Redfan2000 - Impartiality among commentators both sides of the Atlantic, when commenting on teams, players and managers. Particular examples of this are: Peter Crouch phobia (Webster and McMahon at Fox).

Bobby – “A phobia is an irrational, persistent fear of certain situations, objects, activities, or persons. The main symptom of this disorder is the excessive, unreasonable desire to avoid the feared subject.” I think you are mistaking a phobia for a player that I don’t rate very highly due to his very limited abilities. Given the faith that Rafa Benitez has placed in Crouch in the past you might want to add Rafa to your list as well. As for impartiality it seems you are mixing that up with people not holding the same obviously impartial views that you do.

Henry 14 - q1. l would want to know l believe l read somewhere that you coached and now, the question is how much does a pre season play in an early season or bearing on a season, bearing that Man Utd., Chelsea, and Barca had sort of like Hollywood preseason tours had have not had the best of starts, the Barca players were complaining do you think it has an effect on the season?
q2 What would be your prediction for the Chelsea and Man Utd. game given that they are more solid at defending than scoring?
q3. l read a passage were Henry was talking about learning to be a winger again and he does not look anywhere near his best for the past 18 months, can he be a Sheva and flop?
q4.l have read question that questions Arsenal's depth l remember Chelsea used 18 player to win their first title and l would want know how many players did Jose use in his 2nd championship and how many were used by United last season and at least if you think the stats reflect what really happens?

Bobby – A1, I took my coaching badges a couple of years after arriving in Canada and coached from kids and youth teams to womens and mens teams off and on from 1982 to 1998. I kept playing during most of that time. Work then got in the way and I haven’t done any coaching since. Almost all teams tour so the issue is how much travel and how many games. But even then it is not as straight forward as that. Who went on tour, who stayed home, who played in other competitions last summer, who is carrying injuries, how old is the core of the side?  If teams start slowly then a tour will likely be blamed; if they win it will because they are playing well and worked hard in the pre-season. There are so many variables that it is almost totally subjective.
A 2 – A draw, there is too much at stake.
A 3 – Henry has not looked his best for the last 18 months because he has spent a lot of it injured. I’m not aware of any intention he has to become a winger again. Could he be a disappointment at Barcelona? There is always that chance.
A 4 – According to my reading of the statistics Chelsea used 30 players when they won the Premiership in 2005 and 25 when they retained the title a year later. Manchester United used 26 players last season in winning the title.

CIAO - What do you make of Roma's current form? Do you think the new additions to the team might have completed the team? I'm also curious to know how you rate Aquilani?

Bobby – Obviously off to a very good start but to be honest I have not seen very much of them so far. Hopefully that will change this weekend when they play Juventus. The squad is still very thin and I think that will be hard to overcome. Aquilani looks set to be Totti’s heir.

RonnieDocherty - You are in danger of losing a viewer. You previewed Liverpool, Chelski, at length, and a number of other games for this week's CL games. However, where was the Celtic Shaktar Donetsk preview? Surely you have a bigger Scottish football constituency between Canada and USA than German ones? I have long given up on decent coverage of SPL games, mainly due to the intransigence and short sidedness of the amateur administrators of the SPL. Surely you could at least give us a couple of minutes before a big CL game and cut back on some of the other stuff of no import to the large majority of your audience. Now if I get extensive coverage of the Rangers Stuttgart game then I think I will be turning you off for a week or two, maybe even for the month of Ramadan.

Bobby - Much as I would like a soccer station of my own that isn’t going to happen. I really don’t control what gets on the air so the best idea is to e mail FSR or FSC.
PS – I thought from reading the first few lines that you are a Celtic supporter but from the last sentence it seems that you are actually a Dundee United fan.
Joking aside my understanding is that SPL highlights arrive sporadically. 

Gunner44 - Do you think CAshley Cole will return to his best? Coz I was talking to a Man Ure and Chelski fan and we all came to the conclusion that CAshley has just not been the same player he was for Arsenal.

