Raconteur

But not being played - wasn't he still recovering from falling off the plane or whatever the reason was for hardly playing the first half of the season?

Our team: Krul Simpson Williamson Coloccini Gutierrez Guthrie Perch Cabaye Ben Arfa Ba Cisse Progression: nil. Anita and Santon are two pretty big "ins", tbh - especially when in means Simpson and Guthrie are the two making way... There is progress - perhaps not of the Robert & Bellamy calibre, but more than "nil".

Yep, I lived in Manchester from 1966 to 1976 and undoubtedly the main rivalry was between Man U and Man City. Liverpool were only rivals in the same way that Leeds, Spurs, Everton and the other leading teams were rivals. Things changed with Man City's decline. I think the Liverpool - Man U thing has become more talked about over the last 15 years or so, with Liverpool's frustration and anger at their inability to crack the Man U stranglehold. That's added a bit of spice to their matches. Wasn't a large part of it due to Fergie's public "Knock [Liverpool] off their fucking perch" tirade?

IN: Amalfitano Good Bigirimana Anita OUT: Best Forster Smith Guthrie Lovenkrands Inactivity?

And my favourite: "amazeballs" *shudder*

That's got to be a parody article, right? Like the newsthump one?

Pato

Moving from the club to their retarded fans for a moment: I play that rubbish Premier Football game on Facebook, and just saw there's a club in my current league named "SAn miguel FC FTM". For a moment I marvelled at the mind-bending stupidity and then had a genuine Picard moment...

It seems to me that a lot of people are insisting that we play a 4-3-3, and then complaining about a lack of srikers. It further seems to me that if we do play with a 4-3-3, and if Cisse and Ba are unavailable, then we only really need one "striker" when we're in a pinch. Marveaux/Jonas on the left, Ameobi/Campbell in the middle, Ben Arfa/Amalfitano on the right...? It's not perfect, but we have a squad that is capable of adapting to adversity - you could argue that replacing Ba with Jonas, for instance, is a big gap in quality, but unless you're Man City, Man Utd or Chelsea, that's always going to be the case when stars are unavailable. That's not me saying we don't need another striker, because it would add to the squad, but there's a certain logic to not busting our nut to get one in. There's also the case for saying that when we shift "strikers" like Xisco, Ranger and Sam Ameobi then Mike may be more willing to shell out for another option up front.

What the fuck is a chode? Don't know why, but it really tickled me to hear Barton referred to as one. Plus it's always nice to expand your vocabulary

Given that he has Dutch citizenship but can't yet play for the Dutch team, that suggests to me that it's a FIFA thing, in which case it certainly would be something to hold the deal up, given that they're crooked cunts! Personally, I think there is an agreement in place to sign him when the time comes - which is why this chase has "gone quiet" and yet there is no other real talk about centre halves.

He's Dutch now. He can ditch all the agents. Isn't the issue that there is a gap between his gaining Dutch citizenship and becoming eligible to play for the Dutch national team? The second part comes to pass just before the transfer window "slams shut" , doesn't it...?

Ranger would dominate the a-league. Adam Campbell would dominate the A-League...

Rangers have not been punished at all yet, all that has happened is a consequence of their actions. -10 points administration Europe - they are not "banned" they do not qualify for a licence Fine- The verdict of the appelate tribunal was that what they did was "just one step down from match fixing" and so they came up with the transfer embargo (at a time Rangers were in admin) They will soon be in liquidation (they're not yet) and will cease to be. Sevco 5088 - bought their assetts (for a paltry sum) and they aslo bought their goodwill (history) They cannot just keep the good bits. They were not relegated, they're still in Admin, a whole "new" club started up and has been allowed to join Div 3 (ahead of others that properly qualify). The Dual Contracts investigation must go ahead, it appears they have been playing ineligible players for years (maybe up to 20 years). The fans always pay the price, but in this case, the fans have enjoyed success that was won by nailed on cheating and they just don't seem to "get" that. They are lucky they may still have a club to support. They still owe other clubs money for players and yet (as in the Jelavic case) the new club expect to pocket the money that Everton still owe them but they don't want to pay Rapid Vienna, they owe Hearts £800K for Lee Wallace, who has transfreered over oldco to Newco, how's that work ?? They have a player that they never even paid for. Not to mention the £120 Mill of debt owed to businesses big and small and HMRC, what about those folk. They're losing out big time in some cases yet that's OK !!! They made their bed and need to learn some humility and contrition. The fans didn't cause any of it, but enjoyed the benefits of it (in success terms).

