Hughesy

Don't forget being interviewed by the press. Particularly disgraceful.

Not sure how people who don't like London manage to meet these horrifically unpleasant people. Maybe I am just used to it (or indeed one of those unpleasant people) but I can't say I have seen much evidence of this phenomenon.

As if he shoots because the crowd tells him to..

Should have picked Nathan, wont get many points for a Leicester player....... Oops...

Exactly. It's f***ing rank. Of course we're deluded for wanting the c*** ran out of town after a few months of it. Tell me about it. The thick c***s on Sky's saturday afternoon thing we moaning on about how Villa fans didn't give McLeish a chance, how he did an ok job. Offensive bullshit. He didn't get any serious crowd stick till about March, for starters. Houllier got much worse than that. Football punditry is essentially a closed shop of former pros who do nothing but stick up for other former pros. Didn't see MOTD, but I thought I saw some comment on the Guardian that Hansen has immediately ripped into Rodgers and the Liverpool defence after the first game of the season, yet hardly had a bad word to say about Dalglish all season?

Lloyd Dyer on the bench... nightmare.

I think he is ok at centre half actually. He uses the ball well out of defence and alongside a more dominant partner (ie Colo or maybe Saylor) he looks a lot more solid.

Bare bones is a bit dramatic, Williamson did plenty good enough last year. Sure, he's not amazing but he's a solid Premier League player like Simpson. The other thing to bear in mind (particularly considering our manager's comments recently about controlling the midfield being key) is that we've just added another apparently strong and technically excellent central midfielder to the squad. Just having Tiote in the last few years has transformed our fortunes, and that improved further with Cabaye. If we can get the three of them into the same side somehow, the pressure on the defence should lessen. Don't forget Perchinho.

Hopefully not posted already: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2012/aug/16/manchester-city-player-statistics

May have been posted already - but one of the better Secret Footballer columns in the Guardian - http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/aug/10/secret-footballer-undercover-premier-league

As well as his history with shearer. All in all - a bit of an odd bloke to work out. Find his eulogising about SBR a bit difficult to take as well given the way Bellamy treated Robson.

Also been highly scathing about NUFC and the fans if I remember rightly.

Anzhi would be pretty tough. Just had a look at their squad on wiki... not bad!! The rest are much of a muchness I reckon.

It doesn't even bear thinking about how many goals he would have scored without the injuries.

Never understand that to be honest. Are they just never that good to begin with? Seems to happen to our youngsters (often highly rated ones as well) more than other clubs, but that is probably just down to us actually having an interest in their careers as opposed to youngsters from other clubs. Stopping full-time training makes a massive difference, players suddenly are only training once or twice a week and have to balance the demands of playing and travelling with a job outside of football. On top of this you need the mental drive to play competitively in the knowledge that you top-level dreams are virtually over. That's why you see so many players just slide off the face of the earth within a couple of seasons of their release. True - I suppose it must take a fair bit of drive to make yourself play at non-league level once you have been used to the facilities at a top flight club and knowing that there is very little chance of you making it big. Trying to think now of the players who have been highly rated over the years who have disappeared. Always remember Paul Brayson being tipped for great things.

Never understand that to be honest. Are they just never that good to begin with? Seems to happen to our youngsters (often highly rated ones as well) more than other clubs, but that is probably just down to us actually having an interest in their careers as opposed to youngsters from other clubs. The vast majority of lads that go through the Academy system will not make a career out of professional football. Yeah, I realise that the vast majority don't make it, but I suppose I still find it strange that they don't even get taken on by league 2/non league teams and at least make a go of it at that level. You would think that they must have been pretty talented to have been picked up by a PL team at a young age and then had the benefit of years of good coaching.

Never understand that to be honest. Are they just never that good to begin with? Seems to happen to our youngsters (often highly rated ones as well) more than other clubs, but that is probably just down to us actually having an interest in their careers as opposed to youngsters from other clubs.

I like Matt Holland as well but the BBC seem to use him very sparingly. Don't care what anyone else says either, I still think Savage is a good pundit. Think Savage is quite good. Jason Roberts on the other hand... I remember sitting through a 606 on Radio Five in which Jason Roberts, who I believe is a PFA representative of some kind, was claiming that it was acceptable to deliberately try to injre someone who is showboating.

I remember not being sure whether own goals were in fact called 'home goals'. I suppose the abbreviation 'o.g.' should have been a clue..

You can't just say "who though?". The club will obviously have a list of well scouted players who they'd want who most of us haven't heard of or haven't seen much of. Carroll being asked to pick up where he left off with us is as much of, if not more of, a risk than us signing an "unknown" from abroad. If someone says there are much better players around for £15 million, their argument somewhat flounders if they can't actually name a better player.

I can't now remember, but did Pardew say when we signed Cisse that the money for that transfer had come out of this summer's transfer budget?

Top work there from the Bantagonist.

Maybe in a business sense it's fine. But, I never really like it when managers talk about other players. We hate Redknapp for it and Rodgers for now chatting about it. Would seem pretty hypocritical if we liked it when Pards did it Yeah.. but it's Liverpool. So it's funny and endearing.

bantanamo bay

That's the point isn't it?