James Lawton = c u n _

[Reece]

What a **** article.

Me and a work colleague (a Chelsea fan) are always talking about the ridiculous media over-hyping of Arsenal and this just proves our point.

[redmacca]

Does this really surprise anyone though? the media have ALWAYS hated us and give us no credit and really never will. i personally couldnt give a toss what the cunt says and if arsenal play beautiful football and get knocked out then we "scrap" our way to number 6 id be a very happy chappy

[Reece]

Does this really surprise anyone though? the media have ALWAYS hated us and give us no credit and really never will. i personally couldnt give a toss what the cunt says and if arsenal play beautiful football and get knocked out then we "scrap" our way to number 6 id be a very happy chappy

I wonder what Arsenal fans would prefer too.....

[Shaggy]

I think they’re all just jealous. And confused.

They see us on a week to week basis domestically and think we’re **** (while revelling in it), then have to witness us crushing the finest teams Europe has to offer. It confuses them so they rack their brains looking for ways to invalidate or mock our achievements. I mean, if Arsenal and United can’t do it, then it simply has to have been a fluke for Liverpool. ANOTHER FLUKE!

Some Manc “mates” of mine bleated continually about the fluke of 2005. Then we reached Athens and I had to ask them if this was another fluke. The ****ers shut up there and then and I haven’t heard a peep from them since.

[Kenneth]

Then you see the flaws – and feel the touch of a robot.

[Jennings]

I am not really sure what the journalist's point is.

If it is that Arsenal are better than Liverpool, then we all know that from our respective League position.

There doesn't appear to be anything to be learned or even contemplated from reading it.

Perhaps he is trying to be inflammatory against a subset of his readership in order to generate interest in his work? I dunno.

[tsb]

2-0 :bird:

0-0

[Craig_H]

Genuinely a laughable piece. And i never take any journalist seriously when he mis-spells player's names. Hleb's first name isnt meant to have an 'e' in between the 'd' and the 'r'.

He certainly comes across as an arsenal fan or someone who hates Liverpool

Is there an email address for Mr Lawton? I'd quite like to bring to his attention the fact that if you take away Arsenal's goals this season, they havent scored any...

[Shaggy]

Genuinely a laughable piece. And i never take any journalist seriously when he mis-spells player's names. Hleb's first name isnt meant to have an 'e' in between the 'd' and the 'r'.

He certainly comes across as an arsenal fan or someone who hates Liverpool

Is there an email address for Mr Lawton? I'd quite like to bring to his attention the fact that if you take away Arsenal's goals this season, they havent scored any...

Haha I was about to say, if you take away every single goal Liverpool have ever scored, we'd be really ****!

[DannyMan2006]

and take away the 70% / 30% posession on the field, shots on and off target, goals and corners. Looked like a pretty dominating game to me.

But the truth is, according to an unbiased (haha) bluenose here, Inter were robbed by an appalling referee's decision of course.

Exactly.

And like AFII said, Arsenal were not exactlty free flowing. They were poor once again in Europe. When you see how other English teams labour on in Europe it really does show you what a fantastic job Rafa has done in Europe.

Incredible. I swear, had we won the Premier League before Rafa came everybody would be loving him. It's just a shame that most of our fans appear to think the European Cup is not such a big deal anymore.

[Dirk07]

he may have a point but for different reasons which unsurprisingly he doesnt mention. The support what sort of difference did that make to our team and what difference could it have made to Arsenal's?

I don't think anyone could deny arsenal's fantastic young players and the way they play in the same way the couldnt ignore the atmosphere we create on a european night and the effect it has, well........ except maybe James Lawton

[RedWolverine]

James Lawton:whatever:: Even in stalemate, Arsenal's fluid ambition surpasses Liverpool's laboured triumph

he week was Liverpool's, but who owned the future? It was surely Arsenal. It belonged to them in the way they played, in the scale of their ambition. Final execution was lacking, yes, but this is something that can sometimes elude the best of talent. You can practice execution. Ambition is something else and in this Arsenal team, plainly, it came at birth.

Liverpool do have a certain ambition but it is so much narrower and often it seems as though it is choked at the first signs that it might take life.

This week they made what could prove to be a significant stride towards their third Champions League final in four years. It is a dazzling prospect until you get up close. Then you see the flaws – and feel the touch of a robot.

