Yaya Toure??? For Christ's sake...

!!!

I think Yaya Toure might be awesome at replacing Seedorf....I rate him higher than Boateng. But I think we're judging this Man City team too fast.

They're the team of the future. They've spent huge amounts just like Chelsea. But they've gotten some awesome players. Robinho was their only mistake...when they fell into the trap of trying to save face for losing one transfer by getting another.

Their transfers, on the whole, have been terrible.

They spent £60m on Wayne Bridge, Manu Adebayor and Joleon Lescott. I think a 'lol' is in order.

The first two were bad. The last, the jury's still out. And Adebayor's transfer is a result of the managerial change.

David Silva, Nigel De Jong, Vincent Kompany, Adam Johnson, James Milner, Pat Vieira, Mario Balotelli, Kolarov, Yaya Toure.....nope...no LOL from me. This is a lethal squad...and they've got a good coach to boot.

Roque, Jo, Kolo? Theres another wasted £50m

I think the jury is still out on quite a few as they haven't had a long time to play. But of those that've been there for about a year or so, the majority are poor. Either that or they've let good ones go (like Bellamy!).

Don't particularly rate Yaya personally, think Barry and De Jong are better players. They're good at their defensive duties but have ability on the ball too.

Rooney signed a new 5-year deal with United. Oh how everyone can laugh at Citeh now.

Yeah sure we can laugh at how city are 2nd and doing so well, sure mate rooney ll probably leave i cant see him seeing all them 5 years out hes greedy

2nd? That'a a failure, in my opinion. Deciding what is good or not is all value for money and they're the most expensive squad in English football ever assembled. Last season's Man CIty were the worst value for money team ever, this one will run them close if they don't win the league.

As for Rooney being greedy, he'd have gone to City if all he wanted was money. He most certainly wouldn't have singed a new deal with United.

Spurs 0-1 Everton, Baines with an awesome free kick, nobody could have saved that.

1-1, van der Vaart steals a goal from Crouch after a Howard howler.

FT Sunderland 1-0 Villa. One of the best Villa performances I've seen in a long time. Bloody apologists on Sky "To be fair, Halsey did have a lot of difficult decisions to make".. you mean he got alot of decisions wrong! The man should simply be not allowed to referee Villa games anymore.

Citeh 0-2 Arsenal. Nasri and Song.

What a waste if money!

0-3, Bendtner, awesome.

It did completely flatter Arsenal, they weren't that great. Was a shock to see Fabianski play a whole match and not only make no mistakes but make some important saves on top of it. The game could have been completely different had Fabianski not made that save from Silva's flick after about 50 seconds.

Good to see Clattenburg having another good game, up there with Webb now I think in our referees.

Balotelli making his debut as well, can't wait to watch him flop.

Yeah, Clattenburg is decent. Think we've only had him once this season, was alright bar one mistake.

Stupid match. That red card spoilt what would otherwise have been a great contest. Seeing as how Song should probably have gotten 2 yellow cards....whatever.

Since I was a neutral I was looking for an even contest.

Oh well....party on Carlo. 5 points clear...with a +23 GD. The second highest GD is +8.

Neutral my ***, you've not exactly hidden your support for Citeh.

The red card did ruin it, but that's not the refs fault the defender decided to do something retarded. Don't agree Song should have gone, if anything he was more leniant on the Citeh players, was booking Arsenal players for nothing in the first half.

Hee hee. I don't support City per se. I just think they've got a great team that can challenge. You know which teams I support in the league.

Blackburn set to become first Indian owned club

Don't ask me anything about them. I don't buy eggs from them .

Tonights officiating was the worsted ever. I will start off by saying he got the only major decision correct by sending off Albrighton, but that was the only thing he got correct. Their goal came from a free kick, the free kick was given for Heskey being thrown to the floor and kicked, very strange. The worst of the officials had to be one if the linesman though, he TWICE gave an offside while the player was in his own half, he was even standing in that half when he put the flag up, I've never seen anything like it before.

Oh well, we're in the hat and have the old enemy visiting us in Halloween, think there's a few derby games on actually.

Newcastle 0-4 Arsenal. I'll take that.

Yet ANOTHER EPL player suspected of ****. This time it's...Ivan Klasnic.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/oc...lasnic-arrested

I call BS, just like every other **** accusation of a footballer.

Cup QF draw

Arsenal v Wigan
Birmingham v Aston Villa
West Ham v Manchester United
Ipswich v West Brom

I'd like to hear how the WM police react to this. They told the PL we're not allowed to play each other in night games, so I wonder if they'll ask it to be moved to an early weekend kickoff? If not, it's a disaster waiting to happen.

Previous League Cup meetings
Aston Villa 1-0 Birmingham City 06-10-1993
Birmingham City 0-1 Aston Villa 21-09-1993
Aston Villa 5-0 Birmingham City 12-10-1988
Birmingham City 0-2 Aston Villa 27-09-1988
Aston Villa 0-0 Birmingham City 27-05-1963
Birmingham City 3-1 Aston Villa 23-05-1963

This is the first time we've played in he Cup in a 1-leg game. Last time we played at Sty Andrews in the Cup we won, on my birthday no less. Funny because chances are that this Cup game will fall on my dad's birthday, which ironically, is St. Andrews Day.

