Taylor Swift

I also think the amount of goals he scores is a hugely underrated part of his game, and its unbelievable that it is. This guy is unstoppable, and hes a force that hasn't been seen in football in my lifetime. I don't think it's possible to impact the game anymore than scoring, so Messi is no doubt one of the few players in the history of world football who have impacted the matches they play in quite significantly.

Disagree with tmobkey but I cant type the buttons l, o and the full stop on my pc keyboard and can't be arsed to type out a long response on my phone so I'll respond later. It's really about the type of game that barca play and what is required of messi. I thought the game at the bernabeu was a classic refutation of the proposition that messi is only as good as he is because his teammates are so good. I thought it showed the complete opposite, in that without messi, barca struggle against top class teams and it's his movement control and unrivaled ability to create space that enables everyone else in the team to flourish.

xabi priet is awsme

Messi steals the headlines from the divers and whiners. What a special player he is.

Holy shit

Mourinho's face

So much falling over by the usual suspects: busquets, alves, di Maria and marcelo. Mourinho will be loving this.

It's not like he's an idiot failure who's stuck in his ways and believes that he's doing things the right way. He's a massive success who's stuck in his ways and believes that he's doing things the right way even though things haven't gone his way in the past 5 or so years. His relatively lack of success today doesn't negate his earlier massive success.

Petit and Vieira were both signed for a relatively small sum as well. Overmars actually only cost around £5m but that was quite a bit back in the day. Wenger has always followed his principles when managing and he's had success doing it.

A lot of people - some Arsenal fans included - take what he's done for granted without taking into considerations the constraints that he has and is continuing to operate under. Any British team that is not named Man Utd can only dream of having someone like Wenger managing them. Do you think City would dump Mancini in an instant if Wenger was interested? No doubt. Same with Liverpool, as good a start as Dalglish has had. I reckon Chelsea would do it too with Ancelotti. You look to the other leagues and there's no doubt that every team in Germany and Italy would love someone like Wenger managing them, and I reckon only Barcelona would instantly say 'no' if offered Wenger. As good as Mourinho is, Real will eventually tire of his defensive schemes, and they've made numerous attempts to get Wenger to manage them.

Wenger will never be forgotten. As much as he's being criticised today, he's done something for Arsenal that no manager has ever done for them. He's the best they've ever had, and in terms of what his teams have done, he's the best that many, many teams could have had (if it were possible). His double winning teams were very good, the Invincible season was obviously something even more special and he's been the key person in guiding them from a small-ish ground into one of the biggest grounds in Europe. If it were any other manager who didn't realise the risk that they were taking, Arsenal could have easily done a Leeds. But Wenger understood. He's only criticised now because his competitor for a very long time - that hypocritical cunt at Old Trafford - is better than he is. It's like criticising Shearer because Ronaldo was better when Shearer was at his peak. Shearer was still fucking good - legendary, even - but Ronaldo was just that much better. It's the same with Wenger. He's an amazing manager and Arsenal will seriously struggle to replace him.

Frey? Get Neuer. He's a goner for sure. This Polish kid looks good enough to me anyway. The thing that would benefit them the most would be keeping van Persie fit because he's the key.

They need to press and defend better. They need a new LB and a CB. They're good enough everywhere else to win the title. If you don't trust me, just watch how they dominate possession against teams like Man Utd and Chelsea. They need better and stronger defenders.

If Enrique was actually positioned on the post like he should have been, he would have had no chance at the ball, so the argument about whether his positioning behind the line was good or not is really moot if you insist on basing your argument on good defensive positioning.

That'll do, pigs. That'll do.

The £35m ones usually aren't, though.

