Villa bid for Sergio Canales, hope this means we're no longer interested in Cleverley.

Well I do have some sympathy for Newcastle as well, mostly because of the movie Goal


What's the point of that, they have 2 top strikers plus Wellbeck. Yet still no anchor midfielder or a ball playing CM since in all fairness the ones they have are also average


Carrick is mediocre, and Herrera so far hasn't shown much of anything.

They really needed a proper CB who could at least organize their defence a bit because they're mess there and jam packed with mediocre players. Any one of our 4 CBs (Alex, Mexes, Rami, Zapata) would walk into that United defence with one leg left, that's how bad they are

4 games played. no oposition player has scored past us yet.

Dat defence.

El Oh El at Balotelli. Apparently he cut a 'frustrated' figure. Rodgers once again done over by solid defending. All teams have to do is a Chelsea on him and Liverpool are found out, without Suarez to bail them out. Rodgers has been figured out quicker than Barca were.

They'll struggle to make CL tbh.

To early to say tbh this league is wide wide open no one knows who's even getting europa let alone CL but its a good prediction from what we saw today from a sub par Liverpool Danny. Funny seeing alot of Man United Rejects in that Villa team tho and some liverpool ones must of being spicy.
They needed sturridge more then anything today Suarez is gone no point even putting him in the equation.
Its more the fact that hes resting certain players for upcoming CL games then anything no sterling ?! its having to cope on more then the league , domestic cup fronts.

Barca were figured out but yet still won so much...not a good compari really

I found it funny watching him walk around the pitch while his team mates jogged around trying to find space.

However, before I get on your bandwagon and say we did the right thing by selling him for such a low price, I want to see how Torres does. Only if he does well can we say we did the right thing, because Balo single handedly won us many points over the last season and a half

Villas training down had been closed down for a few days, whole team sick. Still played well against Arsenal, just a mad 3 minutes cost us.

Di Maria v Leicester - great finish.

That's a sweet finish!

van Gaal should get sacked after this, surely? What an embarrassing manager.

Moyes probably has a little smile on his face just about now.

This is basically the title winning team from 2012 + £200m spent. How can they be this bad?

Karma catching up with players, nothing else. They'll probably bounce back, but might take a few months. Regardless, this match, particularly towards the very end was full of energy and excitement. Enjoyed.

WTF, they lost??? Bwahahahahaha

Yip. The penalty that resulted in 5-3 was pure tragicomic.

So... Liverpool beat Middlesbrough last night in the cup on penalties, 14-13 precisely.

Only 3 missed penalties out of 30. Amazing shootout.

Meh! Crap goalkeeping.

Mignolet should have saves about 6 but being trash and all at about everything...

Haha. Yeah that's doing the rounds here as well. If you want to see the definition of dilemma take a look at the Indian Man United fans. They don't know whether to cheer or to sulk!

But yep, it's scary thinking that you can send a spaceship to Mars for the cost of Suarez. Puts things into perspective regarding the crazy money in football.

You have to be careful of the word "cost" though. Rooney hasn't cost United anything, he's made them a lot of money, same with Ronaldo at Madrid, I imagine Suarez will not have cost Barca anything, Neymar either, in a few years time.

Terrible derby that but what a goal from Jagielka

Another flop from Mario.

He's actually even worse than the shite he ended up here.

You lot (X-Off aside) were furious we sold him for only £16M. Well it's looking like a bloody wise transaction now. All he's done since being there is feigning injury and feigning being a world class striker.

Knew he'd be a bad influence on them, and so it proves. 2 wins, 1 draw and 3 losses. Sure, Suarez was a MASSIVE loss for them, but replacing Suarez with Balotelli was never going to work out well. Panic buy or what.

Balotelli was on the floor more than he was standing up today. Was pretty embarrassing.

