Taylor Swift

He's only 19 or 20, isn't he Jonny? Give him time. His movement (as least what I saw in the Valencia game last weekend) is already on a level that's significantly better than most other footballers.

Cahill, the dickhead, makes it 1-1.

Last week's 'Super Sunday' was shite. Tonight, today, this is the real SUPER Sunday. The Milan derby starts the same time our game starts, I'm gonna have to flick channels on this one cos it's gonna be a cracking game. After winning the World Club championship, I can see Milan being a bit tired and in need of a rest but Inter won't, they've got goals in abundance and this could be a very one-sided game. Then, 2 hours after our game finishes i.e. when the Chelsea match ends, the Barca - Real match begins. Ronaldinho on the bench, I hope young Bojan gets a game as well as the Mexican prodigy Dos Santos. I fancy Real to nick this one, and it'll be the end of Rijkaard as well if it does happen. Let's hope this Sunday is actually a 'Super' one.

I always thought a good barometer of whether a player is actually any good is to see what his own fans think of him... and every Liverpool fan I know thinks that he's shite.

Now all my 'homies' from London will be all 'QPR is safe bruv, allow Newcastle'... gay.

Diego will rock the league, he's the man. I have doubts about Arshavin and how good he really is. We don't need some hybrid grafter/creator, we really need some geniune creativity and I'm very unsure whether he'll be able to deliver it. He's looked decent at times but even playing for Russia against minnows he never looked special to me. We really need some poncey arrogant up-his-own-arse wanker - those players are always the most creative It's time we went for some genuine class and since we have the funds, we're better off getting some young stud instead of paying £6m-ish for someone who'll we have to replace in a few years.

Kalou is a good player That's not my point. He hasn't been nor is looking like he'll ever be worth the money they spent on him (think it was rumoured to be £8m+).

Tbf, his position and style of play means it's very unlikely that he'll take the game by the scruff of the neck and dominate it. He's the type of player to drift in and out of the game. Your best bet is hoping he comes through and does something magical which no one else could do, though that's something which he's done a bit but not nearly enough in the so-called 'big' games.

His step-overs pissed me off today. Just fucking run to the byline and deliver in a hard-hit cross ffs. Fancying about, giving the defenders time to adjust and mark his teammates and then giving even more time for their midfielders to come back and then rob the ball off of him. What a tit. Good cross for the Rooney miss though

He's never been a goalscorer even when used up-front at Leeds so don't see why that will change. With Owen up-front I think he can get away with it, a la Heskey, but with Martins, neither are natural goalscorers. I know Martins has 7 but he's not a like Owen in that when you get one chance fall to you in the box, you're confident he'll score it. I think he chipped in with a decent number of goals when he was a young player at Leeds and given decent service. He can do that again. It's about creativity in the team and his own confidence in front of goal. It doesn't happen overnight. blueyes.gif Smith can be a very useful player to us because of the attributes that he possesses(a bit of pace, aggression, passion, some holding up ability, a 'defending from the front' attitude amongst a few other useful things). Though he's never going to be a star, he can certainly help other players like Zoggy, Emre and Owen shine. He just needs to be more consistent and needs some help from Allardyce as well.

For me, I've only focused on the times he's played up front. Just look at yesterday, he did not even take one shot (iirc)!! That's pitiful from a so-called front man. He needs to get into dangerous positions. Again, not once did he do that yesterday. And I'm not judging him on this one game, it's been many games now that he's not been able to get into goalscoring positions and on the rarest of occasions that he does, he's very very reluctant to actually pull the trigger. He's not got the confidence in his shooting abilities atm and that's a very big problem. Just look at Viduka yesterday, was on for only 10 mins and got into a very dangerous position (the freekick that Roz hit back across goal). Smith doesn't pose enough of a goal threat which is probably why defenders have been able to focus more on Martins and our wingers (notice the double team of Milner/Zog on the left). This combined with the fact that we don't have anyone who can strike the ball outside the penalty area means it's becoming quite easy to defend against us. Just look at the last 8 goals we've scored. 2 from pens, 2 own goals, 2 from set pieces and only two from open play. One of the open play ones was actually our central defender hanging around in the opposition's penalty area and the other was a fluke cross from Milner. That just shows how we've been struggling for goals lately and why I think Smith should be able to do better. And he can as well, he's shown it for Leeds in the past. Just needs to find his goalscoring form and become consistent. Not too much to ask for though, is it?

That's true HTL, but there's also the concept of value for money. Someone like Sibierski proved to be very valuable for the money and wages we spent on him. On the other hand, someone like Owen has not. Of course, anyone who makes this comparison is not saying Sibs is better than Owen, they're just saying that he proved to very valuable for the money we spent whilst Owen hasn't. This concept is used by every human being in every single day. When you decide which car to get, you obviously know that a Ferrari is better than a Toyota but maybe it isn't going to prove to be valuable (subjective analysis) to you compared with the Toyota, and that's why you'd make the conclusion that it wouldn't be worth it to spend money on the Ferrari. Using that same concept, it's quite logical that many people have said that Smith has not been worth £6m. They're not saying he's shit, they're just saying he's not a £6m player because of his contribution to the team so far. I expected more goals and definitely a better all-round game from a £6m guy. He's average in almost all areas and really shit in the one area that all strikers are eventually judged by. We're a team struggling for goals atm and him being shot-shy isn't helping. His link-up play seems to be special but that's because it's been years since we've seen some good holding up play from a striker. It's like having a home-made burger after having not eaten for 2 days - anything's gonna taste good at that point because you're so damn hungry. Same thing with Smith's holding up ability. PS. All imo obviously.

