Taylor Swift

It's been a pretty good grand super duper bowl world series tastic slam sunday

Drogba nearly had his hat-trick there - good save from Almunia.

Drogba again. Fuck!

Chelsea fans chanting 'Jose Mourinho' tits Fuck off! Drogba, 1-1.

Why is it always the refs fault and not the players fault for ruining games? The ref cant treat the game differently just because its part of Grand Sunday or whatever Sky are calling it. Notice Alonso didnt make much effort to stop him reaching the ref. Chelsea would never have conceded that goal under Jose. Basics... put a man on each post... how many times do we see this happen Every player mouthes off though. Maybe I should have made that point explicit. In any game, I'd just like to see referees have a little bit of caution and not for them to be dishing out cards willy-nilly in general. Notice the way Clattenberg handled Eboue mouthing off, and he was also on a yellow card as well. The ref just gave him a talking and a warning and Eboue hasn't opened his gob since. That, I thought, was very good and calm refereeing, as opposed to Bennett just wanting to give out yellows (like the ridiculous one to Torres).

Sounds good. All the soundbites coming from KK and Ashley/Mort have been good. If we survive I'll be really hopeful of us having a good next season. Hopefully we'll have the kind of season most of us thought we'd enjoy under Allardyce.

I thought the red card was bs. Sure he was stupid to be mouthing off but Kaka has a point about big games = temperatures raised, and there's no doubt the ref overreacted as well. I wanted to watch a nice competitive football game but the red card ruined it imo. And just as I speak, the title race may still be alive Come on Arsenal!

Don't think thats ever been a problem really. We attracted the likes of Martins from Inter Milan and Owen from Real Madrid when we were s*** mid-table teams. Money talks these days really tbh. Neither of these are valid comparisons - Owen was unwanted by his No 1 choice of club(they, like everyone else, were not prepared to pay over the top for himand he also wanted to get enough football to enable him to get into the England squad for the WC. Martins is hardly a world star, and we paid at least 3m more for him than we should have done... It WILL be difficult to get the TOP players to join NUFC now. We paid for Martins' potential. I have no idea where you're getting this £3m from, but Portsmouth were rumoured to be sniffing around and seemingly willing to pay £10m as well. I reckon, in time, he'll prove his worth.

Shearer adapted and became incredibly effective after his injuries. Owen's main attribute, imo, has always been his brain. If he can adapt his game with anywhere near the results that Shearer had he will be a fantastic player for some time to come. I'd disagree. I'd say his main attribute is his instincts, and the fact that he's shown that he has some footballing IQ has surprised quite a few people (not me ). But, to big him up would be exaggerating his qualities. We've played two pretty shite teams (honestly) who didn't threaten us enough. He's good enough to finish off the season but just imagine if we get a real playmaker in, a traditional '10'. With the space that Owen found himself in today, any playmaker of decent quality (VdV, Diego etc.) would have raped Fulham. Owen did well and kept possession, which is always nice, but because he doesn't offer any threat from long range, he'll be easily marked out by better teams.

The three-pronged attack really depends on Martins though. Without him, it wouldn't work because there wouldn't be enough space, and there wouldn't be anyone who could stretch the field and open up the space between def-mid that Owen exploited so well today. How many times did we give possession away because there wasn't enough movement up front? And how many times was Martins our outlet down the left hand side? If he's active, then we've got a chance because he can literally create a chance from nowhere, and he's on form as well so I don't see any reason for us to revert to a formation in which we've been thumped more than a few times this season already. Spurs will probably score a few goals against us, but with Martins in this form and with the way we've lately been creating chances, I fancy us to score a couple as well.

Yes it was. They didn't create any clear cut chances at all, but one thing that did worry me was that they had much more control of the ball than we did. We created chances but most of them seem to come in bursts, instead of simply us dominating the ball and creating consistent chances. It was a good game anyway, I'm just nitpicking on our inability to control the ball because of careless passes/not enough movement but the amount of chances we've created in the past 3 halves are a major positive.

I'm sold. Quite excited about this weekend's footballing action. Apart from our game, which should be pretty interesting, the top 4 playing each other is actually a lot more interesting than each of them playing Wigan/Fulham/Boro. Best-case scenario is Liverpool sneaking a draw and Arsenal ending Chelsea's unbeaten home record. That way the title race still stays alive and Everton have a better chance of catching up with Liverpool

He's always played like this. In most of his games for us he's played well, even when we lost 6-0 at Old Trafford I thought he had a good game. I've always thought he was good, just needed a chance to play.

