Wisdom Body

Pretty glaring difference in physical conditioning between the two sides.

Beautifully constructed second spanish goal there. What an exceptional generation of Spanish players. Italy are giving it all and have the right attitude, but when the rubber hits the road there's a real gulf in class between the two teams.

Centre half that scores goals, it was on our remit. Sell nobody of note and add De Jong, Debauchy And maybe a back-up holding mid and i'd be totally chuffed. A new central mid is definitely a necessity, along with the other positions. Should other signings bleed us dry, we should sign Carlos Sánchez who's a free agent after he left Valenciennes. I'll wait for more than two sentences from the Express to get excited about Douglas joining us.

When I read the original post Hodgson was the first manager I thought of. I was almost expecting Konchesky to get a call-up when Woy was named England boss. I have to agree with the pet-hate though, almost all managers have favourites they annoyingly and blindly persist with, even when nobody else sees anything in them.

We probably have more money to spend than Inter do at the moment and knowing French players' general preference for the Premier League plus the fact that he would have several compatriots here, I wouldn't fear Inter as competition for Debuchy. I'd be more worried about getting a good price from Lille or another 'big' club coming for him. Of course this could change should Inter receive crazy money from Chelsea for Maicon... On that note, I'm not sure how true this Maicon to Chelsea transfer rumour is, considering it'd be the antithesis of what seems to be their current policy of youth and rebuilding.

http://www.ronaldo7.net/gallery/game/13_06_2012/ronaldo41.jpg What he's doing.

They've been like that for years now this hideous, hideous team. They would have already started with the negative stuff had Holland not scored early and they discovered the dutch defence was like gruyère.

The dutch defence is horrendous.

Never seen Martins as bottler, more as a player with tremendous physical means but very limited technical and tactical abilities and not very intelligent. Having got used to a striker who makes clever runs and strikes the ball cleanly, a midfielder who plays perfectly weighted passes and a defender who stops the ball and it doesn't bounce 5 metres away from him: Vade retro Martins.

He'll probably already be reading this topic. If I remember correctly, after the pitch invasion following Sameobi's goal against Darlington in pre-season he spawned up instantaneously and made some bulimic attempt at mocking us. Wearside/Masterplan seems like the sort of person that is totally possessed by his hatred of Newcastle United, so much so that he couldn't help but come and hate us up-close, to feed and radiate his hatred upon us.

Unrelated to his latest bit of handbags at dawn, but I couldn't believe that when he was throwing his twitter tantrum last summer - about the club lacking ambition and selling off the best players - people actually believed he had the club's best interests at heart. The player is not a boyhood supporter of the club, is not from the region, didn't begin his career here, had only been here a handful of years; 10 out of 10 times he's just looking out for his own interests. At least Nolan had the decency to leave with relatively little fuss when he wasn't offered the contract he wanted.

Leeds Utd. legend John Charles played the first part of his career as a centre back before switching to centre forward. He was also top-class in both positions. Patrice Evra began his professional career playing as a striker.

I thought you lot should have appointed the 'aeroplanino' you have in your sig, but I hope Zeman makes good use of Pjanic, Lamela and Borini-if he stays. I was actually responding to the whole 'Zeman crusader for justice' mentality. I think Zeman's okay enough as a guy but probably just spent too much time in Moratti's distinguished company. He's pretty much made sure Lorenzo Insigne and Marco Verratti will be future stars. His team will be a welcome change from the likes of Chievo, Bologna etc

Zeman is a clown. Roma might score 70 goals next season but they'll probably concede 90. Basically not much difference from this season. Not the first time some starry-eyed club president appoints him after a spectacular season with a small team, except now that his favourite scapegoat Moggi isn't around any more I wonder who he'll blame if he fails... The positive is that he likes working with younger players and Roma have several of them

Much better appointment than the other names that were knocking about. White elephants like Van Gaal and Capello or guaranteed mediocrity under O'Neill. Though for what it's worth I think Rodgers greatly benefitted from having a very well-run club in Swansea backing him, we'll see if Liverpool can provide that. A lot will depend on the backroom staff that will be appointed and the support the fans give him. I also think Liverpool dodged a bullet in Martínez, that would have been a pretty straightfoward 5-0 for Parky.

aye big problem with extra time is the fact both sides are too terrified of screwing up to have a go It's been my experience that after a tight, cagey and dull 90 mins the game tends to become more open and exciting in extra time as the teams get tired. I hope Blatter was joking with the Beckenbauer proposal. I don't see why fundamental rules have to be reconsidered just because Uncle Franz and his club are depressed having lost a CL final on penalties at home. Many teams have lost on penalties without being afforded this luxury. Nothing wrong with a penalty shootout, it still involves footballing and mental qualities. I'm sure Blatter is old enough to remember the Euro '68 semi-final between Italy and the USSR in Naples being decided by a coin-toss in the dressing-rooms, with only the referee, the two captains and a delegate from each federation present. I think you can guess who inevitably won that coin-toss...

It would be more humane to let them live in their illusion. Do the right thing.

Aston Villa > Don't think he'll be leaving spurs now that the England job is gone.

He's done well to antagonise thousands of neutrals before even setting foot on English soil, other people usually have to play for Liverpool and racially abuse another player. Whoever thought creating this 'suspense' was a good idea is an idiot

Your friend could do with actually reading the news he gets. He hasn't been arrested, the police went to his house and copied data from his computer, phone and memory sticks. He's one of dozens of people in different teams across three divisions under investigation for participating in a huge match-fixing ring controlled by a singaporean businessman and run by several hungarians and a group of italian players called "Gli Zingari". Filippo Carobbio, one of the players from the team he was coaching last season, Siena, implicated him. His teammates say the coach knew nothing about it. The issue at the moment is whether he knew about what was going on, since it is illegal for anyone involved in the italian football system to be aware of match-fixing and not report it. Juventus as a club isn't involved in any way, the Serie A clubs in big trouble at the moment are Lazio and Siena and the major players arrested are Stefano Mauri and Omar Milanetto. It seems Lazio might be in danger of not participating in the Europa League next season.

If he really wanted to break the mould of the typical footballer, he would not release another one of their ridiculous, "controversial" 'autobiographies', written to appeal to daytime tv watchers, bedwetters and the barely-living, but best used as doorstops and paperweights by anyone with any sense.

Both teams have important players missing but Chelsea has more experienced players at this level and Bayern are missing some of their better defensive players in Alaba and Luiz Gustavo. Chelsea have also had some terrible luck in the latter stages in recent years, so this might be the year their luck turns. Can't imagine how gut-wrenching it would be for Bayern to lose this at home though. I don't expect Chelsea to bottle it the way Real Madrid did. Madrid's second leg performance and penalties were a sign of a side that hasn't been at this level for ages. I'm totally neutral in any case, no matter who wins clearly neither team is actually the best team in Europe. It's definitely strange for any PL team supporter to support any English club in Europe on principle, considering most top-flight English teams hate most of the others for one reason or another.

No need to worry there Micky mate, Uncal Mick already took it while you were passed out.

I'm torn between Basic Mick "Face gloriously warped by generations of genetic inbreeding" Allan and Uncal Mick "Face demolished by decades of drug abuse" Allan, so I'll plump for plump little Michaella "Daddy don't touch me there" Allan.

It's a cult. If only Dalglish was aware of his Charles Manson-like powers, he'd have thousands of red scouse delivering him their wives and daughters, looting off-licences and lynching coloured people.