Wow, Arsenal have been bad. And if any of you guys are watching can you see why I don't rate Walcott, and this isn't a massive surprise he's playing like this he plays like this 95% of the time.

As I said an hour or so ago in this thread Chamberlain looks like the better prospect, and the more dangerous for us in the tie.

Don't think anyone rates him that much, I think most are afraid of his speed if he catches out our terrible LB. Who's to bet that his one decent move would come against us on some ill-timed counter ala Lennon last season? Because this is the way things have been going for us in the CL in recent years.

If you play Balo, you run the risk of ending up with 10 men, but he'll win you games. If you play Pato, you are playing with 10 men and he won't win you games.

What's different between that and Kompany's tackle? Where's the consistency.

Should have been a sending off from 1st glance.

Yep, yep, yep.

De Gea is playing with no confidence at all, looks scared out there.

Premiership: Chelsea (Fillipo, Kurt), Manchester United (Acid, MAB, LaPalma).
FA Cup: Arsenal (MAB), Chelsea (Acid), Liverpool (Fillipo, LaPalma), Manchester United (Kurt).
League Cup: Aston Villa (Fillipo), Liverpool (MAB), Manchester City (Acid, Kurt).

Relegation: Blackburn Rovers (MAB), Norwich City (Acid, MAB), Swansea City (Fillipo, Kurt), West Bromwich Albion (Fillipo), Wigan Athletic (Acid, Kurt, MAB) Wolverhampton Wanderers (Acid, Fillipo, Kurt).

Now this is starting to become a bit too damn weird!

Tell me about it. I should just have said Manchester for the league!

If I predict the winners alone that's something but aside of Norwich the relegation isn't far off either, ah if only I put a bet on

I'm just waiting for the news that Liverpool have signed Grant Holt for £35m... after 6 decent months in the Prem.

Aston Villa, a club with the potential for regular top six finishes, continue to drift in midtable under the uninspiring management of Alex McLeish.

Overview

There’s been much talk of ambition and potential around QPR this January. Mark Hughes left Fulham, who have a bigger stadium than Loftus Road and have been a Premiership team for more than a decade saying their ambition no longer matches his own, to join Rangers who play at 18,000 capacity Loftus Road and could easily be relegated this term in their first Premiership season for 15 years. That seemed a little perverse, so the club has spoken repeatedly about its ambition and potential ever since.

I don’t doubt their ambition, but whether QPR have potential to be much more than they are now I highly doubt. A new training ground may well be in the pipeline but we’re still training at below standard rented accommodation in the meantime and personally I question whether we’ll see a new stadium for Rangers in my lifetime. The potential on the pitch is therefore here only as long as Tony Fernandes wants to bankroll it, and when he doesn’t the potential is only to become the new Leeds or Portsmouth.

If you want to talk about potential then look to tonight’s opponents Aston Villa who are swimming in the stuff. Aston Villa are the only Premiership club in Britain’s second biggest city and as a consequence they are able to routinely attract more than 35,000 fans to their massive Villa Park home – there is even talk of expanding the ground still further, knocking down the stand behind the goal that we have been housed in on our last few visits to build a huge new rap-around design that would take the capacity beyond 50,000. Away from home Villa fans travel in huge numbers and are consistently the Premiership’s loudest and most vocal support. They have a state of the art training facility and youth academy that produces first team players like Barry Bannan and Gabby Agbonlahor, regularly threatening in the Academy League and FA Youth Cup as it goes. This is potential.

On the pitch, on paper at least, their team looks pretty competitive as well with the top division’s premier goal scorer Darren Bent now supported by Robbie Keane who has made a great start to life at Villa after moving this January and Agbonlahor who is carving out a new niche for himself wide on the left flank. Christ they also seem to be extracting some form from Stephen Ireland at long, long, long last. This is a team that is so much better than the twelfth position they currently occupy, as a recent thumping win at Chelsea testifies.

Their underperformance, and that’s definitely what this season and last is, can be put down to ownership which was once heralded as a model for other clubs to follow. Randy Lerner, American born owner of the Cleveland Browns, has made it pretty clear of late that there will be no spending beyond their means in order to compete. Admirable, and possibly still a model for other clubs to follow, but Villa’s defence is starting to age and slow and the lack of investment in the team is starting to show through. What Lerner needs is a manager adept at getting the best out of more limited resources and players, his summer pursuit of Roberto Martinez and David Moyes made perfect sense in that regard but to then appoint Alex McLeish when he failed with his first choices was a dreadful move that is steadily setting Villa back years.

The long suffering supporters continue to travel in amazing numbers to watch the stilted, negative rubbish McLeish is trying to make a reasonably talented and attack minded group of players produce but don’t feel too sorry for them. There’s a touch of the Charlton Athletics about all of this because when Martin O’Neill lead them to consecutive sixth placed finishes supporters moaned about not pushing on further for Champions League and not progressing. O’Neill is exactly who you need when purse strings are tightened and Villa have not, and will not for the foreseeable future, do as well as they did when O’Neill was in charge. If a lesson in the greenness of grass on the other side of the fence were required then appointing first Gerrard Houllier and then Alex McLeish to replace Martin O’Neill is about as chastening as an experience can be for a group of supporters.

At the moment this is a football club going to waste.