sharkyvilla

It really was a great goal he scored. Number 9s should never be allowed in their own penalty area at the best of times, his tackle yesterday was an utter nightmare. To be fair it was a collective brainfart and despite the complete misery I feel today I think I'll forgive him. Did someone let the England batting coach take our half-time team talk btw?

'He's like a man with a fork in a world of soup' - Noel Gallagher about his brother

A great game ruined by awful diving, Busquets is a disgrace to football and after 4 years of doing it referees havent copped on is a joke

Does he really dive? Doesn't he just make a meal out of any contact? There's a difference between the two and is primarily just to take the piss out of Real's tactics

maybe you didnt see last season when we went down clutching his face when Xabi Alonso grabbed his shorts

Again that is making a meal out of contact. I consider a dive to be when the player pretends he has been fouled and there was no contact. Making a meal of contact, even if it is to a different part of the body is a legitimate tactic, especially when it comes to Barcelona who are often intimidated as it's seen by poor managers as the only way to stop them.

I can't believe Savic is really as shit as he has been showing. Mancini's tactics didn't really help him, it was almost as if he was trying to give him help by playing him alongside two more experienced defenders yet he ended up more isolated than anything. He'd be twice the player alongside Kompany I reckon.

A great game ruined by awful diving, Busquets is a disgrace to football and after 4 years of doing it referees havent copped on is a joke

Does he really dive? Doesn't he just make a meal out of any contact? There's a difference between the two and is primarily just to take the piss out of Real's tactics

What I don't get is if Real are going to go into these games with these tactics why don't they do it properly and break Messi's knees

Agree with the commentators, especially for the Classico they call it down the middle it does dip a bit in other games IMO

They should give them a CL game vs an english club, I'd have loved them pair on the red button for the final last year

Reminds me of Peter Brackley and Ray Wilkins when they did Football Italia on Channel 4 with James Richardson and Paul Elliott doing the analysis. Legendary. Scott Minto is shit though so brings things down a peg or two.

The refs in these things are ridiculous.

If Harry gets sent down then I reckon he'll take over from Capello as England manager for 2 or 4 years and then take over from Fergie. If Dalglish was to stand aside then there's a chance he could be at Liverpool I suppose but they won't be in the Champs League. Spurs is probably too small a club for his ego. Either way would any of us tell our grandkids of the day they watched a Jose Mourinho team play?

Diarra was ridiculously lucky to stay on but what a **** strike by Alves, I nearly spat out my red wine when that went in. They bring it on themselves tbh do Real, should be down to 9 men in most classicos. Kevin Keatings and Gerry Armstrong are the best commentary team on telly aren't they?

I just worry that the same thing will happen as with Cahill, he makes his move and fulfills his potential elsewhere and we think 'what if...'. I still think there is a Premier League-standard goalscorer in Delfouneso. If I were O'Neill I would definitely put a bid in for him.

Proving it was deliberate is tough if you ask me, but Mario's reputation may count against him. Meanwhile Messi's hattrick was ridiculous today.

but i dont see why it still surprises people!

last night was a brilliant game, pretty much everything about it IMO the football on show, the quality of the individuals both in attack and defence, the pace it was played at, the constant tactical changing, the fact that for me at least the game was on a knife edge both in terms of goals and red cards, the commentary and sky team as usual were great, the slo mo camera they kept playing with was great, the controversy and the comedy of the theatrics

or as an almost polar opposite you could have watched wolves vs blues on itv...

Absolutely spot on. I love the way Barca make a meal out of everything Real hit them with as it exaggerates and takes the piss out of Mourinho's abysmal tactics in these games. The drama queens add that extra bit of hilariousness to the whole thing on top of the quality football from Barca.

West Wing.

The casting is amazing.

I regularly watch seasons 1 - 4 but I break out in a horrible rash if I watch seasons 5, 6 or 7.

Up to season 4, this was the greatest tv show ever made.

I'm up to series 3 on DVD. I watched it when the show was on originally but just thought it was about time to watch it again now I understand a bit more about politics. It really is amazing and could watch it over and over. If I could be any TV character it would probably Josh Lyman.

Other than that, Darkplace and the IT Crowd have me in hysterics whenever I put the DVDs on or watch random youtube clips

I got it for Christmas and just finished my first season with Villa. Ended up 15th and got the jill n jack. **** rock hard, probably too hard in all honesty. I can't work out whether I'm enjoying it or not. I got 7 red cards during the season and Dunne scored a ridiculous amount of own goals, Bent scored bugger all, Gabby got 1 goal, thank heavens for Delfouneso or I'd have got relegated. Came fourth in the Olympics too, had my right backs sent off in the semi and bronze medal play-off inside the first 20 minutes. No chance, it's not as if I have them doing aggressive tackling either. Just a cheating bastard game.

