S.L. Benfica – A complete guide for Geordies (part two)

Posted on April 2nd, 2013 | 45 Comments |

Estadio da Luz (Stadium of Light) - Lisbon.
The real Stadium of Light.
With the Newcastle United being drawn against footballing aristocrats Benfica for their Europa League quarter final on Thursday, here is part two of my guide to Benfica.

In part one, I took a look at some aspects of Benfica’s history, including it’s links to Newcastle United and the North East in general. In this one, I will looking at things like the club’s current form, it’s coach Jorge Jesus, tactics, some of Benfica’s key players and that sort of thing.

Benfica and Newcastle United have never played each other competitively, so we can get that one out of the way pretty sharpish and take a look at their current form.

Current Form.

Benfica’s form in the Portuguese League is pretty predictable. If they’re doing well they’re top of the League, and if they’re doing not so well they are second, usually behind their fierce rivals, FC Porto. Their other great rivals in the Portuguese “Três Grandes” (Big three) are fellow Lisbon side Sporting Clube de Portugal, but they seem to be in a bit of a pickle at the moment, currently languishing in eighth in a sixteen team league.

The news is that Benfica are doing very well at the moment. They are currently top of the Portuguese Primeira Liga and with 24 games gone, and like second placed Porto they have yet to lose a league game this season. As you can see from the table below, both the Portuguese giants are way ahead of the chasing pack, led by Paços de Ferreira in third place. Having written that, they were in a similar position at this stage last season but eventually lost out to their usual nemesis, Porto.

Primeira Liga top four 2012-13 (so far).
# Club G W D L F A GD P
1. SL Benfica 24 20 4 0 66 15 +51 64
2. FC Porto 23 18 6 0 55 11 +44 60
3. FC Paços de Ferreira 24 12 9 3 35 22 +13 45
4. SC Braga 23 13 4 6 50 31 +19 43

Benfica in Europe this year.

Benfica find themselves in the Europa League after an unexpected departure from the group stages of the Champions League. They were second favourites in their group behind the mighty Barcelona, but due largely to the unexpectedly good performance of Celtic, who even managed to inflict a defeat on runaway group favourites, Barcelona.

Two of Benfica’s three defeats in all competitions this season came in this Champions League group stage, the first being a 0-2 home defeat to Barcelona and a 2-1 away defeat by Spartak Moscow. The third was a defeat on penalties in the semi-final of the Portuguese League Cup against SC Braga. Below, you can see Benfica’s record in both the Champions League and more latterly, the Europa League.

2012-13 Champions League Group G.
# Club G W D L F A GD P
1. FC Barcelona 6 4 1 1 11 5 +6 13
2. Celtic FC 6 3 1 2 9 8 +1 10
3. SL Benfica 6 2 2 2 5 5 0 8
4. FC Spartak Moscow 6 1 0 5 7 14 -7 3

If we take a look at Benfica’s Europa League recerd, we can see that they’ve won all four of their games against considerable opposition in the form of Bayer Leverkusen, who are currently third in the German Bundesliga, and Newcastle United’s Group D Europa League opponents who we beat 3-0 at home, only to see them get their revenge with a 2-0 victory at their place.

Benfica Europa League 2012-13.
G W D L F A GD
4 4 0 0 7 3 4

The scorelines in Benfica’s games were a 0-1 victory against Leverkusen away followed by a 2-1 victory at the Stadium of Light. In their two matches against Bordeaux, they beat the French 1-0 at home with a 3-2 victory in the away leg.

Coach and tactics.

Jorge Jesus.
Jesus: Highly offensive.
Once described by Jose Mourinho as “an old donkey who’s never won anything,” Benfica’s 58 year Jorge Jesus certainly wasn’t a big name when he was announced as Benfica’s new head coach in June, 2009. He was a Portuguese journeyman whose biggest achivements were qualifying for the UEFA Cup and reaching a Portuguese Cup final with Belenenses, followed by UEFA Cup qualification once more with Braga. However, despite his somewhat underwhelming record before joining Benfica, he somehow managed to wangle a monster sized £3.2 million per year contract out of the Portuguese giants, which makes him currently the fifteenth most well renumerated manager in the world.

