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Posted:
Mon Dec 17, 2007 6:06 pmby LittleHobo
Lee J wrote:LittleHobo wrote:its sad but its another wasted season in my opinion
league is over and champions league looks daunting, fa cup is the best we can for
littlehobo - what are you on ?
pull it together man.
title race over - my ar$e. I admit we may not win it this year but we'll be closer than we ever have in recent years.
get the rose tinted glasses off son
if you cant beat your rivals at home you aint winning no title
and we didnt.....
ok we still have a chance of course but realistically we are no where near good enough
i would say its over now..the bookies think so also, 16-1 you can get on us winning the league
Posted:
Mon Dec 17, 2007 6:09 pmby Ciggy
Reds Aribian King wrote:I wish john fashanu of Wimbledon partners Torres
AWOOGA
Posted:
Mon Dec 17, 2007 6:11 pmby NANNY RED
LittleHobo wrote:Lee J wrote:LittleHobo wrote:its sad but its another wasted season in my opinion
league is over and champions league looks daunting, fa cup is the best we can for
littlehobo - what are you on ?
pull it together man.
title race over - my ar$e. I admit we may not win it this year but we'll be closer than we ever have in recent years.
get the rose tinted glasses off son
if you cant beat your rivals at home you aint winning no title
and we didnt.....
ok we still have a chance of course but realistically we are no where near good enough
i would say its over now..the bookies think so also, 16-1 you can get on us winning the league
Ill have a bit of that 16/1 lad
Ah Bob why did you card him i havnt laughed since yesrerday wonder if he rang Rafa yet 
Posted:
Mon Dec 17, 2007 6:19 pmby Bad Bob
NANNY RED wrote:Ah Bob why did you card him i havnt laughed since yesrerday wonder if he rang Rafa yet
Apparently he did call the gaffer, Nan. Unfortunately, he only got the machine:
"Hola, you have reached Rafael Benitez. I am currently very beezy coaching and training my players and cannot come to the phone. Please direct all inquiries to Reek Parry. Gracias." 
Posted:
Mon Dec 17, 2007 6:24 pmby Big Niall
It is obvious Kuyt isn't good enough, £10m wasted.
Prob sell him back to the Netherlands for £4m. He's not getting younger either. he might have been good in a weak league but it was obvious in the world cup that he wasn't that good (I said that in many threads at the time so 
)
Nothing against him, he tries his most, just doesn't have it.
Posted:
Mon Dec 17, 2007 7:00 pmby Lando_Griffin
Posted:
Mon Dec 17, 2007 7:33 pmby stevieg84
We had more of the ball..and on another day would have won this game at a canter, it just wasnt to be . Ferguson wasnt taking any chances and its nice to know he respects us after all these years.
Agree with the that guy about Dirk Kuyt, he must be offloaded as soon as possible. 
Posted:
Mon Dec 17, 2007 7:35 pmby Bammo
Genuine questions:
For all of those desperate to offload Kuyt, who do we replace him with?
Are there any decent forwards we can realistically afford and expect to sign for us?
Posted:
Mon Dec 17, 2007 7:38 pmby puroresu
stevieg84 wrote:We had more of the ball..and on another day would have won this game at a canter, it just wasnt to be . Ferguson wasnt taking any chances and its nice to know he respects us after all these years.
Agree with the that guy about Dirk Kuyt, he must be offloaded as soon as possible.
But Utd didnt mind us having most of the ball. We are the home team and should have more of the ball. Utd didnt mind us playing in frot of them as we were not creating anything.
Posted:
Mon Dec 17, 2007 7:57 pmby mkingdom
I HATE losing to the Mancs. It is even worse when they were obviously not really any better than us.
I sometimes feel that our players give Manure too much respect, and I don't feel that the players believe they can beat them.
Anyway, squad versus squad, they have a better one....hard to swallow but true.
We have one world class striker and he cost us about £25m. Their two main frontmen cost over £30m each. We have one main striker and odds and sods (in comparison). So if he is nullified we struggle.
Did this game put us out of the title race....NO!
But not beating Birmingham, Portsmouth and Reading probably did.
We'll be closer this year, but still just not good enough....YET.
We have every chance of winning at least one cup....but we have tobe careful about staying in the top 4 based on our very unreliable form...City keep winning, and will buy again in Jan.
