Neil G

The final film in that series was actually called Battle for the Planet of the Apes. But no, it's not.

Keyop was a vital but highly undervalued member of the team, so to compare him with Josemi is wide of the mark. I’d say Finnan fills this role. Other roles: Mark – heroic leader and motivator of the five – Carra Jason – fancied himself a bit and went off the rails occasionally – JAR for his texting antics Tiny – big fucker – Sami Which leaves Reina as Princess. Reina is Spanish for queen, so would presumably have been a princess prior to being crowned. See, I’ve got it all figured out.

C'mon Paulie, he's just an old man, he don't even know what he's talkin' about half the time. He used the same line on that Rash punk on the other thread. His head is like a bowl of cappelletti, he's probably already forgotten what he said.

Easy fellas, I don’t want no turf war breakin’ out on my first thread. C’mon Paulie, he was just breakin’ your balls a little. Let’s just all make nice, huh?

Great stuff. I'm a bit puzzled though - didn't that match take place during the TV blackout in the first half of that season? If so, where's the footage from?

No, sadly I’m just small fry for now. I doubt he’s ever heard of me. I could try to pass myself off as one of his crew to impress you, but when he found out he wouldn’t be best pleased. Who knows though, maybe if my scam comes to his attention I’ll be a player one day.

Would hate to see him leave, but if he goes I just hope we spend the money wisely. There's a World Cup coming up, let's hope we can sign one of the stars of the tournament as a replacement.

29, turns 30 in July. Injuries shouldn't be a great problem as he wouldn't be automatic first choice anyway. Would be a good stop-gap as back-up for Gerrard until someone younger becomes available (Anderson maybe?). With one year left on his contract we should be able to land him for £2-3m, well worth a shout I think.

Following on from the Battle of the Planets reference in the Kuyt thread, I give you… D-FORCE!! * adopts dramatic voiceover-style American accent, backed by BotP theme tune * Five incredible footballers with superpowers! And watching over them from Centre Midfield… 7-Xab-7! Watching, warning, against surprise attack by opposition players from beyond the Liverpool half! D-Force – fearless young(ish) defenders protecting Liverpool’s entire penalty area! Always five, acting as one. Dedicated… inseparable… invincible! (Pics are from .tv in case their lawyers are reading. If you are, what are you doing on here when you should be busy sorting a work permit for Gonzalez?)

Hmm, you've spotted a flaw in my defences there. You'd make a good Spectra agent for sure.

I’m up for that. None of this messing around with meeting up in pubs though. I demand a full-on intergalactic rumble with fiery Phoenixes, man-eating flowers and giant robot war machines shaped like animals.

Here you go. http://www2.wi.net/~rkurer/toontracker/battplan.html After listening to that again I think signing Gera is a must. And in a few years he could be battling it out with our own Chief Anderson for a right midfield slot! See what I did there?

I voted for striker and RM, but I don’t think we need a top-drawer signing for each position, which is what Paul used as the basis for the poll. A world-class striker should be the priority, and the rest of the money should be split between a good but not necessarily world-class RM as back-up for Gerrard, and another attacking option in CM which I think we’d sorely need if Stevie and Xabi were both out at the same time. Torres, Giuly and Malbranque respectively would be my picks for the three positions. Regarding the need for strikers, I’m a bit surprised that so few people seem to consider Garcia as a viable option rather than an emergency stand-in. For me it’s his best position, and I reckon that after Robbie he’s the most natural goalscorer at the club (I haven’t seen enough of Mellor over a long period to make a comparison). He’s equally adept at putting away half-chances in the box, one-on-ones when played through, headers and long-range efforts with either foot. I also think Mellor deserves another chance if he can get fit. With Torres (or equivalent), Crouch, Garcia, Fowler and Mellor we will be sorted for strikers next season.

You’re right, I forgot Diouf was already on loan and it would have been down to Parry to negotiate the best price with Bolton once Rafa had told him he wanted rid. Fair play to Rick then. I don’t think it’s the case that people on here tend to blame Parry and Moores for mistakes in the transfer market though. I certainly don’t. It seems to me that it's just an outspoken minority who do this.

