home 3, away 1 for me... too bad i can't vote, but it seems like no one's going along with my choices yet!

i'll not talk about the referee or debatable incidents for everyone has pretty much covered it.

however, i'd like to point out another incident as yet unmentioned that i thought kuqi cost us an equaliser. about 5 minutes after saha scored, the ball was switched over to kuqi, who took it down extremely well. at that point, rio ferdinand was the ONLY defender left, and bentley was completely free, for a good 10 yards radius at least. watching on the tv, it seemed like kuqi thought about the pass, hesistated, then inexplicably decided to dribble at goal himself and eventually got crowded out by a recovering neville and ferdinand. foolish and selfish decision i thought, when a pass to bentley would surely surely have meant an equaliser for us, or at the very least a clean shot at goal.

Bottom line in all of that is he is saying, "I ain't staying"  Almost an open invitiation for a club with money to come get him.  We'd better stump up some cash or he's off, basically how I read that.

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exactly my sentiments too, USABlue. the most worrying point i abstracted from that article was that hughes seems to be saying 'i'm available', and if the right offer comes along, he's off. the board better tie him down to a long term contract as soon as possible, and insert a release clause in there to ensure we get amply compensated WHEN, not if, someone comes in for him.

agree with most.. i don't think its a big problem at all. however, i'm more concerned with his fitness... it seems that after every 3 or 4 matches he breaks down. that's more worrying i think..

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/story_pages/news/news1.shtml

i don't see this posted anywhere here yet.. hence a new topic. hate the man, don't u? think his position is now really untenable, but would the FA have the guts to fire him?

It will come down to two things.

Will United put out their best team?

Will our team play to its own potential?

We have to play at our best, even if United puts out a mixed line-up.

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on your first point, it looks like a resounding yes. looking at manure's line up for the fa cup tie today, which is really really weak, it seems like we're gonna face pretty much their full works. expect to see ruud, shrek and co. but we did them once at home, we must believe we can do it again.

I was horrified at the sight of our left back last night. A fully fit and match sharp Matteo runs and turns slower than an HGV so imagine what he was like last night on his return from 6 weeks out. If you weren't there, put a Rovers DVD on and play at half speed... I never thought I'd say this but bring back Micky Gray

to compound the problem, i thought he looked like he had too much of the christmas spread... he looked like he had put on quite a bit of weight during his lay-off.

Think you got the wrong end of the stick there vyeo, the report says -

"Pedersen is Rovers' joint top scorer with five league goals alongside Craig Bellamy, which has also impressed Spurs, "

The reporter is suggesting that Spurs are impressed by MGP's number of goals rather than Bellamy.

Still..Spurs have enough midfielders, leave MGP alone!*

* Unless that is they are willing to pay well over the odds.

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*sheepish* point fully taken! god i'm ashamed of myself!

is that reporter a spurs fan or what? it seems like a wishlist he's come up for himself, and being a journalist gives him the opportunity to put out such articles to either notify the reading spurs authorities and unsettle our best players. like what philip said too, it'd well be a case of him being 'touched up by someone with an agenda'. whatever it is though, we must be doing something right for people to take notice.

spurs interested in bellers? where were they 6 months ago? as for MGP, although i'm a fan, i wouldnt say no to 10m cash plus andy reid

erm... its not them in charge? oops. ok, i mean the 'powers that be' then.

Yes the FA getting what they want. Lets hope that the script falls apart for them. Blackburn - Wigan final anyone?

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the extent to which the FA will go to ensure a manure vs arsenal final will result in penalty-to-manure riley being appointed the ref in our match at the theatre of merchandising, so as to further compound the odds against us. i dont know who favours arsenal perpetually, but i'd bet it'd be some dodgy ref for their game against wigan as well. for once i'm hoping we get uriah rennie who seems to be the bravest of the lot; inept as he may be, we may get some calls.

at my most imaginative, i can only assume that the numbers correspond to the ties themselves, not the order of qualification. hence 1.) manure 2.) wigan 3.) arsenal 4.) us, since that was the order the ties were played. I'm not trying to absolve the FA of blame, but even if the numbers were in alphabetical order, we'd still be playing man u as we'd be 2.) vs 3.) manure.

in any case, tough luck on us that manure and le ars(e) are taking this cup fairly seriously this season. i'd have preferred arsenal due to them still being in the champions league and might still put out a weakened side. but manure isnt going to take this lightly, mark my words.

Teams left in as well as ourselves:

Doncaster

Arsenal

Birmingham

Wigan

Man United

Middlesbrough

Bolton/Leicester

I'd fancy us to beat any of those teams at home, most of them away too. No Chelsea and Liverpool makes it look a rather weak grouping, with Man U and Arsenal fielding reserve teams.

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hope arsenal and man utd get each other like last season. but looking at united's line up, they played a near full strength team last night. looks like RFW has realised that this is their best chance of a trophy this season, so i wouldnt hold out much hope of them putting out a 2nd string for the rest of the competition...

Just for you griz...............

(courtesy of soccerbase)

Arsenal : Taylor ,Tavlaridis (Halls ,82 ) ,Keown ,Upson ,Edu ,Grimandi ,Pennant (Aliadiere ,64 ) ,Inamoto (Stepanovs ,45 ) ,van Bronckhorst ,Wiltord ,Kanu

oh man thanks for that reminder. i'd totally forgot what team arsenal played. that team isn't half bad. makes our win even more impressive. ah.. memories

He has said that he would never sign for any other premiership clubs, as he will not go into the away dressing room at old trafford.

