Koro

Too bad all the developing (and corrupt) countries in places such as Africa love Blatter. Europe/UEFA may have to start to be more independent if they want to break free of this lunatic. But I don't place that much trust in guys like Platini either (even though he's spoked out against Blatter recently).

Sterling ain't cut out for Real Madrid, he can't even score more goals than a 34 y/o Gerrard this season. You need more than just an inflated ego to play for a team like Real. Having said that I'd rather that we sell him to a team outside the EPL (assuming he will leave). On a brighter note I see the LFC players have let their hair down on Gerrard's leaving do in Dubai. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ksf6ofDON8E

Absolutely. Rodgers is a problem, but so are FSG and the whole management/ownership of the club from the top has been terrible. The media are saying Rodgers is not under pressure from the owners atm. If that is true it says a lot about John Henry and co. It was them who bought all the crap that Rodgers said about how he was a tactical genius in the first place too.

He should have done better on the 1st goal, beaten at the near post from a tight angle but his defenders hardly helped him out. The 2nd was not his fault, great finish by Redmond. Like Pash said Boro just looked really bad today. Barely had any attacks on Norwich's goal all match. Big opportunity missed by Boro today, closed they've come to getting into the EPL in years. Hopefully they'll come back stronger next year, but that may be hard if they lose Bamford (on loan from Chelsea).

I'm not certain they'll sack Rodgers. But they were ruthless with previous managers like Dalgiesh and considering how bad Liverpool were in EPL, Europe and the cups its hard to see how they can keep him on. Rodgers seems to have lost the players, they've stopped showing any fight in the last few games and that was clear yesterday.

Bye bye Gerrard :( And bye bye Rodgers :lol: I'm only going to miss one of them.

Good. Fulham's are shite anyway. He should go to another club, preferably in another country given that it didn't really work out for him in England.

So Real Madrid beat Olympiakos 78-59 in the final. I think they could have and should have won it the last two finals, but the difference this year is now they are a though defensive team. They've had a really stacked roster for a while, but guys like Nocioni, Manciulis and Ayyon were good additions. Spanoulis should take the blame for Oly's loss, only 3 points and more turnovers than assists, I saw the Spanoulis I like to remember today. Most of their other key players like Logeski, Pritezis, Sloukas and Hunter played well, but it was clear Real had set up mainly to stop Spanoulis. The coach left Spanoulis on the court for 30+ minutes despite the fact that he was hurting his team, in the hope that Spanoulis would turn into the Greek Michael Jordan and hit some clutch shots at the end like he did in the semi vs CSKA. I'm happy to see Bourousis finally win a Euroleague title and celebrating with the Greek flag and his family, great player totally deserved it over his career. Just a shame Real have only been giving him a few minutes recently, I hope he moves to a team where he can have a bigger role next season. Mancuilis is another one who seems like a nice guy and has been around for a while, he loves beating Oly too.

Well Chelsea don't compare that well given that they only got to the last 16 of the Champions league. I'd agree with you that the standard in the EPL has dropped recently, the teams that the top are failing in the UCL and Europa league, while the newly promoted teams like Burnley and QPR look crap. Leicester are the only one that has surprised anyone. And next season Bournemouth will be in the EPL, with their 10,000 seater stadium :D . This league has been too easy for Chelsea, I'd expect Man City to get out the oil money and hire a new manager for next season. I think Hull will go down and I don't think a lot of people will miss them. Disappointing to see Gerrard couldn't get the send off a legend like him deserved yesterday, Liverpool have lost a great player in Gerrard but they will also need some big signings this summer (which we all know they won't get).

Its just because the electoral system limits their choice so loads of people just have to vote for the best realistic option that can win their constituency. Some of them will actually have genuine loyalty to a party, which is fair enough if they actually agree with that party. Its the Labour-Tory swing voters who annoy me the most and the Lib Dem voters (who've now all left to the Tories). They can't decide if their left or right and they have a much larger influence over who wins the election than the other voters thanks to FPTP. Having said that more people (including myself) voted for the smaller parties this election, but in it was all in vain as most of those votes didn't count toward actual seats.

The BBC called it "a rare mistake by Dimi". Anyway lets hope Boro can see this through in the 2nd leg.

Well immigration is an issue for me, but have bigger priorities like equality, welfare state and public services etc. I'm probably not the only one who didn't vote based solely on their immigration views. Blair's mass immigration was a mistake, so was much of the immigration before him going back over 50 years. Anyone who says multiculturalism has truly succeeded is deluded, look at how segregated communities have become, like you mentioned the paedophilia, more religious frictions, people going off to join terrorist groups and the list goes on. However most of the problem's I've listed are mainly about immigrants who came from outside the EU, from 3rd world countries and often the Islamic countries. I know people from places like Spain, Greece, Portugal ect (which is where most of the recent migrants have come from) and I don't see them doing any of the above. I'm not saying the Southern EU immigrants aren't creating any problems, I'm just not seeing that happening personally. Having said all that economic immigration is a symptom of the evil capitalistic system by which Europe and most of the world operates. Rich businesses benefit by exploiting the new imported cheap labour, possibly undercutting the original citizens. Then the poor country loses out by having its best workers leave to a rich country. Currently there is one party speaking out about immigration but unfortunately for people like me its a right-wing party. The left wing parties like the Greens or TUSC need to stop being so blind about immigration in my opinion.

