Jonty

I don't know much about Ranger's situation after getting reinstated in the 3rd division, but did they manage to hold on to some of their players? Because they seem to be head and shoulders above their opposition.

Anyone else think Paul Scholes is vastly overrated? I mean he keeps possession well but that seems to be about the extent of his skills, and hes got to be one of the worst tacklers in EPL history.

wow you could do that? It's times like this i'm very saddened that i now live in Australia. There must have been pretty heavy security around the trophies?

MICHU GOAL! 1-1

United just took the lead against Swansea :\

Dunno if this is a stupid question, but is that the actual CL trophy you're posing with in your profile picture? If so, how the hell did you get that close?

I'd still like to see Fernandinho at the club, was very impressed with him in our games against Shakhtar, and has a good combination of defensive prowess and play-making ability.

I actually think he wouldn't be a bad buy, whenever i've watched him play he's always been pretty solid in both attack and defence, and if Ash does leave we're going to need another left back to compete with Bertrand for the spot, and a more experienced one would make sense. If people are saying no to him because he plays for spurs, lets not forget who the bloke he'd be replacing used to play for.

Fair enough, a lot of people are tough on Messi for his lack of form with the national team, although its easy to forget he's only 25 and surely has at least 2 more world cups in him, and generally world cup's are won by very experienced teams, and the next one will be in his continent, (while Brazil will probably be fielding quite a young team, thinking of the likes of Hulk, Neymar, Oscar, Luiz, Lucas Moura), meaning Argentina should have a good chance. It's interesting though everyone's only talked about Messi. Personally I think as an overall player, Ronaldo is far superior and better well-rounded. I'd love to see Messi play in England or Italy or Germany one day just to see if he can translate to another team/league. yeah this is what got me looking him up to begin with, I think its embarrassing to his legacy that he feels the need to talk down about the greatest players of our generation, and the fact that he's done so probably means he knows Messi will one day be greater than him. But dammit i hate Barcelona with a passion.

Read all the posts and they mostly echo my sentiments, however I would not say we've improved under Rafa, we've had some good performances but we've also had some horrendous matches, and i'd wait a few months to see if we become more consistent before I make a judgement on that.

Being too young to have ever seen him in action, I've had to go off what i've been told and heard about him in regards to him being the greatest ever. I know he's most famous for winning 3 world cups, and for scoring over 1000 goals in his career, which by itself does make it sound like he is head and shoulders above anyone else to ever play the game. However I was reading about him last week and there are a lot of people who feel his talent has been greatly exaggerated, based on a few things. Firstly his goal scoring record, which apparantley stands at 1280 career goals. However, nearly 500 of these goals were in "unofficial or friendly matches", including matches against factory teams and local teams which would have been greatly inferior to Santos's quality level. If you remove these friendly matches, his goal total at Santos drops from 1088 to 643. Secondly, despite winning three world cup medals, he did not play a major role in all of them. In his 1962 World Cup Win, he only played in two group stage games before picking up an injury, and did not play in the rest of the tournament. In addition, the team that won the 1970 world cup is often referred to as one of the greatest teams of all time, and while Pele was no doubt a massive component of that, he certainly wasn't the sole reason they won the world cup, as opposed to other world cup winning teams that have definitely relied on one star. Thirdly, there wasn't a proper Brazilian national league until the 70's, and the majority of Pele's appearances and goals came in games in the Sao Paulo state league. I suppose our equivilent would be having a league for London based teams, while there would be some other strong teams, there would also be some minor sh*tty teams. Fourthly, the fact that he never played in Europe in a more competitive league. Do you think if he'd been playing in Europe he would have scored anywhere near the amount of goals he has? For all their brilliance, Ronaldo has only scored 292 goals in his career, while Messi has only scored 288. Each of these totals are less than half of Pele's total for Santos, although both still have a lot of years left in them. In conclusion, i'm not trying to convince people one way or the other, really the point of this topic was to see other peoples opinion's on him, because at the same time the articles i've read about him could have been extremely biased the other way and if there's people that actually watched him that can testify to his brilliance, then I may be completely wrong. If you do think he is overrated, who would you say is the best player of all time? Do you think Messi or Ronaldo have the potential to ever be called the greatest ever?