Since then though, he won Benfica their first Portuguese League title in five years in his first season (2009-10), as well as winning three Portuguese League cups since that time. Although he has missed out on the two League championships since then, Benfica’s biggest rivals, Porto, were pipping Benfica to the League title long before Jesus took over as head coach. In the last 10 seasons, Porto have won eight titles to Benfica’s two (2004–05 and 2009–10). This means that Benfica have similar worries to Newcastle, albeit at opposite ends of the scale. In other words, if Alan Pardew concentrates too strongly on the Europa League it could affect Newcastle’s relegation battle whereas if Benfica do the same thing, it could effect their battle to win the League over their bitter rivals from Porto. Jesus’s contract is up for renewal at the end of the season and if Porto turn over Benfica like last season, it could be “lampshade time” for Jesus.

Looking at Benfica’s tactics, one thing Alan Pardew should be prepared for is Benfica going straight for the jugular in terms of attack on their home turf. They are an offensive passing side who press hard when they aren’t in possession, though that isn’t very often in their domestic League games against lesser opposition (In their last game they hammered sixth placed Rio Ave 6-1). For those of you who remember the start of our game with Mauricio Pochettino’s Southampton, that’s the kind of thing I mean.

Formation wise they seem to be very flexible and fluid, though Jesus’s default certainly seems to be a 4-1-3-2, with the Serbian Nemanja Matic as an automatic choice as the holding midfield “1”. Formerly a young bit part player at Chelsea who was loaned out to Vitesse Arnhem in his last season there, he has become a key player for the side since Javi García was sold to Manchester City, he is their fulcrum who can turn defence into attack in a heartbeat as besides being defensive, he is also a very good passer who is comfortable on the ball. As I mentioned above though, Jesus can be flexible, expecially so in Europe. Hence we may see them lining up as a 4-3-3 or a 4-2-3-1. Whetever it is though, Matic will still be that fulcrum in the centre somewhere.

Newcastle United.

Looking at things from the Newcastle United side however, every Geordie’s favourite trumpet playing Peruvian, Nolberto Solano, has been fighting wor corner. In a piece entitled “Newcastle tem nada de futebol” or “Newcastle has nothing of football” in Portuguese sports journal O Jogo (“the Game”), The Peruvian maestro said that Newcastle’s strength in the games will be their er, strength, and that is what will eventually see the Toon through to the semi finals. Over to Nobby:

“Newcastle has a strong physical presence. They have amazing players like Sissoko, Tiote, Cisse, and Ameobi who are physically powerful. Distinguished by height, strength, and speed and jumping ability. I want to say that Newcastle will pull off a football shock.”

PS: The following is the 19 man squad Alan Pardew has taken to Lisbon.

Tim Krul (G), Rob Elliot (G), Danny Simpson (D), Steven Taylor (D), Mike Williamson (D), Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa (D), Davide Santon (D), Vurnon Anita (M, D), Jonas Gutierrez (M. D), James Perch (M. D), Yohan Cabaye (M), Moussa Sissoko (M), Sylvain Marveaux (M), Dan Gosling (M), Gael Bigirimana (M), Gabriel Obertan (M), Shola Ameobi (F), Papiss Cisse (F), Adam Campbell (F). .

Benfica’s top hitmen.

Benfica top scorers 2012-13.
# Player (Position) Gms Gls Ass MPl MPG
1. Óscar Cardozo (CF) 34 27 5 2217 82.1
2. Lima (CF) 37 24 9 2652 110.5
3. Rodrigo (CF) 30 10 4 1708 170.8
4. Eduardo Salvio (RW) 39 10 10 2960 296.0
Gms – Games, Gls – Goals, Ass – Assists, MPl – Minutes Played, MPG – Minutes Per Goal.

As you can see in the goalscoring table above, Benfica have a very potent front two in Óscar Cardozo and Lima, with Cardozo scoring a goal every 82 minutes on average and Lima every 110. Of course though, this must be tempered by the fact that this is mostly in Portuguese League matches. As for Rodrigo, he is still the 22 year old apprentice who is making a very good name for himself with Benfica. You might remember him from a loan spell in the Premiership with Bolton back in the 2010–2011 season (Newcastle United’s first back in the Premiership), though he only featured as a very late substitute in one game against the Magpies in that season.

Finally in this section, as a personal indulgence, I must mention Benfica’s Pablo Aimar. He’s 33 now, and not always the automatic choice he used to be for any team he played for in the past. However, he is one of THE great European players of the last few years and if you don’t believe me, you can listen on one of his biggest fans, Lionel Messi. I know Aimar very well from my trips to see Valencia years ago, when he was the creative engine of the great Rafa Benitez side that won two la Liga titles and the UEFA Cup between 2001 and 2004. It was always a privilege and a pleasure to see the great artist at work.

