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**Shaggy** · 10-02-08, 08:46 PM

And two clean sheets on the trot, too...which is most welcome after too many leaked goals of late.

**kemm1** · 10-02-08, 08:47 PM

Correct formation, solid game all round and we should have won it.

**Craig_H** · 10-02-08, 08:49 PM

We just had little in the final third, which was to be expected.

**JPK** · 10-02-08, 08:50 PM

We deserved the win and played like the home side.We just dont have enough top class attackers to put away our chances.If Rafa had Chelsea's squad he would win the lot with them IMO

**Joe King** · 10-02-08, 08:51 PM

Stella performance from Mascherano. I would like to think that Carragher was given the award of MoM was because he can speak fluent English.

Skrtel looks like a great buy. Good speed and has decent technical ability.

Lucas had a very efficient game. Nowt special but did he job in the 'quarterback' role although he does need to improve on his strength. At times he was bullied off the ball by Ballack and Makelele.

Considering we have a horrid record against Chelsea away from home in the league, this is a decent result and is the first point Rafa has gained against any of the top three since being in charge.

However, looking at the game, we could have beaten them. We had the better of the play and took the game to them at times. It was disappointing not to see Gerrard take a pop at Cech from far but we will take the point.

**Craig_H** · 10-02-08, 08:51 PM

Originally posted by PostmanPat View Post

We deserved the win and played like the home side.We just dont have enough top class attackers to put away our chances.If Rafa had Chelsea's squad he would win the lot with them IMO

I dont think we played like the home side, we played counter attack for a start...

**Shaggy** · 10-02-08, 08:55 PM

Lucas is a good footballer with a lot of potential but he needs to get stronger as he's knocked off the ball far too easily.

**Roboklopp** · 10-02-08, 08:56 PM

Masher was immense again & Lucas & Skittle put in some very reassuring performances.

Very good display today. Even Kuyt played well.

Well played lads!

**Roboklopp** · 10-02-08, 08:57 PM

Originally posted by ShaggyAlonso View Post

Lucas is a good footballer with a lot of potential but he needs to get stronger as he's knocked off the ball far too easily.

He's only very young, it's easy to bulk up as time goes on. Mebbe he should get downt gym with Masher.

**Joe King** · 10-02-08, 08:58 PM

Originally posted by PC Plod View Post

He's only very young, it's easy to bulk up as time goes on. Mebbe he should get downt gym with Masher.

Or Ade Akinbiyi

**Roboklopp** · 10-02-08, 09:03 PM

Originally posted by Ben Tover View Post

Or Ade Akinbiyi

Or me to be fair. Might lose some acceleration if he went to the gym with me mind.

**Joe King** · 10-02-08, 09:08 PM

Originally posted by PC Plod View Post

Or me to be fair. Might lose some acceleration if he went to the gym with me mind.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/article3137622.ece

Happy-go-lucky Ade Akinbiyi out to show his resilient side

ADE AKINBIYI did not set out to be a footballer. His lampooners, and there are many, would say he achieved his aim. Akinbiyi is an expensive marksman caught in a hail of cheap shots. He is still on his feet. “I will never hide,” the striker vowed in an interview several years ago, at the point when his abuse was at its worst, and he can look in the mirror and know he kept his word. He may not have prospered, but he has survived. Perseverance is his triumph.

The world has turned since the winter of 2001-02 when Akinbiyi was a symbol of football folly, Peter Taylor’s £5m marquee signing in his attempt to move Leicester on from the Martin O’Neill era. It started well enough but by this point in the season Leicester were freefalling, Taylor sacked and Akinbiyi on a miserable run of two goals in 26 league games that culminated in him being shipped back to the Championship, to Crystal Palace. Across a nation, from pub comedians to newspaper columns, Ade Akinbiyi became Ade “Panicbuyi” or Ade “Akinbadbuyi”. The world has not turned so much that, with him back in the spotlight as a result of Burnley’s plum FA Cup tie versus Arsenal, the quips won’t be aired again. He’s ready. “If you can’t take the stick there’s no point being in football,” he shrugs.

“In every profession you have to learn to deal with the downs. I don’t know one footballer who’s gone through their whole career being excellent, and if you deal with the downs then you’re big enough to be in the game.”