We just have to irradicate these silly dropped points against the so called smaller sides....and one of these days we'll also start to win ugly against the big three too. Manure have done that to us twice in two years, and it will probably mean they win the league again.
It hurts to say that, believe me.
Posted:
Mon Dec 17, 2007 8:53 pmby bigmick
This "can we win the league" reminds me of one of those threads where we discuss a new player, "I know it's early" and all that nonsense. Those who are showing loyaly, support, faith or whatever else you like to call it are entirely entitled to do so of course, but so are those who doubt the possibility are not being disloyal or fickle, simply realistic.
In my opinion (FWIW and I know it's not very much) we are absolutely dead in the water, gone for all money in the Premeirship for this season. Now as already stated you can get 16/1 with the bookmakers against us winning the league, and I don't think that is a price which will see the punters kicking the door in to get on. Should we fail to beat Portsmouth at home on Saturday we will be 66/1 at least, so precarious is our position. If we were to lose at the Emirates later in the season, we are needing to make up thirteen points or so on Arsenal between now and the end of the season. If Manchester United win their game on the corresponding weekend, we will have to make up twelve points on them as well. Should we however win at the Emirates, then we will only have to make up nine points on Manchester United, and then also go to Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge and probably win there as well, because if we lost at Old Trafford, we'd be back to square one, twelve points behind the Mancs.
This weekend the so-called most exciting race in the Premiership for years was reduced to a two-horse race in my opinion. If you went on a Chelsea forum, you would no doubt find people alluding to the fact that as all the other big four teams still have to visit Stamford Bridge in the second half of the season, they are still in it. I suppose just about, possibly, they are.
The Arsenal fans will rightly think that as long as they keep their best players fit, and the excellent Van Persie continues to show the quality in his return which he did when he came on against Chelsea (I fecking watched both games in the middle of the night, it nearly killed me) then they are right in it. They do though have to go to both Stamford Bridge and Old Trafford, and they do have the African Nations looming large.
Then there is the Mancs, they've been to Anfield and won, beaten Chelsea at Home and were denied in injury time at the Emirates. Few if any African Nations players and a strong squad. We're nine points behind them, admittedly with a game in hand but with our fixture list to come, I think it's beyond us by a fairly large margin. We couldn't afford to lose the game on Sunday, a draw wouldn't have killed us off but a loss did I'm afraid.
Posted:
Mon Dec 17, 2007 9:35 pmby maguskwt
bigmick wrote:Should we fail to beat Portsmouth at home on Saturday we will be 66/1 at least, so precarious is our position. If we were to lose at the Emirates later in the season, we are needing to make up thirteen points or so on Arsenal between now and the end of the season. If Manchester United win their game on the corresponding weekend, we will have to make up twelve points on them as well. Should we however win at the Emirates, then we will only have to make up nine points on Manchester United, and then also go to Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge and probably win there as well, because if we lost at Old Trafford, we'd be back to square one, twelve points behind the Mancs.
dammit don't jinx it mate... have some positive thoughts ffs... why are we thinking about losing? we have to think about winning!... you remind me of that robot in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy... "what's the point?"
Posted:
Mon Dec 17, 2007 9:44 pmby Bad Bob
bigmick wrote:This "can we win the league" reminds me of one of those threads where we discuss a new player, "I know it's early" and all that nonsense. Those who are showing loyaly, support, faith or whatever else you like to call it are entirely entitled to do so of course, but so are those who doubt the possibility are not being disloyal or fickle, simply realistic.
In my opinion (FWIW and I know it's not very much) we are absolutely dead in the water, gone for all money in the Premeirship for this season. Now as already stated you can get 16/1 with the bookmakers against us winning the league, and I don't think that is a price which will see the punters kicking the door in to get on. Should we fail to beat Portsmouth at home on Saturday we will be 66/1 at least, so precarious is our position. If we were to lose at the Emirates later in the season, we are needing to make up thirteen points or so on Arsenal between now and the end of the season. If Manchester United win their game on the corresponding weekend, we will have to make up twelve points on them as well. Should we however win at the Emirates, then we will only have to make up nine points on Manchester United, and then also go to Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge and probably win there as well, because if we lost at Old Trafford, we'd be back to square one, twelve points behind the Mancs.
This weekend the so-called most exciting race in the Premiership for years was reduced to a two-horse race in my opinion. If you went on a Chelsea forum, you would no doubt find people alluding to the fact that as all the other big four teams still have to visit Stamford Bridge in the second half of the season, they are still in it. I suppose just about, possibly, they are.
