beejay

It's Meredith Kercher, the British girl murdered in France, who is largely forgotten because of the circus surrounding one of her alleged killers, Amanda "Foxy" Knox. Beautiful girl, highly intelligent and extremely popular with her other flatmates but all you ever hear about is Knox and her innocence, helped by her rich parents, the US media and a legion of expensive lawyers.

OK, back to the McCanns. So, you are the mother of 3 kids all aged under 4 who you leave every night while you go on the piss with your mates at a bar down the road. One night you pop home to check them and the eldest child is not there. You immediately conclude that a stranger has gone into the apartment (you have left the door unlocked for some strange reason) and taken said child. The other 2 babies (twins under the age of two) are still in their cots fast asleep. Having lost one kid, do you : (a) Scream the fucking place down until someone appears on the scene or b Go to the patio where the bar can be seen and scream the fucking place down until someone appears on the scene or c Pick the twins up and dash to the nearest safe place while screaming the fucking place down or (d) Leave the babes where you found them in the room where the other child was abducted and the captor could still be around while you nip down the road to the bar where all your mates are and shout "they've taken her, we let her down" Answers to Crimewatch and Scotland Yard

It's the dogs that makes me question the abduction theory. British dogs as well, not some scrawny, flea-bitten mutts scrounging for tats on a filthy Portuguese Street. Eddie & Keela, trained to detect blood and cadaver. Both alert to places in the apartment. Then the mother's clothes and Maddie's toy. Then in the hired car. No other apartments, or cars or clothes. These dogs are very rarely wrong. The McCann's explanation was : Maddie had a nosebleed. The Mum is a GP and she touched 5 dead people in the week before the holiday. It was rotting fish or dirty nappies in the back of the hired car.

Nice use of the fish analogies there DT, not once but twice

Progression is what counts. If we are moving in the right direction you have to give it time. I think Rodgers is doing more right than wrong at the moment, he's not beyond criticism but he is deserving of our support. He's assembled a good core of a first team with some excellent prospects coming through but the squad is still unbalanced and the money has not been spent in the right areas (although that's not all down to him). I think we are a much better side than the one he inherited. Carroll, Downing, Adam, Reina all needed replacing and Sturridge, Moses, Coutinho and Mignolet are far superior for roughly the same money.

Unfortunately that could be true. We desperately need a centre midfielder with composure, technique and skill and Suso has all of that. Maybe it will be seen to be an inspired move and he will come back next season ready to claim his place in the side but I'm not sure the management rate him as highly as some of us do

Clueless, headless cameo today but even then he managed to get in some great positions. Needs time and patience same as a few others, the fault is in throwing far too many in at the deep end at the same time.

Some very good posts here, very insightful including the OP. But trying to shift the blame on Gerrard is way out of order, he was still the only one showing for the ball, still the only one actually making a tackle instead of allowing the opponent to do what the fuck he wanted and still the only one trying to drive the team forward. We lack leadership and the manager royally fucked up. That's 2 games running where he has been found out tactically, an utter abortion of a selection which meant we spent far too much of the game desperately trying to find some sort of shape and failing miserably. The truly annoying thing is that it was so fucking predictable, the performances have been falling off for a few games and Rodgers has tried to address that by making things worse with too many players out of position, too many changes and too much fear. He needs to get a grip and so do the lazy posters who somehow manage to blame Gerrard when there's a bunch of others who were just as shit but put in less effort.

Ibe needs to work on his decision-making, he gets in great positions but then hesitates and the chance is gone. Great talent though, he's strong quick and can go past players. Could develop into an out-and-out striker IMO, not a natural goalscorer at the moment but he has it in him to improve in this department Raheem is much more of a traditional winger and still has to build up his physique but is electric and a real threat on the break. Seems to be playing within himself for the 1st team I'd like to see him let loose more often it's like he's tried to learn all the worst bits off Downing

Latest in the press is Abel Hernandez from Palermo for about £4m although that could just be a lazy link because he's Uruguayan. Still plenty of talk about Will Hughes from Derby and he looks top class

Lucas is half maybe even a quarter of the player he was before the injury. Out of position so often because he can't get round the pitch, so slow and ponderous with and without the ball. Gerrard can't play 3 games every week with the same intensity. He and Henderson are having to be the legs to cover for Lucas. Our centre midfield is the weakest area of the side now. Strength and composure in this department sets the tone and we just cede possession to the opposition because we're not good enough to control the ball under pressure.

