AyeDubbleYoo

The state of our central midfield is criminal, but to be fair to the club it would be decent with Nolan, Barton and Guthrie.

They should have gone for a more traditional hold-up player I reckon. Not that Berbatov isn't good, Man Utd aren't exactly struggling!

He's not a luxury player at all, surely he's the opposite? He works hard going forward and in defense, yes he doesn't set up that many goals but he's only had Shola to aim for in a lot of his matches! He'll be better in a better team, but the same goes for a lot of players. We just need to weed out the absolute shit to have a decent side.

Really getting to rate Enrique at the moment, considering how bad our results have been that's an achievement in itself. The fact he didn't throw the toys out of the pram and ask to leave when a succession of managers were dropping him shows he has a bit of steel about him as well.

Agreed, fingers crossed we keep it up. The great thing is that all we have to say to the players from now on is "remember what it was like against Man Utd" and they will be able to recall a quality performance. Hopefully that will be the boost they need to perform in the winnable games we've got left.

Man Utd have the perfect football team/squad... it is much more than the sum of its parts. Park is one of those players (like O'Shea, Fletcher et al) who doesn't look like much but works hard and does the tidy work well, allowing his more dangerous teammates to hurt the opposition. In the Keegan glory days we had a number of players like that. To look at some of our players you wouldn't think they were much, but fast counterattacking football isn't about genius, it's about simplicity, efficiency, fitness and decisiveness. Always been a fan of Park.

Regardless of the other games we can hold our heads high tonight. If we carry that attitude and performance into the rest of the games we will be OK.

Why the fuck is Chris Waddle always such a whinging bastard? Bloody hell Chris, we need somebody to cheer for us man!

Howay the lads!

That would be more than enough for me, any points would be an insane bonus.

Thing is, there are different types of intelligence - who's to say that the spacial awareness, coordination and speed of thought needed to be a top footballer (i.e. Beckham) isn't as amazing as the ability to be a top writer?

No, but the benefits to morale and future performances would be well worth it.

Is it just the same as 'experience' then? I'd argue someone like Wayne Rooney has it, even though he's relatively young.

the original ronaldo? it's an easy one to suggest because he was more a phenomenal indiviual than a great team player. However, post 2000 he developed a footballing brain to compensate for his slightly reduced level of pace. In his last 2 1/2 seasons at Madrid most will point to a lot of his goals as demonstrating fantastic awareness in the final third Surely he always had an amazing level of awareness? Football brain isn't just picking a pass is it, it's also the ability to control the ball precisely and at speed, and know how to get around a man. Ronaldo had that in bucketloads.

I agree Ryder and the Chron need to be impartial, all I'm saying is that it was a blog post and that is fundamentally different to a piece published in the paper.

And the True Faith one? Not sure, I haven't read it in depth... obviously none of the parties have any real pressure to be impartial and objective anyway. As long as we don't treat any of them as gospel then I suppose it's not a major problem.

There is (or was) also a difference between an opinion piece/blog entry and an objective report of what happened. Ryder's is clearly opinion, I'm not sure which category the NUSC report falls into.

Anyone remember the Arsenal home match last season. The atmosphere was blistering, and we came out and played like something unreal. The atmosphere at the ground can certainly make a difference. Yeah but this Man Utd team is different, maybe if they rest a few players but if they come out all guns blazing it wont. Nobody is immune to a hostile atmosphere, not even Man Utd. Not sure if we have the spirit left to create one though, but I hope we can find it.

Exactly the side I would pick. Loven and Martins can drop back and help flood the midfield areas ,so we have 5 in the middle, and Viduka can play up front on his own to hold the ball up, with Love and Martins using their pace to get up in support. Raylor can sit in front of the back four pinging long range passes up to Viduka to hold up, or for Loven and Martins to chase, because make no mistake we will be spending long periods in our own half tonight and the accurate long pass will be essential to us. Agreed, that's probably the best hope we've got.

Me neither, but the tone of this OP is a bit weird, not sure why we all need a 'lesson in football'!

Never been so happy to hear that Chelsea scored.

They're the worst in the league going by current form: http://www.4thegame.com/football-statistics/premiership/tables/currentform.html Boro, Wigan and WBA are also worse than us, just!

Exactly.

Aye, goes without saying that the Hull game is massive.

Potential?