I bet the house on Marseille winning the league and still think they are the best side in French football. I think they'll do it.

I think you are being overly harsh on Rooney there and making him out to sound like some goal-poacher. He can score goals from pretty much anywhere, it's just down to the role that he is asked to play. At the moment he plays up front by himself with attacking wingers, which means he has to take up a very forward position. In previous seasons he has been able to drop back into midfield and pick up the ball and has scored some wonderful goals as a result of it. They are both fantastic players and offer something different, but you can't definitively say who is better between Ronaldo, Rooney and Messi in my opinion. Each is a little bit more suited to different leagues, styles of team play and the role that they are then given within that team. I'd love to see Rooney play in Spain against defenses that back off a bit more and don't go into the tackle as hard, he'd thrive as all attack-minded players do. Say what you want (and we've had this debate before), but Messi wouldn't be QUITE so effective in England. He'd handle the physical game well and would be in the elite group of players in the league, but if you want to show off an attacking game it is always best to be on the continent.

Not sure he's quite once a generation; hard to separate Messi, Rooney and Ronaldo.

Wrong thread.

I'm going to miss him. He was the only player left in his squad who I thought could really produce something out of nothing at any moment. He hasn't done it much lately, but you always knew when he had the ball that you could be about to witness a moment of pure inspiration. I'll probably end up remembering him for the firs season he was here and for the part he played in the Hughes regime. Very good signing for the club and most likely one of the most talented players that we've ever had. Shame that he couldn't stay focused and fit, but can't help but feel this was mismanaged. Fact of the matter is that he wasn't an Allardyce player and he was never going to be. Even Allardyce owes a lot to Benni, he played a big part in our turn-around in December and January of last year. I hope that we get to see a player of his talent again sometime soon, but I'm not holding my breath. Hopefully he won't score too many at West Ham.

Yeah, Shillito is being a bit unfair to Benni. He's had a very good career and certainly can be proud of what he has achieved when he does eventually retire.

Propaganda to get a reaction? He's clearly fit enough to play how he plays. Based on his performance today, in the cups, last season he deserves to play.

Good performance, helped turn things around. He's come on and put in effort everytime he's been asked to this season and no one can fault him for his application and attitude. He has to stay and, more importantly, he has to play. Can we give up on trying to be a rebranded Bolton and play two up front please, a formation where we are quite clearly better.

Had they won last night they would have "simply" needed to win their last two games, one of which is a fairly easy game by Champions League standards. With Lyon and Fiorentina still to play it would have virtually guaranteed that 9 points from those three games would have put them ahead of one of them, so their head-to-head record wouldn't have come into play.

Are you comparing Allardyce with Ramsay? You don't half talk some crap. Fact is we look best when playing 4-4-2. We did under Souness. We did under Hughes. We did under Ince. We still have plenty of players left from those regimes. We looked best last year doing it when Allardyce first came in. Even at Old Trafford we looked better once we had two up front. We don't have the players necessary to play 4-5-1, the main reason being that we don't have pace. We can't properly support a loan striker because our players can't get forward fast enough. In the games when our team is actually better it does work because we are able to retain possession and have sustained attacks, but this would be true in a 4-4-2 as well. As of yet there has been little evidence that the extra midfielder adds to our defensive strength. This formation clearly isn't working, that is why we are in the relegation zone. It leads to one of our best players (Benni) being on the bench, our big summer signing (McCarthy) being on the bench and also seems to require that our least talented central midfielder (Andrews) plays in every game.

When they were winning 1-0 they had a very good chance of qualifying. Now their chances are slim, but they could still do it.

Yep, the question is the same as it always is: we have some important games coming up, if the ball is going to drop to anyone in our squad in the box who do you want there?

Agreed and also, as stupid as this sounds, he seemed to enjoy others scoring as much as those scoring enjoyed the experience. He's obviously a positive influence in the squad. He needs to play in the upcoming matches.

Not surprising that our best goalscorer wants to leave when he isn't even being given a chance? He's been our best striker under Allardyce. His goals when Allardyce first joined kept us up and even this year he's look pretty good whenever he's been given a chance. We have to keep him and he needs to play.

Maybe so, but things didn't go wrong that often when he was in charge.

Yep, I mean he had a very good group of players, no doubting that, but he has to go down as a good England manager. Have to say that he was pretty unlucky with how England were knocked out in every tournament he went to, the line between success and failure at international tournaments is tiny once you start talking about penalty shoot-outs.

