Cronky

Why did Shreeves overstep the mark? Since when did any of the "herd" have the b******s to stand up to Fergie? Ferguson is a truly great manager - probably one of the two or three best ever - but he can also be a complete f***** tit. Players do get accused of cheating now and then, but I just thought that Shreeves was far more persistent than was justified in the circumstances. At the end, after Ronaldo said that he was fouled, he asks him if he could have stayed on his feet. I've not heard any player being asked that question before, and it was a bit stupid. Firstly, a foul is a foul, whether you go over or not. Secondly, no professional player struggles to stay on their feet when they've been fouled in the penalty area. I just thought oh FFS, give it a rest. You're not being clever, despite what you think. Fergie is very protective of his younger players, and tends to react like he's their Dad and they've been picked on. He's got a fierce temper, and that's not an attractive side of his character, so as I say, he's at fault, all though in a different way.

Both men at fault. Shreeves's questioning of Ronaldo overstepped the mark, and Ferguson was wrong to lose his rag like that. At the end of the day though, I've got far more admiration for a guy who's really achieved something than for someone who's just a critic on the sidelines who follows the herd and decides to have a pop at an easy target.

I don't think he's the only player that needed to apologise to Sir Bob. I've read a previous interview in which he gives a fuller picture of the incident. During half-time at a previous game, Sir Bob had wanted to make some changes, and wanted a player to go out of position for the sake of the team. The player refused and there was a massive row. Eventually Dyer volunteered to play in that position in order to move things on. A few months later, he gets asked to do something similar, and gets it in his head that he's become a soft touch. He acted wrongly, but there were other things going on at the time which undermined Sir Bob's position, and which puts it in perspective. He didn't name the player who refused to play out of position, but I wouldn't be totally astonished if it was Bellamy. On top of it all, the Captain had threatened to leave the club unless he was given a regular first-team place, and had made a public fuss when he had been dropped for one game. Hardly the right example.

He told you this did he? Do you need to be told? It's obvious from the way they play. (Just going for the record for the longest delay between post and reply.) Interesting to see it all again. I thought Solano was finished, but he's had a new lease of life at full back. I was banking on Shola doing well, but he's not had the chance. I thought Duff would shine, but he's been hampered by injury. I think he's coming good now though.

It's a very good quote. It happens a lot in football, teams not being mentally prepared for a contest because previous success has relaxed them too much. The great thing about Ferguson is that season after season, game after game, he's managed to send his teams out hungry and ready for battle.

The Halls total shareholding - father and son - is about 45%. They don't even have a majority. On the question of bids, what happened was there was a long period of negotiation, but everyone failed to come to an agreement. That doesn't suggest that Polygon's or Belgravia's bids weren't tempting, to the Halls at least, because otherwise they'd have been rejected out of hand. Shepherd then challenges Sir John Hall to stop trying to sell his shares to 'time-wasters', which is pretty insulting. SJH is a successful businessman and he's as well capable of spotting a timewaster as Shepherd. The directors of Liverpool, Villa and West Ham have seen this as a good time to sell, and I can't see that the Halls are any different. It's clear now that there's a division between the Halls, who want out, and Shepherd, who wants to stay. It really looks like Shepherd is rejecting any bids simply because he wants to take over the club himself. He's a proven incompetent who's taken the club downwards since he took over, there's no sign that he'd be able to bring in any fresh investment, and it's not in the club's interests short-term or long-term. To return to the question, I'd be pretty disgusted if it happened. Really disillusioned. I wouldn't stop being a supporter, but I think my interest would wane.

Absolutely right. I think he has struggled for fitness as well, but in the last few games he's looked a lot sharper and has often been getting past his man or winning a free kick. But ultimately yes, he's ending up in static situations where he's having to try to create something on his own. Duff is a very, very good player. His ability hasn't disappeared as a result of Mourinho or anything else. It's still there for anyone to see. But you have to a) look at the way he's playing now, not the way he was playing when he first came, and b) look at the context in which he's having to play.

It sounds like a very sad situation. The way I see it - The Halls want out, but Shepherd can block any potential bidder, because although he can't stop them getting a majority shareholding, with 29% of the shares he can stop anyone getting the 75% needed to take complete control. That makes us a far less attractive proposition to any investor. So effectively he's trying to put himself in a position where he's the only possible buyer for the shares, and can drive the price down. It also means that other potential owners who might be able to bring in more investment than Freddie are being blocked.

We won't move forward while Shepherd remains in charge, regardless of who the manager is. It's all gone quiet on the Hall front, and I hope that they're waiting until the end of the season, when they'll sell up and a take-over will get launched. That's our only hope.

