KevieG

If I give you the breakdown will you accept it?

# Balleuge was pretty vociferous.

We were the porsche when Ferguson took over. You can spin this in a lot of ways.

If they spend 20 million on one and we spend 20 million on two, we both spend 20 million. For my sins, I once challenged a United fan to prove that they'd spend about the same as us as I found the idea preposterous, I gave him 30 million leeway as I thought they were out of sight, he did and I coughed up 50 notes. I thought it was a sure thing and I was wrong.

If you are referring to the money spent then its true, we've spent at least as much as them over the last 20 years. Usually people lash out a few players that cost 20 million plus, but we just buy more in the 6-12 million bracket.

Rashid is right on this one, whether you view the money spent by Ferguson in total since he arrived at United, or versus just about every manager we've had, head to head, in that time, we've spent as much, and probably more than them. Its not even up for dispute. These are the facts. The fact that most transfers these days are undisclosed in one way or the other makes comparison harder.

For what?

These same players couldn't string 2 passes together between december and febuary though, as we effectively ruled ourselves out of the league. The settled formation is the only difference I can see.

Just playing devils advocate here, so take it easy superfans. But the behind the scenes shit storm currently brewing seems far worse than the one we had earlier in the season, yet our form doesn't appear to have been affected, in fact, we seem rather settled on the playing front, formation-wise especially. The results, bar the standard United capitualtion, have been great. Why is this the case?

Can't believe anyone would hate Wenger more than Ginsoak. Wenger made a big big mistake in not strenghtening in January with all his suposed 70 million. But they were challenging, yes they made an actual challenge for the title, and should have pushed on, but they seem to lack something mentally. They need a few leaders imo. I thought he would have addressed this and it was a huge mistake on his part. That said, they went to the two toughest grounds in England and played great football and but for an erratic donkey up front could well have won both. They are well set up squad wise and financially and this is mainly down to him. Just keeping it in perspective. They are no more, further away from winning the title than we are, probably closer. I'm detecting the sort of reverance for Ferguson that Keane gets around here these days and its sickening.

Condescending twat.

Hicks seems to be palatable to some

DIC and Mourinho. Dream ticket

Would anyone here rather be going to the Emirates having secured a 1-1 draw at home? Not a chance. Second leg at home is always the preferable option

It doesn't count as double. They'd have more away goals over the course of the tie. FFS

How about Miguel the Portugese right back, not sure what age he is, 27 or 28 I guess, but he is a class act from what I've seen of him. Strong going forward and decent defensively.

jesus chrasht, didn't even see this

The amount of lads that don't understand the away goals rule is frightening. Every year its the same. Not as bad I suppose as some idiots saying away goals count double though. We get an extra 30 mins playing at home at the crucial time in the tie, they get an extra 30 mins of possible away goals. Its a fair as it could possibly be.

