Guatered

Can anyone explain to me why a selling club would choose to stipulate the eventual selling fee at the start of a loan period, as in this case? It seems to me to make no sense. It seems to give all the power to the buying club- if the player performs as expected or better, the selling club cannot negotiate the fee upwards. On the other hand, should the player perform less well, they can turn down the automatic price, but presumably buy at a lower price, given that they can't be compelled to buy. In other words, if the player performs well- surely it would be better to negotiate the price at the end? Is there any analogous arrangement in other businesses?

The Spanish press seem to think that the Spanish teams got tough draws. As.com describes the Liverpool-Barcelona tie as one of the most equal of the second round, but describing Liverpool as a team of 2 faces, strong at home but weaker away. Quite respectful, all in all. El Barcelona, que se encuentra en estos momentos en Japón disputando el mundialito de clubes, recibirá al Liverpool del español Rafa Benítez. Los dos últimos campeones de la Champions se enfrentarán, primero en Barcelona y después en Anfield, en una de las eliminatorias más igualadas. El Liverpool de Luis García, ex jugador blaugrana, Xabi Alonso y Pepe Reina llega al Camp Nou como un equipo con dos caras, fuertes en su propio terreno de juego y algo debilitados si juegan en terreno contrario. http://www.as.com/articulo/Futbol/Barca-Li...asdasftb_4/Tes/

i think fabregas and alonso would be an excellent combination actually. which reminds me again of the mystery of why the spanish international side always flops. taking into account you've also got iniesta and xavi fighting for centre-mid spots...

The Guardian footie section is running a new column on German footie- here's the link, it seems pretty good (got to admit, I've never had much interest in the German league). Here's the column: http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2006/12/...bremen_got.html The best bit is a link to an absolute comedy OG by a Bosnian goalkeeper called Cottbus. Apparently he's a bit of legendary figure over there. Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ivU2dCMzug Love the way he falls over after it!

Apparently Carragher has also now set a record for biggest gap between goals for Liverpool. Nice one

I'd say Steve Coppell seems the most talented English manager around at the minute. Seems a very intelligent bloke. Would be interesting to see how he'd do at a top club with a bigger budget.

Quicker to the 50 wins than Wenger or Fergie as well, according to today's Grauniad. Not as quick as Mourinho though. Actually pretty impressive to be quicker to it that Wenger, didn't he win the title in his first full season?

Can I be the first to reply? ... Cos he isn't very good? Personally I've never seen anything from Warnock to say he's better than a decent stand-in. I'm a bit unclear about what Benitez thinks though- he doesn't play him much yet refused to let him leave in the summer. This new guy- 17 seems very young to be already potentially challenging for a first team spot, especially in defence.

Where I was living for the past year (in Central America) I was hanging around with a lot of Americans. I dearly missed good chat about the football but the one time they did get interested was during the World Cup. Some of the ones got quite into, and were mad sports fans themselves. However the one thing they all agreed upon was that they really liked football but hated the diving and thought it was ridiculous and put them off the whole game to a large degree. If you want to read a really funny article from this perspective, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/osm/story/0,,1741375,00.html (by Dan Eggers, who wrote a Heartbreaking work of Staggering Genius, who I can't claim was one of my friends, but from a similar perspective) Anyhow, i think they are overstating it, but I do think if you watch other sports for a while then come back to football, the diving does seem ridiculous and very irritating.

Why do you think it was Finnan? I'd be surprised and very disappointed if that were true. The only thing I can recall is that incident with Evra last season, but in the article it says that the defender said it happened every time they played against each other, but surely that was the first time they played against each other. no?

Out of interest, is there anyone who would not have had Sissoko is their team? Not that long ago people were saying how we had the perfect centre-mid combo in Gerrard-Xavi, but Sissoko has forced his way in there to become an essential part of the team, even if it means moving SG out of there. Personally, I'd match Arsenal's formation. Might sound weak, but realistically they will dictate the play at the start, as the home side. If they go 4-5-1, we'll need 3 in the middle to cope. I'd go: Pennant- SG- Xavi- Zenden- Gonzalez Kujt However, if RB reckons they'll be 4-4-2, I think we'd be best off replacing Zenden with Crouch and going 4-4-2.

