goose island

another rent-a-g******* happy to get his face seen / voice heard just for talking s****. fat f***ing c***.

perfect example of what happens when your manager doesn't get backed in the transfer market and you end up taking risks on 3rd / 4th choice players. talented footballer (although not as good as he'd like to think), but a terrible attitude problem and a lack of willingness to apply himself to someone else's ideas.

This content is not viewable to guests.,This content is not viewable to guests.

obviously not referring to this season. but they were pretty similar to us at the moment last season were they not? (bar the champions league group stage exit, but then arsenal always get THE easiest draws for the group stage!)

i don't have sky so i've not seen the advert. i think the comparison of sky to a glory hunting fan is the best analogy, they absolutely love the opportunity to kick people when they're down. this is not to say, that they've got a select few chums ('arry redkapp anybody?), who are immune to this treatment. but i also find it hard to believe that anyone gets as rough a time as rafa benitez in the media in general. we were top of the league when rafa talked about facts last season, yet even before our dip in form (would apportion more responsibility for this on squad size and gerrard's court case) it was being labelled his "rant". the absolute worst example of this that i can remember though was when we went out to chelsea in the semi final of the european cup in 2008 (our third semi final in four years, so not exactly like rafa had taken us backwards since his appointment, relative to that time). goeff shreeves' opening question to rafa in his post match interview, in a game that we took to extra time by the way, and a tie where we conceded a last minute injury time equaliser in the first leg at anfield, "so rafa, has your luck finally run out against chelsea or were they just a better side than you?". i'm sorry but there is absolulety no way any other manager in england would get treated with such disrespect.

the game these days is played at such a pace that it's far too difficult a job for there to be a conspiracy. if you measure the premier league against some of the stuff you see in the lower leagues, you'll find that none of these are actually bad referees, but that doesn't mean that they will get the odd massive decision completely wrong from time to time. for me the better referees tend not to make their decisions based upon reputation or influenced by a manager's comments. personally i think maybe 2 or 3 years ago webb fell into this category, but these days he's a very poor ref, and i think this is one of the reasons for that. the foul on gerrard against arsenal being a prime example of that, whether you agree with it or not (there isn't not much of a case against it unfortunately though) gerrard has now got a reputation as a diver. it also applies to the decision being made based on the teams involved. rob styles gave a very soft penalty for man utd either last season or the one before against bolton, for a non-foul on plastic ronaldo, and i'm certain he's thought bolton are a rough side, must have been a foul. managers moaning about protecting players can work both ways. ferguson, has "earned" (bullied more like) the privilege of saying what he likes in the press and using this to influence referees decisions. rafa has talked about torres needing more protection, but it's clear to see in some games that he doesn't get enough. maybe rafa hasn't done enough work for the lma for his comments to have a positive influence. would agree that wiley is the best in the league at the moment. very rarely gets big decisions wrong. would say the most improved is clattenburg this season. regardless of all the above though lee mason is from bolton and as far as i'm concerned is suspect. was assigned the fa cup final in 2006, but was changed when we got there.