Ash

We lose. I think two holding midfielders away from home is a decent idea as long as we have good attacking options on both wings. If we play Pancrate or RTaylor on the right wing and Jonas on the left we should be fine. Not if one of them is Nicky Butt.

We lose. Not if I take him out during the warm-up...

Butt comes in for Nolan according to Simon Bird.

What a dickhead.

Couldn't give a flying f*** who scored the winning goal, if it happened. Could even be a mackem, wouldn't change a thing. Meh, it would really erk me tbh. Say he scored off his shin or something and then seeing his smerking grin all over every paper in the world. Annoying dick. I'd be too busy celebrating winning the World Cup to care to be honest.

Couldn't give a flying fuck who scored the winning goal, if it happened. Could even be a mackem, wouldn't change a thing.

Arsene loves us though.

Their average attendance is 11,971.

Andre Marriner, just give it up now, you're fucking shit.

Was it as bad as this (8+ players out) consistently for you? Genuine question btw. Unfortunately, yes.

Sky have just been banging on about Everton's injury list, showing a graphic with all of the players they have missing. There's also been the talk about Man Utd's injuries. When did our injury list ever get mentioned when we were pretty much cemented at the top of the injury table over the last two years, if not longer?

I personally believe he is. He's not competing for a place in the starting XI just yet but he's a valuable member of the squad.

Providing he's fit, I think he's nailed on to be on the plane to South Africa. "Nailed on" is exaggerating it. I don't think he is special but I would still admit that he is amongst 5-6 players with a good fighting chance to get the last few places. Probably competing against the likes of Lennon, Beckham and Cole/Walcott if they improve in the next few months. SWP is nailed on to get the right wing spot. Why is it exaggerating? Capello has used him in various roles and I think he sees him as a kind of utility player that can fill in a number of positions if needed. If he's fit, he will go to the World Cup, I'm absolutely positive of that. Not a clue how you can say that about Milner either, when you come out with a gem like SWP is nailed on to get the right wing spot.

Providing he's fit, I think he's nailed on to be on the plane to South Africa.

Two comments from the match thread that seem to be following a trend this season. I honestly don't think he's been anywhere near as bad as some people claim he has been. Today, like I've already mentioned, he came up with some nice touches and generally looked dangerous. His positioning is 'poor' because he isn't a winger and if he didn't move inside, we'd have nothing being created through the middle due to the lack of movement from Nolan and Smith. What I don't understand is how those two always seem to get praised for their performances but Guthrie gets overlooked. If we didn't have Guthrie in the side, we'd have hardly any movement. He plays a big part in a lot of our attacks due to him being able to pick out a good ball and the way he gets himself into a position to be given the ball back. He can also play a ball into space and in front of who he's passing it to rather than straight to the man all of the time, which is an area we're fairly poor in although it does seem to have improved a little recently. If Guthrie was to start in the middle, rather than having to drift inside from this wing, I'm sure he'd have many more assists to his name. People knocking him for being poor on the wing need to remember he isn't a winger but for me, he still looks one of our better players when getting forward and if they really don't think he should play on the wing, then they need to decide which one of Nolan or Smith they drop from the side to accomodate Guthrie starting in the middle.

They'd do. Looks smart on the front of Arsenal's shirt so I'd be happy enough with that.

Very annoying. Lovenkrands should be left up anyway and I'd probably go with Enrique too as his job on the post could be covered by somebody else.

Harper did make a couple of errors today but he also produced another good performance, making a few fine saves.

Butt for Lovenkrands was as bad as it gets. Butt should have been left to sit on the bench. I'm assuming you didn't see the game, because if you did you'd realise that Butt didn't 'sit back and help the back four out', he did what he usually does (put them under even more pressure). Harewood coming off was the correct decision. Not really fussed that he brought Carroll on either but I'd personally have gone for Ranger who I believe can hold the ball up better than Carroll. He also didn't really look fit either, very sluggish at times. We could even have left Lovenkrands on, which wouldn't have been a bad option. He caused Watford a lot of problems all game and it might have allowed us to catch them on the break, as well as retaining possession better because just hoofing it clear to Carroll didn't work well. Bringing Pancrate on was also the right decision, but it shouldn't have been at the expense of Guthrie. There would have been nothing wrong at all with putting Guthrie in the middle of the park, allowing Pancrate to play on the right wing. Bringing Butt on caused us more problems due to his lack of any kind of ability to grace a football pitch and allowing an equaliser, with him being caught out of position just a minute after he came on. Not to mention then giving the ball away in a stupid position about five minutes later, followed by a disgusting tackle where he dived in from behind trying to chop the guy down right on the edge of the box. He's finished and shouldn't be anywhere near the team, especially not coming off the bench when we're trying to hold onto a lead.

Why? right subs at the right times. i know butt gave it away a couple of times, but hey if you can't find it in you to give him a little credit even today then nothing he does will make u happy. His subs today were awful. Almost reminded me of .

Played really well today. Some very classy touches and passes that opened Watford up. Disgraceful that he was taken off at the expense of Butt.

All of these represent pretty good value in my opinion: Blackburn vs Liverpool - 4/5 Manchester City vs Chelsea - 10/11 Bristol City vs Ipswich - 5/4 Cardiff vs Preston - 5/6 Crystal Palace vs Doncaster - 10/11 Derby vs West Brom - EVS Peterborough vs Swansea - 7/5 Plymouth vs Sheffield Utd - 5/4 Charlton vs Southend - 8/13 Norwich vs Oldham - 8/15 Grimsby vs Dagenham & Redbridge - 6/5 Rochdale vs Macclesfield - 4/7 Rotherham vs Burton - 4/6 Kettering vs Salisbury City - 8/11 Some obviously represent better value than others but I'd expect the majority of those sides to win.

There is some real value in plenty of games tomorrow. Will have another look a bit later on and post a list (going to be rather long I think) of the ones I fancy.

This is going to get very messy if either France or Portugal end up in Group D.