The only place to be

I think if you told him to stand in the middle of the park and just ping balls about then he'd manage. I also think we'd lose games but I think he'd wrack up assists. Like I said, I've seen that he is capable of playing the same balls as Mata but I think he's just very off-form. The difference between him and Mata is that when he's off-form, he doesn't tend to disappear. Mata can and has done. It's very easy to remember Mata's highlights and his stats but if he had an off-day or teams neutralised him (which is actually easy to do compared to someone like Silva) then he was on-par with Ozil in terms of chocolate-teapottedness.

He'll probably never fill a stats sheet like Mata but I've seen enough of Oscar to think that he is more than capable of finding and making the passes Mata does. It's consistency that he lacks. In terms of being a key player for this team then I think he's more than capable of doing more than Juan did on both sides of the ball.

How many regulars out and Jose still gets that first-half performance? Was getting frustrated with Ba because his general play has been a bit poor but he took that chance perfectly. Few shakey performances elsewhere but the players are covering one another and working for one another. Our players have shut up the Kop and our support has been magnificent. Proud.

When sung in a nasally whine by a bunch of self-pitying cunts yes.

Good point - if you ignore his deficiencies and the fact that football is a team game where players are required to defend and attack, and view that equation in a vacuum that doesn't take into account the players in our team or the way teams set up against us then yes, he might have been an asset.

To whom?

How? I reckon about 7 of those guys won't feature in the starting XI against Atletico (Lamps, Mikel, Matic, Schurrle, Salah, Ba and Kalas....maybe Cole as well). Schwarzer, Azpi and Ivanovic are the only nailed-on starters and they're probably necessities today.

Kalas will make mistakes. He's young, he's going up against the best attack in the league, it's going to happen so if everyone could kindly understand that before criticising him it'd be nice. Personally I'm just as worried about Ivanovic who hasn't played there for a while.

What people are saying is he's exactly what we need though.....to bring on after 60 minutes once our striker has scored twice and put the game to bed. Obviously ignore the fact that we don't have a 20 league-goal-a-season striker to do that, no what we need is that guy for the last half-hour to break down broken-down defences.

Baker on the bench along with Ake. Nice to see those guys although I expect Van Ginkel will get a run-out today.

And that is a indisputable fact opinion whether you like it or not. Mata did very well yesterday against a team who played naive, open football and he had a decent striker ahead of him....so of course that implies he'd do well for us when we've actually been missing a striker all season and face teams who come to defend. Ryan Giggs has a 100% win record as manager - ergo he's a better manager than Mourinho and Rodgers.

Spanish clubs negotiate tv rights individually rather than having a collective bargaining system like the premier league does. Barcelona and Real Madrid simply have more valuable rights than other clubs so it doesn't really matter with Atletico finish in that regard.

But would they slightly improve them? That's what top class sport is about - marginal gains, the one percent etc.

Think his best bet could be as a Jermaine Defoe type striker - consistent threat but unlikely to be a number one for a top striker. He's still young (five years younger than Didier was when he exploded) but he's also approaching 200 club appearances and 30 international appearances. Don't know how much more he's going to progress or if a consistent first-touch is something he can learn at this point in his career. Was shocking yesterday but 20 year olds will have those days....at the same time he's far beyond the average 20 year old. Different standards will be applied to him.

It's amazing that the guy who wants us to give young players a chance uses inconsistency (something that all youngsters will have in common) as a stick to beat them over the head with. Bravo - I realise you won't read this but I'm just using you as an example of the cognitive dissonance of the permanently pessimistic, moaning minority.

So other teams' supporters hate us because they're morons? Who gives a fuck why they hate us then? What is surprising is the number of Chelsea 'fans' who buy into this shit and castigate the club based on it. You don't have to look much higher than this post to see some examples of that. Fuck those 'fans' too. It happens in other sports too. Saracens used to get shit for their recruitment practices and for playing boring rugby....yesterday the destroyed Clermont by 40 points and scored 6 tries because they stuck with that process, built a solid team and added the bells and frills in time. It required patience and support from their supporters (supporters and supporting come from the same root word http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/support )....what a novel idea.

A bit extreme. Young players on Championship sides exist in a weird dimension - they are at the same time a necessity and a luxury. Teams nowadays need to bring through youngsters, ideally as key first-team members, in order to comply with FFP. You can also go the route we have of stockpiling players and selling them later on - I'm sure other teams hate us for that because we're ahead of the curve in that regard. EVERY club will recognise the difficulty with going from good young prospect to productive professional. Having a 'B team' like Vitesse or simply loaning out players like we do is probably the best method for this so far and we probably do it better than anyone else. But when you put them into a team challenging for the title, they are a luxury generally speaking. Anyone making a step up like that in any profession will take time to bed in and adjust to the pace and you have to cover them. Simply put, we haven't had a good enough team to do that for a good few years now. If you've got an established spine then you can add in youngsters and these other players will cover for them. For example, Chalobah. Could you put him alongside a Mikel or Ramires and expect them to cover for him? Absolutely not. But alongside Matic?? That's a more reasonable expectation, especially if you have a solid defence behind him and players like Hazard and Costa up top.

No age. Knew he had a relapse but didn't think this would happen quite so suddenly. Sympathies to Barcelona and their fans too, because he was a big part of an amazing era for them.

Nope. Funny to see him getting stick for not answering that question from Scousers. They don't understand how a man couldn't use someone else's tragedy to draw attention to himself.

That Vilanova question was disgusting. Bad enough to ask it but then to say 'he is dying' when he's still receiving treatment is fucking disgraceful.

Is that because Rodgers told you that you wouldn't be starting many matches you useless cunt? I feel better after getting that out.

So if Juve sign Ramires, Barca sign Luiz and Inter sign Torres, it'd be like the unfocused, scattergun transfer policy pre-Emenalo never existed. Sorry, but if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

Is this right? Aston Villa away last season Bayern Munich Super Cup Aston Villa away Sunderland So he should've had (and has been punished for at least) four red cards in about 50 appearances?

It's up to Southampton if they want to deal for a lower price but generally speaking both camps would try to come to some compromise. We're definitely interested in him but if he wants to sign for United and stand in a press conference next to whichever manager they get in then that's his choice. Can't say I wouldn't be disappointed.

If he doesn't want to leave then he can't be forced to.