Let's not forget that it was Roeder who took usfrom 15th to 7th place, through the Intertoto and through the UEFA group stage to get us this far. I don't think he called it right last night, and maybe one of our previous managers could have done better, but let's keep it in perspective. He decided to play virtually the same team as won the first leg, which is understandable, and which I think most of the others would have done. I don't think he reacted quickly enough or correctly when it became clear the plan wasn't working.

The penalty decision in the first leg was terrible, and it gave them a lifeline, but we knew what we had to do in the second leg, the opposition weren't of a higher standard than us, and we failed to do it.

If you really want to gain some insight into how transfers are organised at our club, read Sir Bob's book.

How has he done a good job? Transfers - why did he completely ignore our most desperate requirements. Tactically - inept Substitutions - NOT PATTINSON YOU ARSE! Motivation - seemingly zero On transfers, I think Roeder has the same problem as Robson and Souness - a Chairman who's secretive, difficult to work with and tries to make his own mind up rather than relying on the judgement of his manager. Motivation - I think the players generally play for Roeder. Tactics and team selection - usually okay, although not at his best last night. I think there's an issue of expectations here. Following the Robson era, we still expect to see a top four side, but we're not any more. That's been chucked away and it'll take a long while before we get back up there. But I admit, last night was a cock-up. As Roeder himself said, no-one played particularly well, and that's an indication that the team as a whole wasn't set up right.

It was very disappointing because, although AZ were better on the night and deserved to win, I wasn't that impressed with them. Dyer is far more effective playing down the middle, either as a withdrawn striker or attacking midfielder. He ended up drifting inside to try and make things happen, and while I don't blame him for trying to get involved (particularly as no-one else was producing anything), it messed up our shape. Eventually Roeder realised the need to play Dyer inside, but he didn't want to bite the bullet and abandon the tactic of hoofing it on to Sibierski's head. The result was our shape got worse after the substitutions. All we needed was one goal, and we ought to have got it. Their defence wasn't any better than the one that showed up at St James's. Overall, I think Roeder has done a good job, but he got it wrong last night.

A very important point. Never once in the entire game did Huntington even attempt to get forward to support Duff. I'm not blaming Hunty particularly, because left back isn't his position, but you can't expect a wide player to function single handed like that. As it is, Duff did okay tonight I thought. Their defenders had to resort to fouling him quite often, and he won us a few free kicks. As far as I'm concerned, Duff has still got it.

He had a poor game, but shouldn't take all the blame. On the first goal, he shouldn't have moved up. However, I don't know if my memory is playing tricks on me, but it didn't make any difference. The wide player would have got the ball regardless. For some reason, they were able to expose our full backs at will. The second goal is down to him, but the reason he lost his man was he had to run around a knot of players in order to try and stay with his man, and in the end didn't make it in time. There was an element of bad luck there, although all in all he wasn't aggressive enough.

I agree. We weren't set up for counter-attacking football at all. I'd have kept Duff on. The reason he was quiet in the second half was we weren't giving him the ball. I'd have put on Emre and Milner for Sibierski and Parker. I don't think Parker played that well at all. It was the usual story. Good at closing down the opposition, poor in possession. Once we went 2-0 down that wasn't what we needed. The really big failure was not scoring. I don't think their defence was up to much, but we didn't get to them until the last few minutes.

I just don't think this tactic of trying to get on the end of a big man's headers all the time can work at that level. Besides, a lack of pace was the real weakness in the Alkmaar defence, and we didn't exploit that at all by that tactic. Martins and Dyer are our best combination and that's what we should have played. I'm not one to get on to Roeder, but I didn't like his substitutions. We completely lost shape and it all became a bit of a mess.

Our only tactic seemed to be to hoof the ball long to Sibierski. He won plenty of headers but they mopped up the resulting balls quite easily. I think AZ were quite happy to see us continue to play like that. On the day, we just weren't good enough in all departments. Can't complain about the result. All of the back four played poorly, not just Bramble.

That just isn't true, Rooney is terrible in the air. Disagree. Martins has a good leap on him, but he misdirects a lot of headers. Rooney doesn't head the ball that often, because he's usually the more withdrawn striker, but on the occasions I've seen him head it he's looked pretty good.

Christ, I'm amazed it's that close. Martins was a good buy, but he'll never, ever be as good as Rooney. Martins is quicker, but Rooney is more skilful, has a far better football brain, can head the ball better, pass it better, is a better finisher, takes free kicks - is better in every other respect.

Best all-round striker outside the top four. At first, I thought he was going to be a total flop, but he's shown a fantastic improvement.

3-2 to us. I think we'll want it more.

I really don't understand that attitude. He didn't want to be injured. If at other times he lacked dedication, that's different now. I think he's grown up as a person and as a player. It's what he's offering us now that counts.

We've got a decent quartet of forwards there, but as a group I don't think they're the equal of any of the top four.