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Fair play to JMC .  The public  voted and he won . 

The team has been sluggish for weeks.The hidings in the Champions League has dented confidence.Unless a very credible performance is forthcoming against Zenit St Petersburg,it is hard to argue with Michael Owen's view that Brendan will get bored and move on in the summer.

I'd say the January window is important for Brendan's career.He has a lot to prove still in Europe and needs to make key signings during this transfer window to freshen things up and make the team competitive in Europe.
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Stoke could yet be a good gateway  back to football for Brendan .

Geldof is an insufferable pompous dose but I am sure DCC have other more pressing issues that require their attention .

[Providing employment is often used to cover other things]

None of the signees are doing too badly .

They could better channel their energies to homelessness ,  health service , unemployment and other social ills

So that means they shouldn't care about identity, equality etc?  Quite a few of them provide significant employment in the north.

Never said they should not care about identity .  Providing employment is often used to cover other things .

Don't quite understand this??

I worded that poorly .  In the case of business people the old line of "they provide employment" is used when there some little problem to be addressed .

None of the signees are doing too badly .

They could better channel their energies to homelessness ,  health service , unemployment and other social ills

So that means they shouldn't care about identity, equality etc?  Quite a few of them provide significant employment in the north.

Never said they should not care about identity .  Providing employment is often used to cover other things .

None of the signees are doing too badly .

They could better channel their energies to homelessness ,  health service , unemployment and other social ills

United are 2nd, 3 points ahead of Chelsea, 5 points ahead of Liverpool, 6 points ahead of Arsenal and 7 points ahead of Spurs, you'd think we were miles behind everyone the way some of you are going on. There's a reason why 70 points is the most we've achieved in the last 4 years.

LVG & Moyes spent over £320m on players which would probably equate to about £500m in todays market and there's only one top class player bought out of that lot in Martial. The pair of them wasted a fortune.

We're a work in progress and clearly we're a better team than last year but United are still a few players short.

Is buying players the only solution now, is it fair to say managers are no longer expected to make players better? Are the days of an obscure buy now well and truly behind us?

Certainly isn't but its a huge factor with the squad Mourinho inherited. All Fergie's top player had gone and the Moyes & LVG bought mostly dross.

Rojo & Jones have both improved since Mourinho arrived and you could argue that Smalling has too. He's turned Young into a good left back and Fellaini has had much more of an impact then he did under Moyes & LVG.

United's problems go all the way back to summer 2009 when United who were comfortably one of the best 2 teams in Europe let their best player leave and replace him with Valencia & Owen. It wasn't until 2012 when a really top player was bought and even then was nearly 30 whilst City have spent a fortune every summer since 2010 to keep on top.

United are easily in far better shape than anytime since Fergie left.

C

Damning with faint praise .

The Celtic v Zenit tie will be close .  Dundalk gave them plenty of it last year .

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/42292297

interesting read

Champions league is shite to be honest. As is football in general. The most powerful clubs nowadays are clubs like City and PSG who have no tradition. Players just follow the money. The romance is long gone. Clubs like Celtic are an afterthought, even though they epitomise, or should epitomise, what European football is all about.

Man City have a great tradition .  A great old club with a really good local support base .   An Irishman following a Scottish club complaining about money ruining European football .  People need to get a grip .  This is a professional globalised sport , is is showbiz . 

Fixing the water network costs  €€€€€s which will have to come from that "General Taxation" so beloved of the loonielefties.
So are we going to pay the extra taxes needed?
Yet all I'm hearing from the Government is tax cuts.
If you want Scandinavian public services.......

We pay more than enough through direct indirect taxes if FF/FG/Lab hadn't squandered so much money over the years. Hell - we even came up with 43% of Europe's banking debt one time when we were asked to. Where here's a will there's a way. Nationalise our oil and gas, or increase the royalties significantly) - that would pay for a lot.

We paid the banking debt that we were stupid enough to accrue .  That

Whether it was 43% of the Eurozone's ( not Europe's debt is moot) .  That 43% is not the case as further banking debt in other counties has come to light .

The last round of group games take place this week in the Champions League and as things stand its quite possible that the 5 Premier League teams will qualify for the last sixteen as group winners. That's no mean feat,its been fashionable to knock it in recent years but Premier League is definitely on the rise again.

Winning the group could be a poison chalice for some though with Real, Bayern, Roma and Juve likely to finish 2nd in their groups

To be honest with the amount of dosh in the EPL and the decline of smaller leagues getting all clubs in last 16 should really be a minimum expectation .   Granted 5 teams is a anomoly .  Man U were in a shit group ,  Real Madrid were poor ,  Liverpool's group average ,  Chelsea in an average group .   

Seeing the reaction and the country suffer when Dublin lifted Sam again, made it all that sweeter.

Have a read about Dynamo Berlin in the old East German .   

Tubridy is an absolute genius at this.

Very watchable

" a genius" ?    Geniuses invent life saving drugs ,  computer programmes ,  optimise land use .

Ryan is presenting a toy show .

McGregors KO of Aldo.

That will have to wait until we are assessing Ireland's best scriptwriters .

https://mobile.twitter.com/DownGAAMemories/status/932333716378214400

Boyos and girls

Tommy Howard , Tony David , Ross Carr , Liam Honohan & ??

Any idea ??