wacko

Argies are notorious for not adapting wanting to adapt to foreign cultures. Like the English. I mean, why the fuck would his wife sit at home all day complaining about not speaking English instead of ordering the best English teacher money can buy to her house to teach her and the kids it? Sound like the kind of passive-aggressive shit my mother would pull.

That RAWK thread posted somewhere in here is amazing reading http://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=257942.0 That is scary. Gillet et al are pretending the easy capital of pre-2008 will return. It's not going to anytime soon and in the meantime Liverpool will continue their decline. No CL. What are the odds for mid-table mediocrity next year? They are going to have to sell their blue chip players, it's the only clear way out. hee hee Won't do any good. The banks have only extended the credit to the yanks on the condition that the actively start trying to sell the club. Selling the whole squad wouldn't cover half the debt. Not sure of the exact length of the extension, but you can be sure they won't get another. Bank doesn't give a toss what price the yanks get, because they get no share of the profit. They're holding out for north of £500m, but anything over about £300m will see the wankers make a profit. The upside of it is, the yanks never intended to put a single penny of their own money into the club, and they won't start now. It's more expensive to borrow than when they came in, and unlike Man Utd, there's not a cat in hell's chance that the club can generate the money to pay off the loans. The same will apply for any subsequent buyer, so we might be free from speculators, if not incompetents. Their only sensible option is to sell up. They'll probably try to get two or three bidders into a bidding war in the summer, but I can't see them holding onto the club much longer than that. Thank fuck.

Totally. Top clubs demand a manager with European experience (and usually league titles, too), because the game is so tactical, and you *have to* play possession football in Europe, while in the English game tactics are largely secondary to physicality. Fergie made this mistake till Queiroz talked him round (and he still fucked up by trying to *play* against Barca the other year, when his team was clearly outmatched and he should have done what Benitez did and shut the fuckers right down). You only have to look at Benitez's record in Europe compared to the Prem to see that. The consummate tactician, he's consistenly beaten the very best continental sides (Barca, Real, Milan, Juve, Inter) with inferior players yet struggled against relative dross like Bolton and Stoke who fuck off tactics completely and just go for packing the box, hoofing the ball up front and relying on forcing the ball into the net. Continental refs won't stand for that, so managers who only know the English game invariably get found out very quickly. McClaren's Boro only got to the UEFA Cup final after repeatedly and jammily digging themselves out of very deep holes that McClaren's lack of tactical nouse had got them in. Everton fell twice at the very first hurdle in 2005 largely for the same reasons (their bypassing the UEFA Cup and going straight to the CL hurt them, too, because they had no European ranking and were therefore guaranteed a pretty tough draw). Given the general reluctance of English players and managers (hell, Englishmen in general) to broaden their horizons, any club with European ambitions would be daft to hire most English managers, and the odd rarity like Hodgson (and the truly world-class Sir Bobby) gets tarred with the same brush.

But it took Hodgson decades to achieve any kind of domestic recognition, and he'd still never be considered by one of the "big" clubs. English clubs' directors are mostly incredibly narrow-minded. You can be sure as shit that Ferguson would never have been offered the Man Utd job today. He already has an ok English club record to back it up whereas Hodgson didn't as much. Man Utd is the only English club Fergie's ever managed.

But it took Hodgson decades to achieve any kind of domestic recognition, and he'd still never be considered by one of the "big" clubs. English clubs' directors are mostly incredibly narrow-minded. You can be sure as shit that Ferguson would never have been offered the Man Utd job today.

Since when have footballing considerations mattered to Real when signing players?

I've always equated Schalke's champions-for-six-minutes tragedy with what happened to NUFC under Keegan as well. My god do I hate Man Utd and Bayern.

