public enemy

Group C FC Barcelona Panathinaikos Werder Bremen Udinese Group H FC Internazionale FC Porto Rangers FC A. Bratislava Group G Liverpool FC Chelsea FC RSC Anderlecht Real Betis Group D Manchester United Villarreal CF Losc Lille SL Benfica Group E AC Milan PSV Eindhoven FC Schalke 04 Fenerbache Group F Real Madrid CF Lyon Olympiacos CFP Rosenborg BK Group B Arsenal AFC Ajax AC Sparta Praha FC Thun Group A FC Bayern Juventus Club Brugge Rapid Wien

These awards are a load of bollocks, hurry up with the main show already!

Bah, turns out the draw isn't until another half-hour. The skysports schedual is as follows; 3pm UEFA Club Football Awards 3.30pm Champions League Draw 4.00pm Reaction . . . And to add a bit of humour to the thread yet still moderately keeping on topic (>_>), something I just seen on the football365 forums.

Top Seeds Liverpool (holders) (no country protection) Real Madrid (ESP) AC Milan (ITA) Barcelona (ESP) Manchester United (ENG) Inter Milan (ITA) Bayern Munich (GER) Arsenal (ENG) 2nd Seeds Porto (POR) Juventus (ITA) PSV Eindhoven (NED) Lyon (FRA) Panathinaikos (GRE) Chelsea (ENG) Villarreal (ESP) Ajax (NED) 3rd Seeds Club Brugge (BEL) Anderlecht (BEL) Olympiakos (GRE) Schalke 04 (GER) Sparta Prague (CZE) Rangers (SCO) Lille (FRA) Werder Bremen (GER) 4th Seeds Benfica (POR) Rosenborg (NOR) Real Betis (ESP) Udinese (ITA) Fenerbache (TUR) Rapid Vienna (AUT) FC Thun (SUI) Artmedia Bratislava (SVK) The actual draw starts at 3.00 I think... EDIT:

It's on Sky Sports News, channel 408 for Sky subscribers. Basically just a preview show at the minute but the live draw is soon to come. Anyone watching?

Real have already agreed a fee from Newcastle, they wouldn't have done that unless they were almost certain the player would join them. £16M is for a permanent move, both Real Madrid and Newcastle have ruled out the idea of a loan-move, so it seems that only Owen is clinging onto those hopes. Liverpool would be foolish to pay that much money for the player given the price they sold him for. I think Benitez acknowledges that and its the fans and the Liverpool board more than anything that are pushing him to resign him. Nonetheless, they're a little too cool on the whole situation and if Liverpool don't make a move sooner rather than later, Owen will undoubtedly be heading for Tyneside within the next week or so.

Last Night's Goals incase anyone missed them, Richardson's in particular was great; http://s26.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=35DOKES...6D1DR1X90STFZH2 As for the result, I'm not too bothered. We came with a job to do and did it comfortably enough. It may not have been the prettiest game of football in the world due to the awful conditions of the pitch but we were cool enough to get through despite a few slip-ups here and there. The only real downer was Gary Neville picking up his injury. Bardsley isn't quite ready to make the step-up from the reserves and Wes Brown's performances as right-back has been questioned in the past. It's a shame we seem to have missed out on this Brazilian kid, he could've really come in handy. Nice to see Heinze get his goals, if only he can continue in the premiership and earn me some points for my fantasy football team.

Vote: HaasOfPain Pretty close battle but HaasOfPain's graphic just takes it IMO. Unlike everyone else, I seemed to prefer the original one you had posted :/

In no particular order; Queensryche - Operation Mindcrime Queensryche - The Warning Dream Theater - Scenes From A Memory Dream Theater - Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence King Crimson - In The Court Of The Crimson King Tool - Lateralus Metallica - Master Of Puppets * Mahavishnu Orchestra - Birds Of Fire * Hendrix - Axis: Bold As Love Muse - Absolution Pink Floyd - Animals Pink Floyd - The Wall Pink Floyd - Atom Heart Mother * Pink Floyd - Dark Side Of The Moon Roger Waters - Amused To Death * Arugably a concept album, for the most part open for debate.

A goal's a goal, It was a lot more than what Crespo did in the first half.

Meh, I just tried to keep it as realistic and simplistic as possible. The rules didn't really appeal to me either to be honest and like Ruckus I didn't put in a lot of effort.

First to three?

