leffe186

Our (Spurs) recent Puma kits have been terrible quality. Kappa were mint, and the new Umbro Man City strips are excellent. I'd love us to get Adidas though, so if you guys fancy giving up Adidas we can move in.

Just get her to strip at 5pm - guaranteed full house.

Villa score from open play shock! They've been miles better than Wolves this half. Edit: blatant penno.

I get far more pleasure than I should from seeing "Hulk" on the score sheet.

FWIW, Doncaster looked good against us (Spurs) and I think had a couple of players missing. We did play a second string side, with a weird defence, but they were quick and fluid going forward. They made plenty of chances, but didn't really have a centre-forward worth the name. I reckon that a strong centre-mid and pace on the flanks would take them apart. Smith will be missed (I presume his suspension starts Sat). Their defence looked a little shaky under pressure, tried to play the ball out most of the time which played into our hands. Go at them hard early on, make sure whoever plays the Smith role (Guthrie?) is disciplined and try to find someone who can do a job at right wing. Ranger would be worth a start, just get him to run himself into the ground harassing their defenders.

It did show loyalty, something Gibson has shown before. How else did Bryan Robson last so long?

Altidore on. Where are you Mike? Yankees winning too!

Hull are terrible. Jimmy Bullard now on - if he gets injured/is shit then they can kiss goodbye to the remotest hope of staying up.

One great insult about page 13 or so.

They won, didn't they? So were Denmark crap or just unlucky? Got bored so stopped watching. I think they just didn't care, they're through already.

Watching Denmark v Hungary, for no particular reason. Jesus, Hungary are bad.

Beckham did fine, he's only ever going to play that sub role and at least he can keep the fkn ball. SWP was terrible until late on, Barry hit two lovely passes for the goals but gave the ball away far too many times apart from that, and he and Lampard were picking the ball up far too deep. Johnson will get mullered by a decent team. Thought Milner did well - decent utility player with no illusions about his ability. Crouch and Agbonlahor didn't really work at all (goal notwithstanding), Crouch looked far better when Beckham came on.

Why do people get so down on a team when they're playing with ten men? They're playing with ten men ffs, of course they're going to look a bit s****. You can't make too much of a judgement call on how they're going to play.

Nice one. Hope their server's up to the strain.

Mascherano would start for all of them. So would Reina. Not for Chelsea, Essien surely. Essien's a better player, probably the best CM in the prem for me, he's wasted in an out and out defensive role though. Needs to be able to get box to box more - I'm sure Chelsea have played several games this season with Mikel behind Essien - bring in Mascherano for Mikel there and that's a big improvement. I agree, but still think they'll prefer the two up front and Lampard & Essien in the middle, like they did against Liverpool. I expect Chelsea to win it this year.

Bellamy

Mascherano would start for all of them. So would Reina. Not for Chelsea, Essien surely.

Carew is brilliant when fit. Gabby does fairly well as a lone striker too. So we're agreed then! Reckon Man U would be better with Reina.

Milner will be in trouble when Downing gets fit that's for sure. Unless MON decides to play Downing through the middle alongside Petrov, which he might do I guess. More likely to play Milner in the middle tbh, he's tried it already. The other major possibility is a reversion to 4-5-1 with Ashley Young creating in the middle and Milner and Downing on the wings - if he had a better striker that could be a really good team. I don't see why Villa should do all of this to accomodate Milner, who is arguably one of the worst players in their starting 11. Neither does anyone else, including me and many Villa fans, but MON has previous.

He's someone I'd have expected to pile on a few pounds since retiring.

Milner will be in trouble when Downing gets fit that's for sure. Unless MON decides to play Downing through the middle alongside Petrov, which he might do I guess. More likely to play Milner in the middle tbh, he's tried it already. The other major possibility is a reversion to 4-5-1 with Ashley Young creating in the middle and Milner and Downing on the wings - if he had a better striker that could be a really good team.

Can play RB and CB. Not sure what other option there are TBH.

I didn't think Santa Cruz was that bad - isn't this his first game back? Nothing Tevz did worked and he barely won a ball - at least Santa Cruz won it in the air a few times.

Agbonahor can be very frustrating, agreed. There was a lovely moment near the end when he lost the ball and the commentator said he "doesn't do well in those situations" - i.e. when he has to think.

Thought both teams looked decent, Man City need someone to direct their defence a bit (like, say, Dunne instead of Toure) but had loads of possession and eventually broke them down, Villa looked better than I've seen them this season. They're not the prettiest side in the world, but got players behind the ball and pressed quite well. Their defence looks solid, but I can wind my Villa wife up by asking her which set-piece they're going to rely on for goals in any given game. Still pretty one-dimensional. Tevez just didn't work for City, but Bellamy looked canny, as did both left-backs. Dunne and Collins did well, and I thought Milner was fine, he knows his limitations and just gets on with it. Agbonlahor is still the thickest player I have ever seen.