NAMING RIGHTS THREAD: Liverpool really won't win the Premiership 2010-2011

ya I thought Torres was looking good and confident too, but Shearer went on and on about how he's so lacking in form and confidence. (Maybe he didn't notice that Fernando broke his duck last week?)

I thought Torres flattered to deceive really. Bit better than recently but never actually looked dangerous. Cue him scoring the winner against Utd next week.

Even if Chelsea win at Old Trafford, United have the advantage in the last two games

Who have Chelsea got? United's last two are against relegation-battling teams, which is both good (because we should be much better than them) and bad (they'll have everything to play for).

Can't believe we've hauled ourselves back into it, epic effort.

Chelsea's form this season has been beyond bizarre. I've never known a team be so good, then so bad, and now good again.

Torres was great up until Spurs's goal, then he really struggled to get any space as Spurs sat deep en masse. He does have a tendency to melt when it's time to man up. I'd drop him for Sunday, not a time for risks when DD and Kalou are in form.

Fergie is going to spend a week whinging about last season; Carlo will be too polite to mention Macheda's handball goal at Old Trafford. Guaranteed the poor ref will have a mare.

We've got Newcastle at home, which is okay, and Everton away, which is tough. If it goes to goals, United have the edge unless we win by five next week...

I was actually rather looking forward to a quiet end to the season, but trying to enjoy it as I think the pressure is more on United.

Guaranteed the poor ref will have a mare

Hopefully United will clinch it with a Vidic handball that doesn't actually cross the line.

In the 97th minute...

Just watched the highlights. Vidic is a dick. Yay for Ramsey. I hope he can continue to recover at pace.

vidic is a dick

came here to post that exact thing, the guy is such a fucking dirty cheat, not least when he's getting outplayed.

http://soccerphotosbase.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Jamie-Carragher.jpg

no comparison. carragher plays above his level through effort and cheats to compensate, vidic is a more talented footballer who cheats when man u are losing.

A crucial distinction i'm sure

Shearer

"he can't give it unless he's 100% sure it crossed the line, and he can't be 100% because it didn't"

I hate this. Not giving the goal is a decision too, how sure does he have to be to do that?

Shearer is the man who has no thoughts, so I guess it makes some amount of sense for him to expect that everyone else also operate in a world of total certainty.

Shearer is a clown but he's right here, you don't have to be 100 percent certain it hasn't crossed the line, the burden of proof is on the prosecution so to speak, and not a balance of probabilities.

Hard to decide - even for me - whether Chelsea have started to get the benefit of more decisions since they appointed a manager who NEVER blames the ref for anything, or whether I don't notice the decisions against us cos Carlo never mentions them. There were definitely a few penalties not given in games around Nov/Dec but we were playing so poorly they were quickly forgotten.

But interesting to speculate whether Ancelotti's attitude of non-whinging/hounding officials counter-intuitively pays off in the long term even if it allows Fergie to shape the media narrative.

Sometimes I wish Carlo would make more of a fuss -especially after the United games last season - but have to admire his calm. Translate it to man-management and it can been seen as a key part of what makes him such a effective but frustrating manager. it allows periods of torpor to develop, but works brilliantly when form is good as the players are relaxed and confident.

It's part of the manager's role that I don't really get tbh - the two extremes seem to be Mourinho as crazed berserker doing the over-the-top-on-his-own thing, or Hodgson at Liverpool being all reasonable and pissing everyone off anyway.

I don't think being the nice guy gets results tbh, else Ferguson might try it for once in his life. If Chelsea win this it'll be just through being the best team for half the season, plus collapsing least when it really counts.

Pardew: 'we lacked a certain Je Ne Sais Quoi up front'

He picked up a knock in France's friendly with Belgium

Suarez looked great again yesterday, him and Kuyt are working so many socks off there will be a shortage.

By which I mean they seem to work really well together...

Sir Alex Ferguson complained Man Utd 'don't get decisions in big games' in the wake of their 1-0 defeat against Arsenal

initially I wished the journo would respond by showing Ferguson the Vidic handball on a loop, but I've since shifted to quiet appreciation of this elaborately-crafted zing against Arsenal

He said that Vidic's handball was hard to see, unlike the tackle on Owen...

