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Don't think it was a red card meself. The ref was way too quick to even give the penalty in the first place. It just seemed like he wanted to give it because the Chelsea fans were starting to get restless.

It was a nice goal as well. The cross from Agbonlahor made the goal, a little deft left-footed cross. Headed back across goal by Carew and Maloney finishes.

If that's the team then I definitely like it. I don't think we can read too much into it though, it's most probably just players being rotated because we have such a busy schedule in the next week or so, so it's logical and practical for Sam to change players around and rest certain players.

When Thaksin does return to Thailand, the funds that he can give to Sven will increase, not decrease. Before becoming PM, iirc, he owned one of the major phone providers, a major internet service provider, a broadcasting company (similar to Sky in England). Now, if he has a chance to start running his business freely again, he'll become even richer. And of course, the people here are fanatical about Premiership football, so surely he'll be using the fact that he owns City to his advantage. He's always in the news now because of City. You can't watch a City match without hearing the Thai commentators mentioning his name at least 10 times so there's no way he'll want to give away his spot in the limelight. The Thai trio that City have signed is the first step to regaining popularity with the Thai people as well so there are quite a few extracurricular advantages of owning City for Thaksin.

You would have said the same about the SJP expansion 5 years ago And? 5 years ago no one could have predicted that we would be in the freefall that we were at the end of Fred's time. That's stunning, don't you think? 10 years ago I don't think many predicted that we'd be in financial trouble and our future would be looking seemingly bleak. That's the main thing I've been trying to say so far, though god knows I've tried my best to sound as confusing as possible.

The Emirates will pay itself off, that's why it's not a massive financial risk. The naming thing has already secured Arsenal £150m or so, so they're well on their way to securing enough money to pay for it. And the other three, even though they have debts that would be massive risks for most clubs, they've got rich owners who can deal with it.

Arsenal don't. And the other 3 can afford those risks. All their owners are rich fuckers. Who could have paid off our debt if Freddie was still here? The Halls? Fred himself?

The finances were fucked already. We made a loss of £12m in the last fiscal year, our wages took up 68% of our revenue, we have no European football this year, had little last year (at least none in the latter stages where the stadium would have been filled and tickets would have cost a bit more) and looked like we weren't going to have any next year as well. We've also lacked decent cup runs that would have generated some tv money. We were still operating like a club which had European football. Where were we going to get some money? That's the main thing. We were heading backwards as a club and we couldn't fill the stadiums except for the 'top 4' matches. My point about the Northern Rock money was that it could have been used for day-to-day expenses, paying wages etc. But it was spent in one go, and that's my main gripe. And obviously we haven't had a decent return for the cash spent as well. How were we going to pay wages? And if we couldn't spend, couldn't keep the 'top' players, how were we going to keep the stadium filled? And if we couldn't do that, where were we going to get the money to actually spend on new players? Could the club have afforded losing another £12m this year? It says a lot that we appointed Allardyce who's known for improving his team with spending little or no cash. That's a damning indictment on the financial state of the club if there ever was one.

And wasn't this debt set up nearly 10 yrs ago? So when we raised that initial debt, we were in the top 2 (!), had consistent European football, filled the stadium every week and had a really bright future. So yes, we did have a good financial model and it worked (on and off the pitch), but that was 10 or so years ago. Things are quite different now and if Fred's still here, I would think that most sensible banks would turn him away if he came calling for a couple million £s. Edit - I bet the bank we're still paying off now started sweating when the Northern Rock money was spent.

But didn't we have a ridiculously high wage-turnover ratio? Something like 60% wasn't it? This was about a year before Fred left iirc. And isn't that percentage higher than the 'safe' percentage, which is 50% iirc. Source for the 60% figure? The 50% is just a benchmark. It means nothing in reality. This isnt about wages, its about debt and capital and the servicing of debt on the basis of future income streams. None of our debt was held against predicted CL revenue streams. It therefore means it was serviced on the existing business model. The end-of-year financial figures that the club releases. According to macbeth's site, it was 58% in 2005 and rose to 68% in 2006! IIRC our debt is set against season-ticket sales, so that surely would have been affected. We definitely didn't sell all our season tickets from last year and I believe that we haven't sold out for this year as well. We haven't sold out most of our home games last season, and haven't been doing it this season. Take this and the signs of Freddie desperately trying to spend money to fill those seats and you have a disaster of Leeds-proportion waiting to happen. Honestly, we weren't heading in the right direction and the problem wasn't being tackled in the right way. The fact that we spent the Northern Rock money before we even had it shows our desperate the club was at the time. Future revenue was being spent because if it hadn't, we would have been unable to pay off the debts (not enough tickets sold). There's two problems with that. First, the fact that we were in that state reflects how badly things were going, and secondly, spending that future revenue (and not succeeding) would have meant heading further down that route and taking an even bigger risk. All the signs were pointing to a big financial trouble imo, and that would have impacted the more important side, the football one, greatly, since we would have been able to spend a sum total of fuck all in future windows.

