wacko

I find that very surprising, especially in a world where Souness kept being offered a new job.

No, he wasn't technically British. He was technically a citizen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Sorry, you're quite right. But now he's Irish (always was in his head). Drifting ever further off topic, but can anyone from N. Ireland get an Irish passport, or is it a matter of ancestry/religion? I'm afraid I haven't got a clue how Ciaran was entitled to an Irish passport. I don't imagine being Catholic was enough.

No, he wasn't technically British. He was technically a citizen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Sorry, you're quite right. But now he's Irish (always was in his head).

A mate of mine is from Norn Iron, and was technically British, but being a Catholic, he got himself an Irish passport as soon as he could when it became a lot easier a few years back.

Most of our new signings say the training is much more intense than they've had before. Lot less running to do if you have the ball most of the time, too.

Ranger > Pele and Maradona combined Ranger > Pele + Maradona + Snoop Dog + the Oxford English Dictionary.

A lot longer than is usual in Spain...

I'd suggest that it's because British managers don't generally do so well in Europe, or at least it's perceived that way. Tactically naive. Even Ferguson struggled for a long time in Europe with a side that dominated the domestic league. They only started making real headway when Queiroz persuaded Fergie not to be so gung-ho in the CL. There's probably a chicken-and-egg element to it, though. British managers aren't considered for the top jobs, because they have no great track record in Europe, which is hard to get unless you have a cracking side. Like the players, British managers would probably benefit from working abroad to broaden their horizons.

So is Gerrard. I guess standout box-to-box midfielder = fantastic fullback. Problem is, he thinks too highly of himself to be playing at rightback. He wants play to go through him, he wants to be spraying passes to the wingers, he wants to shoot from distance... sometimes I wonder if he forgets if football is a team game. I wish fantastic fullback would also = standout box to box midfielder That means we could play Beye there! Lol. Dani Alves for the Balon d'Or. Agree totally about Gerrard. His ego is a massive, massive problem. He'll fight for the team, but won't make sacrifices for it (like Essien playing fullback for long stretches). Try that with Gerrard, and he'd kick up a huge stink, maybe even hand in a transfer request in fairly short order.

Not really. Perhaps it's just because they hired shit DoFs. Also, your average British manager will baulk at the suggestion of having someone else do the transfers. Seems to work okay for continental clubs. Lyon and Sevilla in particular have dug up some real gems over the past few years and had cracking sides, making huge piles of cash in the transfer market to boot. At both clubs, DoFs are responsible for signings. I think that, if done well, the DoF system provides more continuity as managers/trainers change. In England, you generally expect it to take a couple of years at least till a manager has "his" squad in place. I am not arguing that it couldn't have worked, but for it to have been accepted over here, either Spurs or Newcastle really needed to make it work. The fact that both clubs are giving up on it, whether through choice or otherwise means the British experiment is more or less over for now at least. Maybe at a lower level like QPR it can be experimented with but I doubt any decent Premiership clubs will go down that route in a hurry for the moment. Right, I get you. You might well be right. Isn't Dario Gradi more or less a DoF at Crewe now? We'll see how that pans out.

Not really. Perhaps it's just because they hired shit DoFs. Also, your average British manager will baulk at the suggestion of having someone else do the transfers. Seems to work okay for continental clubs. Lyon and Sevilla in particular have dug up some real gems over the past few years and had cracking sides, making huge piles of cash in the transfer market to boot. At both clubs, DoFs are responsible for signings. I think that, if done well, the DoF system provides more continuity as managers/trainers change. In England, you generally expect it to take a couple of years at least till a manager has "his" squad in place.

So is Gerrard. I guess standout box-to-box midfielder = fantastic fullback. We usually play with 2 DMs.

Essien has been surprisingly bad in the holding role actually. He has a real hard time staying in position and leaves the defence stranded at times. Both him and Lassana Diarra failed at the DM for Chelsea because of this. (Even now, Diarra is not really a holding player). It just goes to show that the holding role requires more than just physical attributes (Something people should learn before deploying the likes of Amdy Faye there). It requires very good intelligence as well as the ability to read the game and follow tactical instructions. If you look at Maka, he is not a great tackler and to be honest, he is rather short and rather slow. But he always seems to where the ball is or needs to go. Same goes for Hamann, I'd say. Like Makelele, always standing in exactly the right place. Do you think Essien just lacks practice, or will never have the reading of the game to play there?