The 'Just pay what they want ffs, it's only a couple of million!!!' really annoys me. I know football is a little different but there seems to be a complete lack of comprehension of negotiation. It's hard to believe that fans with these sentiments follow the same club that paid £17m for Michael Owen and £10.5m for Albert Luque - we've learned our lesson but people still complain! In fact, you could even use the examples of Alan Smith and Xisco and argue that Ashley has learned the lesson personally...

Has anyone said he had an amazing end to the season? Ah now it's not the quality of the goals, it's the quantity, you simply can't had a good period if you don't score I guess? Just as well you weren't managing Blackburn when Shearer left Southampton. I remember reading Shoot and FourFourTwo as a kid, brilliant memories. I'm struggling to remember him having many brilliant allround performances at any point last season. He was slightly less s*** towards the end. So nobody said he was amazing then? Whereabouts is your season ticket for Liverpool? One of those shitty restricted views? Ba was similarly amazing second half of the season as poitned out already, how does Carroll compare second half of the season? Both the quality of goals and quantity? Can you describe the goals in a 50 shades of gray type manner? Ba scored 16 league goals last season to Carroll's 4. I think he gets a free pass on some slightly poorer performances over the second half of the season, playing out of position. There was no doubt who was infinitely the superior player last year, both in performances and contribution to their respective teams. You said Carroll has a decent end to the season. He improved marginally compared to the first half but it was hardly groundbreaking stuff and he hardly went on a goalscoring spree did he? What's the Liverpool season ticket nonsense about? You said he had a decent end to the season, so obviously I'm as qualified to comment as yourself. The bit in the bold is disingenuous and smacks of wanting to have your cake and eat it too... EDIT: Not to mention "slightly poorer" is euphemistic in the extreme

I'm not using anyone's suffering, just stating facts. You've labelled the entire club "paedophiles". You have then made a potentially libellous claim against one of that club's greatest heroes. Neither of those are "facts" I know you are a WUM and a troll - "Biggest Fraud 2011" indeed... But that doesn't excuse what you've posted.

You know, genuine victims of paedophilia might be outraged by your using their suffering as a device to win cheap points in an internet debate...

Out of order

Didn't we get Beardsley back from Everton anyway?

Now, now, Rio was left behind purely for footballing reasons...

Clearly they are! Witness the regular cry of "overpaid" - ignoring the fact that the players don't get paid to play for England (and is probably WHY they don't perform for their country) I think they do get paid for playing for England, but not a significant amount. It was reported they'd donated it to charity the last World Cup. The real money they earn for England is all the advertisements and endorsements they get. On the Carroll subject, they probably think he's the new Christian Vieri. They do get paid for playing for England. It happened a while ago and I may be wrong, but I remember there was talk of them striking if they didn't get paid. When they started to get paid was when the pride of playing for your country largely disappeared and was replaced with the apathy that is there now. Well, there you go! Maybe they should be sitting in a dark room flagellating themselves, then...

Not the best analogy - without wanting to get too sidetracked, if the cheque does bounce then it is rape... Of course, that's putting aside the lunacy of a prostitute accepting a cheque, taking your analogy too literally and a whole host of other issues that I'm not going to pissfart around with!!! I'm always humbled when an Aussie starts to show his built-in intellect when versing about criminal law. There's a little bit of sea-lawyer ingrained in all of our convict DNA...

Not the best analogy - without wanting to get too sidetracked, if the cheque does bounce then it is rape... Of course, that's putting aside the lunacy of a prostitute accepting a cheque, taking your analogy too literally and a whole host of other issues that I'm not going to pissfart around with!!!