Phillip

Is that 2 minutes of injury time, Mod?

Are we into injury time yet?

Let's face it. Our team has no spine, none whatsoever. In past seasons when things got rough, we had a hard manager who could keep the team focused, and when that did not occur, we had JT who would set things straight out there. Now it seems like JT has given up trying to do this, and now all the crybabies that make up our team have taken over (that means you Drogba, Malouda, and lately Essien and Lamps). Grant is not that kind of manager to deal with this, so we are left with keeping our fingers crossed and hoping that things will all turn out for the best. Like the Boro game, whereby we lucked out by ekeing out a win when we deserved far less. Whatever we do in the off-season, we need some hard men on this team.

Living in the States, it would be a fairly expensive trip to go to a game. Even now, with me and the old lady going to the piss-up by flying to London from the States, the buggers moved the game to Monday, and so I am screwed even more-so. Oh well . . .

Is that why one whole section in the upper stands was empty? Was that a Boro fan allocation section? Whenever the television panned to the stands, it sure seemed like the upper stands, with the exception of that one empty section, were only about 3/4 full.

Phillip, I've always felt you're actually a ManU fan. Why is that? Oh no, I hate ManU with a passion, you can count on that.

Chippy: You and I saw two different games, and one of us needs a new pair of glasses. I thought Essien and Drogba were horrible.

That's right. I had blocked that from my mind, but you are right in that Essien stunk up the joint. He is now a shadow of his former self.

I thought Drogs was our third worst player out there (Kalou and SWP were the worst). He could not control anything, and while he worked hard, so does a pack mule. To give him the benefit of the doubt, perhaps that knock he took just before the first half stayed with him, but he was playing poor before that occurred.

The problem is that we were not that dominant in the beginning of the match. Were we playing better than Boro? Yes, but not by much.

Yes, but what about his two giveaways in the last 15 minutes? I guess he was the best of the bunch, but boy, what a rotten bunch of apples!

Spot on analysis. We were incredibly bad. Drogba was back to his first year "cannot control anything" ways, and his passing in our end was shocking to say the least.

I am voting for no one. This was plain and simple embarrasing, We deserved to lose, not even a draw would have been a fair result for Boro. No passion from anyone, and no one can shoot straight. About 5,000 to 10,000 empty seats from what I can tell from the television -- why is that?

OK, I do remember that part of his game, so I was way too harsh on my assessment of him. Too late for me to change me vote.

I took an unusual vote for Anelka, since the game changed when he went in. I just could not vote for Drogba, given his very bad performance for 3/4 of the game.

Frank's always had the near post, but whether he is meant to stay there, or come out (he always comes out, so I'd guess he isn't instructed to stay there) once the ball has been struck... I wouldn't completely blame him for the goal, but he should have done better, as should Carlo and whoever was marking Lasagna. Cannot blame Carlo for the excellently taken header at an extreme angle. Kalou was man-marking Sagna, so he gets the most blame, but even then it was such a perfectly taken header that I cannot fault Kalou too much. Lamps was zone marking, and given that Kalou was "on" Sagna, Lamps was correct to not bollox things up by getting in the way.

OK. I am satisfied with his apology. Please do not do it again, Sheeraz.

No, Portugeezer, the angst caused by that dummy should not be unpunished. He at least needs to grovel and apologise to each of us, and NOW!!!

Sheeraz, I think that your only hope is to apologize profusely right now for your incredible lack of understanding, and then pray to the Gods that you do not get banned in any event. We are waiting! If I was a moderator, you would have been banned 10 minutes ago.

I am glad the MOM thread is not up yet, because I am still undecided. Even though Drogba scored twice, he was soooo poor before that, I may not vote for him. Still thinking it over, though.

Mod or Loz: Please ban this bar steward for such a post.

When you say, Kill off the game, that means in my book that we score a second goal, but that rarely happened under JM's reign. We would win 1-0, 1-0, etc. Soooo, I am not sure what you mean, Qaz.

What does the F 213 mean? Is that a difference between goals for and goals against in those ten games? It seems way too high a number for that, though.

I just cannot imagine any reason why a player would want to get on a forum, since most of the time the posts will be negative (just human nature). I think there might be an extremely slight chance that someone in management may check out the forums, but probably only a 0.000001% chance of that.

I could be wrong, but Kalou is one of those players who scores 3 goals in one game against Sunderland or Derby, to pad his stats, but does nothing in the games against average or good opponents.