Pablo Aimar – “The complete player from Rio Cuarto.”

Benfica in action.

Benfica’s last game, a 6-1 Primeira Liga demolition of sixth placed side, Rio Ave. The goalscorers for Benfica were Lorenzo Melgarejo (11), Lima (43, 48, 76), and finally Enzo Pérez (81).

Selling club.

Without the huge TV and commercial revenue of the big clubs in the UK and Spain, Benfica have to rely on their their their reknowned footballer farm to grow players of the highest calibre to sell on to the ones who have. Along with clubs like Ajax and one or two others, they are arguably world leaders in the development of top level talent. Recent sales to the moneybags clubs next door in Spain and over here in the UK include talents such as Ramires and David Luiz (Chelsea €47 million), Fabio Coentrão and Angel di Maria (Real Madrid €66 million plus Ezequiel Garay), Javi García (Manchester City £15.8 million) and more. If Benfica were in the Premiership, or negotiating their own TV deals in Spain like Barcelona and Real Madrid, they would almost certainly still be one of the world’s great teams, as they were in the 1960s.

S.L. Benfica – A complete guide for Geordies (part one).

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NUFCBlog Author: workyticket workyticket has written 1095 articles on this blog.

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Comment on this post

45 Responses

  1. Good write up as usual. You have me worried now about their forwards. That’s a lot of goals, although if it is like an SPL that might account for some of it.

    How do they manage to get the Brazilians work permits when we cannot? Or do we not even try as we don’t have the scouting network, connections, and Government Officials in our pocket?

  2. I waited until now to answer your poll question. My head chose Benfica, I hope I jinx them.

  3. I suppose it was some kind of attitude about English players and English clubs, the reason we did’nt recruit in places like South America.
    Though we did have the Robledo brothers at Newcastle in the fifties, From Chile.
    But it took years before Spurs broke the mould by signing Ardilles and Villa, both direct from Argentina.
    At the moment their are possibly more foreign imports playing in the EPL than native born players.
    But few are ever signed directly from their native countries, most being signed from other European leagues.
    Of course the latin speaking nations, Portugal, Spain and to a degree Italy, do sign young players directly from their home countries and develope them.
    Is it because both Spain and Portugal have connections in SA, with both a language and culture in common ?
    Appears we (the sides of the EPL) have either no interest or dont want to fund a scouting organization in SA.
    It very well may be a short sighted attitude.
    And instead of concentrating solely on players from within the French league, plus some from the Netherlands.
    So far Carr has done a decent job, but why limit oneself to two divisions, plus seven million for Anita and whatever we paid for Amalfitano, dont appear to be great bargains, face it Carr is not infallible.
    And while i’m at it, it’s been mentioned that Pardew, who in fact should bare the blame for most tacticle screw-ups, may not be entirely responsible.

    iuytrewq

  4. I ment to add, our coaches should perhaps bear some of the responsibility for the awful results from set pieces over a period of time.
    Also our Physio department may be brought to question, as we seem to have had an inordinate amount of injuries over the last number of years.
    I have a feeling Cabaye, being so important to the side has playing injured in a number of games.
    Plus HBA, last time i saw him, was waddling around looking way over wieght.
    Whats that about.

  5. When you were away Chuck I went on a few rants about the NUFC medical staff. The Ben Arfa hamstring has been a farce, from bringing him back on a freezing night on a plastic pitch to saying he would need surgery and would be out for the season. Now he apparently doesn’t need surgery and may be back before the end of the season.

    If they have a scanner then it is either broken or they can’t read the MRI. This is not the first time this has happened. What medical professional gave the OK for Ben Arfa to make his return on a plastic pitch? It is malpractice if you ask me.

    The other thing is allowing him back to Paris for rehab. They did a great job with his broken leg but this time he may be getting too used to Chateaubriand with Bearnaise sauce again rather than stotty cakes and Greggs’ pies.

  6. I do know there is a minimum number of international appearances a player must make to get a work permit. It seems that some countries have found a way around this. At least that’s my impression.

  7. chuck says:
    April 3, 2013 at 5:41 am

    “Is it because both Spain and Portugal have connections in SA, with both a language and culture in common ?”

    Yes Chuck, it’s similar with Africa and France too. Our lot all play friggin’ Cricket or run long distances. There’s no Indian Pele, no Kenyan Maradona or Tanzinean Eusebio. We have Nigeria and the Ameobis and that’s about it.

