Football

Moyes watching Kroos with a view to buy? What next, Lambert to 'monitor' Hummels? Pulis to assess Sneijder? Allardyce to violently chew gum vaguely in the direction of Pastore? Do me a favour... 

Reminds me of when Inter chairman Moratti was asked if he hoped to return with Zlatan Ibrahimovic whilst on a trip to Barcelona - at the time when he was still a Barça player - to which he replied, "Yes, and I also hope to return with a young Claudia Cardinale".

^

Even if a miracle happened and United landed Kroos, he'd have to come with an instruction booklet for Moysey.

You don't get relegated because of what you do in trips to the Emirates, but that was nowhere near what we've come to expect from a Gus Poyet Sunderland side, albeit against a concise and effective Arsenal. Next league game isn't until the middle of March, hoping against hope that our position doesn’t deteriorate too much in the meantime.

Worst weekend ever. First, Hamburg stuff Dortmund like they always do, even though they're hilariously rubbish and haven't kept a clean sheet since the Keegan era. Needless to say, perfect preparation for a trip to Zenit St. Racistsburg. But then Villa somehow manage to the lower tone further with a charmless, guileless, pigheaded second half display against a team that haven't scored since Jimmy Nail last topped the charts. Never mind Grant Holt, Michelle McManus would have offered better movement upfront than Benteke today. Two weeks off, warm weather training in Portugal and they play like a hungover pub side. Its a disgrace.

Dear Tim Sherwood,

Trust you to choose the one day we need a favour from Spurs to demonstrate your inherent lack of quality and complete inability to respond to the requirements of a game. :persuazn:

So what is your take on Taarabt? Based on his first few Milan games he is pretty decent. His EPL and championship lack of goals/games were purely attitude and not skill issue?

Dodgy (Scottish) officials, a half empty stadium but a giant leap towards the quarter-finals.

Watching Man U and Schalke

Poor Shinji, if only he had a team mate who wasn't completely clueless...

So what is your take on Taarabt? Based on his first few Milan games he is pretty decent. His EPL and championship lack of goals/games were purely attitude and not skill issue?

He's alright but a 'streaky' player by default. Questionable attitude for sure though in England he was pretty much solely managed by old school hard cases that were probably never going to get the best out of him. 

Poor Shinji, if only he had a team mate who wasn't completely clueless...

 

Its unthinkable to me that he won't be back in yellow and black next season. 

Chances are that if Moyes perseveres with the 'get it wide, cross it in' approach, Kagawa's current plight will also befall Mata. Imagine the press reaction if AVB had done to United what Moyes has.

Coming soon to the Sports Direct!

Today's the day! It's all starting to feel very real, but I'm determined to enjoy it whatever happens.

 
A magnificent performance in the first half and a spirited effort in the second, but in the end, it wasn't to be. Proud of Gus and the lads for the superb feat of getting there, and proud that it took goals of such majestic quality to beat us. Playing like that against anyone else, perhaps even against City on another day, we'd have absolutely walked it.

Time to concentrate on the league now (and various other cliches!).

You have to feel for Sunderland, City barely lumbered out of second gear all afternoon but for this frenetic little spell at the beginning of the second half during which they just so happened to deliver two pinpoint silver bullets, one of which was so fantastically silly that it may have been directly lifted from an edition of Roy of the Rovers. After that you knew it wasn't to be.     

Another wacky result in our wacky season! Can we pretend to play Norwich every week? Lambert seems to delight in sticking it to his former employers though of course I knew Wes "Messi" Hoolahan would have a blinder today after our doomed romance during the transfer window. At least he refused to celebrate his goal, bless 'em. Anyway, things were looking a familiar shade of bad until Big Ben offered a moment of unparalleled genius to set us on our way. Great win, great response.

A piece of wizardry there from Benteke. Momentarily caught myself hoping for a 7-1 finish to eclipse our shellacking at Villa Park last season, but I would have taken anything that kept Norwich within touching distance!

Even in a relatively poor season, Benteke is now almost in double figures again. 15 league goals for the season still within reach.