will wait to see what happens in the summer and am cautiously optimistic that we will get a good number 9 and hopefully one more striker. The last few games hopefully are driving home the point that our current strikers are an awful bunch. and what if the summer's been and gone and the transfer activity hasnt been good enough? we've spent about 10 million on a two young prospects, signed a couple of free transfers and lost enrique, who we've replaced with kadar (and put a last minute 'bid' in for adam johnson). you'll be on here saying that we should wait and see what happens in january and that those of us saying we've seen it all before and ashley is true to form are just impatient and launching personal attacks. depends on your point of view, personally if someone's taking the p*ss i've usually noticed after 5 years If having had the whole summer to plan the transfer window and we end up losing and not replacing Enrique, and not getting quality striker(s) to replace Carroll, then why would I say let's see what happens in January? You're completly missing the point, those who are saying let's see what happens in the summer are not saying that because they just want to procrastinate strengthening team, the fact is most decent and reasonable transfers are done in the summer, whereas the Jan transfer window are stop gap buys which comes with over inflated prices. That's why our transfers in the summer will be more indicative of Ashley's vision for the club and people are right to say that we should wait till then before passing a judgement. You can of course disagree but debate the points instead of making idiotic statements like bumming Ashley or spouting cliche irrelevant points about bank balance. cliche irrelevant points about bank balance, don't be so sensitive. i fully reserve the right to make sarcastic remarks about anything i want, i'm insulted by your refusal to write in paragraphs but i'm not gonna pick you up on it because i don't agree with you on some things. fwiw, people who are saying lets wait and see what happens in the summer either haven't been paying attention for the last 5 years or are expecting quite a radical transformation in ashley imo Sensitive? I'm only trying to teach you ethics of debating i.e. you engage the points instead of replying with irrelevant stuff. Sorry that's proving to be too difficult for you. No point debating in a civil manner with you. Your post is absolute rubbish. Pay attention on what? Our transfers under Ashley bar the last Jan transfer window has been decent. Colocini, Tiote, HBA...etc are all excellent players. Last Jan was bad but it was an exception to the rule Yup, that was intentional. I stopped trying to debate with you in a civil way when you showed that you were not interested in having one

it is a good post, but it glosses over the issue which strikes at the absolute heart of what the club is about now. that is, that we replaced a very well performing manager who was popular with players and fans, with a man who had very little reason to be hired other than he didn't deserve the position and therefore was more likely to agree to demands placed upon him on transfer policy. and my oh my, weren't we all shocked when carroll went in january. yes the money was massive, yes its a great deal if you put the money back into the team PLUS the money that should have been due to be invested anyway. but the chain of events is as plain as day imo, would anyone be surprised if the big debate in the winter is whether we were right to accept a massive bid for tiote on deadline day? I would understand it if we received a ridiculous bid (£30m+) for Tiote a few hours before deadline and we took the money without being able to find a replacement. I wouldn't like it though, but it's too good to turn down from a business point of view, and we can't buy a replacement just in case someone makes a last minute mega bid for our players. if we want to progress, at some point we have to say no. our most important players shouldnt be for sale at any price (yes i know even man u had to sell ronaldo, nani was already at the club though, its different). what if we were offerred 300 million for our entire first team squad? that would be good business, right? we could just play the kids, get relegated and then we'd have loads of money to buy a new team to push for promotion True to form, trying to falsify a point by taking an argument to the extreme, what an idiotic point.