I'm also too young to have watched the first division (born in 92), but from what I gather the major difference has been that it's allowed a select few clubs to monopolize the league and everyone else is just trying to survive (as seen in that outside of the traditional "big 4", only spurs, everton and villa haven't been relegated). Only 5 teams have won the league in the past 20 years, and 12 of them have been won by United. Looking back at the winners in the decades prior to the PL, there was a way bigger variety of teams winning it, and especially a bigger variety of teams placing in the top 3. It's pretty much made it impossible for anyone to have a realistic chance of challenging for the title unless you have the big money to pay for the big players. And on the other side of the coin, it's becomes extremely difficult to stay up once you get promoted, and clubs that do get relegated normally have to offload all their good players and build an entirely new team because of the gulf in income. Overall, it's benefited the rich clubs like us, United and Arsenal, but for the clubs that historically have been successful but don't have the finances that we do (the likes of Everton, Villa, etc.), and infact just everyone else in general, they've just been royally f**ked over. In a way it would make the more competition more interesting if all the teams had a more even chance of winning it. Every game would be more exciting and it wouldn't be monopolized by anyone. However at the same time, theres a good chance that would greatly reduce our chances of winning. So for us at least, this way is better.

We can play Luiz at DM with Cahill/Iva at CB, or play Oscar at DM with Marin or Sturridge (if hes still around, and from what I hear theres been a snag in his Liverpool move) as one of the attacking trio in his/Moses's place. edit: Just remembered Lampard is back, rotation won't even be necessary with him/Ramires playing holding roles, except just to give players rest. That being said, it still makes us look very thin for a club supposedly challenging for the title. If the rumours are true, hopefully we'll be seeing a certain afro-donning Belgian joining our midfield ranks in January.

I especially like the idea of having movie related logo's on shirts, could make for some pretty unique kits.

that pose is just fabulous

clueless git

Was a pretty harsh result on us, from memory we got caught on the counter twice and their pace up front punished us both times, then they nicked the 3rd goal right at the end when we were pushing for an equalizer Was the game where Drogba scored his 100th premier league goal from memory, with a penalty?

Villa have been pretty awful for most of the season, this is a game i'd expect us to win.

Also worth mentioning we face the winner of Ajax and Steaua Bucharest if we get past Sparta Prague.

BATE Borisov – Fenerbahce Inter Milan – Cluj Levante – Olympiacos Zenit St Petersburg – Liverpool Dinamo Kiev – Bordeaux Bayer Leverkusen – Benfica Newcastle - Metalist Stuttgart – Genk Atletico Madrid – Rubin Kazan Ajax - Steaua Bucuresti Basel - Dnipro Anji Makhachkala - Hannover Sparta Prague - Chelsea Borussia Monchengladbach - Lazio Tottenham - Lyon Napoli - Victora Plzen Couldn't really have asked for much better, which is nice considering how difficult our draws have been in recent years. Should be a straightforward win for us, also Spurs and Liverpool getting difficult draws makes for an altogether good evenings work.

Galatasaray vs Schalke Celtic vs Juventus Arsenal vs Bayern Shakhtar vs Dortmund AC Milan vs Barcelona Real Madrid vs Man Utd Valencia vs PSG Porto vs Malaga I look forward to seeing United and Arsenal both getting completely hammered in their games, and i'm glad it will be Jose rubbing SAF's nose in it.

I'm going to The Hives on January 2nd, should be epic :D

Funny thing is, he's got the same amount of goals (in all competition) as Rooney and Michu this season, more goals than Suarez, Ba, Aguero etc., and has only been outscored by Defoe and RVP. How has he scored so many goals this season while playing so badly? At this rate he'll be on track for a 30 goal season!

good first half mate.

yeah this should make for an easier final if we make it there, in many ways this is a good draw for us. And personally I prefer to have the 2nd leg away, when you're chasing a game its a lot easier to do it with an away goal. edit: If we can take a lead to Wales and force Swansea to come out at us, it should provide a good opportunity to hit on the counter, nick an away goal, and there we go.