Bobby – He hasn’t had a chance to settle into a partnership with whoever Mourinho plays on the left side of midfield. He and Robert Pires had a tremendous understanding that just hasn’t been replicated. Malouda might help the situation.

MerlinTX - I have been disappointed with the quality of your commentary to start the season. I am a Liverpool supporter, so let's just say I don't think you have an even handed coverage toward my side. But at the very least, you should get facts straight and make comments that reflect the truth. If you do not know Paul Tompkins, you should read his stuff. He wrote an article about a month ago for the Liverpool website concerning player rotation. The fact is that over the last 2 seasons, ManU, Chelsea and Arsenal have "rotated" their starting lineups exactly as much as Liverpool. There is no difference. Thompkins' rundown of these stats is impressive, so I'll leave it to you to do some research to see his point. So, trite comments like yours about Rafa having fewer players to rotate, not only miss the mark, but demonstrate your inability to evaluate the data on your own. Parroting the London party line is not considered competent reporting in my book. Second, when St. Whatever-his-name-is reads the Liverpool injury list as if they are missing so many key players, you didn't even challenge his assertion that this matters. The only injury at Liverpool that matters at this moment is Gerrard's toe. Riise, while capable of brilliant long range goals, has ample capable backup. Momo is likewise covered with the likes of Xabi Alonzo and Mascherano, unless these two international players for Spain and Argentina are considered unworthy cover in your book.
I'm not expecting Liverpool homer coverage, just some semblance of responsible journalism. Now, go ahead. Let's see if.

Bobby – The comment I made was something like “it will give him fewer players to rotate.”  That is a perfectly accurate statement - but according to you I "should get facts straight and make comments that reflect the truth." If you can tell what is untrutful or inaccurate about that statement then go ahead.  

He rotated his squad on Saturday and he did again on Tuesday against Porto. Your reference to Paul Tompkins piece is strange to say the least. He’s the one that goes on at great length about Benitez rotating the squad - not me. LGB in a previous post supports my position that I have previously stated on his radio show that the Benitez/rotation thing is overblown.

My comments were in the context of the game on Tuesday – comments that were completely accurate. If you expect me to get into a recital of how any comment I make compares to the other 19 Premiership teams then you are being a bit unrealistic.

As for Paul Tompkins “impressive run down of stats.”  There are numerous pieces of comparative information that he glosses over that might call into question his conclusions. “…..he’d actually won a stunning percentage of those 99 games” – what was the stunning percentage and how did the stunning winning percentage stack up against Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal? A rather important piece of information to overlook don’t you think?

In one season he compares Liverpool to United, the other season to Chelsea – why the limited selection? “Of course, the above figures don’t take into account rotation (his word not mine) that occurs in other competitions, in games played between Premiership matches. In that sense, it is indeed true that Benitez changes his team fractionally more than Mourinho and Ferguson, freshening up for the cups.”

Ah the old “fractionally more” – why not just give us the numbers rather than weasel words? As far the number of players used are concerned “Benitez used 26 players in total, Ferguson used 25.” PremierSoccerStats gives the numbers as Benitez 29, Ferguson 26.

And then the red herring of “Benitez only really rotated between three strikers” – what relevance does that have?    

As for your comment that “I'm not expecting Liverpool homer coverage, just some semblance of responsible journalism,” I think others can draw their own conclusions.

Anyway to finish off this blog piece I won’t be putting pet peeves up again anytime soon. It must be a full moon. On the brighter side yesterday I attended the announcement of a $12.5M full field indoor soccer complex to be located at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. It is something that the local soccer community has been pushing for years and it will be open in October 2008 - overdue and desperately needed. I was able to chat to a group of young soccer players who were in attendance. They had recently returned from the Western Canada Games in Edmonton with a Gold Medal after upsetting the much more heavily favoured British Columbia and Alberta sides. I enjoyed talking to them and I promised that I would put a shout out on the blog.