The Fat Cockney b****** will happily turn United into Liverpool's feeder club if the money is right. The same as 95% of clubs. I don't like Ashley or Lambyarse but not many clubs would have turned down that sort of money (8th most expensive player in history) for a young lad with half a seasons experience in the premiership. I could understand the derision directed at the board if we sold the lad for £10m just to make a quick buck but all players at all clubs (apart from maybe Chelsea and City) have a price. Especially if the player has indicated he wants to leave. Look at the ludicrous things Man City and Man Utd had to do to keep hold of their star players, we as with most clubs aren't in a position to do that. We tried it before and despite it working at first we started going backwards and the over spending wasn't helping buck the trend. If Liverpool came in with the reported £15m bid for our left back in the last year of his contract and not looking to extend then I couldn't really blame the board for accepting it. Good Post, totally agree with what your saying. Good thing Ashley's ass is so big so you can both simultaneously fit your cocks up it, like. This is so typical, personal attacks are used instead of having a logical debate whenever someone post something not along the lines that Ashley is the devil incarnate. Alterantively you get one liners cliche on bank balance that does not engage the points made. Cajun makes a good point (one that I've been making as well). The club's error is if they don't replace Carrol with a good striker of similiar or higher standards (that might be difficult for some though, coz they think that Carroll is one of the best strikers in the world! ) On the other hand, although Cajun has a point when he said that we would have paid over the odds had we got Carrol's replacement on the last day of the Jan transfer, I am still p*ssed off that we did not attempt to get Sturridge given the leverage that we had over Chelsea (though I suspect the deal with Bolton might have been done earlier). I will wait to see what happens in the summer and am cautiously optimistic that we will get a good number 9 and hopefully one more striker. The last few games hopefully are driving home the point that our current strikers are an awful bunch. and what if the summer's been and gone and the transfer activity hasnt been good enough? we've spent about 10 million on a two young prospects, signed a couple of free transfers and lost enrique, who we've replaced with kadar (and put a last minute 'bid' in for adam johnson). you'll be on here saying that we should wait and see what happens in january and that those of us saying we've seen it all before and ashley is true to form are just impatient and launching personal attacks. depends on your point of view, personally if someone's taking the p*ss i've usually noticed after 5 years If having had the whole summer to plan the transfer window and we end up losing and not replacing Enrique, and not getting quality striker(s) to replace Carroll, then why would I say let's see what happens in January? You're completly missing the point, those who are saying let's see what happens in the summer are not saying that because they just want to procrastinate strengthening team, the fact is most decent and reasonable transfers are done in the summer, whereas the Jan transfer window are stop gap buys which comes with over inflated prices. That's why our transfers in the summer will be more indicative of Ashley's vision for the club and people are right to say that we should wait till then before passing a judgement. You can of course disagree but debate the points instead of making idiotic statements like bumming Ashley or spouting cliche irrelevant points about bank balance. cliche irrelevant points about bank balance, don't be so sensitive. i fully reserve the right to make sarcastic remarks about anything i want, i'm insulted by your refusal to write in paragraphs but i'm not gonna pick you up on it because i don't agree with you on some things. fwiw, people who are saying lets wait and see what happens in the summer either haven't been paying attention for the last 5 years or are expecting quite a radical transformation in ashley imo Sensitive? I'm only trying to teach you ethics of debating i.e. you engage the points instead of replying with irrelevant stuff. Sorry that's proving to be too difficult for you. No point debating in a civil manner with you. Your post is absolute rubbish. Pay attention on what? Our transfers under Ashley bar the last Jan transfer window has been decent. Colocini, Tiote, HBA...etc are all excellent players. Last Jan was bad but it was an exception to the rule

The Fat Cockney b****** will happily turn United into Liverpool's feeder club if the money is right. The same as 95% of clubs. I don't like Ashley or Lambyarse but not many clubs would have turned down that sort of money (8th most expensive player in history) for a young lad with half a seasons experience in the premiership. I could understand the derision directed at the board if we sold the lad for £10m just to make a quick buck but all players at all clubs (apart from maybe Chelsea and City) have a price. Especially if the player has indicated he wants to leave. Look at the ludicrous things Man City and Man Utd had to do to keep hold of their star players, we as with most clubs aren't in a position to do that. We tried it before and despite it working at first we started going backwards and the over spending wasn't helping buck the trend. If Liverpool came in with the reported £15m bid for our left back in the last year of his contract and not looking to extend then I couldn't really blame the board for accepting it. Good Post, totally agree with what your saying. Good thing Ashley's ass is so big so you can both simultaneously fit your cocks up it, like. This is so typical, personal attacks are used instead of having a logical debate whenever someone post something not along the lines that Ashley is the devil incarnate. Alterantively you get one liners cliche on bank balance that does not engage the points made. Cajun makes a good point (one that I've been making as well). The club's error is if they don't replace Carrol with a good striker of similiar or higher standards (that might be difficult for some though, coz they think that Carroll is one of the best strikers in the world! ) On the other hand, although Cajun has a point when he said that we would have paid over the odds had we got Carrol's replacement on the last day of the Jan transfer, I am still p*ssed off that we did not attempt to get Sturridge given the leverage that we had over Chelsea (though I suspect the deal with Bolton might have been done earlier). I will wait to see what happens in the summer and am cautiously optimistic that we will get a good number 9 and hopefully one more striker. The last few games hopefully are driving home the point that our current strikers are an awful bunch. and what if the summer's been and gone and the transfer activity hasnt been good enough? we've spent about 10 million on a two young prospects, signed a couple of free transfers and lost enrique, who we've replaced with kadar (and put a last minute 'bid' in for adam johnson). you'll be on here saying that we should wait and see what happens in january and that those of us saying we've seen it all before and ashley is true to form are just impatient and launching personal attacks. depends on your point of view, personally if someone's taking the p*ss i've usually noticed after 5 years If having had the whole summer to plan the transfer window and we end up losing and not replacing Enrique, and not getting quality striker(s) to replace Carroll, then why would I say let's see what happens in January? You're completly missing the point, those who are saying let's see what happens in the summer are not saying that because they just want to procrastinate strengthening team, the fact is most decent and reasonable transfers are done in the summer, whereas the Jan transfer window are stop gap buys which comes with over inflated prices. That's why our transfers in the summer will be more indicative of Ashley's vision for the club and people are right to say that we should wait till then before passing a judgement. You can of course disagree but debate the points instead of making idiotic statements like bumming Ashley or spouting cliche irrelevant points about bank balance.

