Village Idiot

CL games at 6pm are such a terrible idea. Luckily I'll be in time for Arsenal-Milan after I leave work, really looking forward to that one.

I'm sorry random Asian fan, it's either Arsenal or Cristiano Ronaldo. See, this is how life works, you just can't have it all.

One of the few positives this season is how brilliant Alexis has been, I didn't expect him to be so good in front of goal. He's only featured regularly since mid-December and already has 12 goals to his name in all competitions. When he gets more used to our team play (his only but is that sometimes he fails to get involved enough), he's going to be a storming player, and he's still young. Good win yesterday, we needed that.

Xavi still ruled out, meh. At least Busquets and Iniesta are starting. Just realized that Pep has never won the first leg of the first CL knockout rounds. Let's break that duck please.

Over here it's reported as a legit injury.

How does their fantastic achievement for the last 3 years (they lost to Inter in the CL final of 2010 btw) make them the invincible team of the century? They were not even invincible in those 3 years? Name me another club side that has had as incredible a run as they have. Running away with league again and again, wiping away teams in Europe, playing superb football and dominating every match they play, regardless of the result. No team has ever done what they did. None. MJ's Bulls went 72-10 once, and they're considered an invincible team, even though they lost ten games that season. Individual losses don't matter when you win everything in the style and way that Barca did. They didn't sneak 1-0 wins to win the title, they smashed teams right, left and center. They is the sort of post that proves the Barca overhype. They were not smashing teams left right and centre, they were fantastic aye but there were also many wins with just the one goal margin. I don't know bout MJ Bulls being called invincible let alone team of the century, but to me Barca need to do much more to get such hyped up titles like team of the century. Team of the decade maybe, even then teams like Man Utd and Milan would give them a close run for the money. Do you even know teams that played say before the 1970s? Who is your team of the century, then? My opinion is that in football, and in every sport, it's harder and harder to dominate because technological advances in physical training and informational advances in dieting and such has meant that most of the top tier players are physically at the same level. This means that there are more 'top' players than before. Which means that it is harder to dominate. So for a team to do so today, it is much more impressive than to have done it 40 years ago, when there were 8 teams in the European Cup and you only needed to win a few matches to win it. Everyone plays football today, so there are more good players today than ever before, purely because the pool of talent is greater than before. This is simply statistics and probability. So to dominate today in the way Barca and Messi have is incredibly impressive. What they've done is unmatched in the proper context. If someone says 'what about the Real team that won 5 straight CLs?' then they have no clue about statistics. Would say there's been a genuine dip in quality over the last 5 years like. Brazilian & Dutch players aren't what they once was. African lads are just battering rams these days too. Hasn't been an African Okocha in a long time. It comes and goes, other countries filling in... For example I don't think there's been such an amount of class Spanish players in the story of our footie. Some outstanding German lads that don't fit in the usual German workhorse mold too, Argentina has a bunch of great players too, despite what their NT suggests... Personally I think football is in great shape, the problem is that the best talent gets gobbled up by a smaller amount of clubs compared to 20 years ago.

If we had won the same points we did last year up to this week, Real Madrid would be second.

Actually I think our depth was adequate going into the season, bar the defence (where hilariously we haven't had that much trouble). We just have had a ridiculous run of injuries (like none of Xavi/Busquets/Iniesta fit to start last weekend against Osasuna), Madrid would struggle with none of Alonso/Khedira/Özil fit to start too. Again, injuries are part of the game too, but I don't buy the theme that we only have a first XI.

Ah, time to go out and drown my sorrows in lots of alcohol (there's always a silver lining!).

Thiago's great mind, but too inexperienced to carry the team, same with Sergi Roberto (who's a B player).

Aye, we are abysmal. But starting that midfield was suicidal.

2-0 down after 25 minutes league over unless there's a miracle.

Xavi, Iniesta and Cesc benched against Osasuna. Meh.

You can rationalise it as not losing ground with the 8th placed team should you drop points against Spurs.

Isn't that case with most clubs? (Minus us of course ) Well it's better than ours for starters (can think of a few 3-0 leads we have thrown away in La Liga )

I wish he had moved to some bigger club than Fulham (no offense meant), always had the impression he could have featured in a Top 6 team but feels comfortable being the main man there. Too late now I guess.

He's trying too hard to be "on the fence," when all he really wants to do is: http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/imagebuzz/web03/2010/10/11/23/anigif_victory-dance-gif-3649-1286852613-60.gif Leon Best?

VI? Yeah, that's really a gross generalisation...

Look at the linesman in the background doing that sideways run by default. That's job dedication. The angle isn't the best, but pretty sure Evra was offside when celebrating.

And Basel!

The problem is that Liverpool fans are enabling him by turning him into a martyr/local hero every time he gets punished or pointed out. They are not the only set of fans to do so, mind.

There was a point in time where I thought that Glen Johnson was an exciting fullback. Oh my, possibly my second worst football prediction of all time. Mind you, he still was good in his first season at Liverpool, but has regressed badly since then. He doesn't even have his attacking play to balance out his defensive frailties anymore. Regarding Liverpool, I agree with Beren, they are a solid looking team because they have a very defensive minded team, but have extremely little attacking nous. It's not a matter of adding a good goalscorer, their entire mindset needs to change, and quite a bit of that solidness will go away as a result.

He's the quintessential one-sided winger. Was like that at Villarreal (one of the reasons he didn't make it, La Liga wingers need a modicum of ability with both feet), and hasn't improved that aspect of his game at ManU (despite blossoming into a good player).

Would love that, but if it's a friendly chances are it will happen in either the US or Asia, and I would like to watch it live. Just get your arses in the CL pronto. Or maybe we will crash out of the group stages next season

I think that they are just regurgitating old links since Hernández is again on the fringes of Valencia and making sounds about leaving, like last year. He's still a fine player.