And people wonder whether, if Mourinho succeeded Feguson, Utd's 'values' would be safeguarded.

at least mourinho is funny and charismatic. ferg is one of the worst people in the uk.

Amazing how silly reasoning like that xp gets a free pass in football. Mike Phelan explained away some obvious foul not given against United (leading to a Utd goal iirc) earlier in the season by saying 'the referee's let play flow, which is what everyone wants to see'

Agreed that the Owen one was a penalty btw!

RTE had a fantastically embarrassing version of their highlights show with a live studio audience last night (lord knows why). One of the Utd fans claimed that it was an "optical illusion" that the ball touched Vidic's hand. Had to turn it off then.

haha jesus...

have to say I find myself fast forwarding all the analysis everytime i sky+ motd2 now, it's such a dated format. did anyone ever want analysis anyway? maybe with no internet and a way smaller media, but the attempts to make the show about more than just the goals are extremely poor, graphical flourishes and a few shit jokes, it's all a bit embarrassing.

RTE have gone all a bit MOTD2 now too. The West Ham game had an Eastenders style ("Westhammers") intro with some guy doing a shit Ray Winstone impression over the top of it.

version of their highlights show with a live studio audience last night

*shudder*

Sami Hyypia is trending on Twitter. Could this day get any weirder?

Oh, he's retiring this summer. Guess that explains it. Got his name and number on the back of my green 99/00 away shirt. It was a Christmas present. I opened it, saw the flash of green, all excited cos I knew what it was, and then almost cried when I realised they'd spelt his name HYPPia instead of HYYPia.

What did you do? Could probably have got away with 'KARRIAGHER' printed over the top.

or HYRPIAKOS, if he'd been there then

Ha, could do that all day. We took it back to the shop and got it changed. Panic over!

Love this UK trending list
# Sami Hyypia
# Jack Bauer
# Megatron

lol

He had trials with Newcastle and Oldham in 95 apparently.

sorry i know it's probably been done to death already but i really don't get the fuss over that chelsea goal... fine rules are rules but literally 94% of the ball is over the line?? if your team had had that disallowed you'd be absolutely fuming.

no

linesman saw it 100% over the line, once he had time to think about it, and the teams involved.

That's the fucking rotten part.

bollocks, straw-clutching

if i'd been standing on the post i'm certain i'd have given it too tbh

This is an odd crusade.

haha i'm really not that bothered honest! but every time i see the replay and even the photos i just think goal, sorry

He doesn't have to be 100% xp! That is a Shearerism which has no place in our game until video replays eventually arrive - the only way officials can possibly operate is to blow according to what they think most likely happened. How else could it be?

well if rtc was an official, it wouldn't matter if there was replay, he'd had given the goal.

this is what i don't hear mentioned often, even with replay there will be human judgement and possible errors. people act as if it will solve everything and for every call ther will be only one option that is obviously correct.

sorry ik, i'm p sure that an official can't make a decison like calling a penalty or the chelsea 'goal' on a 'best guess' basis.

I will listen to chapter and verse on this, but 'can't give it unless certain' has been wheeled out by ex-refs like poll and winter iirc.

xps the ball isnt fully over the line. That's the rule.

This isn't a borderline call with replays

On the one viewing, it's tougher and i have sympathy for the cunt but the cunt would not have given that goal at the other end so the cunt is a cunt, the cunt

tbh the offside was less of a 'thing' for me, though again chalking it off at the other end of the pitch wouldn't have been such a big deal.

None of this absolves gomes, who's a lovely fella and makes amazing saves but really doesn't take his job half seriously enough for a gk.

But of course they must make decisions on a 'best guess' basis, otherwise they'd never be able to make marginal calls at all. Saying that making these calls is bigger than not making these calls is nothing more than favouring the status quo - we do appear to be built that way psychologically, but it's not a defensible way for making decisions in a game, where like it or not an instant decision has got to be made.

To put it another way, if the ball had been an inch over the line instead of an inch not, your argument still demands that the goal not be given - so far as I can tell, purely because giving a goal is doing something and playing on isn't.

yes, tbph