When I was 17 I traveled to Egypt in November to compete in a football tournament and in the third and final group game we faced the Egyptian side. In order to qualify for the knock-out stages we needed a win, but we went in at half-time trailing 2-0. It was hot, probably in the low 30 to mid 30's, no wind and the pitch itself had no shade despite the stands around it. The Egyptian's faded fast later on in the match and we went on to win the match 3-2 and eventually won the tournament, I have no doubt that their fasting played a role in that match. They were obviously the only Egyptian side that we faced, but how devout they were despite the obvious problems it caused amazed me. Not only were they not eating, but they even refused to have a proper intake of liquids, allowing themselves to only swill water around their mouths at half-time, but apart from that have nothing to drink. I believe that Ramadan allows for people to break their fast if it puts others lives in danger (for example for pilots), but you would have thought that when your profession could put your own life at risk by fasting that you would also be allowed certain breaks. I don't see how a footballer sticking to the fast could be played.

We'll see Neekoy, you may still end up being right. They haven't had too many challenges and we'll see how he manages when the wheels come off a bit. They were basically untested domestically and it wasn't until the semi-final and final that they faced serious opposition in the champions league and he was tactically out-thought in 2 of those 3 games. I think a lot of us would find it fairly easy to manage the side that they have now, what makes or breaks managers at top clubs is when they have to change the side a bit or when a batch of players lose form. Too soon to say that he's made the grade.

Don't know why you all find Barcelona any less annoying than United. Personally I dislike the two equally, Barcelona fans tend to be the same glory hunting bunch who know nothing about football and think less of clubs because they don't manage to play "real" football. The whole more than a club attitude is fine when you're talking to a true supporter (which there are few of), but when it's some a$$hole from who knows where it's as annoying as any fan can get. I'm sure it's not as bad for most of you as you are in England, but on the continent I find Barcelona fans to be the worst around.

United play excellent football and started brightly, they simply didn't recover from the early goal and never did anything to knock Barcelona out of their stride once it happened, but those two sides could play open football games 100 times and they'd probably split them. Two great sides and to see that number of really quality players on show was great. Why people are using it as an opportunity to knock football, English football in particular, or United is a bit beyond me. Oh, yeah - Rover6. He's pretty good when it comes to managing football sides. He might want to keep what he's doing that allows them to win the league each year, a cup or two on top of that and get far in, if not win, the champions league.

I'd still argue that. That isn't to say he wouldn't be world class still, but I just don't think he would be AS good. I think if Ronaldo went to Spain he would look a lot better, same for a lot of the more technically gifted players who have been in the premiership. I don't think Henry would still be as relevant in this league as he is in La Liga, but then I think Tevez, Nani, Anderson or Berbatov would look even better in Spain. Each league asks something slightly different of players, the very best in the world will look good everywhere (Messi, Ronaldo, etc), but that doesn't mean that there aren't leagues where they will be more effective. There's no way that a team in England would ever have the +70ish goal difference that Barcelona have, it is an indication of how their open style of play leads goals being scored and also allows a great side to dominate far more easily than in England. Messi would be a fantastic player anywhere in the world, but the slower pace and less physical nature of the Spanish game makes his life a bit easier.

He was overweight for a footballer, but certainly not obese and I'm sure most on here wouldn't be lining up to stand next to him on the beach this summer.

Having often been dropped for a centre half despite scoring some crucial goals I wouldn't entirely blame him if he is looking elsewhere now.

He made it clear that he wasn't going to sign a deal quite a long time before his contract was up, so we could have easily sold him at any point during that time.

He captained us through a relatively successful period, so he obviously did a decent job of it. If he was respected and focused on the job (which he clearly was) then I don't have a problem with the captaincy. We could have sold him to solve the problem, but couldn't find a suitable option and thought he was doing a good job. Ooijer is a bit different as he didn't decide he was leaving 18 months ago and I really only think he is going as he isn't a regular and is unlikely to ever be one. I also wouldn't be surprised if he would have had to have accepted a pay cut (if we even put in any effort to keep him). It's been clear for several months that he is going, but he never came out publicly and said so, which was the professional thing to do. Neill could have easily done the same, he doesn't need to be as hated as he is, but he didn't handle it in the best possible manner either.