  8. chuck says:
    April 3, 2013 at 5:55 am

    “I ment to add, our coaches should perhaps bear some of the responsibility for the awful results from set pieces over a period of time.
    Also our Physio department may be brought to question, as we seem to have had an inordinate amount of injuries over the last number of years.”

    The buck stops with the manager, Chuck.

    Have you ever seen out head Physio, Derek “bonecrusher” Wright? He breaks men like twigs.

    Here he is breaking Kieron Dyer:

    http://images.icnetwork.co.uk/upl/nechronical/nov2009/5/3/derek-wright-with-kieron-dyer-315834743.jpg

  9. Pardew’s long ball stats are still truly spine chilling. We still make Stoke look like Barcelona and we must change or else we are f**ked. 26.6% long balls over 25 yards in a game must be an all time record.

    Quality Frogs and Argies divven’t want to play like that, it’s all Pardew and he can’t seem to help it. It’s time to give Noda a ring as there’s no redemption for the grey Gaffer. If he didn’t have the players he has but had a team like Reading or Norwich instead, he’d be adrift at the bottom of the Premiership right now.

    More on that story later…

  10. The Newcastle squad in Lisbon: Shola Ameobi, Vurnon Anita, Gael Bigirimana, Yohan Cabaye, Adam Campbell, Papiss Cisse, Rob Elliot, Dan Gosling, Jonas Gutierrez, Tim Krul, Sylvain Marveaux, Gabriel Obertan, James Perch, Davide Santon, Danny Simpson, Moussa Sissoko, Steven Taylor, Mike Williamson, Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa.

  11. From what i can gather, the probable starters against Benfica will be.

    _____________Krul__________
    ________Taylor__ MYB_______
    Simpson______________Santon
    Jonas_Cabaye_Perch-Marveaux
    ________Sissoko___________
    __________Cisse___________

    A fairly strong side, but one wonders why a seven million quid Anita has been replaced by a utility player like Perch.
    I’m not that happy with Jonas on the right wing either.
    Again it reflects a more defensive lineup.
    Hopefully unlike against Citeh, we use a high line, not ten men in our own half, where theres a chance of a steal or force them to use the long ball, hell we have the pace.
    If it’s a 4-4-2, which i suspect, face it folks when in doubt, revert to something you understand.
    We can then have Cisse and Sissoko hanging around up font
    doing nothing and the rest defending desperately.
    Pardew ball !
    Of course we can always hoof it up to them, which is probably what will happen, as i cant see either Perch or Jonas doing much in the way of providing.
    Hopefully Marveaux and Cabaye can provide and between the four, someone can score, because Perch and Jonas are out there to defend.

  12. And oh! bye the way, Shearer and Pardew are not worried about the run in to-wards the seasons end.
    Both guaranteeing safety, thank god for that!
    Had this come from anyone but Pardew and the guy responsible for our demise into the second tier, i may have taken heart, but those two ?
    If we are to survive, it will take both confidence and playing to our strengths, which is attacking sides with pace.
    Which we have in abundance, keeping sides bottled up by employing a high line, forcing them to use the long 50/50 ball, not sitting in our own end inviting them to attack us.
    Hell thats why we got hammered by Citeh, even let them walk into the box, disgraceful!
    It’s not about who we play, it’s about how we play, we have with the present squad, an attacking side that has both technique and pace, but a manager who does’nt know how to employ them.
    How many games have we lost in the second half, by attempting to defend a one or two goal lead, instead of keeping the pressure on sides?
    Look if we cant effectively employ this side, can we get some coaches and a manager who can.
    Wonder what KK could do with this side ?

  13. chuck says:
    April 3, 2013 at 7:38 pm

    “If it’s a 4-4-2, which i suspect, face it folks when in doubt, revert to something you understand.
    We can then have Cisse and Sissoko hanging around up font
    doing nothing and the rest defending desperately.
    Pardew ball !…

    Wonder what KK could do with this side ?”

    Chuck, my extensive research on the subject indicates that it isn’t a question of 4-4-2 vs 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1. Pardew can produce route one sides who play dire, unsuccessful football in all of those formations.

    Don’t even think about KK!