Arsenal were without goals but not the vibrant life which comes with the belief that beautiful football will sooner or later bring its own rewards.

This may be romantic but it is also logical despite Rafa Benitez's latest smash-and-grab that takes him to San Siro in three weeks' time cushioned by a two-goal lead over the masters of Italian football, Internazionale – a week after Arsenal may well have been punished in the same stadium for their failure to exploit the chances that came against reigning European champions, but current Serie A makeweights, Milan.

Did we say logical? Yes. Arsenal may not have gained a single new friend – and lost quite a number of old ones – at Old Trafford last weekend but against Milan they compressed into one move that ended with a misdirected shot by Emmanuel Eboué more pure football than Liverpool managed in 90 minutes against 10-man Inter.

First Arsenal sparred intriguingly with the older, more practical heads who secured revenge last spring for Liverpool's extraordinary comeback in Istanbul. Then they dared to be great before their years.

It is true they misfired around goal right up to the final moments when Emmanuel Adebayor picked out the crossbar rather than a gaping net but in terms of creativity and rhythm the journey between Anfield on Tuesday and the Emirates on Wednesday was one between famine and fertility.

Pragmatists, who now seem to exclude all others in the manning of the Benitez barricades, will argue that the manager of Liverpool got the job done and Arsenal's did not. But then we have to return to the question that has dominated the week. What really is the job? It has to be the developing of a team that, potentially, can win in any circumstances on any field. If this is indeed the guideline, Arsenal still score heavily over their Merseyside rivals.

They are, it has been made easy to forget by the brilliance that has taken them five points clear at the top of the Premier League, supposed to be in a season of transition, one in which some even doubted their ability to hang on to the European place that comes with a top four finish.

Much of the doubt rested on the belief that they would be lost without the inspiration of Thierry Henry, and some of that resurfaced this week when the old hero was producing an exquisitely trademarked finish for Barcelona against Celtic – while Adebayor was misplacing the killer touch that has been so vital to his young team's growth over the past few months.

There were always going to be such occasions. Henry was not likely to forget how to score subline goals from time to time. Adebayor wasn't going to turn into an unerring goal machine in a few months. However, the trade-off surely remains hugely in Arsenal's favour.

Henry's overwhelming influence in the team wasn't, after all, anywhere near as central to team performance as it had once been and, if we are looking for an example, his finishing in the Champions League final in Paris in 2006 was no less wayward than Adebayor's this week. In the Togolese striker's favour, strongly, is the fact that he gives so much weight and variety to his leadership of the forward line, something which, strictly speaking, Henry never did. Against Milan, Adebayor required Paolo Maldini and Alessandro Nesta to resurrect so much of what had shaped down the years two of the greatest defenders the game has ever known.

Even as Liverpool congratulate themselves on the lead they take to Italy, it is difficult to recall any moments when they had marched impressively beyond some dismaying recent form, including the public relations disaster against Barnsley.

They outslugged a largely passive Inter who eventually lost their two central defenders and were required to play a man down for an hour, but if you took away the goals of a labouring Dirk Kuyt and Steven Gerrard the lack of uplift was gnawing.

For Arsenal Alexander Hleb was some way from his most acute powers of penetration and Cesc Fabregas and Mathieu Flamini could never quite convert some passages of exciting promise into sustained control, but all of them announced superior talent. By comparison, Liverpool's Xabi Alonso was rooted on the bench against Inter. The difference between the attempted reach of the teams was simply immense. For periods in the second half Arsenal played as though the collective reputation of Kaka, Seedorf, Gatusso, Pirlo, Maldini and the young Brazilian virtuoso Pato, was not a challenge but a provocation.

In the wake of the Barnsley catastrophe, Benitez said his team were walking in the footsteps of Arsenal's latest starburst of team development. It was a secret he had kept entirely to himself – and even after victory over Inter remained impenetrable.

There can never have been such an enigma in English football, such a gap between week-in, week-out performance and potential achievement. Three European Cup finals in four years and possibly two victories would read for Benitez like the deeds of dynasty – and at a time when Sir Alex Ferguson craved his second win and Arsène Wenger his first.

