capriccioso

Benitez is rubbish and anyone denying that is either a scouser or has been brainwashed by scousers. Moyes would be the sane choice but I'm concerned that the players will get back to their tricks and get him fired if he tries to break them up. Even if you have empirical evidence that Benitez is a quality manager, he's a bumbling fool. We'll go back the Liverpool way splashing cash on the Ryan Babel's and David N'Gog's and Nabil El Zhar's of the world.

I guess you have a point there, zola. Thank fuck Bosingwa doesn't play often on the left.

Bloody daylight savings adjusted time zones.

Dribbling's a great place to start, can he cross though? Does he track back?

He doesn't need to improve, he's already within the top 5 defensive midfielders in the world. Mascherano, Busquets, Mikel, Pirlo, Xabi Alonso (in no particular order).

Kick offs in 20 minutes, right?

That is an awesome post

Here's a nice article, sorry if it has already been posted: http://www.carefreechronicles.com/2012/03/stopping-bale-more-than-right-backs-job.html

My previously unbreakable confidence in that the Spurs game will be a win has been shattered when I realised I wore a white shirt to sleep last night

I would happily support Jaimin, Choulo, Kieran Vogel and Spike. They're all top quality posters and I've never seen them deal with even the most troublesome posters in a harsh or unfair manner. Good luck to all the applicants and sorry if I missed out on anyone!

Hawthorn have the most talented forward in the league, Lance 'Buddy' Franklin. But he's inconsistent and has discipline problems, you can almost guarantee he'll be suspended for a game this season. It depends on how he starts the season, if he starts it brilliantly there's every chance he can do what he did in 2008 and break the 100 goal barrier, if he starts poorly I think he'll be erratic and only finish with 60-70. I suppose a comparison to football would be Drogba; he can be a giant some games and even continue that throughout the whole season but he's not the type of guy that will dig himself out of a tough situation.

We're underestimating the pressure of leading... some teams like Manchester United are excellent leaders because they've done it so many times, Tottenham are in the unfamiliar position of having to consolidate a place rather than chase it and I'm sure at some point they will crack. Arsenal, meanwhile, are one mistimed tackle from disaster. I hate to wish injury on a player, but if van Persie is caught late he'll miss a few games and suck the momentum out of Arsenal. I still believe we can win the UCL and FA Cup and finish 4th. We have the ability, if each of these players give 100% then anything is possible. Come on Chelsea! :blue scalf:

My mistake, I thought you were anti-Mikel.. most people who don't like Mikel tend to expect a bit too much from him. What I try to point out is that he's given a specific role and he does it to perfection, no one else in the squad can play in that ultra defensive mode with such discipline. You try putting Essien or Ramires or Meireles there and they'll try to do too much (or in Meireles' case, too little), while Oriol isn't quite experienced enough yet and McEachran is too small to boss the midfield. JO may not be the fastest but its not necessary to have an olympic sprinter in that position. He may be slow and predictable with his passing but its essential to see us keep the ball, and the more we keep the ball the less time the opponents have to score. He may not score often, but neither did Makelele.

I have never been less concerned going into a match, for some reason I have a gut feeling as though 3 points are already in the bag and the 90 minutes are just a formality. Inb4 its a fake sense of security and if it wasn't, I jinxed it.

This is great news, they're introducing goal line technology. If a game as fast paced as Aussie rules can introduce that it makes you wonder why the clowns at FIFA haven't gotten around to it.

To play pre season friendly's I'd imagine. I'm beyond words at the pointlessness of this investment, it seems to be more of a 21st century rapper 'Come at me bro I'm rich and awesome and I own my own island' ego pumping exercise than anything else. Probably just to rub it in to Barcelona that they own an island.

We've got this. 3-0 I reckon. No worries on my part whatsoever.

Ashley Cole's an untouchable so he got away with it. I really hate this untouchable culture around our club; no one is bigger than the club, not even Terry, and those lucky enough to be part of the untouchables can do as they please with no fear at all of punishment or discipline.

There's another good way to go about it

Guardiola would be a massive flop. Terry and co. will be just delighted when Guardiola's high line, 3-3-1-3 formation is being explained to them. Edit: Not to mention teams like Stoke would lol us back to Spain just by parking 10 men behind the ball.

That makes brilliant reading I agree with CHOULO19, if Ivanovic doesn't play we can't risk Bosingwa playing on Bale... but then again he performed like a gladiator 3 years ago on Messi, maybe he enjoys playing against the best wingers. It's got to be Ferreira (who would get monstered for pace) then, or perhaps Essien at right back. No, Bosingwa actually looks a decent choice.

That's going to be very difficult. Why not try a warning system for offenders? Something like an informal warning from a mod within the thread then a formal warning/short term ban for persistent offenders?

No doubt UEFA will write it off as community developments/improvements or some such... if we tried a stunt like that we'd be thrown out of Europe faster than you can say Ovrebo.

Surely you joke about Rafa! He'd be worse than Grant, Scolari and Hoddle combined! Much as I'd like for us to get Bielsa, Moyes etc. the players just won't respect them and they'll "Villas-Boas" them out of a job. The sensible thing for Roman to do is to start handing out one year contracts that are automatically renewed if a certain target is achieved.

Strange. He's been on most wanted lists for decades but once reports surfaced that there were huge amounts of untapped oil in Uganda last year we get an uproar across the western world... smells of an excuse to cover up imperialism to me. Typical of capitalists, they're not interested in helping people unless there's something in it for them.