MFletcher

I agree with that. I thought Momo was excellent in 05-06, but when Masch came in he put his abilities in perspective. Masch can do everything that Momo can - as well as dribble, pass over distance etc. etc. Momo has real potential, but you have to wonder if he'll really be happy with sub appearances. I can't see him getting in ahead of Stevie, Xabi or Masch at present.

He was very, very static yesterday. He just didn't look interested for large chunks of the game. You know, he could quite easily because fourth choice this season if Torres and Kuyt continue Saturday's form and Voronin continues to improve. He's shown real glimpses of quality during pre-season and the past couple of games.

It was a tedious game because it was bitty, chances were at a premium and Dean Saunders was commentating. In no way does that take away from it being a thoroughly professional performance and an excellent result.

Mascherano Hyypia Voronin

I agree that the flick didn't make the goal. I thought he had a shocking game today.

Reina Finnan Carragher Agger Riise Benayoun Mascherano Gerrard Babel Torres Crouch 8/11 I think Sami's inclusion probably threw a lot of people off.

Good result given the conditions. We defended well and Toulouse were never likely to score. Babel gave a couple of glimpses of his talent - the way he took on three defenders and knocked it to Stevie was superb. I was very disappointed with the performances of Crouch and Benayoun though - disappointment turned to dismay when I saw Riise trotting on to replace Benayoun... A pretty tedious game to watch, but we got the right result and it's another away day successfully negotiated. We only drew the equivalent game last season against Haifa. Mascherano was MOTM for me though. A couple of misplaced passes, but he was excellent in defence and the way he ran the ball all the way up the pitch towards the end was world class - really took the pressure off us. (On a side note, Dean Saunders talks the biggest load of cr*p. Not only were some of his facts wrong, but he's not funny and is nothing but an irritation. Useless.)

Alves attacks with a reckless abandon that would terrify me if he was our right back. He's usually away up the pitch somewhere whilst the other team are attacking. He'd be great on the right wing, but that's not where Chelsea are going to use him. If Mourinho restricts him like he has with Ashley Cole, he'll limit his game and left wingers will be able to get at him. He's defensively suspect, although he's a great player to have in the latter stages of games because his stamina is incredible. To pay £25M for him is laughable though. There's no way he's worth anywhere near that.

I managed to miss this for the Villa game, but I'm registered now. I've gone with Reina, Finnan, Carragher, Agger, Riise, Babel, Gerrard, Mascherano, Benayoun, Crouch, Torres for the Toulouse game.

Ideal situation: - Sell Crouch to Man City for extortionate fee. - Realise that Valencia have signed Arizmendi, Zigic and have (apparently) bid for Adriano - thus giving us a window of opportunity to sign David Villa. - Sign Villa for anything-but-extortionate fee. In all seriousness, I'd be very, very surprised if Crouch went anywhere this window. Of course, if we get a huge offer from a team like City then it might be hard to turn down. You never know sometimes.

Most likely due to a woefully inept Bellamy up front, a left back playing on the left wing and Stevie G abandoning the right wing during play. Alonso is a superb player, but to consider him more important to the team than Carragher or Gerrard is folly. We wouldn't have won the game on Saturday without Gerrard, nor would we have been able to comeback from losing positions in the CL and Fa Cup without Stevie in the team. I doubt we'd even have reached the finals of those competitions without Carragher hurling himself at the ball and organising the defence. To lose Carragher or Gerrard would be devastating. Mascherano could fill the gap left by Alonso if he moved on (it's a joy to have three genuinely world class central midfield players to call upon).

Crouch frustrates me. Sometimes he looks a world beater (Arsenal) and other times he is barely passable as a Premiership player (Blackburn). However, he offers us a different option and "has a good touch for a big man". As it stands though, I'd much rather see a Torres/Kuyt partnership develop properly. I think they'll offer more than Crouch this season.

I'm pretty sure it's Bruno's brother Benoit Cheyrou who plays for Marseille. Bruno is at Rennes.

As far as I'm aware, Terry is definitely out next week. They're nowhere near as good defensively as they have been in recent years. As someone else said, the only reason they beat Birmingham was because their goalkeeper let Pizarro and Essien's shots go through his hands. If they had played the legend that is Maik Taylor, then Chelsea could have been looking at a loss there. With Arsenal also scraping through and the Mancs drawing and losing Rooney, we have the rare opportunity to set the pace. If we beat Chelsea, we have a series of winnable games coming up. Beating them would also give the team a real sense of belief that we can push on and do something this year. We have to play the other members of the "Big Four" at home in the first half of the season, which is positive for us because it will give us a better chance of taking points off them and building our tally. I'm confident we'll win anyway, but I'd really like to see Kewell/Babel down the left against them. Johnson was torn apart at times by Kapo yesterday. You can imagine what Kewell or Babel would do to him if they were on form. I wouldn't be surprised to see a midfield of Babel/Gerrard/Mascherano/Benyoun (maybe with Alonso replacing Benayoun and Stevie moving right). Either way, we need to attack them and exploit their weaknesses. A win against them would really set us up for the next couple of months. A good start is absolutely crucial to our chances of success this season.

