goose island

agree with most of what you've posted except the bit in bold. i think there's definitely a case to say that the pre-season activities left us under-prepared for the actual season to come. all the more frustrating that we didn't have the champions league qualifier getting in the way at the start of the season, although maybe you could argue that having so much riding on a game that early served us well in the past. most people seem to be in agreement that the side over-achieved last season, and it's no doubting that an in form xabi alonso was a massive factor in that. we all know what he's capable of on his day, but we'd never seen him do it on such a consistent basis as last season. before then it was always a few games in isolation. for whatever reasons, it's now clear that he was always leaving in the summer and that Rafa had to change the way we played to account for this. he's made mistakes in doing so, but the team was always going to take time in adopting to a new style of play and the injuries we've had means that we've had to revert to grinding out results in an unfashionable way. stats like 6/7 clean sheets in the last 8 games justify this approach (when looked at against our defensive record this season), but it will ultimately be judged at the end of the season. he divides opinions more than any other player it seems, but i've really been impressed with lucas this season. he doesn't have it in him yet to completely dominate a game for 90mins, but he's shown a steady improvement all over the park. i still think that gerrard gives away a lot at times positionally at centre midfield. the few times he has played there this season he hasn't impressed me personally and i don't think that he could control the game from midfield even remotely close to what xabi alonso was capable of, meaning that we would still be giving away chances and exposing our defence but also losing him where he's most dangerous, about 15-20 yards further upfield. another factor i think Rafa under-evaluated the effect of was letting both Alonso and Hyypia go in the same season. the Greek has done a great job since he's come into the side, but Hyypia would still have been 10 times a better leader on the pitch and i think we've effectively lost 2 leaders in those 2 players. he's apparently not setting the world alight at City, but I'm still a bit envious to have seen what sort of effect signing Gareth Barry would have had to our side.

haha! cisse being unable to understand the offside trap, the offside law in general or the ability to do anything other than t*** it as hard as he could any time he was in on goal probably helped him on his way to (a) being a bit s***, and (b) being asked to play right wing. this is a player by the way, who has left liverpool to achieve the square root of f*** all (that's a favourite of yours i've noticed by the way), he must have been mismanaged by "the spaniard" so much that even that good old down to earth back to basics young british manager steve bruce couldn't seem to fix him.

hate lawro's predictions for us this season, every one seems to have a dig at the ultra cautious benitez reverting to type (today's has a jibe about us playing a back 8). quiffy c***. worried about adebayor for this one, depends which personality turns up as when he's up for it he's pretty dangerous.

also thought of Bolo which makes 7 so maybe Anelka doesn't count as he's 3 and not 2. or the question is s***.

name 6 players that have played for 2 out of man u, liverpool, arsenal & chelsea and in la liga...

did either of them do anything all game? do they have flags?!

always thought the quick free kick rule was you can take it quickly unless you ask the ref for 10 yards. that's when you have to wait for the whistle. is he/she a geordie?

more like this coming from someone who suffers from kneejerk-itis.

the famous Man United beat Sunderland 1-0 at Old Trafford last year with a goal in the first minute of injury time after a deflected shot came back off the post into the path of Vidic. sometimes it is difficult to break down a side that play with every man behind the ball and practically 6 inside their own penalty area. game changed when Rafa made a substitution - is this a positive or negative comment about the manager? i'm guessing negative, so do you want us to make substitutions earlier than the 63rd minute? should we make all 3 at half time if we're not winning 8-0 because that's what Mourinho would do? to be honest, can't see why i'm bothering. your mind is made up regardless of the result.

