The Prophet

You can afford to get rid of those 8 players, and get a similar amount in? Blimey, good luck. Our squad doesn't need pruning though, it needs a lot of work. We can't rest on our laurels. If we had to keep someone from that list I'd maybe go with R Taylor or Shola, but we did get 6 players in january so i don't see us struggling to do similar in the summer. Whether they're good enough is open to debate, but I don't think Smith, Butt etc are good enough as it is. But we're gonna get taken over by a billionaire and have lots of money, innit I think we're far more likely to go down if we dismantle the squad than add to it with a couple of quality purchases.

Think that would be a pretty decent game providing MON tells his team to actually try and play football this time. For all your moans, you don't actually seem to take many points of us, KD. I'd back you to do well against any lower half team. Put you against the better sides, though, and you spend 90 minutes passing in pretty triangles around the centre spot and generally don't deliver. You're the inverse of us. s*** teams = we struggle. Decent teams = we do OK. I just get fed up when a teams sole purpose in a game is to stop the other team from scoring (even at home). Villa have absolutely no excuse playing like that as your squad is filled with good footballers who can actually play football. It's like MON tells your players to soak up pressure and hit us on the break once or twice if there's an opportunity. The 2 times we played you this season was painful to watch. You used the exact same tactics Hull city and Stoke used against us. You actually played worse then both those teams too tbh. That's not actually true, though, There's a difference between defending well and ONLY defending well. We didn't win at Old Trafford and Anfield by sticking 11 men behind the ball. We're not Brazil 1970, either, but it is a bit too easy to label us boring as an excuse to detract from your own deficiences. Like your fans did at WHL against us this year shouting "hoof" at us whilst you spent 90 minutes hoofing the ball up to Peter Crouch. We've got plenty of creativity and are exciting to watch most of the time. The fact we defend well just gets twisted and used against us. I don't really know what we're meant to do, give a few goals away? (Although we managed that today, so maybe we're ahead of the game on that one). Your on the wrong board, we'd rather lose 4-3 than win 1-0. We can't relate.

I honestly think S. Taylor could do a job there.

Didn't realise he hadn't scored away from home, suppose he hasn't had much of a chance with us playing 4-5-1.

Seens this is a next season thread, who would you keep in the starting eleven next term? I don't think we're a massive way off being a Premier League side but a centre mid and a striker have to be top priorities.

Aye, not to mention he's played a vast majority of his football out of position this season.

Was there any need for the Ashley chants at 6-0?

Premiership Top four: Arsenal, Chelsea, Man United, Everton. Relegated: Portsmouth, Hull, Wigan. Championship Promoted: Us, Forest, West Brom Relegated: Peterborough, Plymouth, Scunthorpe League One Promoted: Norwich, Leeds, Huddersfield Relegated: Stockport, Tranmere, Gillingham, The Poolies League Two Promoted: Rochdale, Chesterfield, Rotherham and Shrewsbury. Relegated: Grimsby and Cheltenham.

He's a grade A cunt, end of.

FM legends?

Rooney has to go, Heskey ain't great but seems to work really well in the Capello system, Defoe and either Bent to stretch teams later on or Cole if he can regain his form from last year. Woops, was meant to quote ElDiablo fella.

Rooney has to go, Heskey ain't great but seems to work really well in the Capello system, Defoe and either Bent to stretch teams later on or Cole if he can regain his form from last year.

Doubt it, isn't getting a game at Dortmund. Would be a good buy. As far as Crouch goes I'm not sure why he has so many plaudits. I admit he certainly offers something different in terms of his height but then there are better headers of the ball around. In my opinion he's not a great footballer and therefore struggles against the better sides. People are saying bang him against lower opposition but that's denying a chance to someone may do well against both stronger and weaker opposition. At the end of the day with squad we have we should be aiming to win this tournament in South Africa (not that I think we will), players like Crouch are not going to help us do that, particularly in the latter stages.

Yeh i know, he only scores goals. Has he ever scored goals against quality opposition at international level? Can you list the quality opposition he actually started against please? bit hard scoring goals when you're sitting on the bench. So we highlight how effective he's been against relatively average opposition tonight coming on as a sub but can't point out he's been shite against the likes of Brazil and Portugal when he's come of the bench?

Yeh i know, he only scores goals. Has he ever scored goals against quality opposition at international level?

Oh and I still wouldn't take Crouch to South Africa.

What I will say about England is we've been much improved against sides who aren't good at passing and moving. Without sounding arrogant we now beat teams we should be beating. However we've looked far from convincing against sides who pass and move the ball around well such the Czechs, Dutch, Spanish and the Brazilians.

Or we'll meet a decent team who'll put us to the f***ing sword. I prefer to see it as one of our worst performances under Capello and we beat the best African team 3-1, coming from behind. Doesn't make them a great side.

Carrick should of got man of the match, changed the game when he came on.

Zidan would make it in the Premier League like, decent player.

Wenger's more of a compulsive whinger, Benitez is just plain petty.

He's such a fucking child.

Djalo has been excellent today.

3-0 now. Absolute no show from Porto, having said that Lisbon have looked canny, very similar to the Everton game midweek.

Still think they'll claw enough points out of a relatively easy run in to stay up.