  14. Hell i never wanted KK back to begin with, i thought he was loosing money with his (well described) circus, and was looking for a paycheck, which proved to be true.
    On the other hand i have had no faith in anyone that preceeded or succeeded him, especially this guy.
    Only being a fan of SBR.
    On whether it’s 4-4-2 or other lineups, yeah the only difference is how many guys you wanna see hanging around in the oppositions end, starved of the ball, its like being either one or two guys short, for large portions of the game.
    It’s frustrating !
    Face no one wants to see their team, defending an entire half, protecting a one goal lead.
    And even fewer want to see their side defending from the starting whistle, like against Citeh, but a lotta people are willing to accept such crap, i’m astonished as Newcastle fans have a history of appreciating entertaining football.
    I have to admit there are occasions when i would rather lose playing entertaining football, than win playing ugly, or clueless as again, we were against Citeh.

  15. chuck says:
    April 4, 2013 at 5:18 am

    “Face no one wants to see their team, defending an entire half, protecting a one goal lead.
    And even fewer want to see their side defending from the starting whistle, like against Citeh, but a lotta people are willing to accept such crap, i’m astonished as Newcastle fans have a history of appreciating entertaining football.
    I have to admit there are occasions when i would rather lose playing entertaining football, than win playing ugly, or clueless as again, we were against Citeh.”

    Teams don’t win ugly anymore Chuck, not enough to be a consistent top team anyway. You may cite Chelsea in one or two Champions League games last year but the fact is they aren’t an ugly team overall, they’re a passing side who could defend very well against two of the best teams in Europe when they had to.

    The most you can hope for nowadays playing “ugly” on a consistent basis is being like Stoke, and even Pulis and Big Sam have been cleaning up their acts recently (that’s measurable and I’ve measured it!). The two route one kings this season have been Pardew followed by his protege, Brian “long balls” McDermott, who has just been sacked by Reading. If Pardew only had the same players as McDermott, he’d be bottom too.

  17. Isn’t it PR / Press Conferences 101 (as they say here) to only say nice things about the opposition before a game? You can say what you want in the dressing room but you don’t want to fire the other team up by saying it to the press.

    He doesn’t engage his brain before he speaks. This is the latest example of many “gaffs”.

  19. Have always thought Pardew has been our biggest handicap in everyway.His load of good luck last season did’nt do us any favours.Seems he has the ability to turn good players into a bad team in no time at all.Even so I live in hope he will prove me wrong (Its what we toon fans do live in hope)

  20. GS says:
    April 4, 2013 at 3:06 pm

    “Isn’t it PR / Press Conferences 101 (as they say here) to only say nice things about the opposition before a game?”

    GS, but he thought he was saying nice things by comparing the seven time European Cup finalists and two time winners with the likes of West Brom, Fulham and Swansea. He’s Alan Pardew.

    Anyway, I suspect he’s upset the rest of Portugal more than he’s upset Benfica in suggesting their Primeira Liga is shite compared with the English one. :lol:

  21. Nutmag says:
    April 4, 2013 at 4:08 pm

    “Have always thought Pardew has been our biggest handicap in everyway.His load of good luck last season”

    Aye Nutnag, there was a bit of luck. However, as I suggested in one of my previous blogs a while back, the is that other factor as well. The factor where managers like Peter Reid, George Burley, Danny Wilson, Steve Coppell and others come up, take the rest by surprise for a while, possibly win the Manager of the Year award, get found out and then sink to their true level.

    One thing Pardew has achieved though is to repeat that feat twice, firstly with West Ham (thought he didn’t win Manager of the Year with them) and now with wor team.

  22. All well and good Worky but when is Pardew going to be found out by those who can do something about it or are we doomed to go blathering on about him forever.Something else we toon fans are good at the doom thing.

  23. Nutmag, the good thing about Pardew is that Llambias can work with him whereas he couldn’t work with people like Keegan or Hughton.

  24. Nutmag. We have a right to be doom and gloom because we know that however close we get we will never get the prize. That’s been my experience anyway, I don’t even think the Fairs Cup was televised was it?

    We are something like the 20th richest club in Europe and every one of the others win something and we don’t.

    And still we watch.

    We are not QPR who will never amount to anything, we are a big club that is cursed never to win and always find a way to f*ck it up on the off chance that we do well once in a blue moon.

  25. how much more of a dickhead and a downright embarrassment, can this man be?
    he thinks he speaks for people on tyneside, the people of lisbon will think we are a right buch of numpties.
    true to form the pillock will head for another fall tonight.
    despite their now customary sabre rattling, coming from yours truly, or the fenham eusabio’s empty patter.
    we will be very lucky if we are still in the tie, after 90 minutes.
    best we can hope for, is getting beat by one or two, and i cannot see us being a threat, at the other end.