Wtf? Did we really get £4.5m for him? That's the first time I've heard a fee mentioned, I'd always thought it would be closer to 2 and that we were just glad to get rid of him. From a local paper as well, so it might be a bit better informed than the nationals. If that figure is accurate I'd say it's yet another great piece of business from Rafa.

I think it would be best to hang on for a bit and see what happens next before doing anything. There’s no point sending letters too early – if they’re sent in April and the decision on a work permit is made in August, they’ll have been forgotten about by then. I might contact the club with the suggestion, find out from them what’s happening (if they’re prepared to give out that information) and ask them when would be the best time to send any letters in order to have the most impact. Hopefully common sense will prevail and there’ll be no need for any of this, but I want to keep it as an option. If Speedy doesn’t get a permit I don’t want to spend next season cursing the decision and wondering if there’s anything the fans could have done to make things turn out differently.

I don’t know how much of a fuss the club would be prepared to kick up over this. How ever much pressure they tried to put on the Home Office last time, it didn’t work. I’m not taking anything for granted, and I don’t want to just sit back, cross my fingers and hope that the club and the Home Office both sort their shit out. I’ve drafted the letter below to Tony McNulty, the Immigration Minister. I’m going to hang fire on it for now and wait to see what happens. Chile may now be in the top 70, but they could just as easily slip back out by the time the club re-apply for a permit. If it starts to look as though there will be problems with both the passport and the permit, I’ll make any necessary amendments and send the letter. If the Home Office receive several hundred letters on the subject then Gonzalez will get a permit and will play for Liverpool next season. As other posters have pointed out, the Mancs would never have this problem – one call from Fergie to his mate Tony and it would be sorted. As our club doesn’t seem to carry that sort of influence, maybe the fans can if enough of them make their feelings known. -------------------------------------------------------------------- The Rt Hon Tony McNulty MP Minister of State for Immigration and Citizenship House of Commons London SW1A 0AA Dear Mr McNulty Mark Gonzalez – application for work permit I am a fan of Liverpool Football Club, and I am writing to you regarding the case of Mark Gonzalez. Mr Gonzalez is a Chilean international footballer who has been signed by Liverpool but is not currently entitled to work in the UK. Liverpool’s application for a work permit for Mr Gonzalez was refused in August last year. Home Office guidelines on professional footballers from outside the EU state that work permits should only be automatically granted to players from countries in the top 70 in FIFA’s world rankings. The application was rejected because Chile were ranked number 72 in the world at the time. I understand that Mr Gonzalez will be eligible to apply for a Spanish passport this summer, which if granted will enable him to work in the UK as an EU national. However if the application is delayed or rejected, he will require a work permit to play for Liverpool next season. I am concerned that last summer’s scenario will be repeated if this is the case. I believe the current system for determining work permits for footballers is completely arbitrary and does not take into the account the ability of individual players. Mark Gonzalez is one of the most talented young footballers to have emerged from South America in recent years, and would be a huge asset to English football. He is currently playing regularly for Real Sociedad in the top division in Spain where he is on loan, and is earning highly favourable reviews for his performances. Many players with far less ability than Mr Gonzalez have been granted UK work permits simply by virtue of their nationality. The FIFA rankings are in any case a very inaccurate guide to countries’ overall footballing strength – for example, the USA is currently ranked above England, France and Italy. It would be ludicrous for such a talented sportsman to be barred from plying his trade in this country, and from making a significant contribution to the economy, purely because of the Home Office’s bureaucratic inflexibility. As I’m sure you are aware, Liverpool is one of the most widely supported football clubs in Britain. If Mark Gonzalez is denied a permit for the second time, hundreds of thousands of football fans in the UK will be extremely disappointed and frustrated at the Home Office’s decision. I therefore urge you to do everything in your power to ensure that he is granted a work permit for the 2006-07 football season should he require one. I look forward to receiving a response from you on this matter. Yours sincerely

What do people think of starting a letter-writing campaign aimed at the Home Office? It would be pretty easy to put together a brief, polite standard letter that could be circulated via email and posted on LFC sites. People could fill in their addresses, print them off and post them. Online petitions are a waste of time, but if the Home Office’s mailbox was stuffed with hundreds of letters urging them to give Gonzalez a permit it would be much harder for them to turn it down, as the Government would know that there’d be a lot of pissed-off people (voters) if that happened.

