UnwelcomeinPeru

Sigh.

He reads like a fixer. United were 15 points off the CL places this year. That is a lot of points, but not insurmountable - Redknapp was able to do a similar job with Spurs a few years ago. His brief is to get above Arsenal (who now they scraped an FA Cup against a team they scored 42 points more than are bigshots again I read - did I miss the memo?). But - the players, aside from those you need one hand to tick off - are no good. Can a fella who has a WC to prepare for - first game in 3 weeks or so - do anything like enough business to make a difference this year. His record in the last 10-12 years is modest and he hasn't managed a club since 2011. If they'd got Rafa I'd have been worried. Next year the question is 'who do we need to be better than to win the League'? I'm not seeing United.

Can I ask what is wrong with a 7/10 bird please.

According to Wenger, 4th, etc.,...

Head and heart question. Head - of course. To go from mid-table nothingness to 2nd, and within a stud length of winning the League, scoring 101 goals in the process, and seeing a number of players develop in a way that has been absent going all the way back to Houllier, has been a joy. Back in the European Cup is great - been too long. Debrecen feels (and is) a long, long time ago. Heart - broken. Not sure I will recover from the denouement. Can I season be defined by its heart-breaking conclusion? One for the C&W songwriters that. I'd take it over anyone else's season though. Maybe City's at a push...

Agger Henderson Sterling

Just after we signed Torres he was on the radio claiming that he wasn't a 20 goal a season striker and would struggle. I've not paid any attention to anything he's said since. Apologies if this has already been noted.

What a shockingly young age. RIP.

I've given up on trying to understand the motives of pitiful, inadequate, cowardly Internet 'trolls'. The sanction in cases like this quite simple. Just strip these people of what they hold most dear and is most fundamental - their anonymity. Investigate, identify and publish their names. Let their friends, parents and partners know what they are.

This 'weakened team' bollocks has ensured that the press have not been asking why a team that cost £175m, with a further £25m coming off the bench, managed by someone who has won 7 leagues and 2 European Cups felt it necessary to play like a small club in a European Cup semi-final. Big clubs don't park no buses.

He seems to be indicating that substitutions made late in the game/in added-on time by the team that is winning should be made promptly. BURN HIM.

Great report as usual. And a great effort to be out on WB Road straight away selling the magazine. Thought you looked a little tired mind.

+1 Not really the place but I thought Silva was outstanding too.

If the question is just about who your favourite player is/was, rather than who was/is the best/most influential, then when I started going to the game it was Ray Kennedy. He seemed so elegant and effortless, and every goal he scored seemed to have that extra something. The EC semi-final goal versus Bayern is a great example. There was something film-starish about him.

Do you mean Rafael? To (needlessly) quote Wikipedia, Raphael was was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of an ideal of human grandeur. Together with Michelangelo and Leonardo, he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period. Also known for leading with the elbow mind.

Must be room for Dennis Wise on the bus?

x2 Proof karma exists mind.

I will be very disappointed if Bond doesn't show up on Sunday. Less so if Clive Owen does. Even more if Ian Beale does though.

1. Going the match 2. The wireless 3. With French reds at the Chat Noir watching the TV

Anyone want proof of how full of crap the Chief Helmet is? These are the points totals the PL CL teams achieved the weekend after the Group Stage CL games: Chavs - 13; Arse - 10; Mancs - 13; City - 12. Over the same weekends - Liverpool - 12. So - in other words, zero advantage, except perhaps over Arsenal, but that is misleading as they played two of the other CL teams the weekend after a CL game. Wanker.

I feel like the tide is turning for him in the media, although he's never been a big noise in la belle France in the way he is in England. In England I get the feeling that he is being increasingly seen in the media as a self-parody - and tedious at that. His last few pieces of coverage have been saying things about a fellow manager that any grown-up would be ashamed of, insulting Barcelona (again, yawn) even though Chelsea aren't actually playing them, and disparaging his own playing staff. Different from the fawning 'can I roll around in your excrement please' toss he's had in years gone by. I think it's been pointed out in other threads that he's at Chelsea because they couldn't get anyone else and he's there because no-one else was interested in taking him. Two Oscar quotes suit him grandly; 'it is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious'; and 'a woman will flirt with anybody in the world as long as other people are looking on'.

And another one. We are wide, wide open down the left all game. First and third goals came from there. Johnson was miles off it. I actually thought Agger had been hooked, but my dad thought he'd been signalling he had a groin problem.

At the risk of being slammed back into the red, this isn't so much about whether it is possible to get to Fulham other than by tube (it is). Last week London was grid-locked - anyone who knows that part of London knows it is fkn awful on a good day. Stewards are part-timers and so will need to get home from whatever they do in the day and then get back to the ground in good time. If they don't show in sufficient numbers there can't be a game. If I was going I'd rather be told at 3pm that they aren't sure that the game will be able to happen than be told at 7.30 that not enough stewards have shown up.

You cannot overstate what a colossal pain in the arse London is when there is any sort of travel disruption. It takes a staggering amount of time to get anywhere. Presumably the same will go for the Mancs at Arsenal.

Coutinho Henderson Skrtel But everyone was ace. Even Cissokho looked competent. If I had been an Arsenal fan I'd have wanted Wilshere's attitude to be just what it was. Pissed off. Expected him to be subbed though. Rosicky still there?? Must have an oil painting in his loft.