5 points behind Liverpool Newcastle fans, eh? Let's keep our feet on the ground, there's a long way to go before we can be looking at up teams like Liverpool and thinking about challenging them.

Sidwell wasn't class man. He was a one season wonder and anyone with a brain saw that. Another overrated tit. Look at some of Mourinho's signings btw - they're not the best. Kalou, Ferreira, the backup gk (forgot his name), Ben Haim, SWP, Pizarro etc.. Sidwell's the leader of that 'shite signing' group.

Wes Brown is shite. We'd be wasting lots of money and wages if we sign this overrated little tit. No positional sense, lacks an ability to pass the ball to his teammate and of course he's an injury-prone fuck. Please Allardyce, don't sign him! Great second game though. I'm all for Arsenal winning the title this year but they're not because of their lack of squad depth. Eboue on the right hand side? Fuck's sake, what happens if he's actually out for a while now? Jan's coming up and Wenger's gotta strengthen the midfield if they want to challenge for the Premiership and Europe.

The ratings are, as usual, very skewed towards recent form. I also think that people aren't considering how many games these players have played. I'm giving 6 as an average and games not played because of injury brings their ratings down. Beye - 6. Struggled to begin with (burnt badly against Citeh) but has gradually improved. He's composed but hasn't changed his way of defending against Premiership wingers. We're not playing in France anymore Habib, you can't give them any time nor space. Cacapa - 5. Didn't play for ages because of his injury, came in and had a few decent games, then struggled against Derby and then the Portsmouth game came and then he suffered another injury. Maybe the reports that said he was injury-prone were true? Anyhow, he looks composed and is a decent signing considering he came for free but needs to stay on the pitch. Faye - 6. Solid. I like him a lot, shame about the recent injury but he hasn't put a foot wrong. Rozehnal - 5. Looked composed to begin with and in my opinion, would have been a perfect partner for the more robust and rough Faye. However, since the Derby game his play has been lackadaisal and he's too casual for my liking. His marking is also woeful. He's on Titus' level atm in terms of his ability to defend. Barton - 4.5. The injury set him back a lot and he's obviously had to play catch up. It's just a shame he's had to play catch up on the pitch where it matters. Surely Sam could have let him play a few more reserve games before throwing him in? He was shite against Spurs, Sunderland, Liverpool and has only recently started improve. Still needs to do a lot more to validate the £5.8m spent. Smith - 5. At least he's been on the pitch, something most of Sam's other signings haven't been able to do. He's not worth £6m, though that's not relevant to this thread. I'm unsure whether to cut him some slack because he's been played out of position or whether to just judge him like I would any other midfielder. Anyway, thankfully his performances have improved because he's been played up front so he gets a 5. Needs to SCORE. Enrique - 3. Looked good whenever he's played but hasn't played nearly enough. Viduka - 4. Doubts about his fitness have been reasonable and he's failed to live up to many expectations. Geremi - 4. Though he's struggled for form lately you can see why Sam values and continues to select him. His set-pieces have improved (Martins' goal v Blackburn was a peach of a cross), and there's also the intangibles (speaking 4 languages helps here). I was really hoping for more though and he has shown that he can do it as well, so I'm expecting a marked improvement from him in the future.

Do you really think Sammy is going to go back 442 or that is going to play 433 with only one of the front 3 a forward/striker. either way, Duff's in the team if we play 4-3-3 he's certainly going to be there, was class there for Chelsea and with Allardyce's preference for N'zogbia as LB he's also gonna start when we play 4-4-2 I wouldn't mind seeing Duff on the right and Zog on the left. The only reason FS is using Zog at LB is because Enrique has so far shown to be struggling in this league. Zog is pretty much wasted there, his attacking threat is obvious. It's early days for Enrique, but I wouldn't be surprised to see us in for another LB who is able to go straight into the team. In that case, I really disagree with FS. Zoggy has not shown that he's a better defender than Enrique. That's a laughable agreement (if it's the one Sam's making). Enrique looks more accomplished playing there than Zoggy does atm. We're also wasting Zog's attacking abilities and putting ourselves at risk because he's liable to giving the ball away carelessly. When he's further up the midfield it's alright to take those kind of risks but it's unacceptable for our LB to try to take on 3 players every time he receives the ball. Enrique has to play just because we end up having more attacking options and actually, in my opinion, become better defensively.

He was decent. We really need a right winger because our left side is too congested and it's becoming easier for the opposition to stop our attacks because they can shift their defenders over to the right and essentially double-team Milner/Zog.

Nice penalty from Barton. He looked calm and slotted it home confidently.

I can't stop laughing. Hahahaha. Amazing.

Fuck off man, you've been talking shite all day. Are you even a supporter?!

PENALTY. Please!

What the fuck are you on about man? Is '10% of a good performance' even a term that can be understood by normal human beings? And no, Owen should not get into the team as soon as he's fit because he fucks up Allardyce's thinking re: formation and system. He'd have to play ten times better to be considered good. Martins isn't playing as the system expects - he's slap bang in the centre, where Owen would be doing a better job, especially as he has experience of scoring goals from the right of three strikers at Real Madrid. and smith is everywhere but in the middle, and milner is playing as a winger and never getting inside. not just about martins up there. doesn't help that we've geremi, butt and barton in midfield, not a lot of class there. blueyes.gif Enrique on for Geremi/Butt, Milner moves to the right, Zoggy to LW and lets score some goals, bitches!

HT. That was boring