JackFrost

Considering how many computer keyboards rallyboy has indirectly destroyed throughout this thread, I wouldn't mind betting computer keyboard production is one of the few growth industries right now. Of course we could be discussing far more interesting info right now

Has someone just double bogeyed the 12th?

Careful, I seem to remember alpine making a certain 2 point prediction earlier in the season

Chelsea vs Corinthians on BBC2 now 30 mins played, very entertaining game, Corinthians have shaded it so far

Part of it is a cultural thing of course and the American's lax gun laws don't help, but even if all the guns in the world disappeared tomorrow people would still kill other people, they'd just use another weapon to do it. For instance this has only just happened in China. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-20723910 Now I'm no expert on Chinese gun laws but over there it's a spate of knife attacks. "How could anyone do such a thing?" People ask. Well I'm not defending the guy's actions for one second and we'll probably never know his reasons but mental illness can be so potentially dangerous in so many ways. The vast majority of mentally ill people will be totally harmless to other people but there's always the small percentage that can develop issues such as paranoia/delusions/psychosis and then at the same time develop feelings of self-doubt which can even fool themselves into thinking they don't have any problem. Therefore the problem will stay hidden. Mental illness has such a wide spectrum, can be so ambiguous and can catch anyone at any time. During my time in the force I met no end of people with psychopathic tendencies/murderers. Plenty of them could be capable of something like this and not bat an eyelid, but in most cases they've had the right treatment after being caught (or after they've wanted to be caught in some cases) after doing a lesser crime. There's always some that will slip through the net, and there's plenty of people who've been abused/beaten all their lives, haven't known anything else and anything other than confrontation/violence isn't normal to them. My heart goes out to all the families/friends that have been affected by this but the American's gun control laws don't even scratch the surface of this and why it happened. Again, I'm not defending the guy's actions for a second but he'd have had his own extremely disturbed views and reasons for doing what he did. Sure, people can call him all the names in the world and deservedly so but spend a day in a high security prison or mental asylum where extremely dangerous prisoners are kept and to say it's an eye-opener is a big understatement.

Can he play CB?

According to the Zambian FA, Messi hasn't broken the record yet http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/20711038

Monterrey were far better against Ulsan Hyundai but couldn't string two passes together today. I suppose they just weren't used to the relentless pressing from Chelsea, and it didn't help that their best player Humberto Suazo was out injured, Apparently Corinthians have brought 25,000 fans to Japan. The tournament is massive in the americas.

Surely this thread must be in the guiness book of world records for 'most facepalms in one thread'

That's more down to 'arry being able to afford a very good (and expensive) lawyer

This.

Messi doesn't strike me as a lad that'll "sell out" as it were and join City. Why would he want to leave Barca? I doubt he'd move to City even if City offered to treble his wages. He's played with some of those Barca players most of his life. Also regarding the top 2 in La Liga they are currently Barcelona and Atletico Madrid Speaking of Atletico I notice Falcao scored 5 last night against Deportivo in their 6-0 win.

According to my calculations he has just broken Gerd Muller's record of number of goals in a calendar year, set in 1972. I believe Messi has just scored his 85th and 86th goals of 2012 against Real Betis.

An amazing man with a wonderful sense of humour

I can see us beating Sunderland and Villa. Sunderland are out of form and Villa are just a poor side, especially if Darren Bent is still out of favour, or even at the club.

The ref practically decided the Arsenal-WBA game himself. He gave Arsenal two ridiculous penalties, the first one was a blatant dive by Cazorla and the second one was an even more blatant push by AOC in the build up. He then doesn't give a penalty to WBA despite a clear handball from Mertesacker was it?? How the ref and linesman missed that was simply incredible.

Mayuka played CB yesterday?

Depends what you think is worse. Poorer people not paying as much tax due to having less money/lower income and needing to live or richer people claiming benefits they don't need because they have more financial flexibility to budget for an expense, say for a child's upbringing more easily. Regardless of a couple's overall wealth, if they can't afford/don't have the cash flow/money set aside in an emergency/don't have the willing to make necessary sacrifices to bring up kids then they shouldn't have them in the first place.

What abuse? It's just two old mates having a jocular pop at one another through the press which some journalist has tried to turn into a story. The only slight thing that Ecclestone commented on was Ferrari being a bit public with their request for clarification but Bernie himself says in the article "No, Luca is a lovely guy, I'm probably as a big a supporter of him as anybody. I am a big admirer of Luca's". There's LDM's usual moan about the testing restrictions and their bound to moan because it massively benefited them back in the day when FIA might as well have stood for 'Ferrari's International Assistance', and secondly they were the only team to invest in their own test track which the current rules make pretty much redundant. A complete non-story.

Pavel Pogrebnyak on his day is pure class as well. But I wouldn't say their defence is any better than ours. This game could end up anything if both sides attacking play is top drawer, but I think midfield is where it will be won or lost.

Not a big fan of christmas myself. I think that everyone being in a good mood makes it just about bearable

TBH I'd rather we produce a performance like that away to liverpool than say, at home to Reading.

The FIA's love in with Ferrari stopped as soon as Mosley went. During the Schumacher era it was unbelievable what they got away with even when they did have by far the best car. Two examples off the top of my head include Schumacher winning the British GP despite being allowed to take a 10 second stop/go penalty after crossing the finish line, and having Alonso (who was at Renault) deducted 5 grid positions at the Italian GP one year when he drove 150 yards in front of a Ferrari at Monza. For the latter Brundle was almost openly accusing Mosley of rigging it during the gridwalk. I don't really get the hate regarding questioning this incident though. All Ferrari did was ask for clarification and they got it. Can we really blame them when the entire driver's title could be decided on it? Any other team would have done the same. Schumacher bored the hell out of me as well 8-12 years ago but one way of dealing with it is hearing why Kimi Raikkonen missed a ceremony where Schumacher was awarded a lifetime achievement award at the Brazilian GP about 5 years ago http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MlsMVzrp2o

I can't see Mayuka getting a game until he comes back from the African Cup of Nations. He was brilliant last year and if he plays as well this year he will give NA one serious headache. That said apart from today Puncheon has really upped his game but I really don't know why we signed Mayuka if we're never going to use him