Cronky

It's true that Man U are heavily dependent on Rooney. At least when he's at his best, which is not the case at the moment. I saw most of their game tonight. Nani isn't as good a player as he thinks. Anderson's passing isn't great and he must be a disappointment. Carrick seems to have gone off the boil. Macheda doesn't look ready. Park put in a good shift, but doesn't look like a game-changer. The only one of their front six who impressed me was Fletcher. Having said that, Man U still looks the right place for Rooney. Deep down, I think he knows it.

He does see a lot of the ball and he does take a lot of responsibility for trying to make things happen. A player like that will probably make more mistakes than those who play it safer, but I'd still see him as the player we can least afford to lose. He has more ability on the ball than any of our other midfielders.

The banner next to it, said, 'Who's the whore now, Wayne?'

Man U look very exposed on the break. They're much the better side but I can see them conceding one.

I'm not really buying this. Having a pop at the owners' 'lack of ambition' is usually just a convenient way of getting sympathy from the fans.

Money could well be the main factor. It's interesting that in leaving Everton, Rooney felt the need to construct some story about falling out with Moyes, and was successfully sued for libel as a result. What bothers me as an England supporter is Rooney's loss of form, which can't be a coincidence. That suggests that, deep down, he's not nearly as positive and confident about leaving Man U as he is pretending to be. Other players may be okay just going wherever the big money is, but that may not be right for him. I suspect Fergie is right in saying that the club have offered him a lot of protection, and of course moving from Liverpool to Manchester was never going to involve a big adjustment to his lifestyle.

Man U are losing out at the moment to clubs like Chelsea, Man City and Real, who are being heavily subsidised from outside. However, if the new rules are effective, then they should have an advantage again, because of their ability to generate their own income. Rumours of their demise are probably premature, and if Rooney thinks that the future looks brighter elsewhere, he may end up losing out.

Well no wonder he doesn't want to sign another contract. He could demand his own price in a few months' time. Of course he might still consider Man U his best option, should he and Fergie patch up their differences. However, I don't know if Man U would want to blow a hole in their wage structure to keep one player. Certainly if I were managing another club, I wouldn't want to pay a massive fee for him at this point. He's facing a crisis, but is in complete denial. Moving away from the environment where he feels at home could make things worse.

I used to think that Fergie was the only thing keeping that club ticking over, but thinking about it, he keeps falling out with the best player in the team every 5 years. Well that tactic seems to have worked so far. Fergie has always maintained that no player should be bigger than the club, but Rooney is his biggest challenge yet. I think he'll stick to his guns. He has the example of Sir Matt Busby and George Best to look back on. Despite the discipline problems, Busby didn't dare part with Best, and the situation just deteriorated. In the long-term, it was bad for both the player and the club. Best retired and Man U were relegated.

Well, no sign of a grudge there.

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/owner-insists-he-will-not-throw-money-at-liverpool-2109459.html The timing of the takeover is good, in that the new rules should ease the pressure on teams to take financial risks. It ought to be easier for Liverpool to recover, in that they've still got a good fan base. The question is - how easy it will be to get away from their current position. As we know ourselves, it's more difficult for a big club to get themselves out of trouble than a smaller one. Players are under more pressure and opposition teams raise their game.

I think this is one of the problems of promoting a coach. No matter how well he does, the minute things are a bit rocky, all the doubts that existed when he first took over as caretaker start to come back. Hughton proved his ability last season. If we sack him now, we'll deserve to go down.

Moyes or Mourinho

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_YD7JCzMtPQc/Swt9hHByYJI/AAAAAAAAAO0/IwHw7I_uGcE/s1600/NP_VincentSimone+_1911_7.jpg Roberto di Matteo http://www.football-league.co.uk/javaImages/5f/13/0,,10794~3740511,00.jpg Vincent Simone, from Strictly

Rooney is starting to look like another Mike Tyson in the making. Personal life in turmoil, a loss of form and a falling out with the people who are in the best position to advise him. He now looks all at sea and unable to make the decisions that he needs to take.

Lovenkrands doesn't link well with the midfield, so we're relying on him getting on the end of flick-ons from Carroll (which is a crude tactic that doesn't work at this level) and getting on the end of chances in the box (which he will occasionally do, but his finishing isn't that good) Routledge again doesn't look up to it, and I'd give a chance to Ranger wide right. Not ideal, but the better option. With the first goal, I think it's the third occasion we've been caught out by a simple cross to Perch's back post. On this occasion, Williamson came away looking bad, but it was really Perch's ball and he should have called for it. Williamson ended up trying to head it moving backwards. Perch just doesn't assert himself enough.

I think it's more complex than that. My reading of it is that H and G had their valuation and were hoping to re-finance the club according to a valuation that would have allowed them to clear the RBS debt but still remain in control. The Board and RBS didn't want that, and felt they had the authority to sell the club at a price that would allow the RBS debt to be cleared, but otherwise leave the club debt-free. Obviously the H and G proposal would simply mean transferring the debt from one lender to another. Even if the club didn't go down the re-financing route, there would probably have been buyers who would have gone over the £300m, even if they weren't prepared to meet H and G's price. However, at that stage, there wouldn't have been much point in making a bid until RBS had taken over and the club was in administration. Then, the club could have been sold at a lower price than if the auction had taken place before administration. However, the final price could still have been way over £300m. So there was deadlock. RBS and the Board didn't want to go into administration, and had nothing to gain themselves by obtaining a price over £300m. H and G either wanted to re-finance, or get an auction started after administration. That, I think, is H and G's case that the club was under-sold and that they should be compensated.

