PeteAshton

why cant more people be like Paul Merson!?!? Dear god.

quite possibly true!! lol

Another thing to remember is that football in scotland isnt quite the luxury day out corporate heaven it is in england. There are far more real fans there that at wembley. Also, part of the reason that english fans put their club first in their minds is that the prizes on offer are far more realistic and worthwhile to them (the big sides obviously) than the glory that may one day finally come along with england. the main reason i find it difficult to show patriotism to the football team is the media. I find it so incedibly boring and annoying listening to all the sh*te that goes with an england game. When there is an international break i pretty much avoid sports pages and sky sports news because its all the same rehashed opinions as last time. I love watching international tournaments and the whole thing is always more enjoyable if england are there, bt their eventual demise rarely detracts from the tournament for me, other than 90 and 96 obviously. I'm fully expecting england to qualify now, but the scots can be much more proud of their failing than we can of our success (presuming it comes)

hes always impressed me when ive seen him, class player who is so direct, and thats what i like in a winger. Not selfish, but direct.

hahahaha!! class. i though only amatuers or players under 23 could play in the olympics. dont know where this nugget comes from, but that what i thought anyway. Like why boxers only go professional after the olympics has finished.

not wanting to deflect the thread too much but how did you get on with your family tree, did you find it unbearably hard? I want to look into my fiancee's as a wedding present to her, but i dont know where to start. ta.

i seem to remember Arsenal selling something in their club shop, might have been the printed names on backs of shirts with the wrong spelling of Vieira, f**king idiots.

the annoying thing is that it is all on the back of confidence and had they had a tricky fixture list at the beginning of the season and lost 2 or 3, they would be in trouble as that confidence wouldnt be there and the press would have been on top of them, but because they got that early momentum, they are now really on fire.

I dont want to uelogise over them as i dont actually think they are that good, even though they do play lovely football, but my main thought on them is that i dont actually expect them to lose any game at the moment, and it is daunting. I remember feeling the same way when they went unbeaten that season and to me it is based far more on their obvious confidence and momentum than their collective or individual ability. I also think that the prem this year is going to come down to the top 4's results against each other as there are not enough sides this year who look able to steal points of the big 4 teams. Last season - and for a few befrore that - you could rely on bolton, boro and even occasionally spurs to cause upsets, but now they are sh*te it leaves only Portsmouth, everton and blackburn that are able to put up a fight against them. Teams like Wigan and Reading are now rolling over too easily also. two topics here i suppose, but has anyone here actually gone into a weekend in the last 2 months thinking Arsenal will lose?

anyone see the program about wilfred owen on sunday night? Jeremy Paxman presented it. I have to say, ashamedly, that i'd never heard of him or his work, but what an incredible man and what moving words he produced.

Dont see either side playing an under strength team , theres WAY TOO MUCH bad feeling on Benitez's part , and both of us hate each other equally . It's too big a game , ok its the Carling cup and only the Quarters but past history suggests neither will want to have to put up with losing . I dont think Benitez actually had bad feeling towards chelsea, I think he had bad feelings towards Jose and now he's gone i think it is just a footballing rivalry in the proper sense. Doesnt mean us fans cant hate each other though.

thats sh*t mate, whether psychology is your area or not, you are very wrong. you can make it change at will if you just use your mind. How come she is switching the leg she is standing on then? She should be only changing direction not the leg shes standing on. right then, i dont want to be condescending, but as you are speaking with such authority about something that you are clearly wrong about, i may well have to. 'She' is purely an image, a 2-dimensional image at that. To see her rotating in either direction is a perception of your mind allowing yourself to see a 2-dimensional image in a 3-dimensional context. by the nature of the image being a silouhette, it is not possible to physically see one leg in a position relative to the other leg in any context other then to the left of or to the right of one another. Your brain, knowing from previously seen images that one leg must be in front of the other, perceives it to be the case when in reality it cannot be due to the 2-dimensional nature of the image. By saying that she is standing on one leg and not the other you are allowing your brains perception of the image to overcome the reality of it. This can be shown by breaking the moving image down into stationary images and showing the illusion. If you were to pause the miving image at the point at which the outstretched leg reaches its furthest point to either the left or the right of the screen the next image will be lightly less in that direction. If you have seen it previously move from the left to the right for instance, as it then begins to move back, you will automatically coninute to see the movement in the same direction and assume it to be rotating, however if this was the first point of reference you had and had not seen any prior relative movement, the image will be moving from right to left (as in reality it is) and you will perceive a rotation in the opposite direction. By stopping the image at exact opposite (fullt outstretched to the right) you will have the same scenario in reverse. Therefore, by blinking at the point at which it reaches this extreme position, you are in essence resetting the image and are viewing it with no prior movement and the perceived reaction should be to switch direction unwittingly and whenever you choose.

