Wullie

Can't remember a keeper ever getting anywhere near an Ameobi penalty. It's been said over the years that he's dynamite in training, I reckon it's just that nobody's ever noticed that all he does is take pens for hours then goes home.

Suspect it'll be one of those international injuries that only Man United and Liverpool players are allowed to have when it's England.

Of course you can. He'll only be banned for the first two matches (if it's a 3 match ban) and ready for the deciding 3rd match of the group stages. How does that work? He'll be banned for the last qualification match which will be the first one of the banned. That was the last qualification match, we're done.

Of course you can. He'll only be banned for the first two matches (if it's a 3 match ban) and ready for the deciding 3rd match of the group stages. How does that work?

I do, fucking typical that the only way I can watch them is in Welsh. Cheers Dave, I'll keep an eye on Eurosport next week. Surprises me there's not more coverage of certain leagues on channels like Eurosport.

When does Rooney find out how long his ban will be? If it's three games, I'm not sure you can justify taking him.

Are there any European football (specifically Serie A, Ligue 1, Bundesliga) highlights on British TV? I know Sky have La Liga covered but is there anywhere (free or with a normal Sky subscription without Sky Sports) that shows the other stuff?

Ditto.

We're very weak in the centre behind our star pairing. Guthrie's nowhere near good enough to go like-for-like and I suspect Gosling is a similar story. Might be time to give Abeid a go but play Ba up front with someone else, either Marveaux or HBA, supporting him to give another body who can come deeper into midfield. Harsh on Best but we can't let Spurs control midfield at SJP, would be able to go without shuffling the pack if the games had been swapped and it had been Wigan next weekend instead. Having said that, my gut feeling is that Cabaye will be ok.

I don't have a problem with the England manager being foreign - if I'm honest, I think international managers and coaches should all have to be from the country they're involved with just like the players are, I don't know why that's not the case, but it isn't therefore there's no point in hamstringing ourselves. My problem is that the two foreign managers they've had have had absolutely no experience whatsoever of English football, that's the thing I really can't understand. Due to English football being almost a closed shop as far as exporting players is concerned, I think it's really important that the England manager should have an in-depth working knowledge of the Premier League, it makes no logical sense to have it any other way imo, not just because of a knowledge of the individual players but a knowledge of the way that kids in this country have been coached and brought up so that the manager can try and play to our strengths, whatever they may be.

I thought he did alright in the first half, needs to watch Gutierrez for what to do when he doesn't have the ball though. His end product's nowhere near good enough to stand around watching and bottling challenges. Even Laurent Robert didn't get away with that and he could put a ball on a striker's head or onto the top corner from anywhere on the pitch. Surprising tbh coming from Man Utd, maybe that's why he rarely got near the team. Fergie insists on everyone working their bollocks off as a matter of course. Another thing Jonas is superb at is retaining possession, it's fucking impossible to get the ball off him at times, sometimes Obertan is very wasteful in this regard.

Exactly. Allardyce-tastic to just look at results and not be able to criticise where necessary. Pardew himself has openly admitted we were very lucky today and Wolves deserved at least a point. But we won, I guess he should shut the fuck up.

Definitely has to be the first contender to drop out for Ben Arfa or Marveaux, even if it will take some shuffling.

BBC: Young Dutch keeper Tim Krul saw his value rocket up with a sensational display.

Ben Arfa (and Santon), the point is valid but not with Marveaux imo, unless he has some serious fitness issues that we're not being told about. He might as well be injured all season if he's only going to be able to complete 90/120 minutes in the Carling Cup and can't even manage 20 in the Premier League. Very odd. There's no excuse for sending Lovenkrands on ahead of Sammy either. Lovenkrands offers absolutely no attributes that you might need when defending a lead while Sammy clearly does, namely pace and the ability to push the opposition back by taking them on, even if he is inexperienced.

Even I can't argue with the start we've had, I take my hat off to him. It's a staggering achievement, quite frankly. Something he really needs to sort out, however, is his attitude to taking a lead, firstly that he seems to think it's an opportunity to give the shit players a run out - it's not a fucking testimonial - and secondly that he wants to take a "backs to the wall" approach but in the total absence of any defensive cover. If you're slinging on two more centre halves with ten minutes to go and hauling your strikers off then that's an attitude I can understand, although generally it's not one I usually agree with against most sides, but he's asking players whose natural game is to pass it around and keep the ball not to do so and even bringing on shit players who will give the ball away so we can do a bit more defending! He needs to learn that just because you're in the lead doesn't mean you have to give the other team some sort of chance to get back into it by giving them the ball as often as possible. The absolute best way to defend is to keep the ball off the other team, we've got players who can do that and we had several more on the bench and we never used them, it's bizarre. Spurs, sunderland, WBA last season and Fulham, Wolves this season, are all games where he has sent shit players on with hardly any time to go and we've immediately looked all the worse for it and found ourselves against a deluge of pressure. Thankfully the latter pair we've had a two goal lead and just managed not to surrender it in the last five minutes but it's been very close indeed to surrendering two late goals both times. As I say though, onwards and upwards, if he can stop this sort of bollocks making life hard for ourselves, we look like a really decent side.

It's important not to use him, or expect him to play, as a "winger" because swinging crosses in is not his game. There's loads of players have played wide very successfully in the Premier League without getting cross after cross in, especially for teams that play on the deck - look at Ljungberg and Pires. Get him running at people but with the players around him to allow him to drift into the box and release it short, he's a tremendous player.

We've rode our luck at times in our own box, our last ditch stuff is superb but we need to be more sensible defensively so we don't get put in those situations.

Well, that was alright.

Fuck all wrong with that.

Definitely looking for that, good decision, thought it was a clear trip at first glance.

Got away with that. Stupid challenge.

Great finish with the left foot too!

Fucking cunt Henry.