There was a story earlier (I think on the BBC) that the Board had asked NESV to indemnify them against being sued by H & G, for negligence in selling for under the market price. NESV had apparently agreed to this to get things moving. This has always struck me as the weak point of the Board's actions - yes, they have the right to make the decision, and H & G do not have the power to remove any of them from the Board. But some kind of civil suit for damages is a different matter, and it looks like this Texas legal action - while it has not been able to over-rule the High Court - may have actually been designed to put the shits up Broughton and co. If H & G do have a case and NESV end up picking up the tab, that may well have a knock-on effect further down the line on their ability to finance transfers or a stadium development. I don't think it's over yet.

It's getting more interesting. I'd thought it was going to hinge on whether the Board had sold the club for a 'reasonable' price. Instead, it looks like that aspect of the case was outside the High Court's remit, and the focus was on the legality of H and G's attempt to block the decision to sell, by re-constituting the Board. I daresay they would have been on very weak ground there. However, it looks like they've decided to challenge the 'reasonable price' aspect in a Court where they're most likely to get a sympathetic hearing - ie an American one. Away from all the emotion in this country about the institution that is Liverpool FC, they may have a strong case. It's hard to believe that the best possible price was one that covered the debt and no more.

I see what you're saying, but to be honest you can't excuse how woeful we were during the World Cup. There is no point in storming through the qualifiers to serve up dog shit when in the real tournament. We hardly had a tough qualifying group anyway. Most of what went wrong in the World Cup you could argue was due to stubbornness from Capello. You say he can learn from this, but I don't think he will. He is too stubborn to be dynamic and adaptive with England imo, however I hope he proves me wrong on that. For what it's worth I don't think we struggled with Hoddle or Eriksson at the helm. Both managers got far in tournaments and mostly it was down to bad luck, red cards (Beckham, Rooney etc.) and finally penalties that put us out. Only Brazil 2002 World Cup were we beaten, and even that was a bit of tremendous luck/skill from Ronaldinho to kill us off. Even in that tournament we were better than we were in 2010. You could argue that Capello had a stronger team than both Hoddle and Eriksson had and with that he served up the worst football ever when it was the 2010 finals. I want to be proven wrong for thinking that Capello is no longer the right man. Before the World Cup I firmly believed he was the right calibre of manager, a true World Class manager. But his formula has not worked when we needed it most. If he takes that form in to the qualifiers than what hope have we got for him getting it right in the Euro 2012 finals. Rooney's form is a blow, but he should be big enough to drop him and put someone in who is playing well. Rooney may even benefit coming off the bench late on in his current situation for all we know. Yes, we were terrible at the World Cup, particularly considering the squad we had, which I still believe was the best we've had for many years. I don't think the squad was prepared correctly. After a long, hard season, the players needed to relax and re-charge, but instead they were worked too hard. Also while Italian players may be used to that isolated, disciplined routine, English players are not and I suspect that boredom became a problem as well. Some of our players - Rooney in particular - heaped a lot of pressure on themselves beforehand by appearing in adverts which portrayed them as superstars, and didn't look mentally ready for the reality of a contest. Capello didn't recognise that danger in advance, and warn the players off too much exposure. My point is that rather than sack the manager for all that, why not give him a chance to learn from those errors, if he still has an appetite and the nerve for the job? We seem to have a very unconstructive attitude in this country to failure. In terms of his other qualities - team selection and tactics - Capello has been sound. We'd all do things a bit differently - particularly with hindsight - but he hasn't suddenly become useless. However, he hadn't ever taken a team to a large international tournament before, and it's within that context that he made mistakes. Assuming we qualify for 2012, why stick in another manager who's inexperienced at tournament level, when we have one who has already learned a few things - albeit the hard way?

Capello was doing very well right up until the World Cup finals, and apart from last night, the performances haven't been that bad since. I think he made mistakes during the World Cup, in that the boot-camp atmosphere didn't suit the players. However, there were other things - principally Rooney's loss of form - that were beyond his control. Either way, he should be given the chance to learn from those experiences and have a crack at another tournament. I've seen so many England managers struggle over the years, despite their good records at club level. Our only successful one, Ramsey, had the advantage of playing at home during a World Cup. It's a difficult job for all sorts of reasons, and changing things now just feels like panic.

We didn't get many early crosses in because of the wingers having to switch feet, and that became quite a problem because we didn't create much down the middle. The crosses were easily read and picked off. As another factor in this, I don't think Glen Johnson has been the same player since the World Cup. He's actually very good going forward, but his confidence seems very brittle at the moment and he's not creating much.

It looks like a more comprehensive victory than I would have expected. It all hinged on whether the price the board got was a 'reasonable' one, and I suppose either the judge has decided that it was indeed reasonable, or that it was competely up to the board to decide what was reasonable.

We rely a lot on Rooney to open things up, and he's just not there at the moment. I think the ref could have been a bit stronger, mind. Right from the start, any England player who got past his man was chopped down. You need the ref to clamp down on that right away.

We don't have an alternative to Rooney, but he's having big problems. They might be physical, after aggravating that ankle injury last season, but they look more psychological. He's been carrying the Man U and England teams for the last few years, and on top of his personal problems, it all looks a bit too much for him. A player who has never looked fearless now seems very half-hearted in what he's doing. I feel sad and frustrated because he's the sort of player that can lift a side to the level of title contenders. Whether he needs a physiotherapist or a psychotherapist, he needs to face up to his problems.