If it were just a contractual relationship then I would agree. But it’s not – in fact to take the analogy a step further, it’s like me saying to your wife, “you deserve someone richer and more successful than Ahmed and his family” even if the Ahmed Bilal household may be a comfortable loving home… but now this is getting a bit silly so I’ll leave it alone!

So perhaps not an ‘accurate’ analogy, and thus apart from the emotional statement it makes, pretty much besides the point.

If I went around to your house with all your family and your wife at home (if you were married, bear with me here…) and said to her,

“you know what, no offence intended to Ahmed or your in-laws, but you really could do better than him and this family”… it might be ACCURATE and it may not be a direct insult to the Ahmed Bilal family… but it is still insulting isn’t it.

Anelka’s particular situation is different to the usual ‘big club comes knocking, player flips’ scenario.

because they can recite in ascending order the bra sizes of all the WAGs of the Man Utd forward line

That would be an interesting article, eh? I’m just kiddin..

And when you say that most fans here don’t have a clue, I think you’re missing the point. Most fans ANYWHERE don’t have a clue.

Most of the time when it comes to judging football matches either I’m a blinkered idiot who see the match completely differently or there’s the other 70-80% who are crazy. I never was one to favor the majority, so I’ll go with your assessment here.

Nothing we can do about that, and to be fair, you shouldn’t be judging a club or a site based on what it’s fans / commenters are like.

Ahmed, you are quite clearly stating that the individual in football effectively should be more important than Club or team. You are also basically saying that he should leave a Club and he “deserves” a better one.

Players sign long contracts, then if a bigger Club comes along they whinge and complain and don’t try anymore despite being paid thousands of Pounds a week to do something they love. Your implication that if a player getting paid such huge sums for playing a sport can be a “slave” is an insult to the millions of people all over the world who work for pennies a day… the kids searching for bits and pieces from garbage dumps to sell on to buy enough rice to live. “Slaves” – this shows your attitude to the “Poor” superstars who are forced to play for Bolton in front of thousands of adoring fans while living in their lives of luxury – you have no sense of perspective from someone whose country of ancestry (I am guessing) continues to have what borders on slave labour. You want me to be sorry for rich footballers?

I am not ‘bitter’ in relation to the small clubbig club divide in itself. But it’s true I am ‘bitter’ that a sport which for a century has been about communities and teams and clubs is now about individuals.

I may have been somewhat sarcastic but in my opinion, your comments about Anelka are an insult to any team outside the Top 4 – which is basically what you personally constantly do (and what most posters on this site do). Now, this winds me up so I comment on it. If you do not wish me to do so then I won’t post anymore. And you can be left with sycophants who use text writing and think they are hardcore supporters because they can recite in ascending order the bra sizes of all the WAGs of the Man Utd forward line. You read the comments about the Man Utd Vs Reading match – you know it’s true that many posters on here haven’t got a clue.

And I love the comment from ‘A’ about ‘dicks’ commenting on the site which I presume was a dig at me. Learn to use capital letters and then post again and you might come across with a bit more authority.

Call me the conscience of this site? And it’s a potato on my shoulder, not a chip.