Sifu

Now that you've put it that way, guess the result isn't too bad.....

Same old Clive.

Meh.

4 minutes added time. Come on Benfica!

Fantastic cross from Meireles

Oooo, game on.

Yes, yes he is.

Quite a miss.

Thought it was Rooney. The Rooney thing was in 2004.

So this is going well for Benfica.

Penalty to Chelsea. Meh.

You're not the only one. Don't like Di Matteo at all.

As far as I'm aware, Torres was actually our contingency plan if we had failed to sign Owen in 2005. A €21 million bid was on the cards.

Oh, Clive's back.

Marriappa? Haha we do need a centre half but when everyone is fit it'll be Colo and Saylor starting. He's someone Pardew has looked at previously, won't cost a lot, and won't come in expecting to start every week. Yes but Pardew said in January that we won't be pursuing Mariappa again in the summer. It was basically a case of "now or never" in January when we were in for him then.

Douglas' reaction:

Vuckic in a midfield three, you say? Hmmm, yeah, can actually see that going well. Hopefully we'll see him out there at some point in our run-in (be it a substitute appearance or a starting place, I don't mind). If not, then I hope to see it happening next season (via a few runouts here and there). In the short and medium term though, Jonas is my first choice for CM (along with Cabaye and Tiote) - that's if we stick with the 4-3-3, of course.

We've got no-one else he could feasibly play at CB though! Tavernier. I'd even go for Santon over Simpson. Realistically speaking, there's no way Pardew will play Tavernier at CB (lack of PL experience being the main reason).

We've got no-one else he could feasibly play at CB though!

So our back 4 could be something like this on Friday: Santon Williamson Simpson Jonas/Ferguson/Raylor Right, time to bring in Kadar. EDIT: looks like Kadar's injured anyway.

FFS!!!

Well we did have Alan Smith playing for us.....

Imagine if Heskey goes to the mackems and gets offered a similar wage. Oh my.....