Troll

Honestly, I'd swap Martins for Berbatov. They've both had good seasons so far, but I think Berbatov would be a better partner for Owen than Martins. As for who's had the harder UEFA cup, I'd say Palermo and Fenerbache are better teams than anyone in Spurs' group. Leverkusen are better than Frankfurt though, whilst Vigo are doing badly in the league but have done alright in Europe. As for the knockout round, you've had to play two games against opposition who aren't really anything special. The only good team we've played in the knockout round is AZ, but we've had to play twice as many games to get where we are.

“When you look at Martins, in my eyes he is one of the best strikers at the moment, in this League and maybe Europe as well,” “He is flexible, he is fast and he can shoot with both feet. He has got talent, but he is not really playing at a top European club at the moment. Maybe Newcastle are a top club, but they have not had success in years.” That's all he said. He didn't "urge Martins to leave" like the newspaper said at all. Everything he said is true.

SS2 is much more entertaining, the mackems are on (and losing ).

11/8 for Man Utd is pretty good for tonight, seeing as the Europe XI haven't trained together.

Remember that he left one of the biggest clubs in Europe to come here. Right now he seems to be enjoying just playing regular football. He's not going to go to somewhere like Chelsea if it means sitting on the bench.

I've seen Zoggy a couple of times (once walking down the Gallowgate, the other standing right by St James box office) and my mate saw Bramble in a pub once (sitting by the bar, drinking alone!).

I'd hope we didn't go out to protect our lead at all. We should be looking to get a goal over there to make things that much harder for them.

Glandular fever would definitely have gone by now, but he may well be suffering from post-viral fatigue syndrome. I had glandular fever a few years back, only sick for a couple of weeks, but for about two years after that I was knackered all the time, it just completely drained my energy.

Something else Milner does which you might not notice unless you're at the match every week is he always makes good runs into space and gets into great positions. He's practically screaming for the ball sometimes, but it just gets given away instead. His work rate is his biggest strength though. There's been games where he's looked like the only player who gives a shit about us.

I was sat in the middle of them, and despite the small crowd, the atmosphere was great in that corner. Better than most of the Premiership games this season actually.

Whether they're representing the league or not, I support Newcastle United, not the Premiership.

How are they representing England? Arsenal usually have no English players in their starting eleven. Bayern Munich often start with one - does that mean they're representing England too?

I don't care where a team comes from, I'll support whoever I've got money on. Last night I was supporting Barca and Chelsea.

Leagues, not international sides (how would Spain and England be above Italy and France?). It's meant to reflect the performance of each country's clubs in Europe. Both Rangers and Celtic are still in Europe. Full list is here: http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uefa/data/method3/crank2007.html

I don't think Intertoto matches count towards it. That said, there's no way it should have the same weighting as winning CL matches. We shouldn't be getting as many points for beating Zulte Waregem as Liverpool do for beating Barcelona.

These are the current standings: 1 Spain 71.462 2 England 64.665 3 Italy 64.088 4 France 53.156 5 Portugal 42.082 6 Germany 42.078 7 Romania 40.165 8 Netherlands 38.522 9 Russia 36.125 10 Scotland 30.250 The top 3 all get the same number of European places, so we're in no danger at all. France will never catch us, and Italy have sub-par teams in Europe this and next season meaning we'll pull away. The club one was interesting though: 1 AC Milan 121.148 2 FC Barcelona 117.582 3 Internazionale 107.148 4 Liverpool 103.339 5 Real Madrid 102.582 6 Arsenal 102.339 7 Valencia 96.582 8 Olympique Lyon 95.541 9 Chelsea 92.339 10 Juventus 92.148 11 Newcastle United 91.339 12 Manchester United 90.339 13 FC Porto 88.887 14 PSV Eindhoven 79.712 15 Villarreal 76.582 16 AS Roma 76.148 17 Sevilla 73.582 18 Bayern München 68.885 19 Ajax 65.712 20 Benfica 62.887

How? If he stays where he is he'll have CL footie next season anyway, whereas here he'd have to build the squad up to a point where it's good enough jsut to challenge for a CL spot.

“I want to be challenging for the Champions League with one of the big clubs". There's no way he'd come here. We're simply not as big as the clubs he has in mind. Maybe he could get us back to the level where we would be challenging for a CL place, but why would he want to do that? He'll most likely be playing Champion's League football next season anyway if he stays where he is.

Yeah, Gooch seemed to be making a few very Bramblelike errors today. Milner and Solano kept wasting any chances they got, and I nearly forgot Dyer was on the pitch.

Can't believe Gretna lost so heavily to a team at the bottom of the league. Good thing Man Utd already fucked up my bet or I'd be pissed off with them.

Stuck a fiver on this. Arsenal vs Reading @2/5 Liverpool vs Man Utd @ 19/10 (draw) Newcastle vs Middlesbrough @ 21/20 Portsmouth vs Chelsea @ 8/15 Gretna vs Queen of the South @ 1/3 £85.08 if it comes good, and Newcastle and Liverpool are the only real risks.

Surprised Pompey and Reading didn't apply.

Because when everyone except Owen is fit, Sib doesn't play anyway.

Butt, although I'd expect Butt to be dropped for Emre soon under normal circumstances. If Emre is cleared of his charges and stays at the club, then Roeder will start to have problems, and I'd expect Milner to be dropped then. Or maybe on current form Milner would get moved to LW and Duff would get dropped. But that last one's probably just wishful thinking.

If the doctors clear him to play, and both Owen and Roeder think he's ready, then I see no reason to wait until next season.