Brodie

Same for me, maybe Thants is guilty of some selective editing?

I was about to ask that?

Where did anyone in this thread say he held back the magic formation for 4 years until the chelsea game then unleashed it on the world? it was all planned? I think this got out of hand because of the use of the one word -stumbled - to me it has connotations of the bumbling Spanish waiter other fans seem to label Rafa with. It seems to me thats Rafa cant win sometimes with certain elements of the media and also more worryingly with our support - "he's a lucky manager", "he stumbled upon the formation". All I've been asking for in this thread is a bit of common sense and a bit of credit for Rafa. I suppose Mourinho was lucky to realise 4-3-3 was the way forward for Chelsea, when they'd started the season they won the league 4-4-2, or Demento was lucky to change United's formation to 4-3-3ish to accomodate Ronaldo from the 4-4-2 they've played for the best part of 20 years as well?

Blondes - prefer shagging blondes, though for last 5 years my birds have been brunettes, could have got them to dye their hair but didnt, wouldnt have been the same. But if a blonde came along now...

Rash, no-one said Rafa was 4-3-3 at Valencia, you seem to be getting your wires crossed. There is a massive differnce between the two systems, as you don't necessarily need out an out wingers for 4-2-3-1. You just need mobile inteligent footballers in the wide positions.. And stringvest, you also dont need a pacy front man, again he just has to be mobile and a good finisher - look at Mista - worked his bollocks off but was by no means pacey. I think some people on here are scared / reluctant for some reason (not you stringvest), to give Rafa credit for a system that seems to be working. It is my favoured formation and has been for years, our only problem is that we havent got anyone close enough at the moment to fill the 1 role if Torres cant play, as all our other forwards aren't mobile enough (Crouch, Veronin) or good enough finshers (Kuyt, Babel - yet) to fill that gap.

Theres that word again. I'm not claiming he's been planning this for four years, where did I say that? I said it was his favoured formation. He's tried playing this formation before with us, mostly without great success, the key this season as I've already meantioned was the development between Gerrard and Torres, which has allowed us to use it now. The classic nbr 10 role that Gerrard is filling now is probably the most difficult position to fill and he has tried various players in there over the last 4 years - Garcia, Kewell, Kuyt, Veronin, Morientes and Fowler. Its also one of the most expensive positions to fill. And maybe spending big there should have been more of a priority. However, I believe firmly the only reason we havent played this more often over the last 4 years is Gerrard. You need to be defensively disciplined to play in the 2, and Rafa obvioulsy has had his doubts over Gerrards ability to do this - added to the fact his creativity in the last 3rd would be lost. And by ensuring his best player was in the team somewhere I think Rafa had to adapt his formation accordingly. As I said earlier Gerrards and Torres' partnership has allowed him to work around that now.

He certainly did use this formation at Valencia. In order for 4-2-3-1 to work effectivley you need intelligent mobile footballers in the forward 4 positions which will explain why we didnt use it with Cisse, Baros & Kewell.

So we didnt stumble across this new formation then, OK. It really pisses me off that that is how the press are selling it and alot of our fans seem to be buying it aswell. As regards why we didnt use it until January, the way i see it, it all comes down to the develpment of Gerrard playing with Torres. At the start of the season it was easy to think that Gerrard would be sitting deep playing passes to Torres as he did with Owen, and previously Gerrard has often been neutered playing as a second striker, too often ending up playing with his back to goal, so it was never an obvious option. Cant we give Rafa some credit for recognising the growing understanding between Gerrard and Torres and deciding to amend our line up accordingly, rather than implying that he got lucky?

Why did we stumble / happen upon this formation? Its like Rafa has never used it before? Valencia? Even in Alonso's first game for us at Bolton away in 2004 we played this formation, and frequently in games we've changed to it over the last 4 years - although admittedly rarely started with it. Why will very few people give Rafa credit for playing his favoured formation? Maybe its only now he feels we have the players to play it effectively? Sorry - know I've gone a bit off topic, but this frustrates me

Sorry for quoting the unquotable earlier.. Anyway Rash - what do you expect from this thread? Really? You've already repeated your assertion, that we have failed in transfers, and we havent improved the squad in your opinion. Other people disagree with you because we all have our own opinions, but you will not get people to change their mind by repeating your opinion. If you are truly interested in what everyone else thinks, why dont you leave this thread and come back tomorrow, rather than trying to convert the unconvertable?