The Fat Cockney b****** will happily turn United into Liverpool's feeder club if the money is right. The same as 95% of clubs. I don't like Ashley or Lambyarse but not many clubs would have turned down that sort of money (8th most expensive player in history) for a young lad with half a seasons experience in the premiership. I could understand the derision directed at the board if we sold the lad for £10m just to make a quick buck but all players at all clubs (apart from maybe Chelsea and City) have a price. Especially if the player has indicated he wants to leave. Look at the ludicrous things Man City and Man Utd had to do to keep hold of their star players, we as with most clubs aren't in a position to do that. We tried it before and despite it working at first we started going backwards and the over spending wasn't helping buck the trend. If Liverpool came in with the reported £15m bid for our left back in the last year of his contract and not looking to extend then I couldn't really blame the board for accepting it. Good Post, totally agree with what your saying. Good thing Ashley's ass is so big so you can both simultaneously fit your cocks up it, like. This is so typical, personal attacks are used instead of having a logical debate whenever someone post something not along the lines that Ashley is the devil incarnate. Alterantively you get one liners cliche on bank balance that does not engage the points made. Cajun makes a good point (one that I've been making as well). The club's error is if they didn't replace Carrol with a good striker of similiar or higher standards (that might be difficult for some though, coz they think that Carroll is one of the best strikers in the world! ) On the other hand, although Cajun has a point when he said that we would have paid over the odds had we got Carrol's replacement on the last day of the Jan transfer, I am still p*ssed off that we did not attempt to get Sturridge given the leverage that we had over Chelsea (though I suspect the deal with Bolton might have been done earlier). I will wait to see what happens in the summer and am cautiously optimistic that we will get a good number 9 and hopefully one more striker. The last few games hopefully are driving home the point that our current strikers are an awful bunch.

I'm not sure if it's Elano or Robinho (maybe even both) but the point is valid. Ireland is not so much the skillful type that will dribble past players, his game centers around passing and moving into space (think he has decent pace too). So for him to be an affective player for us, he will need a dynamic midfield. Not sure we have that although there's potential for that in HBA and Jonas and Barton to a lesser extent

The straight line towards the end looks like we are gonna die which is probably true!

What have you seen in the few minutes that he has been on to justify your statement above?

I'm not sure that's a fair description of the game. Barcelona no doubt played the better football overall, but Madrid edged it in the first half. In the 2nd half, although Barca dominated possession, in terms of chances and likeliness to score they were almost even. Barca was just better on the eyes. On ur 2nd statement of winning with a poor team, like you said no manager has done so in the CL. Mourinho's success should be measured against some realistic standards not some abstract unachievable standards and using the former, Mourinho is amongst the best if not the best already (will be if he leads Madrid to CL trophy)

