Shak

Personally I'd revert back to a straight knock-out competition. No seedings, just luck of the draw. Aye, would be nice but it'll never happen surely. Too much money in the group stages.

The Boro game is pretty much it like. If we win that we should survive. Draw and I'm a 9. Lose and we're gone.

One thing I'd really like to see is an extra knockout round before the Champions League group stages. Instead of 8 groups of 4 teams, get it down to 4 groups. Champions League group stages are a shambles, there's usually about 12-14 teams who you can pretty much gaurantee will make it through, with a couple of question marks here and there. Knock it down to 16 teams, then have 4 groups with the top two in each making the quarters. It'd make the thing competitive at least, it's more or less pointless the way it is.

Man U's second best 11 would play any team submitted in this thread off the park. Pretty laughable stuff, in all honesty.

This would be one of the benefits of a salary cap for me. The players earning the truly obscene amounts of money are the players who make the game worth watching. Your Ronaldo's, Kaka's and Messi's earning over 100k doesn't really bother me tbh. It's the slightly above average players that take home thirty or forty grand a week that get on my tits. All in all though I agree that a salary cap is completely unworkable in football. An unusually good post, by your standards at least.

What a dismal team that is.

"It's like Hull are in a lift, descending so fast and stopping at no floor and heading towards the next storey of the hotel." The senile old commentator on RTE's comments at the final whistle in the Hull game. Word for word, had to stop and rewind the SKY+ to make sure I heard it right. Possibly the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

Came across this on another forum just now, felt the need to post it. Completely irrelevant to the topic, so apologies. Still, unbelievably disturbing IMO. http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj41/bronkota/springtime-animals-demotivational-p.jpg

Can think of a few people I'd happily murder if I was assured of getting away with it tbh, wouldn't demand much in return either.

Don't Think People Neccessarily Assume We'll Beat Boro Tbh. Rather That Everybody Knows That It's An Absolute Must-Win If We're To Have Any Chance At All Of Escaping.

Dreadlocked Idiot!!

Bolton could relegate us, the cunts. Clearly not arsed, can see Hull getting something from them very easily.

Richardson should have a hat-trick by now.

Get in. Unbelievably fast thread title edit btw.

The dog smiley pretty much sums him up. Clueless, by far the worst manager we've had in my time supporting the club. If we go down and he somehow ends up in charge again next season I think we'll be lucky to finish top half in the Championship. Sold our most talented player and brought in useless bags of shite like Taylor and Nolan. The fact that he came off as a complete wanker doesn't help either.

How did it even itself out? Surely Chelsea would have won at least 2-1 if he got both decisions right? Had Abidal not been sent off then the game most likely goes down an entirely different path and the Pique handball probably never happens. I wasn't entirely serious btw and I know it must have been tough to take last night so no harm intended mate.

We can only judge based on what we've seen thus far though, and over the course of those 4 games Barca have looked completely ineffective going forward. Don't agree that Barca scoring was "always going to happen", looked like they could easily have played until midnight and not gotten a goal. And while ultimately it was a wonder goal fom Essien that won it for them, barring Bojan's header the best chances over the two legs all fell to Chelsea, and they had a stonewall penalty turned away on top of that. Really hope they beat Man U, but I'd be surprised if it happens.

Slippery edit.

You'd think so. But we'll need to win the Boro and Fulham games to have any real chance of finishing above Sunderland, not going to happen sadly Where are you expecting Sunderland to get points from? i'm expecting Sunderland to stay on 35 points meaning we need at least 5 to finish above them, given their superior goal difference. Not going to happen imo It would take a heavy loss in our 3rd game for us to win one, draw one and lose one and not overtake Sunderlands GD if they lose all 3 of their games they'll lose by 1 or 2 in each of their games and we'll lose 2-0 at Villa imo We'd be mathematically certain to stay up in that case, assuming we get 4 points from our other two games.

You'd think so. But we'll need to win the Boro and Fulham games to have any real chance of finishing above Sunderland, not going to happen sadly Where are you expecting Sunderland to get points from? i'm expecting Sunderland to stay on 35 points meaning we need at least 5 to finish above them, given their superior goal difference. Not going to happen imo If they lose their remaining three games and we take 4 points then we'll have a better goal difference than them most likely. Think they'll get a point in one of their away games though.

You're right that a centre forward in that role would give them an extra dimension, but isn't it a bit premature to say their style isn't effective? They're on course to win La Liga and are in the final of the Champions League. Should they beat Man Utd, you'd have to hold your hands up and say it is indeed effective. You could say this is their true test, but the same could be said of Man Utd. On paper, it's a great matchup, a clash of the titans. I just hope they don't show each other too much respect, as Man Utd and Chelsea did last May. I think it's too close to call, but I'm surprised why people have Man Utd down as such strong favourites. To be fair, they were incredibly lucky to get through last night. Didn't create one clear cut chance the entire game, as it was their goal came from a bit of brilliance from Iniesta that was a half-chance at best. For all their possession, Chelsea were so comfortable and Barca never looked like creating a chance. Was similiar against Man U last year as far as I recall, plenty of the ball but no penetration as you simply can't pass the ball through a side as good defensively as Man U or Chelsea when they set their stall out to defend. In La Liga it's fine because teams can't defend to anywhere near the quality a Chelsea can, but against the top English sides I think they'll struggle unless they adapt their game when they need to. Unfortunately when the game itself comes around I see no reason why Man U won't just set out their stall to defend and play Barca on the counter. It'll still be an intriguing fixture but anyone expecting an end-to-end thriller will be disappointed I'm afraid, unless Barca get in front then I see Man U playing it very cautiously.

Just heard the "compassionate grounds" things Man U have appealed to UEFA with.

Sending off and the Pique handball were the only decisions I actually thought he got wrong myself. So it evened out in the end. Got the Malouda one spot on, Alves fouled him outside the box and then it spilled in to the box where any further contact was only minor and really not something you can give a penalty for. Other two were never penalties, laughable the amount of hysteria over the incident at the end.

I don't know much about cars, but the one time I drove a Saab car I thought it was immense. Effortless power to them that I really liked.

Can't drive? Banned from driving? Green activist? Be brilliant if he was just incredibly stingy.