The main objective has to be to strengthen the areas where we are weak and for me, that still means the midfield. We don't dominate possession enough because we don't have the players to keep the ball in tight areas with short passes. Lucas isn't bad, but he is much better passing in straight lines rather than making a turn to find space. Gerrard is great but he ain't getting any younger and we have to face up to him not playing every game. Henderson has other assets such as great work rate and stamina but his technique is also not conducive to controlling possession. We need an Alonso-clone who can find space under pressure and move the team forward. There's a few of these in La Liga such as Munian and that's the type of player I would target to take us onto the next level.

Are you kidding? Matthewbet1 is our ITK, direct your question to the man

There's loads of excuses for England not performing. Refereeing is one. England have had some shocking refereeing decisions at crucial games over the years, goals ridiculously ruled out, goals ridiculously allowed, daft red cards etc. Plus losing all those penalty shoot outs. Those are fine margins which would make our record a damn sight better. But another factor is the domestic refereeing that at all levels allows the creative players to be kicked off the park. That is 100% in the FA's control but I don't hear Dyke mentioning that, the thick manc twat. You don't see the equivalent of a Stoke City surviving in any other top league in Europe but it's OK in this country for them thugs to prosper and even be applauded for it by parts of the media. The Championship and lower leagues are full of the same with even more lenient refereeing, it's no wonder we can't nurture technical players when it's booted out of them at an early age. Dyke is just a shithouse politician, no vision, no answers just shooting his mouth off and getting plenty of media attention

I've not seen enough of Rossiter yet but in a couple of games it's been noticeable that he lacks pace, so the comparisons with Gerrard at that age may be off the mark because he was seriously quick.

Net spend of about £15-18m (depending on the true price paid for Sakho) with 8 players in plus a good few youth players. A much strengthened defence and better options up front. No real investment in the midfield. It's a decent outcome to the window but I hope there is more left in the kitty for some business to be done in January.

So, as it stands our best side is maybe : Mignolet Johnson, Sakho, Agger, Enrique Henderson, Gerrard, Lucas Coutinho, Sturridge, Suarez Subs : Jones, Cissokho, Toure, Ilori, Allen, Sterling, Moses Is that right?

It's a straight fight between code and xerxes to replace him

Changes fuck all. If Arsenal offer his true value then he can go. They won't so he has to stay put. Time for the club to man up. Fine him, take Arsenal to the FA for tapping up and move on. He can't play until October anyway so we can play the waiting game more than he or Wenger can

What you say? You let your 15 year old kid grow up to be a Fulham fan? No excuses man, should be ashamed of yerself

Some guy on twitter reckons he and his family went straight to the airport after the match and the club have given him the week off to make up his mind. Dunno what that means

It's a Matthewbet 1 scoop. Seriously. The boy did good

Why the fuck do we keep helping out Blackpool when Oyston makes it his mission to screw us on sales?

I don't get the unrelenting pessimism on here. It's the close season ffs, the cricket starts in 20 minutes and we're 2-0 up. If you want to talk football, our pre-season so far reads 100% record, 4-0, 2-0, 2-0 and 3-0. Anyone coming on here would think we'd just lost 4-0 at home to Crystal Palace. Or that we had just sold our best player to one of our rivals. Shit, that hasn't happened either. Sure we could do with a couple of big signings before the start of the season but guess what, we still might do just that. I'm pretty optimistic anyway, we have a decent side who can score goals against anyone and with a bit more defensive solidity that Mignolet & Toure can bring, we should be looking positively at challenging for the top 4. As a club, we have some great prospects in the youth sides and no real deadwood stinking the place out. Far too much misplaced angst on this forum, watch the test match ffs

Let's wait for confirmation from Matthew bet1