Colos Short and Curlies

Gives options, can go to a flat 4-4-2 (Milner and Zog), big man up to staying 4-4-2 or swap to a 4-3-3. Also got defenisve cover in midfield and back four with Roz And best of all. No Ameobi!

3 up top fro Reading

So if Big Sam won the Super Cup, Spanish cup, Uefa Cup twice and was within 2 weeks of winning the league that wouldnt be impressive? Its not THAT impressive, the Spanish Cup has the standing of the League Cup really, Real and Barca don't exactly treat it as a priority. I'll give him the UEFA cup, but they weren't exactly invincible on theose runs, and one final was against Boro, the other won on penalties! The Super Cup? Glorified Charity Shield. Souness won more as a manager!

We've got good attacking full backs, putting Butt and Barton in the middle gives protection to allow them to bomb on, Emre and Geremi will also happily track back. Beye and Enrique are therefore the key players for me in this formation

You've also got to consider the other team as well though, for example Bolton were a hell of a lot better last season than this, Villa were worse last season etc. Also the comparative runs that clubs were on when we play them, look at Arsenal; last season we played them away when they were struggling to get results, if we played them now we would get beat quite easily, not because we're worse, just that they are in much better form

When he signed for the dips my comments on the matter were.. 'Can see the point in Crouch for England as something off the bench' 'Can see the point of Crouch in Europe' 'Could do a lot better than Crouch for the Premier League' Still think the same, good player to have as a different option, but wouldn't want to rely on him as the main focal point of an attack

i always think its a bit of a myth to say our defence cost us under Keegan, i think it was more of a case of throwing games away as a team. the season we lost the 12 point lead we only conceded 2 more goals than man utd and between 93-97 we conceded 165 goals compare that to the champions between 93-97 - 156 goals hardly a drastic diffrence. Yes, but one goal was the one scored by Cantona at SJP, and the other was by Collymore at Liverpool , both of which cost us at least 4 points..... I would have said that Fenton;s two goal salvo at Blackburn did just as much damage. Collymore's was a blow no doubt, but only cost us 1 point - no way were going to win the game when he scored. Cantona's cost us 3 points effectively regardless of whether we would have scored - difference between 1 point each and 3-0 to Man U The Blackburn game was a perfect chance to kick on again, especially after Batty put us one up. Cue Shearer and Fenton combining to kill us off!

Fat fred being sat there? Personally I wouldn't pay £5m a year or whatever it is for an unproven manager. Just had his achievments up on Soccer Saturday - not that impressive really

Agreed. He won't be in charge of Spurs on the first day of next season.

He'd managed to blag a copy of Pro Evo early hadn't he

But the fact that Allardyce mentioned obviously means that it did register with him. I'm not having a go, truth be told I don't really care and I only come on here to pass the time but I still say that there IS such a thing as the fans having too much of a say. The only interview I've seen with Sam mentioning it was when he said that he thought the booing was for him taking Martins OFF, not for putting Owen ON

So you think all those defenders youve mentioned are better then King and all those strikers are better then Berbatov? My opinion on the merits of King et al.... Ability wise King sits top of that pile, one of the few defenders outside of the top 4 who would improve the defneces of all of last seasons top 4. However it is wrong to say that King is a better player (at present) due to his injuries. On the treatment table King has as much ability as a defender as an injured Bramble does. Fact. Until he shakes off this recurring problem I would definitely take one of Yobo, Campbell or Richards above him.

Saw a survey the other week, interesting results. 70% of Scousers enjoy anal sex. The other 30% haven't been to prison yet

Shay Given's gone one better!! From the Journal this morning... The 31-year-old Brazilian scored his first goal for the Magpies against Spurs on Monday night, but Given is more impressed with his ability at the other end of the pitch. He said: Ive been trying to learn Spanish to help with the communication side of things, but I tried to speak to Caçapa in Spanish and had forgotten they speak Portuguese in Brazil. He just gave me a blank look. It obviously hasnt been very successful so far but Im working on it. ;D http://www.journallive.co.uk/nufc/newcastle-united-news/2007/10/25/given-we-will-entertain-you-61634-20004754/ I'm being a pendantic tool here, but wasn't it the 95-96 team which were the entertainers, and not the 96-97 which is alluded to in the article?

Can't believe I've missed every sodding goal tonight through flicking between Man U and Arse!

Maybe Mort should start wearing an away shirt, or at least some official merchandise - just to advertise the clubs products a bit more!

Just hope they don't give it to Speed - would kill any chance of him coming here to coach in the near future

Poor first attempt.... (to the Jose Mourinho - that coats.....) 'My Tops from Sports Direct!'

Decent-ish - played 5, won 3 lost 2 goal difference of -1 Our away form - played 4, won 1, drawn 1, lost 2 goal difference of -1 Nailed on draw on form I'd say

Is that a suggestion for Butt in the return game??

It certainly looks like these lot are the competition this season. Played 1 Lost 1 Without looking to see if any of the others have played eachother I'd imagine that the group of us, Blackburn, Citeh, and Pompey will win our home games against eachother and therefore by default lose the away games. Could be the winner of this mini league gets the European spot

A point on the race for Europe...... Over the last 3 seasons the lowest UEFA cup entrant (excluding West Ham in 05/06 - got in due to being in the cup final) has accumulated 56 points, 63 points and 55 points (working backwards in years). Based on current points/games we would need to accumulate another 39, 46 or 38 points (or 1.3, 1.6, 1.3 points per game) Spurs on the other hand would need 49, 56, 48 (or 1.75, 2, 1.7 per game). We are currently sitting on 17 points from 9 games (1.88 per game), Spurs 7 from 10 (0.7 per game). I'm thinking that due to the quality of the likes of Pompey, Blackburn and Citeh this year it could be another 60 point plus requirement to get UEFA football so we look on target for it at the moment! (just put the Spurs values in there for another laugh at them really)

I'd love it if the logo was changed to 'Sports' and '.com' in black writing on a white background and 'direct' in white writing on a black background.

was taking a s*** for spurs' goal tho. Well if he was having a dump he can't be expected to be picking up his man now can he!

10 points clear of them after 10 games (game in hand at the Emirates so assuming a loss!)