Phil236849

lucky that rafa now seems to be saying he trusts carra who is fit then, aintcha!

are we doing so well that the fear of mockering has gone?! i've seen the odd snatch of kitson and thought he's not a bad player - had a long time injured but looks big, awkward to handle, good touch and technique and desire. lita's got exceptional pace and can do the spectacular, but is erratic. if i see hobbs on the t/sheet, i'll be touching wood...particularly if no chief. i can see finnan alvaro sami riise

we may end up getting a central defender on the cheap!

met some croat fans in a bar last night - very nice fellahs they were. mentioned big igor and they said that he has retired and has taken up tennis! they echoed what many of us have said - that physically he had all the attributes to be a big player but he wasn't all right in the head. they were laughing that he thinks he's now going to win wimbledon! dunno if this is true...think he was out of contract last summer....

it always seemed sander was pretending to be a keeper. like he was trying to convince himself as well as the crowd. always had an intense expression on the best keepers are all more laid back than our sander you see

he meant didnt - the interesting point was he wenton to say now riise and aurelio are back, they will be the left backs, and arbeloa will fight with finnan for right back which means a better natural balance going forward, and probably some rest for arthur, which i find is an easier name for him

still doesnt mean he'd get into rafas team!

when the team was geared all around him. i think rafa likes to play a more sophisticated system.

disagree, only in respect i think everything you have said stevie relates to the conoisseur's view of "better than". Because a top manager in a top team will expect his players to have mobility etc.

mascher - do you really think that? dont get me wrong, hamann was a good player for us, but i really think mascher's ina different league it was widely reported at the time that when madrid "swooped", contract negotiations with owen were advanced, and a big wage increase was being seriously considered, and that rafa indicated to the board that owen wasnt worth it and we should take the money. my recollection is that it was echo-level reported. it also stands to reason.

neville last played in 1973 - fact!

yes and whilst there's a number of their other players they would maintain are better than ours, i think even the most one-eyed sincere manc would struggle to deny that they'd take into their first team reina, finnan, mascherano, gerrard and torres

hamann would not oust alonso or mascherano from anchoring defence berger more arguable, but not sure he would have been seen by rafa as enough of a player who would stretch a team with width owen does not meet the rafa team player striker mould. he doesn't pick out and out goalscoring pygmies, and, when push came to shove, he told the board he didn't rate that sort of player high enough to warrant the sort of contract owen wanted.

good thread another way of looking at progress is comparing this team with recent "vintages". i was thinking the other day that there's a number of players who played a lot for us over the last 5 years or so who, even at top form and at the age and fitness of their peak, would not get close to getting in this team: eg henchoz hamann smicer murphy berger heskey baros cisse ?owen? another thing i remember is an article i before we won our 4th against roma in rome when i was a lad. think it was in the times. the guy was saying we had a chance as when we won in 81, we had four world class players (cant remember who he selected but suspect dalglish souness and clemence appeared in his selection), and he said we again had 4, and i think he picked souey kenny rush and lawro. yes, no jockey - in those days i recall the broadsheets often rated lawro higher - but the point is we had a number of world class individuals and some who were close to call. Now, I'd say that Gerrard and Mascherano are stand out world class players, and good cases can be made for carra, pepe, alonso, and torres. and i don't think we have had such a collection of really impressive players for some time making good progress, that's for sure. the interesting thing will be that if we have say a £30m kitty in the summer, where will we spend it? depends how the season goes and what's on the market, but i do feel we are closer to having a squad we dont need to change significantly for as long as I can remember. well at least since the end of kenny's managerial era.

Shouldn't that read "And assistant managers are v important if you have a manager who's great at getting his players to try to move mountains in fear of him but who hasn't got the foggiest on tactically how they go about it"?