They are much smaller city of about 20-30k. They have heavily invested in their side, buying basically the best worlds best youth and almost like a Chelsea just establishing themselves as great, thats why they have shot up the leagues. However the thing they are doing is building the model of Arsenal with their academy, to make the club nigh self sufficient in terms of playing staff within the next few years. Still good to watch. Exactly. They are backed by a very rich businessman (Dietmar Hopp, who owns software giant SAP) and have a long term plan. They outspend most top division teams last season when they were still in the 2nd Bundesliga. They aren't a small city, though. They are a village of 3300 people... They did a great job attracting players like Chinedu Obasi and Carlos Eduardo to second division football. And their signings this season have been impressive. The results are no fluke. They are a young hungry and talented team that could be together for a while. Do you think QPR could do the same? (Please God No) Every team can do it. But you need a good manager, money and a fair share of luck. At the moment a lot of Hoffenheim players are overperforming. For example the player topping the scorer charts at the moment has never been playing that well before and mostly been a reserve team player at other teams. Rangnick is a very good manager. I was sad when he left Schalke, but he didn't get on with the then manager (in the German sense), Assauer. Yes but Hoffenheim are a totally different prospect. They are much smaller city of about 20-30k. They have heavily invested in their side, buying basically the best worlds best youth and almost like a Chelsea just establishing themselves as great, thats why they have shot up the leagues. However the thing they are doing is building the model of Arsenal with their academy, to make the club nigh self sufficient in terms of playing staff within the next few years. Still good to watch. Exactly. They are backed by a very rich businessman (Dietmar Hopp, who owns software giant SAP) and have a long term plan. They outspend most top division teams last season when they were still in the 2nd Bundesliga. They aren't a small city, though. They are a village of 3300 people... Oh apologies, I knew they were small didn't think was that small! haha Yup. I believe they rolled a few small village teams into one, and now they're top of the 1st Bundesliga after giving HSV a proper pasting yesterday. You wouldn't have thought HSV were the league leaders, the way Hoffenheim battered them.

I'd define a holding midfielder as a sweeper who stands in front of the defence. Hamann was a boss holding midfielder for us. Essien is a sensational player. Like Gerrard minus the goals and ego, plus discipline and intelligence. Gerrard's too undisciplined to be a great holding midfielder, but Essien could do it easily. Be a waste of a much more versatile player, though.

Huge difference. Hull are punching above their weights in a league where most clubs have spent £20-30m in the summer. Yup. The Bundesliga is more competitive than the Prem. There isn't the same gulf in class between the top and bottom of the first division, nor between the first and second divisions. Having said that, Hoffenheim have come up from non-league footie. Hull has been around forever, and they're just making the most of their first season in the top division. I'm made up for them. They play some great footie.

Didnt see it but am guessing Brian Kilcline Thanks. Good to finally put a name to the face I've always known as The Football Viking. Killer it is.

Don't blame it on the Hamann, Don't blame it on the Finnan, Don't blame it on the Biscan, Blame it on Traore. He just can't, he just can't, he just can't control his feet.

Killer?

Man Utd and Chelsea pay for squad players what the likes of you and us hope to spend on the odd nailed-on first-teamer, and other clubs can only dream of spending.

Aye. It wouldn't surprise me if a court ruled that they couldn't stop people posting the fixture list. It's just a list of dates, after all. Not to mention the fact that they're complete dicks for doing it anyway. What kind of retarded organisation attacks people for advertising their events (apart from the Illuminati, of course)?

Benitez had better not be thinking about spending 9m on Milner. Silliness.

Evil. But funny. Lampard looks like a proper cockstash in those pics.

They're going bloody mental outside. I think the whole town drives down here to beep their horns, and there's an awful lot of people on the street by the sound of it, too.

It goes to UEFA co-efficients, I think with Italy at no. 3 and France at no 4. http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uefa/data/method3/crank2008.html These rankings are based on club success in Europe, so England are top. However, if the two teams in question are playing each other in the last game (as they would be with Italy vs France), the game goes to extra time, then penalties.