someones rattled

IMO the anti-Rash brigade as as guitly as the man himself, they play the man and not the ball every time, if he annoys ye, igfuckingnore his posts. Why is that so hard to understand Personally I agree with a lot of what he has to say. In other news here Steven Kellys article on todays Irish Examiner: Reality bites as capitulation complete SO was anyone sent off for dissent this week? No, thought not. Once the crimson-faced outrage dissipated, Javier accepted his fate and the club fined him albeit belatedly. A few fans wanted to continue the good fight, casually ignoring the fact they needed a towrope and wild horses to drag Mascherano from the scene of his barely heinous crime. And Bennett, the man who makes a habit of sending Ronaldo off, is a homer. He sent Alonso off at Arsenal once despite having his back to the incident. Last year he gave us two penalties in one game. Try and guess the venue. All the hot air drew attention away from a gap in class evident when eleven white shirts were in plain sight. Our rotten record in the fixture can’t be blamed on officials, and much amusement was to be had watching Liverpool fans avoid obvious conclusions. “If we’d won those two games instead we’d be two points behind them.” Er, righto. Since we haven’t beaten them in one league match under Benitez, no one was prepared to explain how this miracle was to occur. But then eternal optimists always see a cure around the corner, keeping the Grim Reaper at arm’s length. We haven’t needed excuses lately, but you sense a few more may be required after the Arsenal trilogy. Some will say the re-emergence of ownership disputes came at an eerily inconvenient time. Even Liverpool can’t be distracted from the task of swatting Reading and their timorous ilk it would seem. Now that it’s tricky again, up pops silent, some say comatose, partner Gillett with a severe dose of verbal diarrhoea, including that perennial press standby The Death Threat. How long must people fall for this nonsense? Let me explain slowly for the half-witted; the moron that tells you he’s going to kill you… isn’t going to kill you. But it serves a dual purpose; a healthy dollop of “poor pitiful me” sympathy for you, a guilty verdict by association for the vast majority of civilised fans that happen to think you are a conniving, lying weasel. How ironic that Everton were the visitors after days of Bennett/Ferguson conspiracy theorising. Any Reds indulging in paranoid nonsense last week should spare the blue brethren their jabbing accusatory finger because it turns out you’re no better than they are. Moyes’ constant artless claims that we were favourites for the (ahem) ‘coveted’ fourth spot may have had an insidious, weakening effect on a side which is already overachieving. We should have been out of sight by half-time and could still have been in the second if we’d shown a similar commitment to attack. The game’s denouement proved trickier than it ought to have been. Perhaps one day the manager will reflect on this season’s home draws and equalisers conceded, and come to the fairly obvious conclusion that games need to be put out of harm’s way before possession is so senselessly squandered. The fact we were often playing with nine men thanks to the infuriating Babel and the effete Lucas should temper such criticism. After all, a win is a win even if it is slightly unsatisfying. My utter contempt for the blue half dictates all sensibilities are routinely offended by the idea of hanging on for dear life against this embodiment of mediocrity. We may despise Moyes but the man’s achievement borders on alchemy and you begin to wonder if he, Cahill or Arteta will stick around with such millstones round their necks. Perhaps we should keep our own counsel on such matters once we’ve counted the number of times Gerrard and Torres have rescued us this season. Speaking of the skipper and his torrid time from Evertonians, if the manager can hear what the away end sings perhaps he should pass comment on the abominations heard in Manchester a week before if he wants to be taken seriously. Just a thought.