It's not that though, you miss the point. He's a world class manager and one of the best around. But he's not god like some people make him out to be. It's not like he beat Barcelona with Alan Smith and James Perch. There are other factors bar him that has contributed to his success. Money, deep squads and so on. People are all hysteric he beat Barcelona with a team consiting of CRonaldo, Özil, Di Maria etc. You're not making much sense. Of course top managers will manage top clubs, why would he be managing players like Perch or Smith? We don't ask SAF and the rest of the top managers to prove their credibility by managing piss poor players. What Mourinho does though is make his players play 110% for him no doubt. I've followed Madrid since the Galactico period and never have I seen a Madrid team played with so much intensity down to every single player. They were running and harassing Barcelona right to the very end, even the so called diva players. Of course when big teams like Madrid, Barcelona, Man Utd, Inter win, there are a multitude of factors involve, when Giardiola wins with Barcelona, we don't take credit away from him just because he has players like Messi, Xavi and Iniesta do we? But if you want to consider the Mourinho factor, then why is it that even with money, big squads (and all other factors that you care to name) Inter did not win the CL for donkey years till Mouriho came along. Why is that Madrid with all that they have could not past the 2nd round stage of the CL for so many years pre Mourinho ad now they are in the semis? He makes great teams into champions and although unlikely I would love it just love if Madrid wins the CL this year.

The fact that people with no connection to Barcelona have became "fans" makes it somewhat amusing when their whole sense of reality is shattered. Yep they're a fucking fantastic team but some people make them out to be invincibles! Good that myth is now shattered

Nice strawman there, nobody is saying give him the number 9 shirt man. What people are saying is that if we bring him back and give him a chance, he might be better than some of the dross that are starting for us these days and who call themselves strikers

I said that I didn't know how good Shearer was at 22/23. Of course I'll realise if/when Carroll as good as Shearer, as I've seen Shearer play at his peak. Read what I said originally, then look at what you are being a pedantic fool about. Such a pointless discussion. Now you've gone and confused yourself. First you say that you don't know how good Shearer was in Southampton/Blackburn and now you're claiming that you know how good Shearer was at his peak. Well many would correctly argue that Sharer was at his peak during his Blackburn years + Euro 96 hence the then world record transfer fee. Make up your mind man! I'm not being pedantic, you're just contradicting yourself and not making much sense.

Since Greaves, i reckon. This. Shearer's as a goal scoring at Blackburn (and early Newcastle days) was absoltely sublime, his goalscoring record during that time was ridicilous and I doubt there is many people in the English game who have a better goals to games ratios during a 5-6 year period, ever. And although you can say Carroll is better in the air due to shear size and power, there's no way he's a better header of the ball than shearer ever was, both attacking it and flicking it on. Carroll is 22 ffs. I'm too young to know what Shearer was like at Southampton/Blackburn but I don't see any reason why Carroll won't become as good as Shearer. You admit not knowing how good Shearer was at Southampton/Blackburn due to your age and then boldly claim that you don't see any reason why Carroll can't be as good as Shearer. How does that work like? How can you make the second claim if you don't know what standards you're comparing (the future) Carroll against? All I said is that I think Carroll can be as good as Shearer. Hardly a bold claim. If he was still a Newcastle player you'd probably agree. Is this because I lol'ed at your joke of a comment in the Xisco thread? No have not even read the Xisco thread mate. I've nothing against Carroll, I just don't think he's anywhere close to Shearer in his prime and I've yet to see his potential to be that good, but that's not the point. I was just questioning your logic. You can't make the second statement that they will be comparable if you admitted in your first sentence that you don't know how good Shearer was. How do you know when Carroll has reached 'Shearer's' standards if you don't know how high that standard is? If you can't grasp such basic logic, then let's not continue!

Since Greaves, i reckon. This. Shearer's as a goal scoring at Blackburn (and early Newcastle days) was absoltely sublime, his goalscoring record during that time was ridicilous and I doubt there is many people in the English game who have a better goals to games ratios during a 5-6 year period, ever. And although you can say Carroll is better in the air due to shear size and power, there's no way he's a better header of the ball than shearer ever was, both attacking it and flicking it on. Carroll is 22 ffs. I'm too young to know what Shearer was like at Southampton/Blackburn but I don't see any reason why Carroll won't become as good as Shearer. You admit not knowing how good Shearer was at Southampton/Blackburn due to your age and then boldly claim that you don't see any reason why Carroll can't be as good as Shearer. How does that work like? How can you make the second claim if you don't know what standards you're comparing (the future) Carroll against?