Cronky

I agree with this. Give him a licence to roam. The more space and freedom he has, the more damage he can do. It means to an extent building the side around him, but I'd be happy with that. He could also be given a roving role in a last season Chelsea style 4-3-3.

Hugh Johns - ITV commentator in times past - 'His name's not salmon, but he leapt like that mighty fish'.

Tbh I wouldn't have thought he was good enough yet to seriously interest any of the big four. If he went to any of them, he wouldn't be first team material at the moment. Apart from possibly Chelsea, I can't see them wanting to fork out a mega-fee in those circumstances.

Keane has his faults, but I don't see him as a quitter. The Ireland incident arose out of stubborness. McCarthy rather foolishly drove him into a corner and Keane refused to back down. I'm not saying Keane did the right thing, but the whole affair wasn't handled right. I think Keane will prove himself as a top manager, but I'd far rather we swapped Chairmen instead. Quinn is an intelligent guy, he understands the game and he doesn't interfere with his manager's judgement. Shepherd is the opposite on all three counts.

Give the lad a break, please. His finishing has improved immeasurably, mainly because he's added that little chip over the keeper to his repertoire. Often that's far more effective than a blast, unless you can hit them like Shearer. He's also giving credit to a coach whose local reputation isn't great, which is good to hear. Often people are subjected to these black and white judgements, and it's good that someone takes the trouble to modify that a bit.

Fabregas, I think. He doesn't look particularly strong, or fast, but every time he gets the ball he uses it well. Very economical with it. Doesn't show off. Rarely tries to beat his man. He just quickly does exactly the right thing with it. He's nearly always able to keep things moving forward, and very rarely plays a negative ball. Amazing maturity for a scrap of a kid.

Just to add my 2p to the great Alkmaar first goal controversy - I did think that Duff could have made a better job of blocking the cross. He could have got that bit closer, but he stopped further away than he really needed to. Not a terrible mistake seeing he's a winger, and he might not have been able to prevent the cross anyway, but that was my thought at the time. Otherwise, I thought he had a good game.

If we're playing 4-4-2, I don't think Butt and Parker are our best combination in the centre. Parker as an attacking midfielder just isn't good enough in possession. They could maybe be accommodated in a 4-3-3 / 4-5-1.

I'm surprised there's not been more anger about the penalty. That second goal has completely changed the complexion of the tie. They wouldn't have fancied their chances of pulling back a three goal deficit, but a 2-0 or 3-1 home win is a very realistic target for them. Normally those decisions where a cross hits a defender on the hand when he's closing the ball down, are very difficult to assess. But short of putting his hands behind his back, Taylor couldn't have done more to keep his hands away, and that was very, very obvious. You accept that refs are bound to make a few mistakes, but that was just incompetent.

I thought it was a typical Parker performance. He worked hard and put in some good tackles, but never looked comfortable in possession of the ball.

Martins does sometimes look like he's only just started playing the game. One of those instincts that you develop even as a kid is to play the ball quickly to the man in space, and it was really naive of him to try a different option.

got to disagree ref had a great game I disagree. I thought he was too lenient with a lot of challenges where the defender took the man before the ball. And the penalty decision was an absolute shocker.

I think we deserved our three goal lead. Their back four looked a bit ponderous. The penalty decision was one of the most unintelligent that I've seen. Taylor had his arms pressed right down by his sides, in order to minimise the risk of handling it. I think the ref knew the minute he'd made the decision that he'd bungled. If a defender goes towards the ball with his arms flapping all over the place, that invites suspicion, but Taylor was doing the dead opposite. Some good individual performances. Titus produced the tackle of the season to prevent a near certain goal. Duff showed a few moments of real class as well. Nobby created a lot down the right. Looks a bit 50-50 now. A 2-0 win will see them through.

Munich seem to be valuing him at around £15 - 20 million, and I don't think he's worth that kind of money. Not a great passer of the ball.

Neill, Reo-Coker and Gabbidon from West Ham. Ambrose from Charlton. I think he's maturing into a fine player and we weren't patient enough with him.

The main question mark over Hitzfeld was his ability and willingness, at his age, to adapt to a completely different challenge in an unfamiliar country, when all his experience as a player and manager had been in the Swiss and German leagues. Nothing has changed there. He's been away from management for two years, and the only post he'd take was a temporary one back on his old familiar territory. Perhaps I'm one of the morons, but that doesn't sound like a man who's eager for a fresh challenge. I think all you Hitzfeld followers have missed the point yet again.

Yeah, I don't know why Pleat seems to get singled out a lot of the time. He's one of the better pundits. Competition isn't great, I know, but he does occasionally manage to say something that isn't totally bleeding obvious.

I've always thought that Vassell was very under-rated.

The big difference between Shola and Sibierski is that, for all his faults, Shola is capable of causing problems for the very best of defences. Two or three times in a game, he will open things up through his strength or his footwork, and create a chance out of a very unpromising situation. Even if he's having a shitty game, he can't be kept completely quiet. Sibierski has done a good job for us, but he's not very strong and good defenders can handle with no problem at all.

I don't see that anyone could have done much better than Roeder. He didn't inherit a great side, he hasn't been given mountains of cash to spend, and we've had a lot of bad luck with injuries. Mid-table is as much as we could expect.

My feeling with Owen is that he's very good at getting on the end of chances in the box, not much good at anything else. I think the very best players have a range of skills so they can adapt to different situations, and adjust their contribution to what the team needs at any given time. For instance, in the early matches in the World Cup, when we didn't have a Rooney to do all the creative work outside the box for him, he was pretty useless. As for people who don't consider Owen to be 'world class', I could name you three in particular - Alex Ferguson, Jose Mourinho and Arsene Wenger - none of whom were interested when he became available.

One thing I noticed about Parker yesterday is he has difficulty in turning on the ball. Most midfield players in the Premiership are good enough to just let the ball roll past them as they turn, or take a very quick touch to take the pace off the ball so they're facing the opposition with the ball at their feet, ready to keep the attack going. He takes about three touches to do what a lot of players are doing with one touch or even none. Another problem is he can't switch the direction of the attack very easily. He's very one-footed, and he can't use the outside of his foot either, so his distribution becomes a bit predictable. This doesn't make him a bad player, just a bit limited for what we'd really like.

Michael Owen. Just an honest opinion.

It looks like Man U's defence is going to get them over the finish line. If only we could have said the same in 96.

I'm just going by the Sky highlights, but I'm a bit surprised at the low marks for Zoggy. I thought he looked a bit more composed than usual, and seemed to read the game a bit better. Not many opportunities came his way, and not much came off, but it was a much more mature performance. It looked like they've been doing a bit of work on him. It was scrappy, as derbies often are, but we looked a bit unlucky not to win. Boro defended well.