Shearer9

Everton or maybe Villa, especially if they can pick him up for free. Everton seem to have a revolving door when it comes to strikers, while Villa pass the ball exceptionally well and have Carew who could serve as a good partner. West Ham or Fulham also seem like options, but surely if he steps down to one of those levels he can kiss England goodbye. I wonder if he'd try going abroad again, surely Capello has more appreciation for that than McClaren or Eriksson.

Andy Carroll as well

Today's the day of the draw, anyone else apply, and if so, have you heard yet?

Didn't realize Anderson was the squat little tank that he is.

fucking hell

Come to find out that Gerrard was actually injured vs. Chelsea the other night: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/l/liverpool/7992142.stm

That's Bayern's only allotted chance for this game gone.

I get a feeling like Butt could have at least tried on a couple of occasions to stop the ball

Jesus Christ, so much going on, can't figure out which game to watch.

Chelsea still look like a deer in headlights though, bar a couple of spurned chances by Drogba.

Wow, Drogba misses another sitter! where the hell is Anelka?

Henry misses a brilliant chance, wonder what kind of odds you could have gotten on Bayern being on both ends of an 11+ goal aggregate result in two consecutive ties. Looks like it might end this way now.

Pep sent to the stands. Close, but not a stone wall pen like some commentators are saying.

Bayern have no defence.

So unbelievably easy for Barca there...

Hopefully that early goal will kick this tie off. How well are Liverpool playing atm though.

Absolutely no composure for Wolves, they have come under pressure and completely imploded.

Also depends on how we stay up. If we gain 5 or 6 points over the rest of the season playing turgid, shite football and only survive because other clubs go to shite, then it's a definite no. So much of it would depend on the manner of our survival.

Also find it hard to imagine that every player - "to a man" - acts professionally considering N'Zogbia is in the squad now.

Wish Newcastle had signed him instead of Xisco. Nothing against Xisco, as I don't think anyone here can judge him, ,but for about the same price, Altidore would have been awesome. Jozy + Nile = Champions League 2015 Jozy just makes sense for the EPL, possibly the first forward from the US that ever has. He's got the size, physicality, skill and speed to potentially succeed in this league. And he's still only 19. I think there's a very good chance he's here in a few years somewhere. With him and Torres, the younger Americans for the first time seem much much more like they could be world-class players than any in US history as far as I remember. I'll be very interested to see how the team does in 2010, it has a very solid mix of veterans like Landon Donovan, Tim Howard, Carlos Bocanegra and Frankie Hejduk, and youngsters like Michael Bradley, Clint Dempsey, Torres and Jozy. Clearly the class of CONCACAF, not that that means much, especially with the general terribleness of Mexico. So it's time to see what this team can do against the top teams of the world. I think Bradley is gonna turn out to be a really great player. Great range of passing, vision, decent in the tackle, and can play as an AMC, CM, or DM. Really important for him to have a good world cup, I'm thinking maybe Mastroeni and Bradley in CM with Donovan and Jozy up top at this point. Beasley will get absolutely skinned at LB in the World Cup. I thought the passing range from the whole USA team tonight was really impressive, just needed some width to finish things off and provide service to Ching and Jozy which we never got because Dempsey and Donovan were playing the "Wings".

I know this is a bit random, but what is the 3rd picture from on the front of the BBC Sport website, it looks like he's taking a penalty but I can't tell where that's from...

Surely more details will come out soon, but how can there really be anything to decide other than team selection right now? Surely Shearer has watched all of our games since he retired, he'll know what to do. My only worry is that the whole "Owen is my best mate" factor might resurface.

There are 2 men who would take the job that could keep us up right now: Shearer and Keegan. Get in!!!!!

While I was in South Africa, some of the people I talked to felt racial tokenism was very strong in their footballing ranks. They have to enforce quotas for cricket and rugby but they basically form the national team from blacks only despite the fact that, especially at younger ages, they don't include the best white players in the national setup.

Ferdinand should have been booked as well for acting like an absolute twat.