Pilko

Wasn't he actually out injured for a few weeks afterwards though? He was on the bench for the following fixture.

Geedup Shefki! Oldham winning.

I've bought a poppy for the England game, in fact I've bought two. Not going to wear them, just stick the pins in my eyes.

I like.

He was the mouthpiece of our relegation season, he did kind of epitomise the "all talk, no walk" of the squad that season. I can understand why people were a bit hacked off with him. Thankfully, he's now also managing to do his talking on the pitch. He's been pretty much great since we went down, albeit having a few serious injuries along the way.

Good post that, HTT.

Went with these four plus some Welsh team who were odds on. About 11/1.

I really struggle to give a fuck about this anymore. Nearly as boring as the Fabregas to Barca saga.

You are not Alan Pardew. You may wish to be Alan Pardew, but you are not Alan Pardew.

He and Best will be great inspiration to all the players who are currently out of the side, too. Do well when you get your chance and Pards will reward you with more games.

Spain are evens?! Fucking ludicrously good odds.

You can tell he's calm under pressure, too. That interviewer shouted every single question at him, and he still managed to respond eloquently.

Great news, fully deserved too. Where's that new contract!?

He must be good tbf, Wigan named their ground after him.

That was rumoured quite a while ago, wasn't it?

I wasn't suggesting that it's an identical situation to either of those, just that sometimes a player 'clicks' at a club, if you like. Moving away from that club is sometimes a big error, both for the player and the buying manager - to the player, the grass might appear greener and they forget about the other factors that are contributing to their success at the original club. In Carroll's case, those factors were arguably that he'd already convinced our fans he was class, the influence on and off the pitch of Nolan, and the on-pitch service of Barton. And that's before you consider the pressure that a £35m price tag brings, regardless of what he might say about it not fazing him. fwiw I think Carroll will end up back at NUFC one day. Liverpool and Carroll just feels like an uneasy fit to me.

How often do players in the form of their lives leave to go to the brighter lights for bigger money and suddenly just can't do it any more? It's well common. Benjani's move to Man City, Robbie Keane's move to Liverpool, etc.

He'll be on Birmingham's coaching staff within a fortnight.

down the pecking order on the subs There is no 'pecking order' within the (outfield) substitutes ffs. Pardew has said he sees Ben Arfa as a second/support/whatever striker - so when Cabaye went off, he wasn't going to come on and play centre-mid, and when Marveaux had to come off, he wasn't going to come on and play right-wing now, was he? Also, depending on how the game progresses and what the scenario is, we don't need to use him - Pardew was perfectly correct not to introduce him at Stoke.

Eh, are you on about Real Madrid? They won 7-1 earlier today, their game was a 11am kickoff or something.

Hopefully Stoke will go on an ubershit losing run now. Be funny if they got to the Europa League final, lost it 1-0 to a long-throw header and then got relegated.

Rozehnal was fucking dirge.

Need Fulham to go 2-1 and then Spurs to win 3-2

8/1