I said humanity I never mentioned manure
So much for swashbuckling Manchester United, wow. Massive bus coming in to park!
Yeah, they’re positively pinned back in their penalty area.
They’re the ones in blue, right?
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sub given a yellow card before… Not while still sitting on the bench anyway.
A bit disappointing to see Man U play ultra-defensively 
but I’m more disappointed they have nothing to show for it…
Yeah, that was surprising. You can’t tell me you were expecting that teamsheet to attack much though, considering Barcelona 
Still, they created zilch that wasn’t caused by bad mistakes by Inter’s defence. And a funny Carrick dive. Second half should be interesting.
I think you’re being a little uncharitable… Do Inter regularly make so many defensive errors? Why were there so many in the first half?
Barca must be positively awesome in their footballing skilz. After all, they are tied 1 - 1 late in the game with mighty Lyon!!!
It’s going to be interesting when Barca go out of the competition in the quarters and all four English teams are in the semis. <chuckling>
ETA: Assuming that’s possible by the draw.
Pretty unusual. They’re a typical miserly Italian/Mourinho team. Nervous I guess, who knows.
ETA: Actually, amend that to English/Mourinho team, since England is officially the most negative league out of the big 3 now. Obviously France wins hands down overall.
DSYoungEsq, nice insult of Lyon. How many times have you even watched them play?
And Barcelona are regarded by virtually everyone as the team playing the best football in Europe, so sarcasm about their “skilz” just makes you look silly.
We’ll see about the English teams. Still in the air obviously. I assume you’ll be eating crow if 3-4 of them go bye-bye?
You did say earlier:
I know that any English teams success can only be due to other team playing poorly but I think you may be blinded a little by staring too much at Barca’s halo…
They weren’t injured to a noticeable degree, so obviously the point was moot. Blame the media for reporting the injuries as serious.
I’m blinded by staring at Barca’s halo? The fuck? I mention them as the best team in Europe, an opinion shared by a majority of people, and suddenly I’m obsessed by them? I’ve hardly even mentioned them except when other people write bullshit like this.
You drag Barça out as the gold standard of soccer this year every chance you get. I’ve stopped bothering to count the references you make to them. 
We understand your position: you think that teams that create multiple scoring chances are better than teams that don’t. Respectfully, we disagree. Frankly, if that was what made a team good, Nigeria would have won the World Cup on more than one occasion. But there is this little aspect to the game called “defense.” As in what you are supposed to do when you don’t have the ball. The fact that some teams are more focused on this does not make them less skillful, nor does it make them poor teams, nor, in my humble opinion, does it make them “negative.” It simply means that they don’t mind winning 1-0, and since the final score of a win rarely makes a difference, it is hard to argue that’s a bad thing.
Not that I think you are able to understand this, really. Your belief that my post implied an insult to Lyon indicates you aren’t really thinking this through. I was dissing your opinion of how excellent Barça is.
Bullshit. I’ve mentioned them once or twice, and then responded to stupid shit like this.
Show where I’ve mentioned them of my own accord so many times, or shut up.
If that’s the only difference between the teams, then only a complete moron would think they aren’t the better team.
You disagree with a straw man of your own making. I consider Mourinho’s Chelsea the best team of their time, for example.
:rolleyes:
You were also dissing Lyon. Why else would you imply a score draw away to them is a poor result, and sarcastically call them mighty?
And you don’t even know what my overall opinion on Barcelona is, since I’ve never written it here. All I’ve said is they’re the best team in Europe. Bookmakers agree, which while hardly definitive, does show it to be a very uncontroversial statement.
The Bookies have stopped taking bets on Rafa leaving the RS in the summer, with some reckoning he’ll be on his bike this week. Contract negotiations irretrievably fucked. I’d be amazed if he binned it this week, but a 3-0 chastening at the Bernabeu might force his portly hand.
I’ll be sorry to see him go, obviously, but the prospect of Sammy Lee as caretaker manager would quickly dull the pain of his departure 
Hmm. Hard to square with the various parties’ motivations, to be honest. Apparently Rafa wants an out clause in the event of the club being sold, which Gillett and Hicks think compromises their sale value. But it’s hard to see Sammy Lee adding more value than even a Schrodinger’s Rafa, so surely they’d be nuts to oust him at this stage of the season. They have to sell in the summer, no two ways about it. I can’t see how chucking the club into uproar at the business end of the season could possibly help that.
I’d be amazed if Rafa hadn’t had his own talks with the Kuwaitis by now, as well. I can’t believe he’d really want to jump when the money fairies arrive, so presumably he thinks he has something to gain by dealing direct with the new owners.
For any Liverpool fans here.
Is Benitez still held in high regard with the fans? I know there has been at least one demonstration of loyalty towards him in the past. Does that still hold true, now that the title has by most accounts escaped them for another year. Of course the Champion’s League is still a possibility but again they don’t seem to be playing well enough to win that either.
As an outsider I have a strange fondness for him but then he’s not the manager of my team. We have our own Spanish manager with whom we’re more than content right now.
I think for the most part, yes, he’s still well-regarded by the fans. Certainly almost all would take his side in any dispute between him and the Americans, whose name is mud.
That said, my two friends and I (the ones I talk football with most) are frequently quite frustrated with him. His substitutions are wince-inducingly predictable, and never seem to be made with much sense of adventure or risk. His bizarre treatment of Robbie Keane sits uneasily, as does his almost pathological desire to turn certain players into something they’re not, with distinctly mixed results.
While the faltering league campaign is certainly disappointing, I don’t think any of us are particularly surprised by it. The depth of squad isn’t there, particularly up front, to cope with those times when Torres and Gerrard are either injured or out of form. Dirk Kuyt, bless 'im, has turned into a decent enough utility player, but is pretty much no longer a striker. Babel’s potential has been neutered by his exile to a sporadic left-wing slot, and Yossi is just a slightly less exciting version of Luis Garcia; less likely to lose the ball, but less likely to score random stunners.
Like it or not, we’re not in the same financial league as United, and I think the fans recognise this. We’ve also hamstrung ourselves with some woeful excuses for transfer market strategy (letting Dani Alves get away verges on criminal). Some people are obviously convinced Man U’s squad is full of turkeys, but it ain’t so; they’ve got depth in almost every position, whereas get past our first team and it starts to look a bit thin.
To sum up, I’d say the fans don’t sweat the big stuff, but frequently wish they knew what the hell was going on in Rafa’s head.
Speaking as a Bolton fan, I would love to see Sammy Lee at the helm of Liverpool. If it happened soon enough, I wouldn’t put relegation outside of his grasp…
I’ve been following this thread since the start, and so far kept out of the “English teams underperforming” debate that you are so keen on, as I haven’t really seen any objective evidence either way (by which I mean I don’t follow foreign leagues, so I don’t really know if English teams are underperforming or not). I do agree with you, even as a Man U fan, that Man U have been a little lucky this year (though not nearly as lucky as Chelsea were a couple of seasons ago), but I don’t agree that most of their performances have been poor. Some have, yes, but not most, and to keep winning, often apparently effortlessly, in five competitions is a huge achievement. Now, after your posts in the last 24 hours, I see that you seem to have such a blinkered view that I doubt I’ll continue to take your posts seriously on the quality or otherwise of the Premier League. Let’s hope English teams continue to impress and Europe, tonight and for the rest of the season, and maybe you will change your mind.
Three English teams win their opening legs, and the other team manages to hold the opponents scoreless at their home. Too bad the English teams are playing soooooooooooo poorly.
I was just about to lament the tragic performances of the four British clubs too, DSYoung.