And he has stated that he would like to play for Celtic

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well... if its a 6mths deal to the end of the season, he wouldnt have to, cos we've won there already

the freekick was similar to MGP's effort at old trafford. either way, the keeper had everything to lose. had he came off the line, any touch at would have resulted in a goal anyway. that said, i'd still rather he had came out and tried to punch it away (he does afterall, have a very solid punch).

the problem i think is with keepers in general; quality goalkeepers are at a premium. why else is a team like man utd employing edwin van der sar as 1st choice keeper? personally, i'd rate him and brad at the same level. both are still quality, but they can't defy the aging process, and with it, the natural slow-down in reaction.

as for enckelman, i'd go with hughes judgement. if sparky deems him good enough, i'd go with him. but i suspect he doesnt, hence he's scouring for a younger keeper with potential (lee).

We lost to Riley, simple as. Strangely enough, he started decently, and had what i thought was a good first half. was speaking to my manure supporting friend at half time and told him jokingly that riley was really simply a scum supporter; even he's doing his bit to derail chelsea. Alas, someone from the FA or russian mafia probably had a word in his ear at half time. EVERYTHING went against us in the 2nd half, and it was so bad the commentators clearly were miffed as well, pointing out various incidences where unfair calls were made against us. (eg: essien fouling pedersen with an outstretched elbow, but freekick going to chelski; when peders went shoulder to shoulder with the show boating pony j cole, he was booked)

all in all though, after the first 15min, i was well-prepared for a pasting. but very very pleased with the way we battled back to go in level at half-time. it was a heartening performance, and combined with the last half-dozen of games or so, we have much to look forward to. only niggling question i have is... how long can we keep bellamy happy? we clearly need 1 more quality midfielder and striker each, and i'd say we could even be challenging for 4th spot.

Unlikely?  It's Mike Riley!

 

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with him as ref, i predict: 3-0 chelsea; lampard (pen, todd off), drogba x2

yes i'm pessimistic, but i really do fear the chelsea backlash.

WHAT A RESULT! ecstatic. i must have screamed so loud the next block heard me but fantastic result! when i saw the lineup, i thought hughes was trying to gift his former club three points. i said after the villa match that i never want tugay starting in an away game, and never did i expect to see gray as well. but who cares, i gladly eat my words.

tugay did well during his time on the pitch, picking his passes well, and didnt get caught out as he's prone to be. gray deserves a mention as well, bombed up the left so often (something we've grown to forget is part of a left back's role) and even got the assist for the winner. let's just hope its not a flash in the pan. bellamy looked great, and MGP took his chance fantastically.

at half time, i would have settled for a 1-1 draw, and on another day it might have been 3-3, but we rode our luck and held out; all credit to the boys. if i must complain, it must surely be... why didnt we play like this last wk!

i have refrained from posting on the preview threads as we always seem to lose when i do! but i can't resist it this time, so please forgive me should anything untoward happen!

but i really think (its a gut feeling) that we're gonna take this one. i wouldn't begrudge big al one last goal at ewood, so long as we score more. i'm also pretty sure that owen will score (face it... almost everyone breaks their duck against us). so i'm going for a thrilling 3-2 victory for us, with emerton, jansen and bellamy netting the injury time winner, and in the process, hammering the final nail in souey's black and white coffin.

like tsnuf, i've also just seen the delayed telecast of the game on tv. first half was awful, the second better, but nothing like we know we can play. personally, i was surprised to see tugay starting. i would have thought mokoena was more suited to today's game, and besides, i didnt think tugay's legs would see him through 3 games in a week. flitty did NOTHING of note during his time on the pitch. matty looked rusty. but a 'positive', if we can take anything from it, is that gresko did impress (well, at least me). he won his tackles and headers well, and looked more like the on-loan gresko. hopefully, he'll keep up his form.

as for kuqi... i've seen all 4 games this season now... and i can come up with only one comment... 'Ashley Ward, version 2005' - the only modification on the original being he's got some pace... but crucially, only when he's WITHOUT the ball. to me, we seriously need reinforcements.

great job ozz. had a rough day, but reading that's brightened me up.

can't wait for the season to start myself. only grouse is that only 5 of ours first 18 games will be shown 'live' on cable over here, but that's another matter. can't wait.

i don't know if its me, but has anyone thought that perhaps, unlike most of us who sees mokoena as being best suited to a defensive midfield role, hughes doesnt, and instead still sees him as being a centre back? (explains the release of short and nissa, the latter who really baffles me.) if this were the case, then savage's place will be no issue, and in any case, i'm pretty sure he'd be one of the first names on hughes' team sheet anyway. on the other hand, mokoena could be seen as the player who plays in away matches, where we adopt a more conservative 451, and serve as a convenient midfield or defence spare in the home games, assuming we go 442 then.

Those who claim Palace are little more than a long ball team whose reliance on Johnson is overbearing were proved wrong on this balmy afternoon at Selhurst Park. They lack quality to pass teams off the park, that much was obvious, but it doesn't stop them trying and they have not resorted to Blackburn-style violent tactics in their hour of need either.

now this is really getting atrocious. almost every article is having a go at us.

full article here: http://soccernet.espn.go.com/feature?id=331616&cc=4716

i was actually rooting for liverpool to win the champions league, but now, i guess it's gotta be milan. totally rooting for everton to finish fourth and into the champs league next season, and it'd be a travesty if they end up not qualifying for it, and be screwed out of it by their fiercest rivals.