lawrie

Saturday, 04 March 2006 Aston Villa 1-1Portsmouth Fulham 2-1 Arsenal Liverpool 2-0 Charlton Middlesbrough 2-0 Birmingham Newcastle 1-2 Bolton West Brom 1-1 Chelsea West Ham 1-0 Everton Sunday, 05 March 2006 Man City 2-1 Sunderland Tottenham 2-0 Blackburn Monday, 06 March 2006 Wigan 1-1 Man Utd

He wants to play for his country tonight and I'm sure Carra (who has probably played more minutes than Stevie has this season) wants to as well.

Round 27 Fixtures: Wednesday, 22 February 2006 Newcastle v Charlton 1-1 Saturday, 25 February 2006 Birmingham v Sunderland 2-0 Blackburn v Arsenal 2-1 Charlton v Aston Villa 1-2 Chelsea v Portsmouth 3-0 Newcastle v Everton 1-1 Sunday, 26 February 2006 Bolton v Fulham 2-0 Liverpool v Man City 2-0 West Brom v Middlesbrough 1-1

agree with every word

Best midfield in Europe? Don't think so... unless you take their wingers into account

Not only has Gerrard been our best player by far, I think he's been the Premiership's best player so far this season too

Agree with anny road on this that Gerrard had to play. With our recent run of poor results it was essential that we won today. The confidence the win will have given us will stand us in good stead for Tuesday and beyond. As for Stevie's actual performance I thought it went up several notches in the second half after moving into the centre and he easily looked what he is - our most creative player I think Crouch has enough of his own "blinkers of the faithful" to worry too much about Fowler's

Round 26 Fixtures: Saturday, 11 February 2006 Arsenal v Bolton, 3-1 Aston Villa v Newcastle, 2-0 Everton v Blackburn, 1-1 Fulham v West Brom, 1-1 Middlesbrough v Chelsea, 2-1 Portsmouth v Man Utd, 0-2 Wigan v Liverpool, 0-1 Sunday, 12 February 2006 Man City v Charlton, 2-0 Sunderland v Tottenham, 1-2 Monday, 13 February 2006 West Ham v Birmingham, 2-0

Owen Anelka Defoe Yakubu

Honestly haven't got a clue but I think we would be gambling less with proven premiership strikers

perhaps he should consider Holland

Sissoko is young and young players are inconsistent, he will hopefully improve - Parker is more consistent, went for the same money but is 4 years older, who'd be a manager, eh?

We need to stop hoofing it, to stop hoofing it we need to be less reliant on Crouch, to be less reliant on Crouch we need to put a bit more faith in Cisse, to put a bit more faith in Cisse, we need to play Garcia on the right and to play Garcia on the right we need to put Stevie back in the middle and while we're at it perhaps Hamann could be used a bit more so Alonso or Sissoko could have a bit of a rest

I've been worried about our strikers since before a ball was kicked in the premiership this season. I think our defending though will get back on track especially if we try to keep a settled back 4 of SF JC SH JAR

Sorry, it wasn't blindingly obvious to me that Baros wasn't good enough. I was ok about him going only because I thought it meant Owen was coming back.

I think bringing Robbie back is the clearest indication of all that Rafa no longer rates them enough

Owen Baros Anelka Fowler now/Sinama-Pongolle later

we have players who can (and do) hit shots accurately from outside the box but how often do you see a striker anticipating a possible rebound or deflection

The top 6 teams will always take points off one another generally over the course of a season thereby largely negating these results overall. I believe that in several seasons when Manure won the Premiership they had the worst results against the other 5 teams in the top 6 than any of the others had against each other. Granted its a slightly different situation at the moment with Chelsea being so strong but its still how you get on against the middle to lower order that really matters in the general scheme of things and this is an area where we have definately made strides this season - onwards and upwards

surprised by the Anelka one - I think he would have continued to do well for us

Crouch because I didint think he was good enough to be a Liverpool player

it would have been if he'd made contact

I'm mysified by those who dont think having a goalscorer would be useful. I'm sure there's one out there somewhere who can both play with his back to goal AND capitalise on our every increasing number of chances created. What's more I'm pretty sure Rafa thinks there's one out there somewhere as well. It's OK being happy with our current form, I'm personally ecstatic, but against the better teams sometimes its taking that only chance in the game which is the difference between three points or nil points.

I don't expect Lampard to be in the running for Player of the Year to be honest. I expect it to be between Stevie and Rooney