Segun Oluwaniyi

Joe Cole is still in the Premiership?

Ocampos with a goal on his OM debut, btw.

The same way that Chelsea are struggling against a side that scores one goal per month.

Chelsea sleepwalking after half-time. Villa with three immediate chances and a goal. Very strange.

They deserve every punishment they receive for taking a unilateral action two months before the tournament that put the entire thing at risk and reneging on their contract.

I don't take Mourinho's media personality in any way seriously, every aspect is just tactical or patently nonsensical. Just in a football sense, he is probably my favourite manager. I love the way his sides play and he is a pretty entertaining figure himself, not to mention the repeated success.

Appiah looked decent enough against Guinea, but as as Jonathan Wilson said, he is probably the only player in the tournament who's shirt number is higher than the division he plays in.Probably not good enough, but maybe he will have an out-of-body experience like Sunday Mba did to win AFCON 2013. There will definitely be chances for BS on the counter. Bailly and Kolo Toure are easily the weakpoint of that team. They've conceded a goal in all but one match and were breached often in qualifying too. Finals are usually tight, especially in this competition, but all signs point to a match with a lot of chances and a few goals, imo.

Eh? We are next door neighbours, a game for that small part of West Africa. I was told some years ago, there was violence in Cote D'ivore towards Ghanaians when a club side beat one of their's in a tournament. I hope there's none of that nonsense this time. West African dominance (even though Cameroon and ECQ are technically central though very close) is definitely returned, which is how it ought to be. Ten of the last twelve semifinalists from our little part of the continent. Happy to see the trophy stay in West Africa, just hoping the BS are taking only their silver medals back to Accra. Missed the Ghana match, but the Cote D'Ivoire-RCD match was spectacular, played at an incredible pace for 90 minutes with an incredible strike from Toure. I came into the tournament supporting Congo and honestly they have impressed, a lot of good players and some big second-half performances, in the end just lacking a bit of quality and nous with too many errors. Mbokani missed some big chances and Bolasie's mistake gifted CIV the winner. Honestly, CIV deserve to finally grab the trophy, imo. Renard is a fantastic manager and the quartet of Toure, Bony, Aurier, and Gervinho is genuinely world class. The rest of the side is questionable, but they should have enough.

It is odd that Colback generates such passionate dislike and discussion on here. Both him and Anita are very average players, who are fine to have in the team, but not special by any means. Both have useful skills but struggle to impose themselves and compete physically in games at this level.

I'm in your car park, i'm Odemwingie. I've enjoyed how obvious he has made his insanity the past few seasons, showing up at QPR in the middle of the night, repeatedly falling out with the national team, fully slapping Obi Mikel across the face during World Cup.

Blokes a parody like. Embarrassing. I'd have a slight bit of respect if he hadn't copied his schtick of Sid Waddell. The subtle sexual sounds after every decent dribble are really just quite odd and distracting. Although I appreciate his pronunciation of "Ikechukwu".

A number of them, yeah (those most are French). What does it matter, though? They are Algerian by blood and clearly have passion for their country. Anyway, a sweet win for CIV. Players and staff seemed very emotional. Semifinals: RCD-CIV Ghana-ECQ Hope the winner of the first semi takes the title.

Villarreal need to bring on Uche to pursue the equaliser. Barca's fourth seems more likely.

Bailly and Toure are a mistake in waiting. Easily the weak point of CIV's team.

Bailly and Toure both terrible there. On replay it seems as though Mahrez was clearly offside when played in, though.

Seems he was dropped. Suspended for the group finale and Die has kept his place in team ahead of him.

They were twenty minutes from rightfully going out after being fairly abject in the group stage. You are right through, they seem to have grown through the adversity in a way reminiscent of Nigeria two years ago. Equatorial Guinea will be tough in the semis though, especially as Black Stars will be playing against 14 men in a crazy atmosphere.

Without meaning to disparage either player, he is a much better version of Shola Ameobi. Useful, but not necessarily a player I would want to depend on leading the line week after week. Bertrand probably just broke Barrow leg with that challenge. Unnecessary, forceful, high, and borne of anger. Red fully deserved.

As I said before the match, Hull are an embarrassment and have been for the majority of the season. It is good to see NUFC take advantage of a poor side for once though, usually this club struggles in that situation. I am actually fairly optimistic about the rest of the season, tbh. The team is unbalanced and has some glaring holes, but also a lot of decent players. With the likes of Santon, Aarons, Tiote, Abeid, and Cisse coming back from injury or int'l duty with people playing decently in their place, there will be genuine competition for places and futures at the club. The manager is an idiot, but I think the last part of the season still will be more enjoyable than the first.

It is still not as good as when Bikey got a red card for attacking a physio against Ghana years ago. http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view7/4206718/crazy-bikey-o.gif

Of course this tournament has gone wild in the last few matches days after a tame start The drawing of lots situation 2-3 days ago because this is ACN, and ridiculous thing that can happen of course will. The Congo derby was very exciting second half, very pleased for Leopards to go through and Le Roy home. Hopefully they have retired the old man from African football. It is common knowledge that Equatorial Guinea's president and Hayatou are close friends and their relationship becomes more and more clear with each passing day. It is not enough that this country, who was originally thrown out of qualifying for fielding ineligible players, is now hosting their 2nd ACN out of three because the original host pulled out due to "Ebola" (which is patently ridiculous in itself). Now they have referees blatantly favouring them in QF matches. The penalty was a ghost penalty, and even the free kick was a poor call. I am definitely not displeased it happened to Tunisia though, who generally are a dirty, non-sporting side that play poor football, imo. Brilliant game, though. Tbh, as long as Ghana don't sneak their way to a victory, I'll be pleased. I will watch les Leopards with s supporting interest, but will not mind if CIV or Algeria win, both have earned it over a few years.

This is a bit of a ridiculous overstatement, btw. He is certainly not rotting away, the man appears in nearly every match and starts fairly often. I'm sure he is a bit displeased that he doesn't have the key role he envisioned and is second choice, but many players are perfectly happy to be squad players at bigger clubs. It is not as though he is Scott Sinclair or Wilfried Zaha coming to the matches in street clothing because they haven't made the bench.

Seydou Doumbia to Roma. Ivica Olic to Hamburg.

It is a bit strange to see so many of the Americans going back to MLS.Do you consider a net positive or negative? I'm sure it will raise the profile of your league somewhat, having prime aged American players that people have seen don RWB and may mean the core of the NT can meet more often, but surely they are more likely to grow individually as players in stronger leagues?

You could understand if he was the type that harried/out muscled defenders, held the ball up, and could spot a pass, but Shola has spent the majority of that time walking around with a grin on his face, being the slowest player on the pitch, and controlling the football 1 time out of 5. He has been hopelessly ineffective for a decade and a half!