  27. GS says:
    April 4, 2013 at 5:31 pm

    “Joe Hawkins @25: he is still not as bad as Di Canio:”

    GS, according to quite a few Daily Mail and Telegraph readers, you are just one of those hysterical Guardian reading immigrant loving leftie luvvies who are making a big fuss over nothing as usual. Apparently, you are worse than the fascists too.

  28. Worky: I have read some of the Telegraph comments. A lot of them bring up Stalin and think that anyone with left leanings supported that paranoid, mass murdering, mad man.

  29. And Worky: I am shocked that the Daily Mail are doing some actual reporting for once and not doing their usual thing of devoting 90% of the paper to Kardashian Kleavage, and what Kate and Pippa are doing today.

  31. Worky @30: I am not the strongest on philosophy although I have read around the edges. These Telegraph readers seem to be using tunyc’s straw man.

  32. Perhaps GS, but likening people who object to fascist football managers to Stalin is more a risible, absurd “ad Hominem” approach, ie attack the person / people making the argument rather than the argument itself.

  33. Looking forward to the game, though i hae ma doots we can beat this very good Benfica side, but as

    There are three games available in the NYC area, being shown by Time Warner cable.

    Chelsea vs rubin Kazan @ 3pm local
    Newcastle vs Benfca @ 5pm ” (delayed tape)
    Both via ESPN Deportes ch. 173#. (spanish commentary)

    PS. I would take Di Canio right now as opposed to Pardew, at least we could count on his volatility eventually getting him fired, whereas all we can expect from Pardew is yessuh ! and bad football.

    But if you prefer there’s Spurs vs Basel @3pm local
    Being shown via Fox Sports + ch.470#(english commentary)

  34. @31 ah, I see what you mean. There’s a hell of a lot of that in the article replies in Mail and Telegraph.

  36. Hope it’s a decent performance tonight the majority of these euro ties we have played in have been dull to watch.
    Think Partridge will play for the draw and try to sneak a goal at home.

  38. A narrow defeat gives us hope and a distraction in a tournament we have little chance of winning, a battering lets us concentrate on survival but hurts our confidence.

    I wonder which Benfica will turn up as Pardew has described them as “one of the best teams in Europe” AND good enough for 8-10 in the English Premier League. He said he has shown the players videos which will make a change as I was under the impression that the NUFC A/V facility only shows porn. Certainly no football, or we might have f*cking scored from a corner this year.

  40. Just hope we have something resembling team work tonight not one of our kick and hope performances.I will still be more concerned about Sundays game.Up and at them!!!

  42. Di Canio is a clown, and i can only assume he was playing to the crowd at Lazio, he probably could’nt give a reasonable description of what Fascim is.

    In fact if you have any political concerns it should be about the 4.2 million cctv cameras presently installed around the UK, counting both rivate and public, that record the average person around thirty something times a day.
    Or the fact your choices of where you go on your computer/smartphone, are available to any number of government and who knows who else parties.
    Your movements can be traced and cloud storage can be used to store any number of facts or information.
    Data that you thought was between you and your server.
    There are data collecting agencies that know more about you and your habits than you yourself, believe it!
    Di Canio is but a red herring, as is McCain, it’s like Pippa and Kardashian, mindless garbage to keep the publics mind from things they may get upset about.

  43. Erm not McCaine our angry senator but Mc Claine, that is, one of Di Canios players, who has been demonized by the media, because of his political views, being the dont co incide with everone elses.
    It’s just good to see someone who actually has a political viewpoint, most people satisfied with whatever the tabloids tell them, plus a little bread and circuses.
    On that note gotta go, the Chewsea game just started.

  44. chuck says:
    April 4, 2013 at 8:18 pm

    You’ll never learn, you illiterate windbag.

    Firstly, his name is McClean, not ‘McCaine’ or ‘Mc Claine’.

    And the fact that people in this country ‘object to his political views’ happens to be because he’s expressed support for a terrorist organisation responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent people in these islands.

    If he finds Britain so distasteful, he should play his game somewhere else. So should you, seppo.

    As far as ‘4.2 million’ CCTV cameras go, we should take a leaf out of your country’s book and just mount them on predator drones. I’m sure we could get a guarantee from our government that they’ll never carry weapons. A pity your president won’t promise the same thing.

  45. Chuck: you should be wary of Google Now from an American company. I disabled it but I doubt if that will really do any good as they still have the data, they just don’t use it to give me information.