Carling Cup 4th Round Matchday Thread

I would love to punch Alan Smith in the face. Both of them.

bollocks, ITV devote 30 seconds to his booking but none of Babel's attacking cameos are worthy of a mention.

Torres asked the ref for Pav to be booked for celebrating his goal? That's pretty f*cking low by anyone's standards.

Just heard about Drogba.

Celebrated in front of the Burnley supporters. Coins were lashed at him. He picks up some of the coins at lashes it back at them.

Ade Alves wrote:Just heard about Drogba.

Celebrated in front of the Burnley supporters. Coins were lashed at him. He picks up some of the coins at lashes it back at them.

Carragher was a trailblazer

Parks lives wrote:Torres asked the ref for Pav to be booked for celebrating his goal? That's pretty f*cking low by anyone's standards.

United players rape and beat women when they're frustrated, Torres asks for a player to be booked.

I think I know who's going to heaven.

Glenn Hysén wrote:Jamie Redknapp is a shambles, but he's the best of a very bad bunch.

Tottenham vs Liverpool was a decent game Liverpool probably made too many changes to make it a contest specially in midfield where two inexperienced players were put , the defense wasnt that great for Liverpool maybe lacking protection from midfield ,Babel's progress from potential to a regular seems slow to me.

I thought the attackers did well for Spurs , good to see Fraizer playing and scoring , while the midfield was wasteful.Good to see Boateng there hopefully a new start for him , why isnt Dos Santos given a chance yet by the way ?

Giovani suffered an ankle injury in training last week, and they were thinking it might be a long-termer, but apparently some tests have shown that he'll only be out for a few weeks.

I'm impressed by Lennon, maybe HHH is right when he said Lennon's close control and general play is underrated. I think his attributes would make him a better winger than Theo Walcott. Anyone impressed by Pav's positioning to receive the pass in the box? Sign of a good striker, and no wonder, he scored the injury time goal against Liverpool in the league. I think he will be soothed into the league by 'Arry. I was also impressed by El Zhar, and to a reasonable extent, Plessis. Huddlestone dominated middle of the park. But Plessis is going to be better in time to come. Lucas makes us wonder if he really was once player of the season in Brzl Serie A.

The Liverpool Goalkeeper was hopeless. Gomes made another blunder to let Hyppia score, and nice to see Cesar get few minutes. Depending on Gomes' injury, Cesar might get few appearances.

L.r.d wrote:

David Plouffe wrote:Still unbeaten against the top 4

Not sure when we play you. But Berbatov and Ronaldo upfront with constant crosses doesn't seem like a bad idea

Seeing as Nani has more inconsistent end product than Lennon at the moment, I'm not too worried.

The HuddFather wrote:

L.r.d wrote:

David Plouffe wrote:Still unbeaten against the top 4

Not sure when we play you. But Berbatov and Ronaldo upfront with constant crosses doesn't seem like a bad idea

Seeing as Nani has more inconsistent end product than Lennon at the moment, I'm not too worried.

Berbatov is destined to score against us. I saw it in a dream

zizoued wrote:I'm impressed by Lennon, maybe HHH is right when he said Lennon's close control and general play is underrated. I think his attributes would make him a better winger than Theo Walcott. Anyone impressed by Pav's positioning to receive the pass in the box? Sign of a good striker, and no wonder, he scored the injury time goal against Liverpool in the league. I think he will be soothed into the league by 'Arry. I was also impressed by El Zhar, and to a reasonable extent, Plessis. Huddlestone dominated middle of the park. But Plessis is going to be better in time to come. Lucas makes us wonder if he really was once player of the season in Brzl Serie A.

Those two were bloody awful.... and Lucas was the best of a bad bunch last night

Were you watching the game?

Football Genius wrote:

zizoued wrote:I'm impressed by Lennon, maybe HHH is right when he said Lennon's close control and general play is underrated. I think his attributes would make him a better winger than Theo Walcott. Anyone impressed by Pav's positioning to receive the pass in the box? Sign of a good striker, and no wonder, he scored the injury time goal against Liverpool in the league. I think he will be soothed into the league by 'Arry. I was also impressed by El Zhar, and to a reasonable extent, Plessis. Huddlestone dominated middle of the park. But Plessis is going to be better in time to come. Lucas makes us wonder if he really was once player of the season in Brzl Serie A.

Those two were bloody awful.... and Lucas was the best of a bad bunch last night

Were you watching the game?