Bit late at this stage but I know a few of you like this guy, far better than that fat c*nt Samuel Mascherano's crime of passion enrages old women of both sexes Sunday March 30 2008 They changed the rules of engagement for football in England last week; it's a shame nobody bothered to inform the players. The English FA have embarked on a commendable campaign to encourage players at all levels to respect referees. This, one imagines, works best on the local park, because there are times when it is hard to ask someone to respect Mike Riley. There are currently a number of leagues in England undergoing a series of reforms on a ten-week trial basis. Among these is the directive that only the captain should approach the referee. This may or may not be implemented next season at higher levels, but after Ashley Cole's refusal to accept his booking against Tottenham ten days ago, there was an outbreak of morality and, it seemed, a change in the rules. But there was no rule change, only what an FA spokesman told me last week was "news management" in the wake of Ashley Cole's display of petulance for which, it now seems, Javier Mascherano will pay the price. Javier Mascherano played as he always does last Sunday at Old Trafford, but, apparently, he needed to be aware that "in the current climate" that was no longer acceptable. How was he to know this? Presumably he had not spent the days preparing for the game sitting at home reading the Daily Mail, an arduous enough task for somebody with English as their first language, let alone their second or third. In fact, even if Mascherano was eager to read Richard Littlejohn, it's unlikely that the bullshit-free environment in which Rafael Benitez likes to operate is overstocked with the Mail. Benitez' refusal to engage with the world of bullshit might have cost Liverpool as it was easy to predict the way some referees would react to the hysteria. But Roy Keane and Benitez are right, even if they won't always be happy in a world ruled by sanctimony. Mascherano might have caught some of the Respect campaign on Sky Sports News, but while this fine channel is always, always on at football training grounds, in my experience, the sound is usually turned down. If Mascherano had glimpsed the shows of dissent, repeated on a loop, maybe he felt that this was something the authorities were now, for some cultural reason he had yet to understand, trying to encourage. But he needed no encouragement. In the twee condemnations of Mascherano from, to borrow a phrase, "old women of both sexes", there was an absence of recognition that football remains a game that some of its practitioners are passionate about. Thankfully, football still revolts against becoming a game ruled by the suburban values of those journalists who last week referred to Mascherano as a "nutcase" and decided that the behaviour of Ashley Cole and the Liverpool midfielder constituted "barbarism", an escalation of language which should leave them speechless, the only consolation when the rampaging hordes hit town, raping, pillaging and generally demonstrating how barbarism got its name. Benitez, it was said last week in another example of shrill commentators losing command of their words, was defending the indefensible in making a case for Mascherano. In fact, he was defending the very defensible. The actions of Mascherano at Old Trafford fall somewhere below the massacre at Srebrenica or the outrage at My Lai in the moral outrages of recent times. In fact, his actions weren't even the most indefensible part of the day's proceedings. Far more worrying, and damaging to the game, was the tolerance shown by Steve Bennett for the calculated attempts by the Manchester United team to kick Fernando Torres out of the match, as they had kicked Arsenal out of it in 2004. It was even simpler last Sunday as, in the continued absence of Steven Gerrard, distracted by his terminal self-obsession, United simply had to take care of Torres and Liverpool were neutralised. Even if they hadn't they still would have won, but Alex Ferguson is nothing if not thorough. When Torres complained to Bennett about it, remarkably, he was booked. Bennett, therefore, was giving the tacit encouragement of players to continue fouling one of the most exciting players in the league and the player who was being fouled was now one more post-hacking complaint away from a red card. Mascherano, again paying the price for not taking the Mail and the other papers which had done most to highlight this campaign, wondered what was happening and was sent off, ensuring that Liverpool were heavily defeated in a game they were going to lose anyway. But now they want to make an example out of him, something English football excels at. Conveniently, he is Argentinean so nobody complains if his words in defence of a team-mate see him labelled a "nutcase". They are now trying to compound the day's injustice with some more. The sooner football introduces a law that says only the captain can talk to the referee the better. But the sooner officials start making tough calls for offside, adding on the correct injury-time and protecting the game's finest players from a sustained and unified battering, the better too. Javier Mascherano is no nutcase. He is not part of the advancing army of barbarians threatening an English way of life, unless that English way of life is midfield play as represented by Frank Lampard. They changed the game he has played since a boy without telling him last week. And then they asked him to absorb these lessons during his biggest game of the season. Suddenly he was asked to behave as if driving through suburbia on a Sunday afternoon. Suddenly, he was told to mind his language and watch his step. They weren't the values that got him to Old Trafford. But they were ones that would drive anybody mad. dionfanning@gmail.com

Can I just add that Lucas was forgotten from the list of our spend:whistle:

Its unfair but thats whats always happens. Everyone is compared to the best. But i think there are valid points there also. The biggest defence I can make for Rafa is that he was new to the league, I think(hope) that he has finally realised what he was doing wrong. He still seems to be over complicating things judging from that interview.

When Rafa took over, our squad wasn't that far behind theirs. They had Giggs,Keane and Scholes on the books but they were all in need of replacing, Keane was finished, Scholes permanently out. They had Ronaldo, Ferdinand, Van Nistleroya and Rooney as trump cards. We had Carragher, Hyppia, Gerrard and Owen all in their prime. They had ok full backs, so did we. We both had dodgy keepers. Their side back then wasn't a patch on what it is now, but they made adjustments to the first team, we went for a squad clearout. All I'm saying is if we cherry picked in certain areas then we'd probably be better off. Four seasons on, if we had picked up 2 real top class players each year, we'd have a better first team.

We spread our spend over more players, but generally spend about the same. They also get big money back, Stam, Beckham, Ince, etc