Segun Oluwaniyi

Brazil's striking options are better than Spain or Germany.

They lost a playoff to Central African republic for the Nations Cup spot, which I'm sure disappointed them. The world Cup campaign is going very well, 100% record against a fairly formidable group. Guaranteed a spot in the play off round.

That's far too simplistic, nobody lends £1 out to get £1 back for a start. The economy is far too complex for us to discuss it properly on here anyway. It's a head bursting topic really as money has to constantly move to keep the economy going and governments have to constantly print additional money. They would have to do that anyway just to stand still as the population grows. So close, yet so far away from understanding. It's not the governments constantly printing additional money, it's the banks! You need to differentiate between creating money and printing money, so people can understand what the hell you are talking about. Preferably not in a topic about Papiss Cisse. I'm sick of hearing about this Wonga nonsense. If you want to take issue with someone do with the state and your leaders.

Do people dislike Ba now? I don't understand why they would. If Chelsea pay Torres to play somewhere else, which I think they will, Ba will have plenty of chances.

Alright, I'm not having this s***. If you want to get technical, all the teams in CONCACAF qualifying are ranked higher than Poland too. And it must be hard, playing on those sublime surfaces with golf-clapping European crowds. I'm surprised none of our players have been killed yet, not by fans but by sinkholes opening in the middle of the pitch. f*** off back to Norway, Neil. YES! It angers me when Europeans try and cheapen qualifying against third world countries. Nigeria have to go through literal war zones every qualification campaign! Like the US, we're one of the biggest teams here so for all these awful countries we compete with, the home match against our team is their biggest event for two years. All of our away matches are massive events. I'd like to see Spain bring their midgets and their tiki taka nonsense to Niger or Lesotho, so they can play on a dirt field surrounded only by wild goats, rioting fans, and armed guards with highly questionable motives. Respect to the US, they know.

Precisely. He will go where he will be paid most. This will be a lower tier Premiership side with money in its accounts and low expectations. They'll enjoy the boy at first because he works hard, but will grow tired of him over the seasons because he is so limited. This is just the player he is. I rate Tulisa much more highly than others here. Very attractive girl. Obviously, she is an abhorrent person, but so is every other women that will ever lay with Danny Simpson.

Heavier than any healthy human. If I run into you full speed and you are standing still, my momentum will smash you to the ground. I don't care who we are talking about. It is about mass times velocity rather than just mass.

People are overestimating Ashely's allegiance to Pardew. He'll have used up most of the good will he earned previously. Is there any actual reason to think that that owner is prepared to watch the world burn if it means his mate keeps a job? Pardew is still here because he performed significantly better than expected in 2011-2012 and because he is a tolerable personality in terms of interaction with the board. Even the much discussed 8 year contract came after a thoroughly acceptable start to the season, which had been preceded by our best campaign in several years. Much has changed since then, and I think Pardew was legitimately on the brink in May even after QPR. There are covert signs of discontent from the players/staff, overt signs of anger from the supporters, and the lack of tangible improvement after the investment in January will be important to the man that dispense the funds. If things continue in the same vein, he will go, he almost already went.

Why do you say that? Because we'll do better, or just they won't sack him whatever? Because he survived the worst season I've ever watched and we won't do as badly as that next year so there's no reason to sack him. You were born in 2010?

:lol:

He could replace Tiote and do what some people on here think Anita could do. He's definitely on the decline now (never a great athlete to begin with), but I think he's been a consistently useful player for a while now. Barry's almost always where the team needs him to be, works hard, and shows for the ball a lot. Manchester City can and should do better because he has been outclassed physically at the highest level more than once, and these abilities are only going to wane. If he was French and played the same way, he would hardly be noticed by most supporters, but in reality every appearance he makes is treated like the Apocalypse because of the nation on his passport.

Gareth Barry is very underrated.

We've signed three strikers with more pedigree than him in the last two seasons, though.

my thoughts as well, throw in alcohol sponsorship into the mix which pass's without notice by most, theres not all that big a difference. not to mention LIBOR riggers sponsoring the league we are in. We should limit club shirt sponsorship to companies that always behave in the most advantageous manner for society and then enjoy the fact the football shirts no longer have sponsors.

If you are talking about Belhanda, I am just going to inform you that I vehemently disagree with your position and leave it at that.

Villa seem to be looking to spend money again this summer. Could be good for them if they build on what they have currently got. I still believe this season will have been good for them with blooding young players Yep, since they survived it was a good idea. Not so much if they had gone down, but it worked out just. Don't think they had much choice really with the state of them when Lambert took over. If I was them I'd be going after Lescott. Why? They are following the BVB formula. Buy good, young, cheap players and let them develop. Though cheap, I don't believe most of the players Villa have signed are particularly good.