Racism and prejudice in general is interesting and complex. People accused of racism/homophobia etc often claim as a defence that they have black/gay etc mates (that tory lady for a recent example). I'm from Northern Ireland and a lot of research has been done on people's attitudes to the 'other' side- Catholics/Protestants. The evidence suggests that people can have a friend of another group yet have their prejudices towards that group remain unchanged. The theory is that what we tell ourselves in these contexts is that the person we are friends with are not typical of that group- that he is a good Protestant, or a good black or whatever, but that they are not representative of that group as a whole. It's seems a pretty good hypothesis to me: furthermore, it means that people who hope that you can get rid of prejudice simply by having people mixing are being too optimistic. Someone can have friends of other groups but remain very bigoted. If JT is guilty of what's been suggested he should certainly be stripped of the England captaincy. On the other hand, I think we'd require pretty solid evidence for it, it's a very serious charge.

wa-hey, time to get the tops off lads and go down to st james to celebrate! actually, i'm sort of torn on what to feel about newcastle. on the one hand their supporters do deserve credit for their loyalty and definitely deserve a better team. on the other hand i think of freddie shepard and that makes it all rather funny again

I tend to think that it's more to do with the fixtures. Obviously we're always likely to be better at home, and so far we've had a relatively easy run of games at Anfield, and we've therefore won the majority. Away from home we've had a run of fixtures that was very tough and we've lost most of them. Basically I mean to say that I don't think we've been playing as well at home as the home results suggest, nor as bad in away games as results have been. I think we've been fairly poor overall, which has translated into bad away results whilst at home we've still been strong enough to get wins. But I think as soon as form improves we can keep the home form good and start to get wins away from Anfield as well.

Does anyone know how much of an active role Benitez takes in the specifics of contract negotiations with new players? I.e. - can he decide or set limits on how much they get paid? I don't know the details, but we seem to be avoiding some of the ludicrous wages paid to unproven players in the recent past. I suppose he might be interested to the extent that it will impact on his budget and also the competing egos involved (look at Lampard reportedly wanting more now that Ballack has signed, etc). On the other hand, it would seem odd to have him in there haggling over the figures.

I think you've just got bear in mind that buying players is such a tricky business to get right. Every top manager has bad buys to his name, oftentimes ones you wouldn't have predicted. I thought at the time that Veron would be good at Utd (ha!) and I was certain that Morientes would do the business with us. I never thought Jeffers would make it at Arsenal but it's hard to doubt Wenger's successs overall in the transfer market. I think the main point is that Benitez's buys have on the whole been successful and, as has been pointed out, he doesn't hang around in getting rid of failing players or trying to prove himself right. On an aside- one player we know he was after but missed out on- Vidic. Anyone regret that we didn't get him now? Seems to have settled well.

I think in a discussion like this you've got 2 options. You can either say "ferguson is a manc therefore i hate everything about him and will discount his achievements" or you can give an opinion that at least tries to be balanced. I think it's fair enough to hate other teams, it's part of the fun of football, but at least once on his anniversary we should be able to recognise what a great figure he is in the game- that list of quotes is pretty funny actually. i've got to admit i don't hate him as much as i used to either, quite a lot to do with the emergence of chelsea.

jimmy armfield on radio 5 commenting on the match says that one thing about ferguson is that he's always there in his office from 8am every day. there's nobody more committed to the club than him and i think we should respect that. the success he has achieved there is to me much more palatable than chelsea's (and i know he's had plenty of money to spend as well...) for all that ferguson is annoying, he really winds up us liverpool fans not because of the way he acts but because he has made a rival team very successful. he's done a magnificant job there and you can see why rafa has such respect for him. i still hope united lose every week and it's always funny to see ferguson mad after a defeat, but fair play to him for all he's achieved i say. i think ultimately he probably should have retired 3 years ago, but he has done better than i expected and things look a lot better for utd now than 12 months ago. a few injuries could change all that but for the moment utd are playing the best football in the league.

Any team beating Chelsea is usually a joy to watch... I do hope they do well personally, mostly because I think Jol is probably the most likable and honest manager in the league. I reckon they'll finish 5th again, bad start but on the way up again.