We got better when Ronaldo came on not just because he's Ronaldo, but because he's a winger. With no threat out wide, teams can afford to defend in numbers grouped together in the middle. At least with a wide-man on, you can lure a player or in Ronaldo's case two or three out of the picture. If Ronaldo were to be injured, the likes of Giggs, Richardson, Rooney and Park could easily step-in and do the same thing, the only reason they didn't yesterday was because that wasn’t the system we were playing. Playing 4-3-3, you rely on you're full-back's power to get forward. Neither Neville or O'Shea are attacking full-backs but rather defensive players that have learnt to attack over the years. With that in mind, our width was minimal and it's no surprise it took us an eternity to score trying to thread passes through the middle. You can't base our entire title aspirations on one performance, albeit a winning performance. Villa played stubbornly and defensively, a tactic that a lot of teams will surely adapt against us this season. We'll struggle to break them down using our current system surely but as the season progresses we'll be more than used to it.

Today's Results Man United 1-0 Aston Villa Blackburn 2-1 Fulham Charlton 1-0 Wigan Liverpool 1-0 Sunderland Newcastle 0-0 West Ham Tottenham 2-0 Middlesbrough West Brom 2-1 Portsmouth Birmingham 1-2 Man City Premiership Table Team P W D L F A W D L F A GD PTS 1 Tottenham 2 1 0 0 2 0 1 0 0 2 0 4 6 2 Charlton 2 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 3 1 3 6 3 Man Utd 2 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 2 0 3 6 4 West Ham 2 1 0 0 3 1 0 1 0 0 0 2 4 5 Man City 2 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 2 1 1 4 6 West Brom 2 1 0 0 2 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 4 7 Liverpool 2 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 4 8 Arsenal 1 1 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 3 9 Chelsea 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 3 10 Blackburn 2 1 0 0 2 1 0 0 1 1 3 -1 3 11 Bolton 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 2 2 0 1 12 Aston Villa 2 0 1 0 2 2 0 0 1 0 1 -1 1 13 Birmingham 2 0 0 1 1 2 0 1 0 0 0 -1 1 14 Fulham 2 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 2 -1 1 15 Middlesbrough 2 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 2 -2 1 16 Newcastle 2 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 2 -2 1 17 Everton 1 0 0 1 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 -2 0 18 Wigan 2 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 -2 0 19 Portsmouth 2 0 0 1 0 2 0 0 1 1 2 -3 0 20 Sunderland 2 0 0 1 1 3 0 0 1 0 1 -3 0

A satisfying win today from a more than competent performance. Villa played well enough without threatening and there were times in which we, like last season, failed to take our chances. Good to see we never gave up and after all the long-shots and attempts in the world, who'd have predicted a Van Nistelrooy tap-in the be the winning goal! Fair play to Villa though, with all they're injuries they played a good game, Sorenson especially. A nail-biting finish to say the least but even at 1-0, it's three points well earned on our part.

I'm up for it. (Y)

Anyone remember the simpler times when it was just Man United interested in Essien? You know, when he actually wanted to join us and the reported fee was around £5 Million...How things change, eh?

I have to say I'm surprised that the rumours linking Newcastle with Luque have turned out to be true. From what I've seen of him for both Spain and Dep, he seems to be a top-class player and if Newcastle were to land him for the fee being quoted it would be an absolute bargain. For once it actually seems like Newcastle are making huge waves in the transfer market, probably upon the failure of last season. With both Parker and Emre living up to expectations and reported interest in Anelka and now Luque, Newcastle may finally be making the step foward. A good buy for them if it comes through IMO.

But doesn't Solano only have one year remaining on his contract? If that's the case, even if he is be the main creative drive behind the team at the minute, they'd be better off cashing him in whilst they still can.

Although I'm not the biggest fan of his music, I don't think there's any doubt in what he's done for music as a whole. At the time for a black man to appear on television playing guitar the way he did was truly revolutionary; he helped pave the way forward for new music and musicians all over the world. By today's standards, people have surpassed his technical ability by some margin but at the time he was something so fresh and so new, It was extraordinary to see him play. To withstand the test of time like he has done really shows how much of a legend or cult figure he was, whether you like him or not.

Thats a ridiculous statement. Realistically, the only decent strikers you have is Van Nistelrooy, Rooney and... Saha. Smith is being converted to a midfielder by the looks of it and Ronaldo, Giggs and Park are all wingers who will ideally play behind the strikers. I'm not even going to talk about Solskjaer. ← What's wrong with Solskjaer? Solskjaer on form is one of the best strikers in Europe. If he's given a chance he takes it not like other strikers who need about 10 other chances eg Drogba ←