Akinbiyi was never as bad as people said - his Leicester record of one goal every six games was not markedly inferior to the England player Emile Heskey, who he replaced. But there is a sense Akinbiyi was never as good as he could have been. “Ade has a great physique, they don’t come much better,” says Burnley manager Owen Coyle, who is nonetheless likely to start with Andy Gray and Robbie Blake today and use Akinbiyi as an impact player off the bench. Clubs have always fancied him – he has been transferred 12 times, for a total of £15.25m – but the longest Akinbiyi has spent in anyone’s first team was two seasons at Stoke from 2003-05. He is 33 now and seemingly accepts his lot. “I’d like another crack at the Premier League, yeah, but only if the opportunity comes along,” he says.

It is typical that his career with his first club, Norwich, began with a debut against Bayern Munich and ended with a transfer to Gillingham. An Arsenal supporter, he says: “I’ve done okay against them, I scored for Leicester at Highbury and it was a good feeling,” neglecting to mention Leicester lost 6-1 that day. It is natural for him to look for positives since he regards his entire career as one long, lucrative and diverting bonus. “I didn’t want to play football as a kid so everything that’s happened in my career, I’ve enjoyed. The game’s paid my wages and I’ve enjoyed myself. My goal is just to keep on playing and enjoying it until my body gives up,” he says.

Before a PE teacher pushed him towards football aged “13 or 14” he did athletics, the 100m and 200m his best events. His build is somewhere between a sprinter and a heavyweight boxer and when he signed from Sheffield United last January Steve Cotterill, Burnley’s then manager, banned him from the gym. “I wasn’t playing at Sheffield so the only thing I was doing was weights. We didn’t even have reserve games and it was something to do. I put on a bit too much muscle and I lost about a yard of pace,” he says. “I try to stay away from the weights room now. I’m sort of addicted.”

Akinbiyi’s previous spell at Burnley, in 2005-06, yielded 18 goals in 43 games whereas this time round he has scored eight in 45. “People say never go back, and returning to a club where you’ve been before is quite tough,” he admits, but he describes Coyle’s arrival in November as “a fresh start”.

Coyle, himself a travelled striker (12 clubs), has the background to be the manager who finally gets inside the head of Akinbiyi and maximise his potential. A hero of Bruce Rioch’s Bolton and their cup adventures, he knows about causing upsets. “Ade’s a gentleman off the pitch but not too many would say he’s a gentleman on it,” Coyle notes, “but I’m not sure Arsenal can be muscled out of games any more.

“To beat Arsenal we need to play out of our skin, they need to be off the boil and we need luck. But we aren’t going to be negative. It would be folly because Arsenal, with their football, will pick you off, win one, two or three nil, and you’ve contributed nothing to the match. I’d rather commit players forward, and if we do that who’s to say we can’t score and make it a real cup tie? Rioch always wanted us to show we could play a bit. The other approach, and it happened more in Scotland against the bigger teams, was as a striker you were almost deployed as a double full-back trying to play for 0-0. I used to think, ‘People are paying good money to watch this and we’re contributing nothing to the game’.”

Burnley won’t fail for lack of trying. Just like Akinbiyi

**Roboklopp** · 10-02-08, 09:15 PM

Originally posted by Ben Tover View Post

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/spo...cle3137622.ece

Agree with Adi- it is very addictive. My missus has told me off recently for excessive chunkiness.

Anyway, enough about me:

Back on topic. That time with Carra at RB & alongside Sami seemed to do Skittle a world of good. Rafa was probably pretty canny on that one in hindsight. Let's hope the big new defender can continue in this vein (despite looking like a Russian Neo-Nazi) as we have missed Agger big time this season.

**PaulLinehan** · 10-02-08, 09:22 PM

the thing that has frustrated the **** out of me this season (and for the last few seasons to be honest) is that we tend to be able to match anyone on our day but then when we play against teams that we should be putting 2 or 3 past, they are able to drag us down to their level too easily.....

if we have genuine aspirations of title glory, then we must really hammer the likes of birmingham, wigan etc.... the players have proved today that we are a match for anyone so for me, it is a case of a lack of motivation.....

i really do feel that we are so so ****in close to being a TOP TOP TOP team!!!

also, get on the pool to win the champions league at 14/1 - ****in magic price

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