They don’t have Bolton, they played them last weekend and won. Their other three games are home to Sunderland, Boro and Charlton. We won't match their GD so they need to drop 9 points for us to catch them, so even if they lose to Spurs and Chelsea they’ll also have to lose one or draw two of their home games, and that’s not going to happen. Second place is well and truly gone, which makes the defeat at OT even more galling.

Thought he might be. I didn't watch them before I posted, will have to now though.

I’ve always thought Stelios looks like Kevin Eldon, who was in Big Train, Jam and lots of other off-beat comedies. Can't be arsed looking for a picture though.

I considered that as well. I wouldn’t take the job under any circumstances, even if I thought I had a chance to get an apology on the front page. Even if the S*n did make amends for Hillsborough I would still despise it, as there is so much other shite that it comes out with which causes harm and distress to the people it writes about. However if a Red were to take an influential job at the paper with the serious intention of working towards getting an apology, that might be justifiable, but only on three strict conditions. Firstly they’d have to donate any salary increase to the HJC and/or HFSG, and maybe more besides if they were already on a good wage. It would be unacceptable for a Red to make any personal profit from the rag, however much good they might be achieving. Secondly, if they did secure a front-page apology, they couldn’t stop there, but would have to continue to push the paper to uncover the truth. This would mean getting the paper to use its clout to lobby the government for a fresh inquiry, which would have the added effect of keeping the story in the headlines and ensuring that the general public got the message about the original story being a lie. Thirdly they’d have to be unconcerned about getting the bullet if they started rocking the boat, and also unconcerned about whether their reputation might then be smeared by the rag. In this event they would have to take a stance against the paper, speak out about the coverage of Hillsborough, and explain their reasons for taking the job, however bad a hatchet job the S*n might do on them. Ultimately they’d have to be prepared to blow the whistle on the reasons why the rag wouldn’t consider the type of apology needed, even if this meant breaking a confidentiality agreement and being sued for everything they had. I know this might all look a bit inconsistent with my previous post, but I think taking the S*n job under these circumstances (i.e. at personal risk instead of personal gain and for a cause) would be morally distinguishable from simply buying the rag. I still wouldn’t do it though.

My view is that it’s not about holding a grudge against the paper, and it’s about more than just holding to account the people responsible for the story. It’s about seeking closure – about fully recognising the insult the story caused to the 96 and the hurt it caused to their families and friends, the club, its fans and the people of Liverpool. That can’t happen while the S*n’s version of events continues to be believed in any quarters. In order for closure to be achieved, the lies that were told have to be acknowledged and apologised for in a way which will leave no-one anywhere in any doubt about their magnitude and the damage they caused. A collective apology from the individuals responsible would be very hard to achieve. Even if they all expressed remorse in one form or another it would lack consistency and credibility – they’d all have differing viewpoints on what happened and how the story came about, and what their role in it was. You’d never get them all to agree to any kind of joint statement. In theory you could pursue an individual apology from Kelvin McKenzie, but that ain’t gonna happen, and even if it did it wouldn’t be a big enough story. A front page apology from the S*n, however, would be different. It would be headline news throughout the media and remove any final excuse that people might have for believing, spreading and perpetuating the lies. In other words, it would tell people The Truth. Unless and until that happens there will be unfinished business regarding Hillsborough, which is why the boycott should continue regardless of whether or not the perpetrators still work for the S*n.

What do you mean? Is he some sort of hypnotist who specialises in erasing the memories of rival teams, so they don’t turn up and Argentina win by default? Sven to Becks in June: ‘Aren’t we supposed to be somewhere?’ ‘Glastonbury? Disneyworld maybe? No, it’s gone…’

Yep, that's the one.