The Skipper

The same intensity that we had against Burnley in the first half... That's all I ask for. If we do that we kill these wannabes.

Can't blame him. He's not comfy on his left foot at all.

Finally. Brilliant move that.

Hopefully we'll get Luis on in half time, we're lacking control from the flanks and not getting the ball to our danger side (Hazard, Fabregas) too often. They're also playing very narrow. We need to stretch them.

I'm certain we'll step it up at HT. Hopefully we can nick a goal before that though.

Don't say that.

Blackface has it's similarities with Black Pete but I think Blackface sketches are definitely more offensive IMO, since they do try to imitate stereotypical black actions and such, with a typical one being the 'happy guy from the plantation' sketch which used to be huge in America when slavery was big. It might be due to the fact that there isn't a huge black population in Australia (I think), as compared to other countries.

That's interesting, the main debate seems to be however that Black Pete has atypical 'black features', hence why some think it's derogatory. Some extreme people try to relate it to slavery? As in the Piets are Sinterklaas' slaves... Funny I know. I personally don't have much of a problem with it though, although I can see why some may find it a bit offensive... But maybe that's because I'm not permanently located in NL anymore, so my views on it aren't worth much IMO...

Oh wow, that's very interesting. Never knew that. I guess I can add Indonesia to 'countries I'd like to visit' now... Tell me a little bit about your country... What are the main attractions and such?

Both. Last season, the 'headless chicken' Di Maria disappeared, and the new Di Maria started to make a lot of great decisions on whether to pass or shoot or dribble and just in his general game. Hence why he had a fantastic season last year.

Hope this means Torres is off.......

RIP to those 4 young people, and RIP to the 500 young Palestinians that IDF have killed.

Well, our manager obviously completely disagrees with you.

It's a cringeworthy and desperate attempt from the media to try and label Costa from the get go.

That is extremely harsh, Nani has never been anywhere near as good as Di Maria was last season in his whole career. Di Maria is also a very intelligent, hard working player. Nani is neither of those. The only similarity they both probably have is that they're both good dribblers with pace, the similarity ends there though.

This is really old news, she said this some time last year.

Hey pal! I guess it's just who I am and how I was brought up. I don't look or react to hostility or negativity as badly as others... It takes a lot of nonsense to get me angry. When I do get angry though it's a different story, I pretty much explode. Of course! Hmm... As a local I really enjoy going to places like Haarlem or Groningen... Both are very rich culturally, and beautiful cities. I enjoy grabbing a bike and just exploring the cities, and the beauty of them. There are also a few museums and historical places there which you might enjoy i.e. in Haarlem there is a tree rumoured to have the initials of Napoleon's soldiers which they carved in themselves... Of course there is also the excellent cafés around in pretty much every city that you just must try. Yeah they both are. I've been numerous times and absolutely love it there. Might even retire there God willing. It's really nice down in NL when it comes to racism and discrimination - almost everyone is completely against such. Holland is probably one of the most tolerant countries in the world. However, whilst I personally never had any problems there are some issues that do arise now and then. For example right now, there is the 'Zwarte Piet' phenomena going on. Incase you don't know who Zwarte Piet is, he is one of Sinterklaas' (the equivelant to Santa Claus) helpers: Even though it's been part of Dutch culture for decades, people are now starting to realise/protest that it's actually pretty derogatory towards black people. A lot of campaigns and protests are now starting to pick up steam to remove "zwarte" (black) from Zwarte Piet. A quick google search; here's a decent article from the BBC detailing such actually: http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/0/24744499

Yup, definitely the former. People can't live without technology these days and isn't seen as a bad thing, and it's always readily available everywhere unlike the latter.

Not so much anything to do with Cahill tbh - just think that having Azpi and Luis as fullbacks + Ivanovic who doesn't deserve to be dropped will provide more attacking impetus for us, not only from a more attacking set of full backs but also from set pieces( even though Cahill is pretty good at set pieces too - just don't think Ivanovic deserves to be dropped after his excellent game last Monday.

You said he's 'performed consistently well at the highest level' for the last 5 years which is a flat out lie. I've been watching Real consistently for the last 5 years and last season's was Di Maria's best by far, he was never as consistent as he was last season any other season in his Real career, hence why you can't really say he's 'performed consistently well at the highest level'.

What are you on about? Di Maria had his first consistent season in his career at Real last year.

Don't even ask me to explain why because I honestly don't get it. This last Fitr Eid (it's the Muslim holiday at the end of the holy month of fasting, Ramadan) they prevented mosques from doing the Eid prayer (a very famous Muslim tradition). It's really not defending or making excuses for Islam when one says that ISIS are not Muslim. Yeah, I have muslim friends and know a lot about how treasured all those events and places are since I used to have a lot of debates with them but wow... That's awful. I wouldn't even remotely affiliate IS with Islam anymore, that's shocking.

Wow. Incredible if true.