Mowen

Any word on why Coventry's been moved? Half a chance I'll go to that.

Assuming you weren't firing at me with the whoosh gun, give me a definition of what 'our Gerrard' would entail. Presumably never kicking a ball very hard but looking quite dashing?

I am sure UV will reply properly but didnt he say "net" spend. Yet you didnt take the outgoings into account You are correct. I wonder, then, why UV bothered to put in the outgoing figure? Or omitted the money for Shearer. Presumably because the outgoing figure was what those players were sold for after KK had left, gives a decent demonstration of the fact the money was sensibly invested and not just being spunked up the wall for the sake of it with no hope of return (i.e. it was hardly spending in the Chelsea or Man City vein). The Shearer money distorts it somewhat and was spent shortly before he left, but even if you count it a total of £40m net in 5 years is hardly outrageous.

Good for Leeds for a season or two before he did his cruciates I seem to remember. Shite after the injury. edit: 2 seconds. What are the chances.

2 goals between them in 16 games Marlon should fit in with his goal record of late then http://www.soccerbase.com/players_details.sd?playerid=10728 Has Harewood been playing against lower level championship defenders? Dunno, did he come on against us last year?

Skirge n' Marley

Play him on the wing

Aye, probably his biggest contribution to us last season was his penalty against us that Shay saved. Fuck me, if Shay's saving his penalties I'd keep him well clear

How did our current away kit get slated so much when monstrosities like this are around? It's like those old diadora t-shirts, it hurts to look at. Horrible.

We play in some Cardiff City away shirts from about 05/06. Picked up 7 at £7 a pop on ebay, bloke was selling them in a job lot. There's always the obvious option mind...

I thought Cardiff were at least as shit as us.

Ranger might be best served being an impact sub for the time being, certainly did very well against Plymouth. Would be hard for any defender in this league to have been battered by Carroll and Harewood (or Loven's pace) for 70 odd minutes then having to deal with a fresh Ranger.

He wasn't bad actually, was the summariser on 5liveXtra. He said that Jonas had given us something different but was getting very wound up with his inability to deliver anything at all, kept saying how frustrating a player he is.

What happened in the QPR game that indicated we hadn't done our homework? Genuine question btw, I could only listen and only caught the second half. I just assumed we hadn't played particularly well, was there some specific tactic of theirs we couldn't keep up with?

Steve Stone was getting seriously fucked off with him on the radio

Not too bad, extended our lead at the top this midweek although slightly frustrating that it could have been more. Only got to listen to the second half and it sounded like the teams were fairly even. Was the penalty a bad miss or a good save? Surprised people are questioning Guthrie taking it...he's taken and scored for us before (something no-one else in the team could say...) is our best set piece taker on a regular basis and has scored a couple of very nice goals this season. Did Nolan take them at Bolton when he was there?

With the players we have available this is almost the best XI we can put out. Not only that but I like it because it has width and balance. Two wide players out wide, both with different qualities, and balance in the middle with Smith holding and Guthrie pushing on. I'd replace Lovenkrands with Nolan though. You have to play your form players and Nolan has shown an eye for goal and getting into scoring positions which none of our other players have done. People talk about resting players but you don't see the top Premier League teams doing it very often. You don't see Man Utd resting Rooney or Liverpool resting Torres for a routine game against Fulham. You play your in-form goalscorers, always. We have an international break coming up, it would be madness to rest Nolan now when he's about to get a two-week rest. If Nolan plays it should be in midfield only. We don't want to go with only one striker at home imo. I'd have him up top alongside Harewood. He's shown an eye for goal this season and is getting into good positions. We need goals and barring Ameobi our other strikers do not look very dangerous. Carroll and Ranger have done alright but they've been a bit one-dimensional. I also believe Smith and Guthrie will be our best centre-mid partnership as it provides a good balance and I'd like to see them given a run together. Seeing as Nolan can't play out wide and shouldn't be dropped, that just leaves up front, where we happen to be lacking goals from the strikers. Put him up there I say, and we should have a more balanced midfield. Now we have the pace, power and directness of Harewood, Nolan lack of gas will be less of an issue. We were shite against Plymouth with only Nolan up there, and battered them once we went to two up top. He also didn't do too badly playing behind two strikers at Ipswich. Not a chance would he be one of the two strikers in my lineup.

Clearly a British thing you don't understand then. It's something to be proud of, no? I think it's great that we have such high attendances, but I don't see the need to show it off? I promise you that every-day fans of other clubs don't give a fuck what our attendances are. It seems like some weird sense of false-reality that we're holding onto by spouting off how large our attendances are, none of it really matters because unfortunately the people in attendance are watching Championship football and Premiership football. I think not being in the country affects you here. More so even than the papers fans of other clubs around us were taking glee, desperate to debunk the 'great fans' tag we seem to have acquired and waiting to laugh themselves silly at lower gates. It's nice to be able to prove them wrong, and as others have said our attendances have certainly been something to shout about. Attendances and how many fans you have / how good they are is a widely discussed topic in England...bare witness to the 'no Man U fans in Manchester' arguments and the like.

Can remember one. Wigan maybe. Everton away last season. ManU opening day he was good.

Don't think he starts...isn't it Grafite and Dzeko?

I actually thought he was very poor in the (very) little I saw of him at the start of this season (just WBA other than highlights due to holiday) although it will certainly aid the team to add someone who can beat players, use pace and offers some natural width. If he can sort out a final product, brilliant. Nolan didn't have one last season and he's doing fine now, why not.

I'd hazard a guess at 41-44,000 for tonight and 48,000 for Saturday. 48k sounds a bit high, Plymouth were cheaper tickets and that was just shy of 43k. Would be brilliant to see, mind.

Helmcunt.

I think that we will win this game of football. We will score at least one goal and they won't, leaving us a minimum of one goal ahead.