It is indeed. Have you been auf Schalke? It's a fantastic stadium, with one hell of an atmosphere. At any rate, the cities of Gelsenkirchen and Newcastle have a lot more in common than Newcastle and Hamburg, I'd wager. I've never actually been to Newcastle, but I've lived in both Hamburg and Gelsenkirchen. HSV always struck me as a bit of a prawn sandwich brigade (St Pauli for the real fans), while I'll never forget the 2000 Schalke fans waiting at the train station in 2001, who all started singing "shove the league trophy up the Bayerns' arse" the second the team arrived. Hamburg: http://www.kartliga-hamburg.de/phpcms/cont/grafix/hamburg_alster.jpg Gelsenkirchen: http://www.kellergrundbau.com/sitedesign/images/content/services/big/keller-specialgrout_gelsenkirchen_big.jpg HSV fans: http://www.n24.de/media/_fotos/bildergalerien/09_uefahsvwerder/hsv_fans_dpa.jpg Schalke fan: http://www.flingern-schickeria.de/wp-content/2007/05/schalke_fan.jpg

Wolfsburg has much more money than HSV. Magath got there about 50 million to spend in his time there. HSV only sell their best players to Bayern or nowadays to Man City for much money. That Wolfsburg has more money comes from the fact that VW is fully behind that club. I know about the money issue but I think most would still regard HSV as the bigger club would they not? Plus as they haven't won much recently if he did so he could achieve legendary status. How come HSV stuggle so badly for money, they've raked in a fair bit recently for De Jong & Kompany and probably Boateng & get decent crowds. If they don't get much money they should stop giving away the likes of Olic and soon to be Guererro on free's. HSV won't play in Europe next season (as Wolfsburg) so no reason to think they're the bigger club. Probably they still are because of their history and all that. But still I think McClaren does the right thing here because Wolfsburg is a much more stable club than Hamburg. As I've said some time ago - Hamburg are a bit like the "German Newcastle" Surely that's Schalke?

Tbh Ronaldo, I doubt Capello would have brought him back into a 30 after all this time, just to leave him out of the final 23. Joke of a decision. Wouldn't put it past him, either, ruthless bastard that he is.

What were they doing on the pitch and why were they interested in one of our players? Bizarre.

Taller and scores goals. I'm pretty sure Carra has more own goals to his name than goal goals... Terry is overrated though. Carvalho is a far, far better defender.

He's a proper stroppy fucker, isn't he?

But has he been significantly worse than the other players?

He couldn't get into the England side because he's a classic English scrappy centre-half as opposed to a ball-playing centre-half. European and international football is all about possession football, so you really want at least one centre-half who's comfortable on the ball, and given half-decent form, you're going to pick Terry over Carra because he's better in the air and scores goals. He's never had a run in the England side at centre-back, but has only ever been used as a backup across the back line or as a defensive midfielder. Too true. Utter balls. I agree with Wacko on these points. Not his best season but has definitely been a top class defender and I wouldn't say he is overrated either. Not anymore he's not, that's for sure. One bad season does not necessarily mean his time has passed, especially when the whole side has had a crap season. Terry's season has been far from his best, too. Why isn't he copping loads of stick? Oh yeah, because the rest of the side made up for his lack of form.

Too true. Utter balls.

With Maradona in charge, there's no reason to expect that there's a logical explanation for anything.

I did. Some TV programme I've never heard of. You should check it out, decent mindless entertainment. Funnier the more nerdy you are yourself, though. Very. Big. Nerd. Am. I. Not that Lucas Neill isn't a t*** himself, but this is one of the many, many reasons to hate Carracunt: http://www.thespoiler.co.uk/index.php/2008/09/04/carragher-nearly-had-lucas-neill-assaulted Probably my most hated individual player in the Premiership (and I don't really harbour any special animosity towards Liverpool), including other prize c***s such as Kieron Richardson, Lee Catermole and Gary Neville. Always been WILDLY overrated as a footballer as well. It will disgust me if he is on the plane to South Africa. 1)He didn't have Neill assaulted; his mates asked him if they should avenge him. Again, not the same thing at all. Wouldn't your mates do the same? 2)Personally, if someone broke my leg, I'd be more than happy to see them get theirs broken, too. 3)How is he overrated? He has never received anything like the plaudits that Rio, Terry, Woodgate or Campbell have, despite being an integral part of a defence every bit as good as theirs. He might not be as big as Terry or as skilful as Rio or Woodgate, but he's still a top-class defender. 1)Way to miss the point. If you didn't detect the undercurrent of "I was this close to agreeing with my friends' suggestion to attack Neill, but I'm a bigger man than that: GO ME!" in what he was saying (which betrays a fucking moronic and nasty mindset, just to state the blindingly obvious), then I'd suggest that reading comprehension wasn't your strong point at school. And - as Liam says - there is the unmistakable hint in his words that David Thompson being present was the only reason that he didn't 'give the go ahead', which actually contradicts and undermines the bullshit "I rose above all that" self-congratulation that he's just come out with. If you don't think that's Grade A Cunt material, then I wouldn't like to be in your social circle. 2)And there lies the difference between you and me. Draw your own conclusions. 3)He is overrated because he played for England whilst never being an international quality defender. 1) You give Carra too much credit. I'm guessing you, like me, have a more middle-class, intellectual background. Carra doesn't have that abstraction, doesn't step back and look at himself. Whatever you're reading into it, you can be sure Carra sees it exactly as he explained it: Neill was lucky Thomson was with him. Nothing more, nothing less. We're talking about a guy who showed his arse to Owen's documentary film crew for a laugh. 2) Perhaps. I can't remember the tackle in question. If it was like one of Gerrard's leg breakers, I say let the bastard have it. I'm a big believer in imposing the other guy's rules on himself. 3) Heh? He has consistently risen to the challenge of CL football over the past five years (which is universally acknowledged as being above international level) and not been found wanting, yet he's not an international quality defender? You're seriously lacking in objectivity here. Sure, he's no great footballer, but he can defend with the best of them.

