Neil

This midweek version of Jeff Stelling is a right troll. "Coventry, tough few days with Andy Thorn leaving, however, there has been a goal at the Ricoh! Have they taken the lead then?" "No, they're behind."

Couple of long-shot ones. Reading -1 Sunderland -1 Burnley -1 Leicester -1 Stevenage DNB And both teams to score in the games at: Stoke QPR Sheff Wed Stevenage Gillingham Udinese Simple.

No way, they've already signed their forwards. And no goals Well maybe, that remains to be seen. Read this as "well, it's questionable as to whether they'll score A SINGLE GOAL THIS YEAR"

Definitely happening then, nice one!

The impression I get looking at your squad as a whole is it's actually quite similar to ours, in the sense of a quality first XI but question marks over squad depth. I don't think your squad is strong enough (nor would ours be, or most squads in the league) to finish 5th again and also go far in Europe. It would take a monumental effort from your players to do that. Also, I would factor in the fact you were a surprise last year. Teams will be more adept this year at recognising your strengths (will be interesting to see if teams attempt a man-marking role with Ben Arfa for example), and also from a mental viewpoint, there will be pressure on the team to perform to a similar standard. On the other hand, you could look at teams like Arsenal, Liverpool and Tottenham and ask, are any of them in a better position than last year?

Anyone able to summarise 200+ pages and say how likely it is (1-10) you'll get this guy before the window violently slams shut?

Couple of small stakes, obscenely audacious accumulators required tonight. League Cup mania is running wild.

Wilkinson. Barely resembles a footballer.

Everyone is rightly panning Stoke for how fucking bad they are but Arsenal are hardly doing much better at the moment. Seeing little reason as to why Arsenal aren't catchable this year.

Gervinho.

Fuck me. Another Delap. :anguish: :anguish:

AND IT'S LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE No, really, it is.

Seriously, they're so bad. People joke about them being a bunch of cloggers but it's not a joke, they actually are. Total lack of footballing ability.

All relative. Arsenal have had a lot of resources and a lot of quality players (some you can call world-class) in the past 7 years. No trophies in that period represents a major failure for them.

0:55 gives you your answer(s).

No points for me then.

Very well done High Five, you absolute twat.

A snippet of the sort of luck that tends to go against me throughout the season. Torres gets a goal and assist and is my vice captain. Lampard is my captain. What happens? Lampard comes on for the last 5 minutes. It didn't even make any sense to bring him on, surely bring someone like Oscar on for some game time. Knob.

They very nearly made it 3-2 at the end and I was thinking in no possible way do villa deserve the score to be that close Said it in the other thread but I think your team looked far fitter and sharper than both villa and man utd. Hopefully we have caught you up in that department by the time we face you soon. Although I would still fancy you lot to win considering our poor record against you. Moyes made a conscious decision to bring us back early for pre-season and it's shown so far. Obviously who knows, we might end up being tired in March and I do think we need a couple of more players to really withstand injuries (and pretty much every season we have a point where we're nigh-on decimated by them) but I'm enjoying the ride for the time being. Past few years you've hardly had a bad record against us mind. Last year, win apiece. Year before, win apiece. Year when you went down, 2 draws.

After the amount of undeserved points Villa have had from us in recent years, yesterday was extremely satisfying. Only disappointment is the scoreline sounds slightly close.

Mike.

Very good signing for them IMO. Yup, an excellent signing for them. Also exactly the right step for his career, time for him to show the quality he seemingly has deliver constantly as a 'main man'.

Talk about a tie-changing 20 seconds. Casillas saves a 1 on 1, then Valdes does.... that.

Class.