Jonas

25years plus of this. From what I remember the home quarter-finals were pretty good (wasn't at the Everton one). Or at least a marked improvement on the usual. Case in both points remember discussing with someone in Feb99 how bad the atmosphere was even against Man United

Ha! That's my abiding memory too, and the rain. Nothing to do with the actual game for a while yet. Stand out feature from my second game against Everton was the same - the weather and that they played "Alone" by Heart at half-time.

No chance. We were awful. Even with Shearer we had to cheat Barnsley over Easter to stay just above the relegation places and had a worse record with him than without. I personally like him but Dalgish gets off lightly because of the PLC stuff and the idea he had to sell being somewhat mythical when he spent 48m in a year and a half (well higher than Keegan) recouping 25m - so spent net 23m to make us infinitely worse results wise, quality of football wise and drop us the fringes of relegation from challenging for the title. Not the worst manager but I think he did the worst job with what he had to work with, took years to get back to close to where we were before another Liverpool numpty did a similar thing.

Don't like that its not just a big game but I'm growing to hate these - dickhead fans now supplemented by dickhead manager, staff and players. I'd rather Liverpool win the league, and that's saying something.

First game against Liverpool in 1989. Goal after 3minutes by a Brazilian international against the champions followed by 3 of the worst years in the clubs history.

Football management games must be fun now too. Cant imagine a more potent wake up call that your looking at sprites, letters and numbers, slipping into nerdom and wasting your life than this PSR guff.

Davor Suker and Alex Shelley

Watch that Stoke game every year, such lush football, like a bunch of solo performances (everybody did something class) and yet a team performance in one - including one of the best fullback displays you'll ever see from Barton who'd have been man of the match in any game that didn't include an unplayable Beardsley, so you know it was the case. Agree, not to kill the thread, but atmosphere has gone and none of these ideas will bring it back. Its a cultural and country wide thing (the mackems with their cheap tickets, no glory hunters, different contoured stadium are admitting their atmosphere is the pits) and its generations now since football was for better and worse sanitised and since the hardcore of every club was doubled and watered down.

Spurs were behind us commercially, for revenue and in the all time table (PL and D1) when Ashley arrived and in conjunction with Levy being there. How can going in the exact opposite directions over their tenures thereafter make them comparable. Spurs have punched above their average (8th) under his ownership, Ashley well below ours (7th) Saying that hope all the stick he's getting hurts him tremendously. Maybe should have spent more time on his own club than trying to hold others back (who are all above him anyway).

re Robert Goal v Villa 03/04 cant remember it just remember it being good, free-kick at Olympiacos (goalkeeper rooted from memory)

Tricky these mind. Got that Charlton vibe from days of yore about them for me, never fancy the fixture Too good and thus too obvious to be a Grimsby so the powers that be may as well crimp that story off. Hope the chances Wolves made on Wednesday will have caused a redoubling of the focus on preventing them. One more massive effort this week. Scrappy 1-0 would do.

'Football didn't start in 92 marra' - Middlesbrough have a better league, cup and Euro record than the mackems going back to the 60s and have finished higher than them more often than not since WW2

Best get this in there on account of Southampton - We've won as many PL games in a row as Man United have won all season

We have much better players now than we did under Sir Bobby is why I'd go with Sir Bobby. Not many of them would threaten this team or even Keegans. Keegan's #1 even if someone else wins something (Gullit and Dalgish got closer than anyone for example) yet Eddie's the one I'd trust the most.

Not used to giving teams chances is maybes what it is

One of those games that you win as if by rote or because of steam-rolling momentum when you're on a run/having as season like this. Soon forgotten but they're the points that make a season. Got away with a clean sheet but trust we'll use that to redouble our efforts defensively, just in time perhaps. They probably created more in one game than everybody else in the league combined going back to Brentford.

let me see if I've got this right The only people that obsess over 'top dogs' the handful of times its happened in their lives and sequences of wins, that milked getting to a cup final relative to us and having one more seat aren't remotely jealous about being behind their hated rivals as per usual, being brushed aside with more ease than Bromley, seeing us get to and currently sweating us returning to a cup final, being absolutely decimiated in attendance comparisons as usua, who currently have half their team as England, Brazil and Italy internationals whilst having had Shearer captain England for years following Gazza as the star player and era of Sir Bobby and Bryan Robson manager and captain before that. - but it crushes us that its vaguely plausibly possible they may have two future England captains that will be long gone from there should it ever happen?!

Asprilla sqeezed plenty of assists and goals into ten games. One less goal than Ferdinand and the sort of assists only the likes of him could do (West Ham and Liverpool) Apart from Batty and Albert there was nobody better than him in the run-in. Its an infuritating narrative. Two understated what ifs - if we'd have kept Fox (great money though) given Gillespie's subsequent injury or if we'd have kept Venison.

They've had a bigger FAC R3 gate than us once in 45years. That they've plucked that one exception to try and prove a point should prove the rule. In that time (which includes our lowest ebb) we had FAC R3 gates 11k, 13k, 7k, 10k, 16k, 15k, 21k, 10k, 7k, 9k, 22k, 15k 11k, 10k, 17k and 36k in excess of theirs.

Chance we get the full end given their gates but last I seen of them they were tauping sections off and think the main stand was/is partially closed.

Unlikey to be pretty but every chance of progress.

There was a little piece about it on the last volume of the 94/95 instalment videos I believe unless it was local news on the release day. KI might have uploaded the volume.

Kept all my old shirts (except the yellow and green striped away one) so that's paid off as I suspected. Unfortunately "Nico" (Papavasiliou) and "Mathie 14" dates two of them

been a cup bogey team - all shit games too

Be a relief to get back to the Premier League and normal spherical footballs I suppose. None of this slightly different balls baloney, I mean what next, different weather conditions or something