There really is some rubbish in this thread. Xabi's defensive game has drastically improved since he came here and he's a much more solid and complete midfield player now. People seem to think Xabi is playing poorly when he's not spraying 60 yard through balls (eg. Cisse v West Brom). They simply fail to see how Xabi keeps us ticking over whilst doing an excellent defensive job. If our wingers' had proper movement, we would see Xabi spraying balls out to them all-game, but we had Riise and Pennant out wide. Pennant doesn't really look for space on the right and Riise is turd (in keeping with the tradition of JAR as the forum scapegoat). Also, if Crouch plays then Xabi is hardly able to play a through ball for him to run on to. With Torres, Babel, Benayoun, Voronin and Kewell's return from injury, we should see Xabi's passing range on show again because we'll have the necessary movement and pace in attack this season.

Gerrard in the middle won us the game. He had an incredible game and I was very surprised at how easily both he and Xabi controlled the Villa midfield. I felt that Kuyt and Torres had a fantastic game up front as a partnership and although Fernando didn't score, he played a key part in the first goal and got a number of shots off from his own good work. I felt Dirk had one of his best games for us today. As I said, he linked up exceptionally with Torres and setup the first goal. He should have had two more assists as well, because both Gerrard and Babel should have scored from his passes. However, I felt that both Pennant and Riise had poor games. Riise - again - demonstrated that he doesn't have the skill necessary to play left wing effectively - one good cross across the face of the goal apart. Pennant did lay it back for Gerrard - which produced a good save by the goalkeeper - but he'd been booked and still got up to confront Bouma... At the end of the day, we've won the game, we've won away from home against a good Villa side and we seemed to have them under control for vast junks of the game.

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I felt the referee was woeful tonight. That penalty decision was ridiculous. A pretty "unfriendly" friendly, but I'm not overly worried about the result. Kuyt should have had a goal - but it wasn't given. Riise was at fault for the goal and I maintain that he's a liability. No real flashes from anyone other than Stevie. I felt Pennant/Kewell looked slow and disinterested and Babel looked sharp when he came on. All in, I'm not too fussed. We had a good work-out and it'll be interesting to see what team Rafa plays next week against Villa.

She said "supposedly". Francis and Gary Mac didn't half stick the boot into Quaresma after the game. They basically branded him a show pony, claimed his "performance" would have put clubs off and said sarcastically "all three goals came when Quaresma wasn't on the pitch". I didn't actually watch the game, so I've no idea if these comments were justified or not.

Improved away performances. At home, I'm confident we can beat anyone comfortably. It's away from home where we have to improve and Rafa has to get his team selection right. We also have to improve our performances away to Chelsea/Utd/Arsenal. If we do that, we'll be in contention.

Torres - I think he's an excellent signing. We actually have a player up front who can beat his man, play off the shoulder and attack the ball effectively in the air. Not only that, he's happy running the channels, has creativity, awareness, game intelligence and a high work rate. I'm happy with the fee we paid for him as well. Voronin - I don't know much about him bar a few pre-season games. He looks a tidy little player and he's cost us nothing, so we can't really lose. Again, I'm happy with the player and the fee paid. Benayoun - If you watch Benayoun's interviews, he comes across as the sort of bloke who knows what people think of the transfer and is determined to prove them wrong. His interview tonight made me like him even more. Given the fee, I think we've done extremely well to acquire a technically accomplished, Premiership proven player. He has creativity, although we'll miss Luis' goal contributions. Again, I'm pretty satisfied with the fee we paid because I think he's an excellent little player who is criminally under-rated. Babel - At £11.5M it's a lot of money. He's only 20 and can play in any of three attacking positions. He obviously has a lot of talent, but he's a raw player and chances are it'll take him a while to bed in. We're relying on Kewell to stay fit and I was hoping for a world class winger in the mould of a Mancini - or even a very good winger in the mould of Simao. I'm worried that, if Kewell gets injured and Babel doesn't settle immediately, then we could be in the same position as last season left-wing wise. However, Rafa commented that he has been following the player for a number of years and he obviously felt that now was the right time to nip in and sign him up. I expect big things from him in the future, but not this year. I really hope I'm wrong though. Lucas - The best player in Brazil at the age of 19, viewed as the future of the Brazilian midfield, led his team from the second division to the latter stages of the Copa Libertadores, has only cost £5M, turned down the Mancs etc. etc. I have great hopes for this guy, I really do. Leto - I'm going off one pre-season performance against a pretty poor team, but he did well today. At £2M, we're not exactly gambling a lot on him. I hope to see another left back/centre back come in, because I feel we could have problems if Carra/Agger went down. Sami needs more recovery time between games and Paletta isn't good enough (in my view) to step in and player an important role. I'm not a big fan of Heinze and would rather see Chiellini come in, but whether that happens is another question entirely.