So you dont believe a team can over achieve? Look at our comparitive points totals 04/05 and 06/07. Look at Reading this year to last with more or less the same squad, football history is full of teams overachieving or underachieving whether it be in one game or over the length of a season. I actually agree to a certain extent that we have bought too many squad players, but you need more than a first XI. United, Arsenal, and Chelsea all can afford to splurt over £10mil on players, and afford for them not to fit straight in, or just be plain shit (Henry, Anderson, Nani, Hargreaves, Reyes, Wiltord, Shevchenko, Ballack, Ferera, Veron - I'm bored of listing them now). With our finacial situation would you really have wanted Rafa to spend an entire windows budget on one player, only for him to fail, get injured? People question Rafa's purchases, but when he hasnt had to shop in the bargain basement you cant really argue with what he's brought here - Alonso, Reina, Mascherano, Torres, Agger - all relatively big money for their positions. Do you think Rafa looked at Veronin last year and thought he'd found the best striker in the world, or do you think he thought that with his limited budget he might be able to do a job. With limited budget you're always gong to have hits and misses. And as for your point about keeping GHs squad players - you're the first to slate Houllier for his signings so you cant rate them too much, and maybe he just wanted to get them all off the payroll as they were all earning far too much money for their relative ability.

Because in 05/06 our squad overacheived as a work in progress. In 05/06 United underacheived and from then on some of their younger less experienced players (who they had already spent millions on) have developed to justify the money already spent on them. Didn't they buy Evra that season aswell?

I think whats making this issue so emotive is that there are people like yourself who will defend Carra, and there are others who seem to want to write him off. In this thread, at least, there seems to be no middle ground, no real level of debate. Concerns over Carra' s long term position in my opinion are justified (and he is and has been my favourite player for a long time). I think most fair minded individuals will accept that Carra's performances this year and not as good as they have been over the previous 2/3 seasons - all your reasons above still being taken into account. For me the fact he is not playing as well, combined with his age, the fact he's played so many games since he broke into the team, the fact he's continually played through injuries during his career and the fact that Raffa is actively signing younger centerhalfs has to put a question mark over his future. The reasons in bold are of concern to me, in that I'm worried that the years of dedication to Liverpool are starting to take their toll on his body. Comparison to Hyppia here are not valid for me, as his style of play has not had to change as he got older. However, although not blessed with lightning pace, Carra's workrate and commitment have always allowed him to make those last ditch tackles, even though he does not seem to be a natural athlete. My concern is that if Carra has lost even 1/4 yard of pace that could be the reasons why he has been less effective this year, as he has arrived a split second too late. I hope this is a blip, maybe playing too many games (with injuries to other centerhalfs) has taken its toll - we all know he doesn't want to be rotated. And even if he becomes less mobile there is no reason why he couldn't take on the Hyppia role, and let Agger or Skyrtle do the work around him that hes done for Sami for years. Hopefully, the summer break will sort him out, buts lets be open enough to be able to discuss it reasonably.

Emma Griffiths 'Nipplegate' Photoshoot - anothersite forum try these as well

Just got bored trying to work out all the answers, so decided it would kill a bit of time to crack the spreadsheet instead. And no, used to be able to do the rubix cube in about a minute as a kid - reckon I'd have to use your sticker idea these days though.