thats sh*te mate, whether psychology is your area or not, you are very wrong. you can make it change at will if you just use your mind.

just had another look and realised you can make it switch directions at will, or at least i can. watch it rotate in whichever direction you first see it and at the right moment blink and it will switch. ie. if you see it rotating clockwise, wait for the outstretched leg to get to the left side of the body then blink, you will then see it going the other way, if you then blink when it gets to the right side of the body it will switch back, you can effectively stop it from rotating at all and have it just sway one way then the other. its quite cool actually.

i manage to see it both ways. take a look at it for a second or two then shut your eyes, then visualise in your own head the leg moving which ever way you want to see it, when you open your eyes, thats what you will see. to prove it shut your eyes again, visualise the opposite way and open again to see it happen.

not unwholly true that. Arsenal played much the better but reina only actually had two saves to make. It is still Arsenals biggest weakness that they dont create as many chances as their play should warrant. Almunia made far more saves that reina. Having said that the two that hit the post count for something.

these polls are a bit of a nonsense though really arent they. Where is the microphone positioned, which game is taken into account etc. I've been to sunderland and the atmosphere was terrible, i've also been to reading and it was loud as hell. Take all of these with a pinch of salt.

yeah, but part of the reason it looked so good was that it was jutting out over the harbour, not sure it will look right just placed on a bit of land somewhere.

thats a shame that, because it looked like it could be one of the truly outstanding looking sports stadiums in the world. Real shame.

Hemdani is an interesting one. He looked absolute sheer class against Lyon in that game and i was very impressed, but i was speaking to the lads who were running the training course i was on who were all Rangers fans. Their opinion was that he was a great player in europe and they love watching him, but in the SPL he just gets totally bypassed the majority of the time and so he rarely plays (or at least rarely starts) for them in the league and is the main man in europe for them. Cousin is a typical scottish league striker, works hard and is a good athlete but isnt good enough to play in a better league, at least thats my opinion based on one and a half games!

i dont generally get to see much of rangers but was up in glasgow a few weeks back and saw them against Lyon, thought Hutton looked like a very good player. I would be surprised if non of the good/very good english teams come in for him as Right back is a spot that all top teams need a high energy good quality player. He really did impress me.

i think the main qualm is that teams have to be built around him and if thats not the case he has a strop. That is never going to be the case as a big club which is why he isnt at one. Even villareal are trying to move past that stage and improve as a side which is why such a talented player isnt wanted there. He'll never play for a top side in spain, italy or england again in my opinion.

The authorities, especially Keith Hackett, will hope that this is the end of the matter and no doubt Sky et al will oblige by dropping the subject like the hot potato it should be. No harm in a recap though? Clattenburg awards two penalties to Liverpool, dismisses two Everton players [one after instruction to do so by Gerrard], refuses to show a red card to Kuyt for a blatant two footed tackle [lunge], denies the home side a possible penalty claim when Lescott is dragged down in the box and the refuses further claims when he is hauled over in similar [more obvious] fashion in injury time. All in a day?s work for a referee who?s recent holidays included a trip to Hong Kong with the team that no longer appears to walk (or play a local derby) alone, but then again, maybe this is all a conspiracy theory too far and Mr Clattenburg is merely another unbiased, incompetent referee who got it all wrong rather too one-sidedly for once. Talking of incompetent referees, anybody know why Jeff Winter hasn?t been hauled in front of the SSN cameras yet? Is he dead? to be fair, whether gerrard needed to remind him or not, the red card was the right decision, and lescott wasnt hauled down for the first, it was definately 6 of one half a dozen of the other as finnan had his arms round lescott but lescott also had his arms backwards holding finnan and he didnt seem to be impeded. No doubt about the other pen tho or the kuyt lunge. Having said that, apparently it was a foul throw that led to the last pen shout so perhaps justice was done on that one, at least thats what i've been told. I watched the game and actually thought the ref did ok overall apart from the big talking points. It was a proper physical game with challenges flying in all over and he let it run quite a lot, made it better to watch, especially as both sides were sh*te, if it had been held up all over the place for the harsh tackles it would have been the worst game of all time.