Ronaldo

We'll see who'll be captain this season and for how long. Hughton still could have brought Butt back. In the 08/09 season he was played for almost every game despite looking not up to the job. And yes, Owen was "only" dropped for one game. That was also Hughton's last game as caretaker caretaker manager. It amazes me that people use the dropping of Butt as ammunition for Hughton. Only a complete imbecile would have had him in the starting lineup regularly.

Can't afford to loan out Lua Lua.

I'm not so sure. There's an imbalance, in that four out of the five are basically target men. I think Hughton will be looking for a better player than Lovenkrands for the more secondary striker role. I'm sick of reading this rubbish. Lovenkrands is a less of a 'secondary striker' than any of them.

You're wrong, Leon Best will get 20.

Not in those games towards the end of the 07/08 season. Enrique was left back then. Zog was injured.

Keegan also used Zog at LB, incredibly.

You see?

Yep, we were also lucky to win against Bolton at home, a few weeks before he quit.

Jayson is a hopeless optimist, he thinks a 30 year old Peter Lovenkrands is PL quality. Fair play to him.

I think more people over-rate our squad. I can't see an away win anywhere although I think we'll probably get one, I just don't see an away banker. We've been historically (since Bobby) poor away from home and we didn't do very well away to the promoted teams so they aren't going to be easy away games. If we need 40 points to stay up and only get 10 points away which is probably on a par with a lot of our Premiership seasons, where's the 30 home points coming from? I can probably see us getting 24 points at best at home. There's no way we're getting 40 points.

http://www.skybet.com/betting/football/manager-specials/t10002896.html Should appear here in the morning. Betting is usually suspended after 10PM.

Leeds won't.

Staying up won't mean anything to him. It's nowt short of a disgrace if we can't offer him first team football, though.

What on earth is Harper doing for that second goal?

Agree with most of that.

Good technique.

What a strike! 3-0.

Cheers for alerting me to the red, mate. I instantly put £20 on Inter at 13/8. They scored the first about 10 minutes later.

2-0.

Inter lead 1-0.

He needs a primitive version of Stephen Hawking's voice box.

What?

I wish.

Come on, man. He gets knocked off the ball like a rag doll, it's an issue of size and exertion. And you can't argue for a second that his stamina isn't lacking, he just needs to work on it. I haven't singled Guthrie out, Colo is another one who needs to adapt his physical form, as is Nolan, clearly. With Guthrie, it's a case of a very talented footballer being significantly restricted by something fairly simple to improve upon. Has there ever been a genuinely successful central midfielder in the history of the PL who couldn't impose himself physically? Doubtful.

Decent odds.