brummie

I've just vomitted up a kidney at the very thought.

Or Solskjaer. We need to bring Kiraly on to wrap this game up.

Serious question though, 1878, leaving aside the fact that you had the chances and didn't take them, how bothered are you about being out of the Cup?

Young Wesley is very orange, is he not?

They actually have some kind of system to come up with these songs. There's actually a guy who writes most of them - name escapes me - and there is a level of organisation (songsheets etc). Sounds naff, but it obviously works. EDIT Pete Boyle, I think aye i remember reading something about that. It definately works, one of the few clubs where pretty much every player has a song, and the song is generally to a different tune n all. Their away support is excellent (if full of arrogant, obnoxious cunts), but their home support is utterly, utterly dreadful, even taking into account that at almost every match in every PL ground, the away fans make much more noise than the home fans.

They actually have some kind of system to come up with these songs. There's actually a guy who writes most of them - name escapes me - and there is a level of organisation (songsheets etc). Sounds naff, but it obviously works. EDIT Pete Boyle, I think

Agbonlahor will chase absolutely everything down, no matter how seemingly pointless.

Doing well, Petrov.

I bet Doug has already been in there with him, ingratiating himself with him, and within the next week or so he'll be in the press referring to "my close friend, Fabio"

That's them, not us

On the piss my lord, on the piss etc etc et Its your round, my lord, its your round etc etc etc Oh lord on the piss

A few more than I suspected, but the pricing decision says a lot about football today

Absolutely no chance whatsoever, to be honest.

Same as every year then. Sweepstake on 'we've got a proper cup tie now'? I'll say 55mins. I think I might just turn it off and go for a bath and a sleep or something. I can barely stand to watch those fucking cunts in our ground.

I know they've got to big it up as it is a rare chance for them to show top level football, but the BBC's hyping of the glory of the cup is sick-inducing and woefully out of touch.

Or in our case, Man United in the third round, 4 times in 7 years (5 in 9 or whatever it is). Shitty, shitty luck.

Jesus, Sunderland really are shit, aren't they?

I didn't see Football Focus today. Did they show that clip?

I think we're going to see some poor attendances today. I think our match will be around 37,000 and no more. On terrestrial telly, just after christmas, sandwiched between two home matches in 10 days, top price tickets to watch us play Man U in the 3rd round for the 4th time in 7 seasons (which is remarkable) and with our awful awful record against them. Poor attendance on the way. I'm sitting it out. I know we're supposed to love the Cup but my main concern is getting no injuries to halt our league process. Oh, and I think I'd almost rather just lose today than get a replay. I bet we go and win now.

Absolutely correct. He was the last decent one the BBC had.

And because these days, relegation is a far more catastrophic event (mainly but not only financially) than it ever was in the past He's right, they won't win the cup. You're right, they won't win the PL. But staying in the PL for clubs like Reading is the be all and end all of football.

Bergkamp, definitely

He plays for Spurs, surely the most unfathomable club in the top flight, on so many levels.

Almost an identical record to Carew then who has 7 goals in 25 games, but we all know he brings a lot more to the team than just that. Anyway now that his major injury is behind him, this season Ashton has 4 goals in 8 starts. I'd take that. The difference being that Ashton played those 26 games since Jan 2006. Carew has played those 25 since Jan 2007 Players can't add anything at all to the team if they're permanently injured, and I'd suggest it is too early to be sure Ashton is entirely over his problems to be taking a chance.

13m? I fucking hope not.