g3.7

the sopranos is the best television drama with arrested development they are they 2 best things on television IMO. 24 is... I don't really like it. don't like lost either. I hear the west wing and deadwood are both excellent though. I do like nip/tuck, which can't be taken seriously as a drama though. I had to sit through episode one of ugly betty ( I can thank my sister for that). it was pure sh*te. not funny, not dramatic, just sh*te. gets the jim davidson award.

drop robben?

he's obviously the best player in the world currently.

that's a massive overstatement there, qaz.

ha.

of all people, you should know about respect, little one.

well, mike it's obvious I wouldn't put in ballack and sheva, what I do want to say is- deschamps! really? I thought he was a very good player for us, and with him we did great in the CL and wise had what is regarded as his best ever season for us. nomination? mutu- the talent was all there.

I like this post. better than any of loz' efforts in the last 6 months by a distance.

agree next week will be a sterner test, but have to say: drogba had a good chance first half, kalou also failed to make the most of a robben pass, kirkland made a vey good save from lamps near post- basically we did make chances...

would also like to say, that aside from liverpool and arsenal away, any other game where we don't win I'd say it's points dropped. I'd take a point from both of those places, but would settle for no less than 3 in all our other games.

So that would be Lampard, Ballack, Makelele in midfield? with Sheva and Drogba up front and Robben left? I think its unbalanced like that. Assuming JT can come back in defence then Essien can move back to right midfield at Maka's expense and at least you have a better balance. it is lopsided. I don't think it helps the striker who plays on the side without a winger as jose will always want that player to drop into that space and fill in. that player is sheva with jose. the other issue is this: lets forget about maka for a sec. essien is our most in form midfielder. lamps, however remains the most influential midfielder. probably the most important. he's also in very good form, but even when he isn't, I find it hard to not include him. so you'd have to say that lamps will play and essien deserves to play. now there is maka or ballack. I think both have come in for too much criticism in relation to their actual form. even maka's "sudden decline" as I saw someone put it, is nonsense IMO. he's dropped form from impeccable to okay/decent. on the whole he's had another quality season comfortably IMO. ballack hasn't given even one 90 minutes where I can say "that's ballack at his best". he has though, given good peformances with a few poor ones. I think his form overall has been acceptable- especially given it's his first season. people are worrying too much about him. it's obvious to me that physically he's at his peak and he's got 2 or 3 more seasons before we can even worry about him starting to decline. as long as that's true, we don't have to worry about him making an impact before he becomes past it- time is actually on his side. the question currently is "ballack or maka". to me it depends. I don't think that a midfield of lamps, essien and maka as attacking enough. I think ballack, lamps and one of the others is as close as we'll get to the ideal 3 with jose. in difficult games, we could use the added protection of maka and essien, but in games where we have to break down teams, ballack is obviously a better choice. what I found funny in a sad way about the wigan game was robben showing the vision he has for the short pass- IMO he's probably the best in the squad alongside ballack at that, but his greediness has often seen him choose not to play the pass and go it alone. the clever pass he made for kalou for example in the first half- THAT is what shevchenko wants... IMO robben is maybe the most naturally talented player in the league... also one of the few capable of fully utilising a free role... I guess, the team I'd play for liverpool (with maka suspended so I don't have to decide who to drop!) would be... if cech is ready: ..........................................cech paulo................carvalho...................terry..............bridge ........................................essien ......................ballack.......................lamps .......................................robben ........................sheva....................drogba with robben playing from both flanks.

we are obviously the better team. I wouldn't be surprised to see garcia, and without maka that might be a problem. I think given that we are the better team (and squad) it could come down to whether you hit the ground running and whether we are prepared for it. you pull the same trick and we keep falling for it- fast start and we come out slowly...

the side we played against wigan, with shevchenko instead of kalou (and playing central mainly, not from the right should be our front 3 IMO. then you can all argue about the 2 to accompany lamps.

it's my favourite novel of all time.

no doubt we will, in fact the result was better for us than wycombe as it is 1-1 with an away goal to us. but it was a dismal peformance from the team, and not because we failed to beat wycombe, but because with the exception of makelele (and to a lesser degree maybe one or two others) the players played as if whatever they did they would win. sloppy long balls to swp? why not- it's wycombe. it wasn't just a case of physical laziness, they were lazy mentally too.

even without our spine, regardless of whether it is representative of chelsea's first choice 11, there were 10 outfield internationals playing for us, players who've won and been key players in domestic title wins across europe, players who've played in CL and world cup finals. it was dismal.

a diamond with lamps, ballack, essien and maka is different to one with gattuso, seedorf, kaka and pirlo- surely that much is ridiculously obvious?

I have the creative zen vision m 30 GB. it destroys the ipod IMO- especially the video aspect. my old ipod died about a week after the warranty ended.

spectacularly bad game, only makelele can say he played well. jose was poor, I made about 6 players out of position- not to say that allows their peformances. I hear he didn't credit wycombe- bad form. top it all off I had a ridiculous walk up a hill easily longer than a mile to an esso petrol station after the game, only to comically discover that the car was in the other esso station- bah. add a brief interval at a smokey bar where there was some sort of NF meet going on and having a cold for good measure and you get the idea of how my evening went... shocking.

I also think that tactile (is that the right word?) buttons are important- especially on a device that you shouldn't have to look at to operate- when used for music, obviously.

So where are we creating chances from? :? How come Lamps is the league leader in assists? Personally I don't think we are "very poor" at anything (with the exception of defending in the last few weeks!) set peices. as for ballack, he's been invilved in build up for goals without actually making the final pass, but it's a good point nontheless, he is capable of more.

heh... so am I... I'm waiting for a time crisis conversion. the motion controls are very good- playing bowling is probably the best example of how subtle they can be... tennis and golf are also very precise- tennis is a game I know and you can see they've given it an arcade style rather than a realistic one, but you can still put tospin, slices, lobs, flicks etc....

great player, won't happen, i'd love it if it did though... as long as we play the diamond, he absolutely suits our system, and has experience playing on the right of a front 3 also.

absolutely.

it might work in the conventional way- it doesn't HAVE to have motion controls. the tennis is very good, a lot of fun with 4 players, but the bowling as absolutely brilliant. the boxing is tiring but fun in multi player (had a winner stays on comp at a mates after christmas- not advised! ). golf is good and baseball is poor. those games come for free however, so it's all good. zelda is terrific- not much more to be said. what I really like is the virtual console- I've downloaded sonic, donkey kong, donker kong jr, super castelvania 4 and super mario 1, gunstar heroes and bomberman 93- some of those games I had never played before- gunstar heroes in co-op mode is something as good as any modern game with 2 players... also there is a opera web browser... which is great as I can watch near full screen youtube videos on the tv, and with that orb programme I started a thread for I can access and stream all my pc media. there isn't any online gaming like xbox live YET, but there will be with the first online games coming in the first quarter of this year (apparently). all in all I'd say for one player conventional gaming zelda is great and will last for a long time, but there isn't much else UNLESS, you are interested in downloading some of the older games, having never owned the mega drive playing sonic and gunstar heroes, never mind the others I've downloaded, more than satisfied my needs. but it seems that currently the console is more a social one- which I think is a plus- my mum, who hates videogames is considering getting one for herself and around christmas lots and lots of people were able to play together- including people outside of the "typical" demograhic- i.e. girls and older people.