16 fimpen, 31 kocsis, 40 karlsson, 41 olofsson, 42 knezevic, 43 bejbl, 47 turkyilmaz, 48 bakao, 52 balbo, 53 sensini, 54 allofs, 55 stojkovic, 58 goitom, 60 mostovoj, 61 bergmark, 62 briegel, 66 meazza, 67 Hellström, 70 gordillo, 71 nkono, 76 carbone, 92 Etchevery, 103 farnerud, 105 litbarski, 106 frei, 107 jardel, 112 smolarek, 114 balakov, 116 negrete, 121 gren, 125 senaya, 126 asamoah, 134 lentini, 148 albertz, 149 yekini, 150 nihat, 163 galasek, 166 almeyda, 170 Sjöberg, 172 antognoni, 179 marcelinho, 184 edmundo, 185 Tøfting, 189 coly You might need one more cos you had 121 in twice. I had to create an additional worksheet in excel and linked each cell so that it linked to the equivelant value in sheet 'I' (as that was the hidden sheet with answers in), for example cell A1 in new sheet =I!A1 - then dragged formala across and down. If you want a copy of cracked worksheet PM me your mail address and I'll send you it

If you want any other answers, let me know what numbers you're stuck on cos I've got them all... ...totally cheated by the way!

Surely the ownership 51% to 49% would only effect the dividends paid. As part of the negotaitions DIC may just insist on a 50:50 board split, and the board runs the club not the owners. So Hicks saves face, but effectively has no more say than DIC?

Shit - 70

The difference is the first 2 are used as ways to insult someones race, whilst the others are just their nationalities. (beaten to it by S31) It is strange one though - it seems to be up to everyones own interpretation. I was working in our Bradford office a few weeks ago when one of my white colleagues made a comment to a Pakistani lad in the office about making the tea cos he could get it from his corner shop. Now to me thats racist, but the Pakistani lad laughed it off and said he'd have to go in his taxi, and they all fell about laughing. I felt really uncomfortable with the whole scenario, but I cant really get offended if the person on the receiving end thinks its funny and was genuinely not arsed!

I see what you mean. To me personally I think you should be able to laugh at any subject, but it will be certain cases that touch a nerve with people, and those should be avoided - and its common sense to know which ones to avoid. I've read CharleyKnights reaction to Robbief's post today, and whilst I can undertsand his reaction, that would be a thread to ignore for me if I was in his situation. Thats the beauty of the GF - virtually anything goes, Robbief was trying to be funny, and I did find the original post amusing, but if you go in all guns blazing the thread will gain a life of its own. If people had held back it'd be on page 2 by now.

There is only one for me and that happened on April 15th 1989. Anything else is fair game, looking at your personal taboos, would you run away from a Michael Jackson joke?

I've posted this somewhere before, but maybe all they are paying now is the 80mil to G&H and taking on the loans (eventually refinancing them) by buying Kop Ltd and the club, so the initial outlay would only be £80 mil which is a hell of a lot cheaper than £180 mil or whatever it was last year. The sam way Ken Bates baught Chelsea for a £1

I agree. With Torres as the focal point of our attack , we do need a more mobile option behind him otherwise we will be too narrow and easier for defenders to mark. Crouch cant do that, and does all his best work centrally, and he ends up taking up Torres' space. The goal he set up the other week means nothing, as the games we struggle in are when other teams sit back and there is no space to run into behind. The problem with Crouch (for him) is that his best role is the same as Torres' (furthest striker forward) and unfortunately for him there is a gulf in class between them. If he was happy to be cover for that position then OK, but he's clearly not. What we are really after is someone to play Rash's mythical no 10 role, and out of all our strikers, Crouch is probably our worst option there, and Rafa must see it that way as he picks him so rarely with Torres. The days are long gone were any team can expect to compete with 2 strikers up top alongside each other. For what its worth I dont think Kuyt is good enough for this role either, but his all round game is certainly better suited than Crouch's, which make him our best option there at the moment.

The bit in bold is why its even being discussed, but I sort of agree as well, though it would be more likely the 39th game would actually be the 1st - if the draw was done early enough most clubs could work it into the culmination of their pre-season. A better idea would be if they are insistant in doing this sort of thing, make it a few games for a minor pre-season trophey, like that Asia trphey thing but bigger. And it would mean we wouldn't have to rely on Rick Parry to arrange our pre-season...