But didn't we have a ridiculously high wage-turnover ratio? Something like 60% wasn't it? This was about a year before Fred left iirc. And isn't that percentage higher than the 'safe' percentage, which is 50% iirc. So, there was a model out there, a model that most clubs seemed to have followed and yet we were one of a select few who didn't (the other being Chelsea but they're an anomaly) follow this suggested model. Our wages were still sky-high and we did operate as a CL club, much similar to Leeds when their freefall began, but we weren't. We don't even have European football to generate the revenue that would have allowed us to spend money this year! I think Shepherd did a decent job overall, but it seems some folks are forgetting the state of the club at the very end which imo is the key phase. We'd spent the Northern Rock money before it had even arrived, our wages were at CL clubs levels and we don't have European football this year, and if Fred had stayed, European football next year would have been unlikely as well. The finances were not in the healthiest state and our spending wouldn't and hasn't been risks that we could afford to take. Spunking £16m on Owen has set us back a lot, and any money spent by BS this summer with Shepherd in charge would have been money that we didn't have and looked unlikely to have for a couple of years at least. That was the position the club was in, and all the signs were pointing at things becoming worse. That's also another key element - we were headed downhill and Shepherd looked and acted like he didn't know what to do about it (the statements before appointing Souness then Roeder shows this, and then of course the 'I'll back the manager because we've always done' speech that he gives during the middle of every transfer window).

But Rich, surely you must see that we still have a major problem creating chances. We created plenty of half-chances today but they're the percentage football BS type of chances instead of actually carving open the other team and then having a clear cut unmissable chance. Sam's style of attacking seems to be more desperation and hoping for inspiration rather than actually have a clear plan of attack. It's like 'let's launch balls into the pen area, hope the second ball falls to our guy then hope the guy's good enough to score'. It's just ridiculous that our attack solely consisted of that in the second half of the game against the WORST team in the Premiership. The center midfield pairing also isn't helping in that Butt cannot be the creative guy but he's forced into spraying those long balls because Barton just isn't up to much nowadays. City may be an aberration in terms of goals differential and the fact that Micah Richards is a freak of nature. But just look at Arsenal though, 5 clean sheets in 18 games says a lot about their ability to defend but because they know how they're going to attack and have faith and belief in it, they have always scored more than the opposition, and yet I have no qualms saying their defence and goalkeeper are quite dodgy. All in all, I just think we have a problem creating chances and it's a problem that's equally as big as the defensive one and probably more relevant when we struggle to create anything against the likes of Reading, Sunderland and Derby (away game). Edit - we picked up 1 point out of the 3 away games against Sunderland, Reading and Derby not because of our inability to defend, but because of our inability to dictate the pace of the game and create enough chances for our strikers. Imo.

The one that Real fans watched Edit - I still don't think there's anything wrong with what I said!

Richards is the key to Citeh. Though I've heard people say that Dunne is helping Richards along, I reckon it's the other way around in that Dunne can be more aggressive when defending because if he cocks up there's this big pacy kid waiting to clean up. I mean, how many times have you seen the opposition get a 1v1 vs Richards and Richards coming out on top? I think I see it at least once or twice a game (in the games that I've seen Citeh play), and for comparison's sake, if it was any other defender in the league, they wouldn't have had the pace to catch up and it would be a 1v1 for the opposition player and the City gk. Richards is the real difference maker.

Barca didn't deserve any penalties nor did they deserve most of the fouls their players asked for. The amount of diving in the game from both sides was insane. Half the team would have been sent off if that happened in the Premiership! Real deserved it tbh, some of their counter-attacks were exquisite and they looked more likely to score than Barca in the second half. Raul's still class, did anyone see the move with a couple of mins left? A clever flick to VRoy then when he received the ball back schooled Abidal and showed him what football class really means. Legend. Sergio Ramos.. wow. Big match, fantastic performance. Some of his lung-bursting runs from defence was simply awesome to see and of course he had Ronaldinho in his back pocket from start to finish. My MOM. Pepe also had a decent game and so did Heinze. Dos Santos was surprisingly quiet and was marked out of the game by Heinze from the moment he came on until the end. The decision to bring on Bojan was laughable though. WTF?! A 17 year old unproven kid over someone like Thierry Henry? The hype that the kid's been getting is insane compared to what he's actually done and I can't believe Rijkaard sent him on instead of Henry (who iirc scored a peach of a goal the last time he played Real).

The ref's giving nothing to Barca and everything to Real today. I'm loving it

What a move. What a goal.

Ronaldinho's starting! Good fiesty start.

Taylor was dreadful making good clearances? Something the other two didn't do all afternoon I guarantee he wouldn't have been fucking nutmegged on that goal, either. Granted, he'd have probably ran him over for a yellow, but we'd have not lost today. We didn't lose, mate Though it sure feels like one.

It's a method of defending as far as I'm concerned (pressing). I don't see how it should dictate the way we attack, and because I currently see no shape nor a real way that our attacks work, I'm worried that Allardyce hasn't got his priorities sorted.

Hire a coach to teach him "how to play like Bellamy" Or else really, get some cash back. No wonder Inter sold him. His partnership with Adriano must be a nightmare (for Inter). This must be some kind of wind up. Oba's goal record is twice that of the gimp. 17 goals last season, when did Bell end last score 17 in a season? People need to relax with the stats and see how the team is actually performing. See the shape of the team, the style of footie we're playing and whether we tend to look more likely to score than the opposition. For the most part of this season, we've always looked less likely to score than the opposition and that is because of the way we play. It needs to be changed. Martins contributes to the shapeless ineffective performances that we keep put in. Bellamy contributed to brilliant attacking organized performances when he was here. That's the key difference between the two players, not the fact that one can score a few more goals than the other. TEAM over individual tbh.

He's even worse than Parker when he's played in midfield though

the problem is our club should be better than your club.... I actually agree with this

I know he's not going to become like Zidane and starts floating around players with delicate little touches but we've seen minimal or actually no improvement in his first touch since he arrived. Surely coaches are there to actually coach these things? If not, what the fuck do they actually do?

Ashley Cole's been shite today. Same old as far as he's concerned though. Lots of diving, lots of piss-taking and a fuckload of careless passes. Overrated is his middle name.