So was watching the Hull - Man City highlights (here for whoever didn't see the game) and noticed a couple things worth mentioning:

• What is this own goal week? What's whith all these own goals?
• Looks like City have their own Bonera in Mangala
• The Hull goalkeeper looked oddly suspicious in the 3rd and 4th goal. What kind of dive is that on the 3rd goal? And why so cartoonishly out of position in the 4th one? I guess if there was any rigging going on, goalkeepers would be a prime target for the position they occupy. Just a thought that came to my head.

He's an embarrassment. Honestly feel his playing peak was January 2013 to summer that year.

Otherwise his career has been totally mediocre.

The only good thing he's remembered for is those two goal against Germany.

I really believe the guy has the skills to be a quality FW, but it's his attitude that completely ruins him, and he'll never change in that regard. His lifestyle, his unprofessionalism in training, and his downright pathetic attitude on the pitch. If the guy was an honest worker, thankful for the skills life has given him, he'd be elsewhere right now.

Take Pippo, for example. The guy had subpar skills for a football player, but his desire to score, and his passion on the pitch as if every game was his last made him the legend he is nowadays. You could say he had an innate goal instinct, but Balo doesn't need that, cos he's got the skills. Yet, he acts as if he's God almighty on the pitch, lazying around, yelling at his teammates, and rarely celebrating when he scores as if that's something easy for him to do.

I've said this before, but he takes completely from Ibra. He was born as a professional footballer when Ibra was at Inter, and they played together for a good amount of time. He thinks he can grow into the player Ibra is (or rather, he already thinks he is that good), and hence he imitates his playing style, attitude and so on. But that'll never happen, because even if he doesn't show it, Ibra is very passionate and has a true winner mentality. Instead, Balo cares more about being on the spotlight and taking selfies on Instagram...

Couldn't really do much about the 4th. He had to go near post to stop the shot as Zabletta was only a few yards from goal. When it's pulled back like that it's up to the defenders to pick up there men. Last thing you do is leave Lampard open.

There's a huge difference, in that Ibra is a beast in training. He always has been. Ibra never had anything handed to him and earned his way up. Balotelli is just weird. He's brilliant but lazy. In thought and action.

Even the most ordinary players can produce brilliance occasionally. Look at Jagielka's stunner for Everton at the weekend. Balotelli is slightly above average in terms of ability. It's just he has this baggage around him which deludes a lot of us into believing 'there's more there' when there actually isn't.

He scored a stunning free kick V Fiorentina, but then Rangers' left back Steven Smith scored a stunning free kick v Dunfermline:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWfurYQfZl8

So? Do I now regard him as the best player ever? God no.

A moment of brilliance in 10 matches does not make Balotelli a brilliant player.

I just don't think he's half the player he's believed to be by many. He's not done anything in his career in terms of ability that his own team mate Sterling couldn't do.

What makes a player special, like Ibra, is the sustained ability to produce defining moments of a match, season, career. He is a monster.

Liverpool fans getting sick of the idiot now, and even Rodgers has admitted he was a panic buy. Sorry, but I'm enjoying watching the collapse of Balotelli's career.

(PS Italy have dropped him too)

Where to next for Mario? I think these last 3 years with the attitude he has, he's probably ruined chances of him getting moves to a top club. Wouldn't surprise me if a club like Spurs went in for him next summer - assuming things don't improve for Mario.

Yeah, it does feel good.

Mourinho after Costa's miss

Another easy win for Chelsea. Title's already over. City look pretty average in comparison. Chelsea unstoppable.

Wow, that was quick! Costa's miss happened, what, 5 minutes ago?



It was an ugly match, I'd say. Lots of confusion and not many clear ideas, at least from Arsenal. Chelsea are very organized, Mourinho has done a pretty good job so far.

He's a veteran coach, but Wenger is still very naive when it comes to the big games. He needs to give his ego a rest and play more defensively sometimes. Mourinho will happily defend in the big games, he doesn't try and outplay teams who have more talent than him and Arsene needs to do the same if he's going to succeed.