Rubbish. He's shown his ability since the age of 18, and he walked onto the pitch against one of the top 10 teams in Europe and was immediately the best player on the pitch.The boy is a workhorse. Pardew tried to turn him into artist because we lack creativity. Look at the man, the sheer pace and power, the will, the rage. Do you look at someone like that and tell them to play a position where they need to be patient and precise? Sissoko has the talent for it and posses those attributes, but it's limiting for him. He played too far up the pitch in a team that was broken, and I thought he still was an important player for the team and one of our better performers. People have been on a crusade to denigrate our players lately, I don't understand some of it. There are differences between playing below the standard you've set over 5+ years and simply being inadequate.

You'd think it'd have to be an Adebayor type deal where Chelsea are paying significant amounts of his wages, especially if he is looking to return to Spain. He did look better last season, imo, but not enough for most of those teams to pay a competitive wage for him I'd imagine there'd be interested from the rich in Eastern Europe and the new boys in France, simply on name, if he'd like to go.

He also is a 71 year old man who has managed football clubs through the course of five decades and won everything possible several times over. The guy was probably tired. If he made life decisions based on the actions of other football clubs, he would have retired in 2004 or 2008, and he would have been a weak man.

Who? People say these sorts of things, but I'd really like to know who they are referencing when they make these statements. Englishmen? The truth of the matter is that the club is a job for all its employees (more enjoyable for some than others of course)and that most players above a certain age will leave for a team in a higher division. I'd agree we lacked leadership, especially as our manager lost confidence and went into a strange self-preservation mode as soon as things got difficult.

I'm glad someone else sees common sense regarding David Luiz in midfield. He's terrible. Defensively, he's never where he's supposed to be, he carries the ball too much, makes foolish attempts to win possession, and constantly attempts 40 yard Hollywood passes. He's the sort of player you find a place for on the pitch because he has fantastic athleticism and ball skill, but he's still lacking in a few areas. Even as a defender, I'm not convinced by him. He isn't that young, either. Twenty-six is not a child in football terms. There are enough s*** teams in Spain to make him look good. I think Neymar will be fine. Getting out of Brazil is the best thing he could have done. It will have been hard for him to grow as a player and a person in that environment. When I watch him, the main issues seem to be that he lacks a bit of maturity in terms of his game and his personality and is too weak physically to consistently assert himself against grown men. He'll learn many things this season.

I honestly hear that about anyone with a bad reputation "Oh, I know he acts like a dickhead when everyone is looking but in real life he's a great bloke" You hear it, but it isn't really true, is it? It's just apologists making excuses. Most of the leagues known arseholes have at least as many scrapes off the pitch as on it. Whether it's fighting in nightclubs, f***ing around or just being a dick to people. Given how bad Suarez behaves on the field, you'd expect there to be at least a couple of off-field stories but there aren't any (at least that I'm aware of). Maybe he is just a coward? I doubt he would have the balls to go up to someone like Ivanovic when there isn't the ref, other players, tv etc.. and bite him. No idea why that's the case, nor am I trying to defend him. It just strikes me as something that sets him apart from the run-of-the-mill c*** footballer. The guy has always struck me as one of those type people with severe impulse problem or inner demons, rather than just an evil person. He's clearly extremely competitive to the point of being a dirty player, and most of his offences have been been "rush of blood" type moments. I seriously doubt he spent time making the decision to bite either Ivanovic or Bakkal. The guy got a bit annoyed, had a rush of adrenaline and lost his head. I seriously doubt he can control himself.

We played our best football under Pardew with a 442 and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Things worked well with 433 in an attacking sense but this was eventually found out defensively. That does still work well in some games though. 4231 and 451 have never worked well at this club and never will unless we have the right personnel, which we don't. Playing such systems just indicates us as a bottom half club. I'd say our best football last season came in March to April, when we won six consecutive matches while conceding one goal. We played a formation with one player upfront during this time. You say we were found out defensively, by which you mean we were soundly beaten by Wigan, but the next match was a brilliant victory against Chelsea. We have the personnel to make a 4-5-1 or 4-3-3 make right now, much more so than a 4-4-2, anyway. With Carroll/Best sold and Gutierrez turned to rubbish, I think it's quite limiting because we don't have the strikers for it, nor the wide players. 4-3-3 suits our current wide players and midfielders much more.

Finished 2-2. Credit again to Mexico. They take these friendlies extremely seriously Easily the most competitive friendly we've played since the ones against Ghana. If Naija had gone down to 10 in a friendly it would have become an exercise in time wasting, but they were running like it was the World Cup final. Not impressed with SE tonight, there was little defensive organisation and some of these players Keshi is peddling simply aren't good enough. Still, that's what's friendlies are for, and there were quite a few individually impressive players. It's funny you had it on mute. I had the ESPN stream and these commentators are useless Mexican cheerleaders. Every single Nigerian name was said incorrectly. Every one. I muted in disgust when they compared the African champions to Jamaica.

Watching Nigeria vs. Mexico friendly in Houston. They were ripping through us in the first 20 minutes. Our midfield was nowhere to be seen, and luckily chicarito only converted one of his three or four chances. Then we got a penalty and a red card. It's 1-1 and Naija's on top now. Quite eventful for a friendly. Credit to the Mexicans as well. The games not even in their country and they've filled an 80,000 seat stadium with 90 percent Mexicans.