regular_john

Just joshing. Jokes aside though, Holt deserves to play after a cracking performance last week and I'd like to see Helenius get some time if he's fit.

The match?

Mostly media consumption - watching films and online TV etc. Doesn't need to do any high end or complex gaming, as long as it can handle the basics. I've had a look and it looks like the MeMO pad is essentially a Nexus 7 1.5 generation.

Thinking of getting the GF a tablet for her birthday. Budget is around £100, and for that price it looks like my best options are a first gen nexus 7 or the ASUS MeMO HD7. Any advice on which one I should go for?

Meh. Primitive idiots behaving like primitive idiots.

Now, now. Warrior might have just been softening up with a power slam before hitting him with the gorilla press and the big splash. He had more than one move, you know! Two is more than one

Watching his last promo on Raw, he looks really out of breath after just a couple of minutes on the mic. Maybe he had heart failure?

Yup, and you can add on the games where he wasn't fully fit and carrying knocks, which was another 5 or so

That's only because too many clubs in this league sack managers at a moments notice. Two years is absolutely nothing, and it's a shame that managers are sacked so rapidly these days that people think otherwise.

Gabby is experienced but limited, Guzan had been released, the rest were not anything like experienced when Lambert arrived. £40m is a great deal to spend on 2 or 3 players, the type of players that can bring real quality to a team and make the difference between 6th and 4th, for example, but it's nothing when you have to buy a whole squad. Nobody in their right mind would expect a squad with a value of £40m to be significantly competitive in the prem. Experienced heads means high wages unless you bring in experienced cloggers. Bringing in players on high wages was the exact opposite of what Lambert needed to achieve, regardless of their impact on the squad. I didn't say he was the only manager for the job, but the options for us are very limited given the financial circumstances and fan expectation. Of the managers crazy enough to take the job, the number that would have done a much worse job than Lambert is practically guaranteed to be much higher than the number of managers who could have done a better job. Pulis has done brilliantly, but there is a ceiling on what he'll be able to achieve at Palace, and that ceiling is midtable at best. I don't want to see Villa coasting in midtable for the next twenty years, I want to see Villa back amongst the top 6 and competing for silverware, and the only way for us to do that is to build a team slowly and with young players. We simply don't have the money to do it any other way!

It's ignorant to focus only on the results and ignore the wider problems at the club, yes. The financial issues will not go away with a new manager (in fact, they'll get worse as we'll lose money having to pay off Lambert and his team) The remit of building a young team will not go away with a new manager The issues of naivety and inexperience in the squad will not go away with a new manager A new manager means starting, yet again, from square one. A new manager means trying to find someone crazy enough to take this job on, knowing they won't have money to spend, and knowing they'll only have two seasons to succeed with the toughest remit in the league lest they also be sacked. A new manager means trying to find someone who'll take this job on who is significantly better than Lambert, which leaves very few options. Make no mistake, I don't want to see us lose ten home games in a season, and I don't want to see us doubled by the likes of Fulham and Stoke, but in the absence of massive financial outlay our only choice as a club is to build slowly with a young side, which unfortunately means trawling through shit seasons like this one before we see any tangible success. We'll stay up, and hopefully Lambert can focus on bringing in quality (which he's shown himself capable of doing), rather than quantity, in the summer.

I agree. I think the remit he's had to work under is probably the most difficult in the premier league. He's had to rebuild the club from the ground up in a manner that will help us succeed in the long term (i.e. young players) and has been given a pittance to worth with AND has to meet the expectations of the fans (top half finishes at the very least) AND has to get the team playing good football. Trying to accomplish any two of those objectives would be a tough job, three would be a challenge for even the very best managers, but to accomplish all four is practically impossible, and would take a manager of Mourinho or Guardiola's quality to achieve. I would say that more than 5 of our players are good enough for this level. I think we forget how young this team is, they are one of the youngest sides to ever play top flight football in this country. Even the lads that haven't shined so far could potentially go on to be very good players once they've matured, the talent is clearly there for most of them. I also think that a lot of these young players would do fine if they were playing alongside more experienced colleagues, instead of fellow youngsters. I'm not saying Lambert is perfect, FAR from it, and I'm not saying he should be immune from some pretty heavy criticism, but to say he deserves the sack is to ignore the larger issues at the club and to be ignorant to the remit he's been asked to work under, which will NOT change if a new manager comes in.

Hart was like the Messi of wrestling - he very rarely did anything flash, but he did the basics better than anyone else in the world - and that's what makes him the best. In my opinion, no wrestler has ever made a match seem as believable as Bret, he's the only wrestler I've ever seen that can make you genuinely forget that what you're watching is scripted. He was average at best on the mic but he blew everyone else out of the water in every other regard.

Bull. You can't bet on pro wrestling, the outcomes are determined waaaaaay in advance.

25th anniversary of Hillsborough. That game was stopped after six minutes. Why are ALL the kick offs at 15.07 I wonder why the Bradford fire was not similarly commemorated? D'oh I agree wholeheartedly, never said otherwise. Hillsborough, Bradford, Heysel, Ibrox, Luzhniki, Port Said etc. etc. are all human tragedies that go above and beyond club loyalty, and all deserve to be remembered and respected. The Hillsborough disaster probably stands out from the crowd because of the controversy surrounding it, the fact that a top club were involved, the fact that footage is readily available on YouTube etc.

25th anniversary of Hillsborough. That game was stopped after six minutes. Why are ALL the kick offs at 15.07 I don't see a problem with it. Hillsborough was a tragedy for all of football, not just Liverpool FC.

25th anniversary of Hillsborough. That game was stopped after six minutes.

Did very well today, couldn't have asked much more of him

Is that a 4-4-2 or 4-3-3? Looks like a middle 3 of Bennett, Bacuna and Westwood with a front three of Albrighton, Weimann and Holt. Could easily see it as Bacuna and Westwood in the middle, Albrighton and Bennett on opposite flanks (always thought Bennett was better going forwards than at the back) with Weimann and Holt up top.

Yep. It was made clear from the day he signed, by both Lambert and Helenius himself, that he wouldn't be featuring much this season. I'm not sure what the reason was, perhaps that Lambert didn't feel he was too lightweight to be effective and needed to add some muscle. Either way, nobody ever said he'd be playing much this season but a lot of people seem to have forgotten that.

For me, it's more about seeing a team go from 7th to champions in one season. I don't think that has happened in my lifetime!

I genuinely can't believe I'm about to type these words but... I want Liverpool to win the league. ...what the hell is wrong with me?

He posted a pic to his twitter the other day of him in an ankle support. The kid is made of glass.

I absolutely hate that **** club. I hope they're out of the top 4 for the next decade and their revenue drops off until their debt cripples them. **** every last one of them.

Guzan - nothing to do but pick the ball out from his own net Bacuna - absolutely atrocious Vlaar - uncharacteristically poor composure Baker - rash, poor concentration, showed his inexperience Bertrand - the best of the back four, not that that says much Westwood - didn't really get a hold of the game, didn't do too badly though Delph - our best player, the only one apart from Benteke who can walk off with his head held high El Ahmadi - wasn't doing badly, unlucky with the injury Weimann - ineffectual, unlucky with the injury Benteke - did the best he could, poor service and support though Agbonlahor - poor Albrighton - uneven, some bright sparks and probably deserves a start soon Sylla - doesn't belong at this level, useless Holt - a pointless substitution, we were never going to outmuscle their centre halves or get anywhere with long balls