Yet this week, when Fabregas found again some of the sharpest of his wit, the urge to crack the Benitez code suddenly seemed rather less compelling. It was enough to be seduced, if not entirely fulfilled, by what was happening before your eyes.

James Lawton - verbal diarrhea guaranteed

[tsb]

http://www.sportingo.com/football/a7096_how-benitez-liverpool-made-fools

James Lawton flip flaps more than Ronaldinho.

[el matador]

He should look back to last years CL final when we outplayed AC Milan. Did he wax lyrical about our display then ?

Anyhow im sure things will be different next year when DIC are in charge and Benitez has been replaced.

If any of you know of Fordies he has posted something about the DIC - normally on the money.


So DIC also want Benitez out?

As a result of negotiations that have been on-going between DIC & Gillett/Hicks for the last 4 months, an agreement in principle has been reached between the parties for the sale of Liverpool football club.

D.I.C understand the way the Americans Tom Hicks & George Gillett have dealt with the fans since arriving in Liverpool, has been a massive disaster & they decided to employ press relations guru's Square1 & the company they used in the last takeover bid attempt Brunswick.

DIC want to come into Liverpool with no black marks against there name, so they have instructed Square1, who maintain in regular contact with the American pair to find a way to release Benitez before they arrive.

I didn't believe it until yesterday, but it seems the stories in the press that said D.I.C didn't want Benitez as manager were true.

Hicks & Gillett will each walk away with 50 Million pound profit, for less than 12 months in charge and obvious conditions will be attached.

Removing Benitez is one of those conditions.

Something else I am getting a lot of pm's about is Javier Mascherano.

The situation with him is the deal is done & dusted.

The reason it is on hiatus is because even though the fee's are agreed for Mascherano, the payment structures are finalized & the contracts are done & dusted - Tom Hicks & George Gillett are obviously not going to pay out millions of pounds to M.S.I when they are soon to be gone.

The payments will come down to D.I.C.

But until they are unveiled as the new owners - no payments will be made to M.S.I - but the deals done.

Mascherano will be a Liverpool player this season & for 4 after that.

http://uk.gamespot.com/users/fordies/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=m-100-25323027

[le2red]

Arsenal. It belonged to them in the way they played, in the scale of their ambition. Final execution was lacking, yes, but this is something that can sometimes elude the best of talent. You can practice execution.

If we are going to excuse Arsenal's lack of goals on Wednesday wasn't it final execution that cost us against Barnsley?


Arsenal were without goals but not the vibrant life which comes with the belief that beautiful football will sooner or later bring its own rewards.

Thought Milan dominated the game myself, with not that much "vibrancy" from Arsenal

despite Rafa Benitez's latest smash-and-grab that takes him to San Siro in three weeks' time cushioned by a two-goal lead over the masters of Italian football, Internazionale – a week after Arsenal may well have been punished in the same stadium for their failure to exploit the chances that came against reigning European champions, but current Serie A makeweights, Milan.

So, we beat the current best team in Italy but Arsenal failed to score against the makeweights Milan, and Arsenal come out looking the best?


They are, it has been made easy to forget by the brilliance that has taken them five points clear at the top of the Premier League, supposed to be in a season of transition, one in which some even doubted their ability to hang on to the European place that comes with a top four finish.

Yes, Arsenal are having a great season in the premier


In the Togolese striker's favour, strongly, is the fact that he gives so much weight and variety to his leadership of the forward line, something which, strictly speaking, Henry never did.

Is he really implying he is a better striker than Henry at his best?


but if you took away the goals of a labouring Dirk Kuyt and Steven Gerrard

We would have got the same result as Arsenal....

For Arsenal Alexander Hleb was some way from his most acute powers of penetration and Cesc Fabregas and Mathieu Flamini could never quite convert some passages of exciting promise into sustained control, but all of them announced superior talent. By comparison, Liverpool's Xabi Alonso was rooted on the bench against Inter. The difference between the attempted reach of the teams was simply immense. For periods in the second half Arsenal played as though the collective reputation of Kaka, Seedorf, Gatusso, Pirlo, Maldini and the young Brazilian virtuoso Pato, was not a challenge but a provocation.

Does this even make sense? What has Alonso being on the bench got to do with anything?

It continually amazes me how some people can a (good) living from spouting ****. It should serve as encouragement to us all