Shearer9

Gordon's fairly young as well, I don't know about £9m, but there don't seem to be a lot of other options. I'd be surprised if he went to the mackems, considering how bad City's keeper situation is, and with Villa in as well.

All that seems bad for Lee, seems like everything's unsettled, he's been in charge what, 1 or 2 games, and already players are doubting his credentials, and he's even less focused on playing football and instead playing physical than Sam was? I wouldn't have a lot of confidence if I was a Bolton fan for the upcoming season. I still think they'll give us a tough game though because of the situation.

Mclaren talks such a load of shite. Unbelievably infuriating: Carragher was omitted from England's last game - a Euro 2008 qualifier in Estonia - and is frustrated by his status in the national team's pecking order. "I can totally understand his thought process," said McClaren. "I've every sympathy with players who want to play and feel they should. If you can understand his thought process, then let him stay retired because you wouldn't pick him you stupid fuck! "It would be silly and foolish of me to dismiss either Sol or [Campbell's Portsmouth team-mate] David James. Same thing applies. He did the same thing when he got backed into a corner by the Beckham thing. And I can never find the right emoticon either damnit

How did Luque do? I also heard about the Craig Gordon to Villa thing, around £10m...

As he showed today, SWP produces very little end product, so while pace would stretch the defense, it doesn't really get you anywhere alone.

That'd be extremely one paced and leave Vids very isolated. Hope we don't play that. We don't actually have that much pace in the side at the moment, N'Zogbia and Martins are really the only two we can rely on for pace, discounting Owen and Dyer for obvious reasons. If the Asian Cup proved one thing, it's that Viduka cannot play up front alone.

This game wasn't that terrible. I'm sure it didn't live up to the 5 minute wild-west shootout, science fiction odyssey, sensitive french drama, action packed thriller type mock trailer that Sky created and Keys narrated, but the game wasn't that horrible.

Hutchings and Lee are in the same situation, except one has a European quality side and set up, while the other one should have been relegated. I think Boro have the smaller number of top 6 calibre players they need to stay up.

Who is this Pizarro? Chelsea look largely toothless without a proper target man

Reminds me of the rumours that Souness was going to re-unite the SAS by bringing Sutton to Tyneside 2 or 3 years ago. Smacks of desperation.

Perhaps West Ham decided not to fight Joorabchian because they knew the deal was dodgy, and didn't need any more trickt details leaking out in the high court.

aye they dee, but we're talking about strikers here, not goals, different thing imo. Manure will walk the top scoring charts, but in terms of strikers they don't have it as good as some of the other teams. I think the focus here is off, Manure are absolutley loaded in attack, they'll score goals for fun, so the whole idea that a team's goalscoring ability should be placed solely upon the shoulders of the strikers in comparing teams is a bit ridiculous to me. This entire thread, especially in relation to Manure and Chelsea, is an apples to oranges comparison.

Most on here are really overrating our strikeforce when compared to those other 4 teams. Owen is injury prone, Ameobi has never been reliable, Smith probably won't be a striker more than half the time. The only team I wouldn't swap with is Arsenal, as they have too many unknowns. Does anyone really think that the likes of Torres, Kuyt, Drogba, Rooney, Tevez, Berbatov, and Bent don't make their strikeforces better than ours?

Any word on who those other 9 clubs actually were?

Does anyone know if Setanta has decided on their schedule for the first few weeks and where it can be found?

Really? I always thought Setanta had a better picture quality than FSC, didn't have tons of loud and annoying commercials, actually had a decent half-time and post-game presentation, didn't delay games so they could start their programs on the hour like FSC did, and used Sky coverage quite frequently, which is always a good thing. FSC are amateurs when it comes to presenting soccer, unlike Setanta.

Dish Network are now offering this: http://na.setanta.tv/nasubscribe.htm Free Preview from August 1st to September 9th, and then I think you can order it after that. Cable looks like the only frontier left.

Sure it's not on Setanta? Yes, the Bolton game is on Setanta

Chopra just took one in the head from his own player...No breakthrough against Irish giants Bohemians after 37 mins

I don't think they're really having a go, even if it is funny. They constantly post updates on former players, even obscure academy/reserve ones who never played for the first team.

Wasn't he in Australian training camp from the end of the season until the Asian Cup, or did they do a break in between.

wouldnt it therfore be crazy to bid for heinze as he seems to have his heart set on a move to liverpool? Ferguson seemed pretty clear that he didn't want him going to Merseyside.

It'll have to change from within, and the United States will have to produce home grown players that are Premier League standard before they'll really be able to attract that many from abroad.

Surely with a kick up the arse from Allardyce Babayaro could do a better job than Ramage or Huntington, two players who have shocking technical skill and positional sense. I agree that Edgar looks a bit more polished, but those two players get caught out all the time, and can't cross either, which leads to all kinds of problems when we have players committed forward.

There's still an expectation though that the team isn't, and won't ever be good enough, and this is part of the problem. These people are saying that the English should take on the characteristics of Brazil, Argentina, Italy, etc because they're better teams, and that doesn't sound daft to me. It seems like people assume that England is rubbish and only gets through because of passionate and hardworking performances, or they acknowledge that this is the way of English performances and its simply bad luck that England can't win a tournament. I think you'll find that nations who win tournaments do so because of certain characteristics that they develop, not that come naturally. In the end, most everyone just excepts English performances as they are, rather than trying to figure out how to improve them. And to suggest that the Greece win in the European Championships was anything but a fluke is pretty foolish.