Neil

That was established many moons ago.

Would be somewhat happier with: Foster Richards (is he injured?) Ferdinand Jags Gibbs Johnson Barry (no-one else ) Henderson Downing Gerrard Carroll Not sure what he's going to get out of playing PJ at right back.

People saying that have never bet before. I'm joking you pleb. Or am I? Me and wormy are gonna take the betting industry down.

Expect Yorkie out there tonight around the 70th minute.

£5 on England Italy Germany Holland returns £65. Some would say this can't fail.

I've had a look and frankly I think, fuck it, let's do this 4 fold. We have the winning feeling, right?

System error. Well that's the rest of us fucked then.

I'll have a deeks at the fixtures and get back to you. I can see no down side to this investment project.

It's ok wormy. Let's fail together. Fiver - name 4 teams. LET'S WIN!

He sure as hell should be.

Christ, Downing's 26 already. But yes, he's been in form recently so should be given a chance.

I wonder what that's supposed to mean.

Cleverly. Smart player.[/ihadto]

I can see the interview now. Carroll's scored the winner on his international debut against France at Wembley. Reporter: WELL WHAT DO YOU THINK NEWCASTLE WILL MAKE OF THIS!? They must be FURIOUS!

Are there any Watford or ex-Watford players you actually rate? How's Lloyd doing? Why is he not in the England squad? A pertinent question, I feel.

There has to be that feeling of having your No.9 - your born-and-bred local No.9 - starting up front for England which significantly contributes to the interest. As for whether he should be playing; if we had a striker who we were reliant on and there was speculation he was carrying a knock, sure, I'd be anxious about him aggravating any such knock but it's his debut man. You can't deny him tonight. I'd be surprised if he gets more than 45 minutes like.

The way Capello was talking today (yesterday), he honestly sees Barry as one of the key, experienced players in not only the squad, but the first XI. Edit: the sooner Rodwell gets a run of games together and can displace Gareth fucking Barry in the midfield, the better. The future's bright, the future's Rodshire. Of course, this will never happen for the foreseeable future.

FT 1-0.

To give some scale to that, how big is the general BA area? That's mental - I was aware a lot of teams were from BA but that sort of ratio of the whole top league is ridiculous. I'm not going to profess I'm anything like an expert about the Argentinian league but I try to watch the odd match and what you say chimes in with what I've seen. The midfield gets on top of the game; it's not ugly to watch in the slightest but can get a bit boring if you're not really in the mood. Still, plenty of moments of outstanding technical quality and sometimes, as you say, defensive suicide. I really want to get to La Bombanera (is that right?) for a match but it does look a bit mental. Not sure how they allow it but ah well. As for this game, River look relatively comfortable without pressing forward much.

Good to see Palermo's still going strong at 52.

What games did you get to when you went to SA, Disco? You got to a couple of Argentina Apetura matches, right? May have made that up. What did you make of them? Passion? Quality?

Hope the young lads impress tomorrow, especially Carroll; and if they don't, they're not immediately and outrageously discarded as "not good enough" by the media and the likes.

It was a makeshift team in defence perhaps, but the team generally was still comfortably good enough to see off a team of Sunderland's quality. It was the fact their players went into that match with that lousy attitude, that made it easy for Sunderland. Credit to them as they played some good stuff and took full advantage of Chelsea's shortcomings but it's hard to overstate how bad Chelsea were. Possibly the worst I've seen them in the Roman era.

And the away win at Everton, and Arsenal, and hammering Villa, beating Chelsea in the cup, outplaying Man City... quite a lot of paper we've got over those cracks. Pedantic perhaps, but I disagree about you "outplaying" Man City. 2 big decisions went wrongly against you so if we're using those incidents then yes, you should have absolutely got something from the game. However I can't remember you outplaying them. Feel free to correct this.

What was his explanation like? Did he blame everyone but himself?