leffe186

Did you see the truck going the other way? Some real rubbish on that.

Jesus, Rohan Ricketts to Shamrock Rovers. Blast from the past.

Like baseball, but with a square bat and an intelligence quota f***ing wickets and sticky widgies and s***. Get it out of here. I'd love to take you to a 20-20 match. You wouldn't have a bloody clue what was going on, but after your 5th pint you wouldn't care.

They're going to have to offload at least a couple of refs though, there's a 25-man squad limit after all.

Pascal Cygan?

...but obviously I'd prefer Diarra. Who wouldn't?

That might be true to some extent, but not in this case. Getting Parker would be backing Harry, as he would be far more a Harry signing than a Levy signing. I'm not a fan of Parker, but I can see the point of this. When your only fit CMs for the first game of the season are a kid and Niko Kranjcar, then getting someone like Parker in can't be bad. He's English, which will give us more freedom to ditch people like Bentley vis a vis the squad rules. We're still missing a "scruff of the neck" captain who can gee up and organize, which Parker might just be able to do. At West Ham he looked fantastic on some days, terrible on others, but it seemed to me that a lot of that depended upon the players around him. There was some serious shiiiite in their squad. We've hopefully got an awful lot of games to play this season, and need a squad to deal with that. Shipping out Bentley would be nice for a start, then we'll be looking to offload players like Hutton in positions that have cover. I'd be happy to keep Crouch and Defoe, but as bit-part players. Pav was atrocious last night, pitiful. If we can shift him and get Damiao in in January we start to look a decent team.

Great goal, but I actually prefer the one they scored in the first leg. Brilliant run.

What I'd give for another night in Palermo. Get a room, you two. Done it. Mint. (Hope we draw them). Anyone know how good Rubin Kazan and PAOK are this year?

Oh how big of him. Twat. Man City once again showing how blatant their twisting of the Fair Play rules will be. UEFA call for "market value" funding, so Man City's Etihad sponsorship just happens to nearly triple this year to exactly the same as Man U and Liverpool. Honestly, I feel like moving to the US has destroyed all faith I have in the whole pathetic business. The TV money received by clubs in the CL tells the same story - certain clubs receiving millions more than others despite performing worse. I remember Brummie having his crisis of faith a while ago - I feel that mine is on its way.

Done it. Mint. (Hope we draw them).

Celtic. Bloody hell.

Arsenal to get a shitty draw at long last please.

Don't mean to sound woe-is-us, but we're on a different level of not being able to spend. You're years ahead of us financially. Oh absolutely. I hesitated before bracketing us all together - but we have all consistently been knocking at the door. I was hoping that Fair Play might have some effect, but clearly Liverpool, Chelsea and City are confident it won't.

Fucking hell. Liverpool, City, Chelsea and Man U keep on spending, while Villa, Everton and ourselves are hitting our financial buffers. Just when I thought we might bridge the gap.

Happens all the time in Scotland. I lived there for a few years, and was told the Old Firm got all the decisions. Every game I saw was the other way round, at least away from home. Lower sides were getting away with murder.

Rumour is loan with option to buy. Believe it when I see it though.

Black and white stripes, man! You know you want to.

Come on Udinese.

Think Mancini will cost them ultimately. Some impressive performances will come but I think they'll drop too many points against teams they should be beating if they're to win it. Man Utd for me. Mancini knows what he's doing - in spite of the pitiful City performances against you lot in the last couple of seasons. I didn't say he was clueless, however he won't make the bold decisions when necessary this season IMO, whereas Ferguson will. He won't need to, man. They'll grind out draws or narrow wins against the big lot, and beat what's left with comfort. Their season. Absolutely. Their squad is just too good. Man U got a fair few breaks last year, and the first match pointed up how fragile players like Ferdinand are. Chelsea will be very interesting, but my money would be on City. They can now play pretty much any way they want.

So we're saying they need a fox in the box? Haven't we been here before?

Ah, that makes sense. Still, fair play to him, even though the Mail are still trying to engineer a Modric move.

Not surprised about Meireles, there have been stories about him leaving all summer. It does illustrate the problem they have with fitting everyone in though. I'm not convinced by that starting midfield.

Fair play to Martin Jol, like. He took a lot of stick, and stuck his neck out the furthest. Still got two weeks to go though, surprised you took him off, Neil.

Liverpool's accounts will be interesting reading. Particularly if they miss CL or the Europa again.