All the main points have been mentioned The second half performance was quite surprising and Martins was excellent. We (and he) didn't have the best of first halfs and I was half-expecting the game to fizzle out but credit to the lads, what a fantastic second half. All Birmingham had were long shots/ball hoofed up Allardyce style thing, we defended well even though I thought Taylor and Faye weren't at their best. The players deserve praise for the way they responded and we probably should have won that game. Bring on Fulham!

Someone should bump the thread from earlier this season when Smith was proclaimed to be an excellent buy That was a classic thread.

It's spelt Nostradamus btw

I thought the Luque signing was pretty awesome. I had doubts about Owen (because of the fee and the clause) but I never expected him to not score goals. Just wasn't sure he was worth the money and the wages given the state of the rest of the team, but I never expected Luque to be such a massive flop. I had doubts about Boumsong from the beginning (the Souness-Rangers connection and the £8m worried me) but he was doing fine until our home game against Man Utd. Made a mistake, Rooney scored and his career here went downhill from there. I even remember a couple of games in which he had Henry in his back pocket, so it wasn't like he just wasn't capable of being good. Just lacked the confidence and crumbled under the pressure and expectations. I thought that Emre would be the creative midfielder. The kind of player that can win us games in Europe and beat the top 4 with a magical pass that no one else sees. I still kind of think this. At least when he's fit I certainly think he's capable of so much more than the rest of our midfield (bar Zoggy).

I'm shitting it as well. Just landed in Bangkok today but will tough it out and stay awake till it kicks off (3am). I'll probably last the whole game based on just how pumped up I am. A win would be indescribable. 12 matches now, right? It's been too fucking long.

This has to one of the most poorly constructed polls in the history of this site, and god knows there's been a few of those

It's a good draw imo. At least the minnows aren't playing each other. Chelsea won't exactly destroy Fenerbahce as well; this tie's setting to be a huge upset. Fener are good at home, Chelsea not so good away, and Fener like to pass the ball and can score (as oppose to Olympiakos who depended on set-pieces). Won't be easy for them that's for sure.

I think Arsenal will go through as well. They're the only team, imo, that can simply outplay Liverpool. Every team gets mired in the boring defensive football and that's where Liverpool are at their best (sneaking a goal or two). But Arsenal have the best chance of simply passing Liverpool off the park out of anyone left.

Well, if Allardyce was here, it'd be reasonable to suggest that he'd have signed a couple/few players, which would definitely not have left us in this position. The timing of his sacking and Keegan's appointment was absolutely horrendous and that's obviously had a major effect. It didn't help that in Keegan's first 5 or so matches he had to play Arsenal twice and Man Utd once. Just not the confidence booster that it could have been. If Allardyce had stayed, he would have signed a few players (even cheapos) and that would have made the difference. The board fucked up the timing and that's why we're in this position now. But, that's a short-term problem. It was a brave decision to sack and hire a new manager at that time, but the consequences of that decision won't be felt until we know our fate at the end of this season.

How come when we played at the San Siro, we had piss and flares thrown at our fans, and Liverpool - of all supporters - get showered with affection? Inter fans really like Liverpool because of what we did to AC Milan in 2005. There were tribute sites to Dudek from Inter fans, forum threads with hundreds of pages of thanks, and a group of Inter fans invited some Liverpool fans they met over to Italy, making them T-shirts and everything. The only team that I really don't want to play in the CL is Man Utd. I don't want Chelsea either, because the games are so boring, but only Man Utd worries me. Still, I'd prefer to avoid the other English sides if possible, but I'm sure Platini will be chilling those balls on Friday to make sure the English sides get pitted against each other. Frankly, I don't understand why the bookies have Barcelona and the other English sides ahead of Liverpool. Since Rafa arrived, we've been the best team in the CL after, arguably, AC Milan, and I don't see why we're not the team to beat. In the last 5 CL games, we've scored 19 goals and conceded 1. Over 2 legs in Europe, we can beat anyone. I totally agree. I've just stuck £5 on you to win it now. Though I have to say I'd be happier if I lost that bet

I hear what you're saying but I still don't think they'll win it. Benitez certainly knows how to set up a team to win a one-off game and they'll be tough to beat but I'd fancy all 3 English teams left in it to knock them out if it comes down to brass tacks. I hope so. I wouldn't be able to stand it if Man Utd or Liverpool win it.

Typical Liverpool performance. I said it earlier this season but I'll say it again; they're stronger than they were a year ago, stronger than they were when they won it, and they're absolutely unbeatable in the knockout stages - they're the favourites. Been there done that sorta thing. Maybe they don't match up individually with the likes of Man Utd or Barca, but as a team, in this competition, they're awesome.