arguments i don't understand... 1. the points total Rafa won the Spanish league with wouldn't get close to winning in England / Mourinho has won the league everywhere he's been... so that would be... (i) Portugal - with the best team in the league (ii) Chelsea - with one of the best teams in the league and the biggest budget at that time (iii) Inter - with the best team in the league where the main challengers - Juventus & Milan - were penalised heavily for match fixing. so "special" Jose wins the 1-horse race every year while sliding away into European Cup oblivion year after year. 2. Rafa has had 5 years and not won the league here... do people not remember the situation he took over in? the league was never on the horizon for so long before him. we finished 30+ points from the top in 03/04. before he arrived we'd spent considerable money on dross that it was impossible to recoup any sort of worthwhile budget from. didn't diao see out a 5 year contract here? clubs weren't exactly queueing up to sign cheyrou or le tallec were they? anyone else remember wincing when they saw £11m record signing el hadji diouf sold to bolton for "an undisclosed fee" on that SSN ticker bar thing. and if the league wasn't on the horizon when he arrived, the thought of European success was light years away, but our manager basically wrote the blueprint for English clubs to dominate the competition for the last 5 years. 3. It's Rafa's squad now... yes, and it was also Rafa's squad last season when we were s*** hot... 4. s*** transfer record... the duds of many top managers have probably been debated here about a million times. Rafa Benitez's transfer duds seem to have their own f***ing website, star sign and postcode the amount of times they're dragged up in the media here (that's a separate argument though). up until last season, this squad had shown improvement year by year. this is with building up a squad with a modest budget spread over improving many positions, not being able to throw £20m at one player. he's done that now on 4 occasions... (i) Torres - apparently a massive risk at the time, will he adapt to the English game? Ferguson said no. (ii) Masherano - rescued from wilderness at West Ham, would walk into most of the top European sides. (iii) Keane - we overpaid, Rafa bad. 'Arry Redkapp overpaid to take him back & he's now on loan at Celtic, 'Arry good... (iv) Aquilani - not looking good, the lads been crocked for so long though. i'll reserve judgement on the basis that Rosicky, Nasri & Hleb were all used sparingly by Wenger in their first seasons in England 5. He upset Xabi Alonso... come on, the lad's a f***ing professional footballer and a grown man. 50% tax bracket anyone? 6. Alternatives - Mourinho would crawl here... seriously, wake up. he won't and wouldn't. Even "lump it to the big man" Martin O'Neill would be mad to. Curbishley or Strachan on the other hand... i don't think anyone wants to make excuses for the awful season we've had this season. the manager has got to share some blame for that, but given the lack of funding he's received this season has been coming since the yanks took over. we've not been able to improve the squad since the initial transfer splurge post Athens because any money being invested into the squad has had to be recouped. it's resulted in taking risks to try an maintain the level of success we'd achieved since 2004 and they haven't paid off so far. let's see what we can achieve with the remainder of this season and back the man for the start of the next.

you mean the recent game v Arsenal where he did that great bit of skill to beat his man and crash the ball against the bar, followed by being unable to trap a bag of cement for the rest of the match.

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wouldn't hold your breath on that one. just had the blue in our office claiming the greek has cost him £200 (he'd put money on Fellaini winning their player of the season). tried to explain that it's his right ankle he's injured (the one that he stamps with), but he was having none of it. he then went on to say everton must be the unluckiest club in the world.

agree with all that except the goatee. it needs to go, we've won f*** all since he grew it. bringing us out of the wilderness in european competition has to be the one though, even if it did teach ferguson how to do the same with the mancs. exposing the yanks for being a pair of frauds was a pretty mean feat, plus the fact that he's still here because he loves it.

i'm beyond caring who wins what now, i just want us to finish 4th & win the uefa cup and then forget that the league and domestic cup campaigns of this season ever happened.

he's odious. i love that picture from the day he took sheffield united down with jewell both fists in the air and warnock just staring at him looking disheartened. he's a spiteful, hateful mess. would be perfect managing the Ev when they drop into the championship after champagne davey moyes leaves for the chance at a big club like he deserves.

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i could be wrong, i seem to remember bellamy playing left hand side of the 3/5 more often than not.

summed up perfectly by the unbelievable cross-field ball gerrard put to him on the right, only for him to control it well and proceed to knock it out for a goal-kick. grinning t***.

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how wiley was not on the list of the supposed best refs in this league that someone posted a few pages back i'll have no idea. he's easily the best. webb smacks of trying too hard. thought we were lucky to get away with the agger / bendtner one, even though agger seemed pretty clear what was going on. think bendtner was already on his way down by the time there was contact so he must have been looking for it. i think by the time we'd finally got round to taking that free-kick webb was too concerned with just ending the game to give anything else. fabregas is always snide though, was the same at ours in the 4-4 last year. even though we lost, i thought we approached the game in the right manner. in view of the 2 defeats in their previous 2 games, it would have been naive to think that arsenal would be there for the taking without some sort of backlash. thought we didn't look under pressure until carragher went off, but we were always going to struggle to hold on with a back four of degen-skrtel-agger-insua. i still don't think that we should have used that as an excuse to go for it, as we conceded from the only time that fabregas found space between our defence and midfield (can't remember exactly what preceded, but both lucas & masch were caught far too high up the field). had we set up differently, arsenal would have tore us apart. other than that, babel for all his enthusiasm (you could see on the telly he was proper rushed with adrenalin after that shot!) couldn't trap a bag of cement for the rest of the time he was on the pitch. surprised to see maxi start ahead of riera or even fab aurelio on the left. and was impressed with lucas' performance again, has improved massively in the past 12 months that lad. i know i've not really replied to your post, but i couldn't be arsed going into another thread to put down my thoughts about the match.

the funny thing is, it's his right ankle that he's injured (i.e. the one he uses to stamp down on the Greek's leg). of course, you expect no less from Moyes other than a refusal that his player has done any wrong. especially seen as there was nothing about Pienaar's tackle on Mascherano that he could try and claim a yellow card was a suitable punishment.