0-0. A victory for anti-football.

I'll take it with all the injuries, 7 unbeaten against them.

Currently Bolton 3-2 Spurs in the early kick off.

A back 5 of Gomes, Hutton, Gallas, Kaboul and BAE is pretty God awful.

FT 4-2. 2 goals and a superb assist from Kevin Davies.

@ free kick resulting to Fulham's equaliser, pathetic.

So Bale again non-existant. Overhyped way too much, Maicon suddenly turned into the best right-back in the world for the last few weeks according to the English media, even though they always said how frail he was last year going back... And it's pretty obvious he doesn't want to be at Inter for much longer.

Good game though earlier, well I switched on with about 30 minutes to go sounds like it was fairly naff before.

Bale's very overrated. Trouble is, with rent-a-quote as his manager constantly bigging him up in the press and him playing for a London club he's always going to get ridiculous praise. He's been pretty naff in the Premier League for the most part, just that Rafa's stupid tactics let him play to his strengths.

Quite funny watching SSN at the moment, pretty much every game had a manager come out and say the ref cost them and judging by the highlights, they're all right. Unfortunately in todays game refs are far more interested in getting on the tv and causing controversy than actually doing their job, they've almost become celebrities, everyone knows who the EPL refs are and despite them being **** they'll keep their jobs because they have a well known name.

Rafa's tactics might have been off, but Bale showed some incredible potential in the two games with Inter. You could give a player as much freedom as he wants, but rarely will anyone be so devastating as Bale was against Inter.

The kid probably pays the price of playing with a mid-level club like Tottenham.

I can't agree. If that were the case he's be doing.. something in the Premier League. Is he good? Yes, there's no question of that, but he's so overrated it's hilarious. For somebody who started out as a left back, the defensive side of his game is something I'd be ashamed of.

I hate Spurs, but they're hardly a mid table club.

The question is is he worth £50M?

He's worth about £20m, unless it's to city then about £25m.

Even that in the inflated Premier League market is asking alot though. He's been good for about 5 months of football, he needs to keep it up a few seasons before you can talk big money, like Milner had to do.

Only 3 points seperate 5th and 16th place. What a brilliant season for football.

Exactly. They are just a perch away from the top tier. I'd currently put them, Aston Villa and Liverpool in the same bracket. Not in terms of overall success, but their current standings - any of these three are a contender for the 4th spot. The rest follow.

As much as I'd like to agree, if Villa qualify for Europe this season it will be a miracle, the farce in the summer along with ridiculous injuries are going to hurt us too much. (In our last 2 games we played 1 without a striker, the other with a 19 year old striker making his first ever Premier League start ). Liverpool just don't have a good team, Torres has lost it and Gerrard is getting on.

Chelsea/United/Arsenal
Citeh/Spurs
Villa/Everton/Liverpool/+about 3/4 other clubs

So very true. Though frankly (and personally) I want both Liverpool and Man United to falter bad this season. One finishing 3rd of 4th, the other not even in the top 8. That would be a might good sight.

Thing is Bale got marked out of the game the other week by Rafael, one of the worst, well raw United players I've seen in a long time. And that's happened week after week this season.

I don't think it's a coincidence Bale did really well against the same player when he really has done relatively nothing this year in the EPL (bar a volley sometime in August I seem to remember). That's not a £50m player.

ITV were talking him in the same bracket as Messi/CR I mean after 2 games. Only the start of this season all the pundits were starting to doubt whether he will ever be able to fulfil his potential.

I mean he's picked the best place to showcase himself because people on the European circuit who don't watch the EPL in-depth may not realise he's not like that every week.

On another note Balotelli has banged in 2 goals already for Man City this afternoon. Perhaps he wont fail like I think he will, either that or he's going to start like Mutu did in this league then go terrible.

That was a nice pass from Kuyt to Torres who gave Liverpool a 1:0 lead.

Wonder Goal from Torres!

Brilliant goal indeed. his first goal was good as well. such a world class forward!

And why is Drogba not playing?! oh wait, it's Carlo Ancelotti and his big-game approach of playing it safe and defensively

Think he's struggling with a virus, we will see this half how true that is.

I guessed he perhaps had a problem but if he's called up it means he can play.

Anyway, I wanted to make a point about good ol' Carlo

Carlo is starting to look like he could beat Ronaldinho in a sprint ha

Chelsea looked poor, I'll put it down to luck though. When someone as bad as Torres scores past you twice, it's not gonna be your day. And no, I'm not being sarcastic.

Who?

Redknapp, every day you'll see him talking rubbish to the press. He said he'll not do any more interviews if they charge him for his comments post Man U game.. as if he could go without having his face on tv.

Classic Kurt

Heskey has a better EPL record this season and he's been injured in a few games, says it all.

Torres will probably pick up form with confidence, but he's been one of the main reasons Liverpool have started so badly, it's been like playing with 10 men for them.

Benitez wasn't doing that bad of a job obviously, just as I thought. Yet, Liverpool fans are too blinded to see that their team is not up there with the best in the league.

Still, Joe Cole failing miserably, so it's all good.