I was impressed by El Zhar going forward, and Plessis wasn't awful. Lucas was bad as I acknowledged. The GK' and the center halves were awful. Of course, El Zhar didn't defend one of the goals coming from his side. I understand where you are coming from. They were very unlike Rafa team in the sense, none of 'em cared to defend (especially no one really marked the strikers), maybe too much casual?

zizoued wrote:

Football Genius wrote:

zizoued wrote:I'm impressed by Lennon, maybe HHH is right when he said Lennon's close control and general play is underrated. I think his attributes would make him a better winger than Theo Walcott. Anyone impressed by Pav's positioning to receive the pass in the box? Sign of a good striker, and no wonder, he scored the injury time goal against Liverpool in the league. I think he will be soothed into the league by 'Arry. I was also impressed by El Zhar, and to a reasonable extent, Plessis. Huddlestone dominated middle of the park. But Plessis is going to be better in time to come. Lucas makes us wonder if he really was once player of the season in Brzl Serie A.

Those two were bloody awful.... and Lucas was the best of a bad bunch last night

Were you watching the game?

I was impressed by El Zhar going forward, and Plessis wasn't awful. Lucas was bad as I acknowledged. The GK' and the center halves were awful. Of course, El Zhar didn't defend one of the goals coming from his side. I understand where you are coming from. They were very unlike Rafa team in the sense, none of 'em cared to defend (especially no one really marked the strikers), maybe too much casual?

Plessis was Cr@p mate. Since his 1st team debut againist Aresnal at the Emirates where he and Lucas bossed the game, he has stagnated completly.

El Zhar was awful in the 1st half but improved vastly in the second half. Made some great dribbles and provided an outlet for us. I question his decsion making however has he had a few attempts at playing the simple and easier ball but continued to dribble.

Lucas is an AM/box to box type player. Notice how Alonso came on he changed the game in our favour and Lucas looked so much better cause he knew he could make his runs and Alonso 9/10 times he'd recieve the perfect ball. Plessis cannot pass for $h!t and so Lucas was trying to much to affect the play when had the ball. Unfortanely for him and us he is no Alonso, he isn't the best for creating space when he recieves the ball from deep areas of the pitch. Spurs work rate to close us down never helped either. Over the 90mins he was on of our better players along with Babel, Alonso, El Zhar and Insua.

As for the defence...

Wasn't it Degan's competitive 1st team debut? I think was. He suffered another injury and has only started training in the last couple of weeks so I won't take too much out of it.

Dossena is shite, so far. Maybe he is doing an Evra and taking a few months to settle in. I hope thats all it is. But his positional sense and closing down of players when a cross is being put into the box is shocking, espically considering he is Italian. Learning Rafa's way for defence I pressue must be difficult.
Right now he isn't first choice, nor 2nd choice in my view.
I was kind of surpised Dossena was brought in the first place We had Insua who plays LB and impressed me last season in the few games he played. Insua played LW when he came on by the way and was very good.

Hypia isn't a regular and like last season, not playing many games showed up(Spurs at Anfield last season anyone )but he played more and more games and his form and performances improved tenfold.

Agger basically had to the job of two men at times.

Harry got it spot on when he played Frazier againist Hypia as he knew pace is Sami's one weakness plus not having the right match fitness.

Carling Cup 1/4 Draw:

Burnley v Aresnal
Stoke v Derby
United(at home again) v Blacbkburn(Ince will lay down to take it up the arse from Fergie)
Watford v Spurs

Well the FA got what they wanted. Hopefully Wenger plays all of his first team this year in the semis if they aren't against Derby/Stoke.

Dwarf wrote:Well the FA got what they wanted. Hopefully Wenger plays all of his first team this year in the semis if they aren't against Derby/Stoke.

I highly doubt he will draft in any of the so called big guns. He'll continue with the youngsters all the way through one feels.

The televised games are no brainers - Burnley v Arsenal and Watford v Spurs.

Great draw for us with our financial situation

We'll get hammered but it doesn't matter.

Wenger Out !!! wrote:The televised games are no brainers - Burnley v Arsenal and Watford v Spurs.

Great draw for us with our financial situation

We'll get hammered but it doesn't matter.

I'm actually worried - it's the sort of game where we become easily unstuck.

You planning on going?

The HuddFather wrote:

Wenger Out !!! wrote:The televised games are no brainers - Burnley v Arsenal and Watford v Spurs.

Great draw for us with our financial situation

We'll get hammered but it doesn't matter.

I'm actually worried - it's the sort of game where we become easily unstuck.

You planning on going?

I'll def be going and I wouldn't be too worried if I were you.

If 2 from Pavlyuchenko, Bent and Campbell start it will be carnage - we have a slow, not particularly big or clever defence and a retarded dwarf in goal.

I think Priskin, McAnuff and Smith could bother your defence though and its a shop window for some of them.