I did. Some TV programme I've never heard of.

wacko - isn't another major worry the new squad regulations? Gerrard is only one of four homegrown players who aren't out-and-out youngsters. I can't believe that Parry/Rafa/whoever allowed you to get into this position. Every time you look for an English (or "English") player clubs will add at least a couple of million onto the price. It is. That was the whole point of buying Johnson last summer and trying to buy Barry and Keane the previous summer. We got Keane, but the plan was to have him playing off Barry, so when that deal fell through, Keane was entirely surplus to requirements. There is already a massive premium on English/homegrown players. I don't see the new regulations changing the prices that much.

I live in Germany, so no, I didn't see it. There's certainly some truth in EFC being a better investment given what it would cost you to buy Everton vs Liverpool, but ultimately they don't have anything like the same potential (i.e. the name and fanbase). Everton's current success is based entirely on the fantastic job that Gollum has done and is doing. If he leaves, it's hard to see Everton attracting one of Europe's top managers as a replacement. It's all up in the air at the moment, entirely dependent on who buys the club and when. It has to be sold because the yanks cannot keep up the payments on their loans, and the banks have only extended the loans on the condition of a sale. It looks like Juve have withdrawn their offer to Rafa (though I believe he was only using it as a bargaining chip, rather than being seriously interested), but his staying is entirely dependent on what happens re ownership. I don't believe our players aren't hungry; it's just been a rotten, depressing season. Gerrard desperately wants to win the EPL, and Torres desperately wants some medals, too. At this point in time, we can't afford to become a selling club. If Rafa had Wenger's nose for a bargain, I'd say "sell 'em", but given what we paid for Johnson or Keane, it'd have to be a ridiculous offer for Gerrard (over £40m), and I wouldn't sell Torres at any price. How could we replace him? "Rebuilding" is out of the question, because for me that implies that the core of our side is past it and isn't cutting it any more. We desperately need to hang on to the core of our side, the 3 or 4 truly world-class players we have (Gerrard, Torres, Masch, Reina) and replace the peripheral dross with more top-drawer players. We'll see what happens, but I truly believe that last summer was our golden opportunity, what with Man Utd losing Ronaldo and Chelsea not strengthening their side. If we'd managed to invest in the squad instead of selling our most important player, we could have made a real fist of it. Instead, we're almost back to square one.

I think this Barca side will go down in history as one of the all-time greats, though they might have to win another CL to cement that rep.

Aye, they still talk about that in places like New York and Sydney to this very day... Their Liverpool fans do... Fuck degrees. Even I've got one of those. Who's Sheldon Cooper?

Must be boring being a barca fan domestically apart from the Barca-Madrid games and any derbies. It's either 'fuck Madrid are ahead of us' or 'thank fuck we didn't lose the title'. Anger or relief, neither are great. Probably why they treat the CL so importantly (understandably). Obviously you will know better, but even with our season this year I felt a bit of it... only a wee bit mind... La Liga is turning into a joke. Barca and Real Madrid take over 50% of the TV money in the league, leaving the rest fighting over scraps. The Prem is the epitome of egalitarianism by comparison.

Considering we're not in the CL, yeah, but otherwise I don't think it's far off what other clubs have signed in the last few years. Didn't ManU get 100m? They got the same: £80m over 4 years.