For the life of me I don't understand what Arsenal's obsession with Wenger is. The club has mostly a star studded squad. It's run efficiently from the inside out and enjoys a very healthy fan-base across the world. Yet they underachieve on the big stage year in year out. In 18 years of being in charge of mostly a strong squad, Wenger has managed a measly 3 Premiere League titles. One can argue this has been mostly down to Ferguson's dominant Man U years. And I would somewhat agree. But what excuse is there for Asenal to finish mostly 4th (six times) and 3rd (three times) since 2005? Now they occupy 10th in the table. How is this OK for Arsenal and more importantly why are they so beholden to such underachieving manager?

/rant.

It's not acceptable really. As you say, part of it is Fergie's United. But for the past decade he sold all his top players and replaced them with far lesser quality. I think he doesn't really know what he's doing with spending either, he's good at scouting out some younger players, but when it comes to buying proven talent he's a lot more miss than hit.

Southampton 8-0 Sunderland

Well now...

16 points of 24, 3rd place, best defense and second-best attack in the league. These guys are on fire.

The actual reason is simple - Arsenal don't spend. You can point and say 'Look, it's Sanchez and Ozil' - but those two are the only major signings they've made in a long time, because, and here's the nub - they're a well run Club, little debt, overcharge exorbitantly for season tickets, make the CL every season.

Can you see a fan revolt happening any time soon?

As long as Arsenal make CL, fans will moan, but keep spending cash.

Wenger has a safe job - he knows how to get them in CL and knows fine well he won't be given cash to spend on a massive squad rehaul, and he is paid well.

Why would he quit, why would they sack him?

The lack of ambition is the reality that Chelsea and City (and Utd) are financially years ahead (in terms of the work they've done with their squad)and Arsenal will never catch them. Gazidis knows it, Wenger knows it, and the fans just keep moaning...but paying.

It's the biggest (smartest) scam in the EPL.

Nah, he writes off the big matches before the season starts. Arsenal's fourth place year after year is based on an excellent record over the season against the 5th and below teams.

That's the aim, every year, and they make it.

It's no coincidence he's never beaten Mourinho. He's never truly tried to or needed to.

Chelsea look absolutely awesome - a dark horse for EPL and European dominance if they keep this up.

I really like what Jose has done with his team.

He came back to a Chelsea filled with tricky players like Oscar, Ramires and Hazard, and tried to fit them into the usual Jose defensive unit. It did QUITE well despite not being built for it, but didn't manage to win the league, so he made 3 absolutely wonderful signings in Luis, Fabregas and Costa and remoulded the team to exploit its skill as WELL as the strong side of its attributes.

He's engineered the ultimate football team and I find it impressive as hell.

He has the second best defence in football in Cahill and Terry, as well as superb full backs like Azpilacueta, Ivanovic and Luis, a strong strong midfield in Fabregas & Matic, with creative plunder like Oscar, Ramires, Hazard, Willian, and finished off with the ridiculous attacking power of Costa who is on lava right now.

So easy to admire the team.

Yeah last season was a team that didn't really have an identity, it was just solid. Now they have a goal scorer and Cesc to supply him, they're scoring goals. Defensively Jose's teams have always been solid, but the Terry-Cahill partnership is a monster.

As amazing as Costa has been, I'd actually give Cesc the Player of the Season award at this point. Magical.

I still don't understand why Barca sold him 2 seasons on from all the hassle they went through to get him from Arsenal...

Yeah, especially since Xavi isn't getting any younger and they'll eventually need to replace him. Selling Alcantara was a mistake, too.

Rakitic overall has been really good for them, but I wouldn't put everything on him.

He literally didn't fit in.

Because they used him as a utility player. One week he was a midfielder, the next a winger and the following a false 9.

I don't buy that he couldn't fit in, he came through their system and played with the others throughout his youth, it's just that he was never given the importance that he should have been, which is a mistake because as x-off pointed out Xavi is at the end of his career and Iniesta isn't getting any younger either

I meant personality wise. Like Ibra, he just wasn't seen as 'one of them' in the way he wanted to. Wasn't that popular with the fans.

Hmm, but wasn't Cesc like the lost golden child finding his way back home? Just don't understand that logic though, especially if why they sold him is because he wasn't popular with the fans