You'll never make it as a journalist if you don't sometimes write articles based on stuff that your source has said even though you know that he's just playing you. It's a give and take. Do you think these journalists would have any information about what happens at the club if they don't, from time to time, write articles that paint the club in a good light? If any journalist repeatedly writes shit about the club, do you think Llambias lets him into St. James'? If the past few years has taught all of us anything about the way this club is run, it's that there are certain journalists/newspapers that are clued up on what happens at the club, and this access to information that other journalists/newspapers don't possess comes at a price.

but it's true, they've made him an ofer and now its up to the player. None of us have any idea what kind of offer they've made and what conditions are attached to it. Saying they've made an offer and saying it's up to Enrique is far too simple a conclusion to make. If Enrique rejects whatever offer the club has made is he a money-grabbing footballer? I'm willing to bet a lot of money that this is what the club will say, and Enrique will move on to a club with more ambition, say all the things that you'd expect someone like him to say ('I want to play in the CL, I want to win trophies etc.') and half the people on here will still think he's a money-grabbing twat and not realise that with the third biggest stadium in the country and one of the most loyal fanbases, there shouldn't be any doubt that we should be aiming to play in the Champions League.

It's shite. The concept is based around the book Moneyball written by Michael Lewis, which is actually a killer, killer book. This is elementary and trivial compared to that. Read Moneyball instead, even if you don't like baseball.

I know. It's a quote from an article written by a journalist (in this case, but in many other cases it is other journalists) who have access to people in our regime. There's a way to frame these things. You saw the way shit went down at the end of the transfer window. Llambias and co obviously have no qualms about omitting certain facts when presenting their side of the picture (and that's done through the press, obviously) and I have no doubt that this is either pressuring Enrique to declare that he wants to stay, or it is slowly but subtly painting him as someone who's after the money and someone who we are better off without. You won't get an official quote saying that because that's going to automatically alienate the player if what you're saying is not true. That's why Pardew has been saying 'Enrique has asked to wait until the end of the season' because that is obviously what Enrique has said. If he has said 'we are waiting on Enrique' and it wasn't true, Enrique would instantly respond. So you let someone else say it, someone not directly associated with the club. A journalist is perfect for this.

'But the ball rests firmly in the player's court' Our PR department is working overtime to make sure Enrique leaves as a greedy money-grabbing twat and not as someone leaving for a club with more ambition.

Bale has done fuck all in the Premiership when compared to the other players on the list. This award is all the evidence you need to prove the fact that footballers are stupid.

The fans should have appealed for it. There was a fat guy who was waving the hell out of an imaginary card.

Should have been a yellow for Messi.

They are only within the laws of the game because the authorities instituted those rules. Those official appeals didn't exist prior to the rules being instituted. You had to accept whatever call the umpire made on a tennis court but they reached a point where enough was enough with bad calls that influenced big matches so now they have a system that works much better than before and eliminates the need for McEnroe-like 'are you serious?' comments by players. A similar system used in football for certain incidents will eliminate the need for players surrounding refs and trying to bully them into giving decisions as well. I'm not sure why the football authorities can't give out yellow cards retrospectively for diving. Do it a few times/weekend and it's inevitable that diving will become so much rarer within a couple of weeks. I'm not sure why we can't have video technology for goal-line decisions, and I'm not sure why we can't do something like cricket, the NFL or tennis does with their review process for penalties. Say give one review chance to each team to appeal for penalty decisions given against them. The appeal process would be a 4th official in a booth upstairs taking about 30 seconds to one minute to review the decision. It'd eliminate all this needless encircling of the ref after every dodgy penalty decision is given because it'd be up to the 4th official. The time you save there is the time you use to review the decision and we'd actually have penalties being given correctly. If a team successfully appeals then they get one more appeal. If they are unsuccessful then they don't have that chance anymore. Same as in cricket, tennis and the NFL. I know this departs from the main topic about appealing for yellows and reds but like I've said, they're all different things but on the same spectrum. The referees obviously need assistance because their task is difficult. I'm not a big fan of saying 'this ref's shit' because their task is incredibly difficult and they definitely need more assistance that they currently receive. Football currently operates with a system that leaves too much discretion to the ref, who has too many things to control and watch and thus - quite inevitably - fails to do an adequate job. That's why players appeal for decisions, and that's why I think that it isn't wrong.