I just don't understand why QPR. He could end up playing Championship football at the shittest ground in London next season. I don't think he's guaranteed to keep a side like QPR up in the same way he did for us. It would be better for him to bang the goals in for us, go to the Euros and knick a couple of goals before Rooney gets back and then have offers from all over the place (before turning them down to stay with us).

Tbh these lists are almost impossible to compile but it seems for the most part fair to me. Aguero should be top 10 at least though.

Mainly famous for not playing the sax solo on "Baker Street".

Haha I loved that urban myth. It was so proposterous that it became believable!

Weirdly the other day I was watching a BBC news round-up of people who died in 2011 and the bloke who wrote Baker Street was on it for being dead and it mentioned the Bob Holness/sax thing. Very sad news although Ed Milliband's slip up made me piss myself.

that hughes wasnt even in the running (apparently) is just another nail in Randy's coffin for me though.

Eck should have been the shot gun to the temple but it seems Randy is a bit of an undead fiend so we'll need to get soon hoodoo into the mix to sort this one out!

I reckon Hughes had the Chelsea job lined up with Hiddink over-seeing until it took so long for Hiddink to become available that Roman just thought **** it and went for Villas-Boas instead. By then McLeish had been appointed I think. I'd love to have got AVB in with David Dein as chief exec to rip up the scouting and playing set-up but just dreams unfortunately. I see no hope at the moment.

25m(?) for Milner, 20m for Downing and about 18m for Young who only had one year left on his contract are pretty decent deals if you ask me. That is massive profit on players that wanted to leave

the profit might of been 'good' but there was no need to sell these players, we didnt need to sell them at all, by selling these weve took 3 steps back to the mess we was in before, had we kept them, we would be in a better state and certainly higher up the league chasing europe, which could have gained us more income than the profit we made on the 3 players

not clever business imo by the board, they chased the penny, and missed out on the pound

So if we had kept Ash at the club this season and he left on a free transfer, how would that have helped? Imo if you sell someone for 20m, double what you paid for them, then you can get two players in, sell them for a profit, then get another four players in, then theoretically you can end up with a better team. Spurs have kind of done that, but the difference is they have made much better decisions off-field with a tighter control of wages and more imaginative recruitment.

We did it with Barry and lost about 10m quid off the price. It's a difficult balancing act. Personally I wouldn't give anyone stick about those deals but I can see why people aren't happy about it. I hate losing our best players but clubs can get by as selling clubs if they do it right.

I can see it now, Bents happy, Liverpool bid a tenner for him, lerner could do with the tenner but is holding out for 20 so he turns it down - Bent moans - Liverpool offer 15quid and Lerner has to let him go.

We are the total negative of Man City, where clubs up there price when Citeh coming knocking on the door we just let (and encourage) clubs to walk all over us by selling our senior players. Started with Milner, then Downing and now probably Bent.

I cant believe for one minute that Lerner/the club is in that much financial trouble that we would sell one of the top scorers in the prem for the last 5 years. Especially after only having hold of him for a year.

We are becoming, sorry - we ARE a joke.

25m(?) for Milner, 20m for Downing and about 18m for Young who only had one year left on his contract are pretty decent deals if you ask me. That is massive profit on players that wanted to leave

how can people say bent hasnt played well because our playing style? 8 out of 10 first-touches is around the quality rooney displayed in south-africa, and the amounts of clear cut chances he has missed? it would be foolish to blame it all on our tactics and formation. bent has completly lost his touch and goalprowess, and we can either try and cash out on him now and get good value or wait and hope for him to get his form back wich may never happen and that i can agree with may be because our tactics and limited chances he get, but he should atleast capitalize on thoose few chances he get

I don't think he's lost anything other than his confidence. It happens to most goalscorers, the important thing is to keep giving him opportunities because he'll get on a roll eventually. Michael Owen could go half a dozen games not being able to hit a barn door and then get 12 in his next 8 games. Bent's only gone one game without scoring btw.

People were saying the same thing about Gabby's attitude last year under Houllier. Change the manager and he's twice the player. Sadly McLeish hasn't managed to improve any other player other than Gabby, though to be fair he hasn't had the excellent wide players that Houllier had. I just don't see the financial sense of selling Bent unless it is another ridiculous Liverpool fee that's too good to turn down like the Downing one. We signed him because we were shitscared of getting relegated and selling him now would put us in real danger of getting relegated. If he leaves I'll stick my head up a cow's arse.

Carrick is average in an average side and good in a good side. He's not dominant enough like say Scott Parker in the middle for a mid-table club to stand out, but in a good side he is a pretty decent foil to the talented attacking players. He's a perfect 'Man Utd' player when they were brilliant but at the moment they are a side in transition and he kind of goes invisible, recent performances aside.

Great touch for a big man. Rivaldo was frigging amazing too. Not really adding much to the thread but hey-ho.