The Tories may have gone further in their reforms to the NHS, taxation ect but for the Lib Dems. I'm not trying to defend to Lib Dems and this election has shown how they are merely Tories in disguise. But I'm just saying things will be even worse than they were the last 5 years.

So there you go, another 5 years of Cameron as PM looms. Only this time he has a majority, so no Lib Dems to keep the Tories in check, this could be the most right-wing government since the Thatcher days. Very, very poor showing from Labour and Lib Dems, the polls massively over estimated the performance of Labour. UKIP and Greens have suffered from our undemocratic electoral system, for example UKIP get 13% of the total vote but only 1 seat. SNP did well, even better than expected getting 56 seats. But the problem is that thanks to Labour's dismal performance in England, there were not enough centre left-wing parties to form a coalition. That means little influence for the SNP MPs in Westminster and that the people of Scotland have to endure another Tory government and it is not even their fault, its the fault of the English electorate for being far more right-wing. I'd expect this to only fuel the Scottish independence movement and to divide our country.

We can moan about Blair all we want and how bemused you are that he actually got elected. Just remember that Blair was only re-elected once after the invasion, that was in 2005 (before the lies about Iraq were as accepted as they are now) and even then Labour only won 35% of the total vote. Such is the undemocratic nature of our electoral system Blair's 3rd government was probably the least popular single party majority government this nation has seen. I think its a shame that few politicians are mentioning how much First Past the Post needs to be reformed. The Lib Dems are not so vocal about it anymore after everyone voted against changing the system in 2011. But I still think change is needed, even if there is not a lot of popular support for it.

@js1000 No the people who voted for Labour do not have blood on their hands because did they know Blair was going to invade Iraq when they were voting for him? No, the blood is on the hands of the politicians, they did something they never said they would during the election and went against many of their own voters opinions. We have in the UK what is known as an "elective dictatorship" so the people cannot take the blame on that one. Secondly even though I do think that Labour are the "lesser of 2 evils" I'm not going to be voting for them, so don't expect me to stand up for Tony Blair's actions, I am against the damage he did to the old Labour party.

I'm glad to see the anti Tory vibe coming from a few of you guys. I remember last year UKIP said the Tories even wanted the Turks in the EU ffs. I still think the Tories are the worst party in the UK (sorry UKIP), so anything other than a Tory led government is a minor victory in my eyes. Then you also have the issue of Scotland and I think the SNP have a win-win situation. Either they form a coalition with Labour and we get Salmond as Miliband's new partner. Or if the Tories come into government (with other right-wing parties like UKIP, DUP or whoever) and we even leave the EU, then this would only fuel popularity for Scottish independence. Pick your poison.

The British parliamentary election is only a week away now and it looks like it will certainly be a hung parliament. Hard to predict what will happen, but we could end up with some sort of rainbow coalition of miss matched parties. What is your guys thoughts on this?

Incase anyone hasn't realised by now, Liverpool's season is now effectively over. No more realistic possibility of finishing in the top 4 and under performed badly in all 4 cup competitions we've competed in. Its hard to make a case to why Rodger's should keep his job given our latest slump in form, topped off tonight with a 1-0 loss to Hull of all teams. No reason why the owners shouldn't at least enter talks with the likes of Benitez or Klopp this summer, we could do with a manager that doesn't constantly look out of this depth.

I guess its good that they've voted in a less conservative and religious/islamic government. Hopefully it can be a step away from Erdogan, but I don't see Turkey's influence decreasing that much in the near future. But I'm still not sure about any unification talks, it is an awkward position that the 4 countries (Cyprus, N.Cyprus, Greece & Turkey) find themselves in.

Bad news as Bournemouth won today and have "all but sealed promotion" and finished above Boro'. But Dimi can still get promoted if Bournemouth lose on the final day and Boro' beat Charlton 19-0 :lol:

How does he keep dislocating his shoulder? He's not a rugby player ffs. Needs to stop playing like he's some kind of Papajuggernaut.

Villa have turned their season around by changing their manager. Sherwood has done a great job so far and I hope they go and beat Arsenal in the FA cup final. Newcastle have done the absolute opposite after changing their manager. They were a decent team under Pardew and in the top half, but now their scrapping for relegation with Carver in charge. Newcastle are one of the least motivated teams I can remember in the EPL, which is very worrying given that they are not safe yet.

Does Papanikolaou still play at all? He's barely gotten any minuets over the last few months. I can only imagine he won't be at Houston next season, but no idea where they might send him. But I can't argue with the manager since Houston are looking good right now, or maybe its just that Dallas are looking poor. If Howard is healthy and playing well then he's unmatchable, I'd expect Houston to do well this year.

From what I've seen newly promoted teams rarely buy a new keeper when they go up. I think all the new EPL teams this season have to same keepers they had in the Championship. Teams would rather slash their cash on a striker to get the goals to stay up, or an attacking midfielder. But it would still be a big step up for Dimi, considering how much more shots he would have to face in the EPL. Middlesborough have kept a lot of clean sheets this season, so I doubt they'd want to disrupt their defence by switching keepers. Of course Dimi's age might count against him and Boro have a good younger 2nd keeper who used to play for Real Madrid, so maybe they want him to replace Dimi eventually.