Is it all over?

News just in.... Fabio Quagliarella is out for the rest of the season after twisting his knee, but does that really mean that Juventus' title hopes are over? I mean a great team should be prepared for this kind of setbacks and have a plan in place to move forward.... shouldn't they??

Juve is slightly different then other teams, they don't rely on one player to score the goals, goals come from everywhere, and even though I'm praying that the injury to Quagliarella is not going to rule him out for the rest of the season, I'm sure they can still solider on without him.

Having said that, the game against Napoli has me slightly worried as they are very attack minded. But like I always say, if they spend so much time on attack, they will inevitably leave gaps at the back which if Juve were smart, they would exploit. After the thrashing they received against Inter, they will be angry and looking for revenge but so will we. Let the battle commence on Sunday- however I am still very curious about all this sudden interest in Luca Toni,I though his best years were behind him... people thought that of Del Piero, yet he has gotten better with age, like a fine wine....

Cagliari V Milan

This match hailed the return of Alex Pato, well he may be considered to be fit to play but he did seem rather rusty as he wasted a number of chances to go ahead. Milan were without Ibrahimovic and I have to be honest, I didn't believe they were able to win the game without him. It seemed as though they were so used to having him there to close the game, that they couldn't do it without him. Not to mention they were also without the muscle of Kevin- Prince Boetang, who could be seen as a replacement for Rino Gattuso.

Milan had 60% of the possession however they lacked the quality upfront. This statement may seem strange as they have the likes of Robiho and Pato upfront but the two Brazilians didn't look comfortable playing together and as I mentioned before, Pato seemed out of practice. But this is a resilient Milan side and in the 85th minute Rodney Strasser got his debut goal with a little help from Cassano... and what an important goal it was, the celebrations afterwards made that clear. So Milan stay on top while Juve slip to 5th and Roma take 4th spot.

Whomever said Italian football was boring and predictable, clearly doesn't watch Serie A!!

Revenge of the Ex- Juventino...

Juventus V Parma.. A game that just had disaster written all over it. Within the first three minutes, Fabio Quagliarella was down with what looked like a very painful hamstring injury, I know all the supporters will hope that it's not as serious as it looks because that would just be disastrous for Juves' title hopes. But one wonder how and why Juve players are so prone to these kind of injuries and questions have to be asked about their training programs.

Quagliarella's injury was the first blow but thing were set to get worse for the Bianconeri as Felipe Melo was sent off in the 17 minute for kicking a Parma player in the face. I had hoped that the days of the Brazilian lashing out at players were long gone as he had made a positive start to the campaign- minus this! Juve then had to play the game with 10 men, and they did well to hold off the attack that was until the 41 minute, when pint sized Giovinco( a former Juve man) scored the opener. We all had to admit that it was coming and with Parma keeping 62% of the possession with 20 shots on goal by the end of the game, you had to admit, they deserved the lead.

More devastation was yet to come, when soon after the restart the "Atomic Ant" struck again. You could now see the Juve players were shell shocked and all hope seemed to be lost but then from a set piece on the other end, Juve cut the deficit, when an unmarked Nicolas Leggrotaglie got his head to the ball to score a thumping header. But this was not destined to last very long, as Parma went straight back on the attack and Herman Crespo was brought down by the evergreen Chiellini. In my opinion, it was the faintest of touches but Crespo made a meal of it and scored from the resulting penalty.

The final nail in the coffin came in the 90th minute when Raffael Palladino another former Juve player made it 4-1. Not a great start for The Old Lady, some injuries and one very volatile player to try and keep under control!!

Movie review..

..... Alice in Wonderland, after getting warnings from friends not to watch it, I didn't at first but when it came on TV i found myself watching it and it wasn't half bad. I don't know what all this negative press surrounding it was, it was a rather good film it dealt with serious issues such as; oppression, sibling rivalry, the politic of fear and how it can only be used so long before the people rise up and you got a revolution on your hands. It also deals with this obsessive need to conform, and how yourmade out to be a villain for being different. This is show at the beginning of the movie when Alice is going to the party and how it is usually the older generation who have this obsession with being " proper", but it is also alive in the Queen's court, where everyone is so scared of being different they make peripatetics so that they look like the queen.

What was glaringly obvious was that even though the Queen had everyone scared, she still didn't have complete control, as one act of kindness by Alice made the giant cat turn on the Queen and help Alice escape. This is because people who have been abused so much will have a certain amount of anger and resentment towards you. This was actually quite sad, and Johnny Depp was sublime, his interpretation of the mad hatter made you feel for the character, and let's face it we've all got a little mad hatter in us. 4 out of 5

Buffon don't leave us!!!!

.. There are these dark rumours going around that Gianluigi Buffon may be sacrificed to balance the books, but let me warn you if you do this you will surely lose in the long term. Buffon has a wealth of experience and not to mention his cat like reflexes and he has an authority that in my opinion at least, no on can replicate.

This man has given up so much for the team, when Juve got demoted to the second division, he rejected offers from prestigious clubs to stay with the Bianconeri and help them back to the top. He has shown where his loyalties lie.. and this is how you repay him when he has to take time off to recover. I'm sure if he could, he would have returned sooner. But he couldn't because guess what, anything to do with the back is serious!

The only reason he didn't come to watch live games or visit the team is because, he is a sportsman and it is in his DNA to try and help the team, and he couldn't do that because he was still recovering. He has been with the club since 2001, not many players on the team can say that, so don't reward that kind of loyalty and dedication by throwing him aside just to make a quick profit.

A goalkeeper is more valuable than strikers, in my opinion at least!!! Especially this keeper, he give a sense of calm and confidence to his defenders, which Storari with all due respect couldn't do. As great as he was, he will never be as great as Buffon. We all have to admit that without a decent keeper, no matter how much money you save by selling him will not cover the massive amount lost due to him being sold. Hear me out... you'll end up losing games because the replacement will not have the experience or respect that Buffon has and he will inevitably need time to adjust. That will then mean they will drop down the table and thus out of Europe, which will mean they will lose that money and eventually they will lose their reputation and they will have trouble attracting new players and keeping hold of old ones.

This will lead to a domino effect of poor games and poor review, which will not be good, so please DON'T LET GIGI GO, WE STILL NEED HIM!!