The Arsenal fans will rightly think that as long as they keep their best players fit, and the excellent Van Persie continues to show the quality in his return which he did when he came on against Chelsea (I fecking watched both games in the middle of the night, it nearly killed me) then they are right in it. They do though have to go to both Stamford Bridge and Old Trafford, and they do have the African Nations looming large.
Then there is the Mancs, they've been to Anfield and won, beaten Chelsea at Home and were denied in injury time at the Emirates. Few if any African Nations players and a strong squad. We're nine points behind them, admittedly with a game in hand but with our fixture list to come, I think it's beyond us by a fairly large margin. We couldn't afford to lose the game on Sunday, a draw wouldn't have killed us off but a loss did I'm afraid.
Sadly, I'd have to agree that we're out of it for another year, mate. I think we'll comfortably finish in the top four, with a very good shot at pipping Chelsea for third and maybe running the runners-up somewhat close if they slip a bit but I can't see us winning it this year.
For the record, I've been saying for some time now that it was a year too soon for me and nothing I saw yesterday changes that evaluation. We still lack a couple of top quality players in attack that can really hurt top teams like Man U. We've seen a number of times already this year that we now have a squad that can absolutely batter lesser teams (just to remind people, we've scored 4 goals in five different matches already this term, not to mention putting 6 past Derby and 8 past Besiktas). What we need against top teams, besides a bit more luck, is a couple of players who can rise to the challenge and take some of the attacking pressure off of Gerrard and Torres.
Posted:
Mon Dec 17, 2007 9:45 pmby Sabre
Probably BM's position is the wisest. Winning the league is very difficult, even if we had the same points as the rest, you would have 25% of possibilities each, so the most likely thing is NOT to win the league. So for what is worth it's ok we have a chilling voice in the forum. Especially because when the doom and gloom appears massively, he also does that chilling effect against the gloom and doomers.
If we then we win the league, we'll all be happy. Probably his position is much better than believing in winning it and then fail, because then you overreact frustratingly.
Bigmick also said recently that sometimes the difference between a brilliant game and a game we moan is very slim. And I agree. Yesterday games was one of those. Would have been another match if we scored one of the chances of the first half, Van der Saar was shaky but we didn't score.
That game, waiting for them in the second half would have been different, and so would have been the euphoria if we won.
Perhaps the best is to think only in the next game. Perhaps the league is difficult, but I'm bloody honest with you mates when I say we're not less team that this Manchester United guys. Not at all. Yesterday I admired Manchester United only for their CB.
Some posters have said Rafa is a lucky lucky manager in the past, but bloody hell, Lady fortune has a close relationship with Ferguson at least when it comes to Anfield.
P.S. For the record, I still think we don't have to throw the toillet. Probably because I come from a country in which I see top teams losing more games, and because I've seen Rafa under Valencia coming back incredibly in the second half. If the league is really not that regular as other years, not so easy for the top teams, we have possibilities.
Winning 3 cl games in a row including a victory (and it's not easy) in france, wasn't likely either. Liverpool have shown us 50 times not to throw the towel
Posted:
Mon Dec 17, 2007 10:02 pmby bigmick
I think we'd have possibilities if it was one team to catch. If it was Arsenal a few wins ahead of us, Man Utd and Chelsea then I'd be fairly sure that at least one of us would get close to them. Similarly, whether or not this particular Manchester United team is upto previous ones, ones who could lead out from a long way home and not come back, I'm not so sure.
The trouble is though we are behind three teams, not one. We're maybe only a fraction behind Chelsea, but they have to play the other three big four teams at Home in the second half, whereas we have to play all three Away which makes a huge difference. We are fourth now by a fair way in real and in actual terms, and catching up three teams all at once is not just a mountain to climb, it's nigh on impossible in my view. No doubt somebody will invoke the spirit of Istanbul, but it's worth remembering we were only 3-0 down to one team there.
As for Maguskwt's point about me jinkxing it, don't worry mate I'm not I think we'll beat Portsmouth at Home on Saturday. I think for starters that both of our best players will be on the pitch from the first whistle, no messing about. We didn't lose our chances of winning the league by getting beat by Man Utd, but we certainly dealt ourselves a massive body blow by choosing to start neither of them the last time we ran into Redknapps team.