Cronky

At which point he sacked the man who had given us those three successive top five places and brought in Souness, Roeder and Allardyce.

Agreed. Shepherd was completely out of his depth.

Willian was excellent as well, I thought.

One shrewd tactician who's prepared to back his ideas, and more importantly he gets his players to believe in them. The last ten minutes was nothing but long balls at every opportunity, but they were committed to the tactic and in the end, it paid off.

Mulumbu, Medel or Ki. Williams and Caulker Berahino I'd also take a punt on Hoolahan.

..which would involve him entering into a physical challenge and possibly getting hurt. He is always seeking out the space between defenders. Which is fine, but not all the time.

I can only assume that Jose doesn't think Lukaku is technically good enough yet, and isn't prepared to wait. Maybe Man U will bite at £25m. Not sure about anyone else though.

An asset to any club on that alone. Would be great to have him here as an option (not a week in week out starting striker) He's probably the best in the Premiership in the air, but his lack of mobility will always hold him back. I noticed last night that if he dropped deeper to lay off a ball (which he does reasonably well), he stands very little chance of getting into the area to get on the end of the move.

Kept an eye on Mark Noble, seeing we've been linked with him. He'd be an improvement on what we've got in centre midfield.

Good player, and potentially great. It seemed like a question of too much too soon with him. Definitely worth a punt at that price, but I'm sure others will be in for him as well.

Don't think they'll annihilate Man U to be fair. They'll give them a gentle spanking a la same way they did to Arsenal. Arsenal are clearly a better team than Man U though, plus they'll miss van Persie badly. We'll see I guess. Think Bayern won't have any troubles, but don't expect them to win 7,8-0 in aggregate either. Yeah, no team is s**** enough to lose 7-0 in aggregate in the later rounds of the CL. Even against Bayern. Oh wai--- I could see them putting 6 or 7 past them in one game.

All academic. They stand no chance at all.

Listen to your head, mate.

Signing players now has to be a team effort. The days are gone when managers could be told 'this is your transfer budget, spend it how you like'. The international nature of scouting, the negotiating with agents, the salary demands of players, the competition for the better players, the huge amounts of money that are involved, all mean that it needs more time and expertise than one man can acquire. I'd agree that there's no point in signing a player who a manager doesn't want, but what generally seems to happen is a list of targets get drawn up, which is approved be the manager. Who the club ends up signing is then in the hands of others.

The elite seem to be getting more powerful. Apart from Man U, I can't remember a stronger final eight than that.

Wouldn't surprise me. Evra is a liability these days. Coleman is a RB. Evra a LB.

Wouldn't surprise me. Evra is a liability these days.

Don't really need the very best. They've rarely bought the finished article. A very good team with 2-3 world class players can challenge for all honours. Look at Arsenal - how many of theirs are world class? The most world class aspect is the manager. I'd say Wenger, like Ferguson, is a massive over-achiever. So many players have the best days of their career under him, and he's able to bring young players through much more quickly than other managers. Their problem has been that, to an even greater extent than Man U, they've found it difficult to compete financially with Man City and Chelsea. When Wenger goes, Arsenal will face the same situation as Man U. The relative weakness of their squad will get exposed, unless they can up their game financially. I'd say Man U have only got one world class player in Rooney. He's been carrying them for a while, but that's not happening now. As for which players you'd define as 'very good', I'm a bit stuck after Van Persie and Mata. The rest seem to be either learning their trade, past their best or not that great in the first place.

True, unfortunately.

I feel sorry for Moyes. Over the last five years, Ferguson has massively over-achieved with a squad that is nothing like the best in the league. Their play now looks quite old-fashioned and pedestrian compared to the top four, and the players are feeling the pressure that always comes when a big club starts to slip. I doubt whether they're in a financial position to compete for the very top players. Unless FFP kicks in, this could last a while.

they also have no european commitments, of course, unlike the russians and arabs You realise you are now an official Pardew Apologist, don't you?

It'd be very irritating if they won it, but it would be good for the Premiership as a whole if someone other than Man City or Chelsea came out on top. It's looking ominous. They've got a great counter-attacking game and they're not under as much pressure as the other teams. They are the underdogs in this situation.

Even if Cisse does return to some form - whatever your definition of that - there's no guarantee that it would last. We need someone we can rely on.

It's difficult to give young players first team experience in the Premiership, and we should take advantage of the opportunity. I don't think there's anything new to learn about Cisse.

I don't like to say it, but you do wonder whether it's his pride that's getting in the way of him getting the right support. It sounds like a lowly counsellor on anger management isn't good enough, it has to be a management consultant. I think it was his ego that made it difficult for him to deal with a mere footballer with the right sort of restraint. There's a personal issue there, not a professional one.