Neil

Never stops does it? One day we'll have a fit squad.

Pienaar, 1-0. Not a good game but just about deserved. It's on ESPN.

And yeah Donovan is playing.

Saha tripped up one on one. Nothing.

uefa moved their match because liverpool are also playing at home thursday and they're uefas pets and the early kick off is because the match must be done before the champions league games start, which is utterly ridiculous imo. They'll struggle to get a decent crowd tonight with that kick off Fucking screwed us over good and proper. Wouldn't want to upset Liverpool though.

Few interesting things I've found about midweek betting: Ladbrokes have Fulham as favourites against Shakhtar at 11/8 (Shakhtar 8/5) - have the latter had a poor season or something? Although I'd put us as favourites since we're at home, 4/6 seems pretty short. As mentioned, Milan look tempting at 8/5, 7/4, or somewhere around there depending on where you go. If Rooney doesn't perform, United are screwed in Milan IMO. 1-0 to Milan. Stoke: 2/1 at home to City. Blimey. Lot of hard games to call but that provides value.

Daft couple of quid on Tenerife, Guimares, Strasbourg and a Bristol-Charlton draw tonight returns £66. Will stick a more serious one on for tomorrow's games.

I think Coventry will go to SJP with a great deal of confidence and give you a very tough game, though I think you'll comfortably beat Preston.

Louis Saha you brilliant man.

Blimey, never knew it was such a touchy issue. Check my catalogue of losing posted bets if anyone seriously thinks I'd "manipulate" bets.

£9 on Swindon, Bury, Cardiff and West Brom gave £40 profit. And no, I didn't post beforehand on this occasion. Many, many, many, many apologies. Really, I'm so sorry.

Agree with all those bits - probably best to say every single player will have to be on the top of his game, and have near error-free matches. Do-able but a big ask if Spain are in the mood.

The problem however isn't just Xavi and Iniesta. Villa and Torres for example could punish a tiny error. They're such a slick, well-oiled machine, and I think are too good to be simply outmuscled, outpowered, or whatever word you want to use. We'll need to take our chance against them and defend like we've never f***ing defended before. We kept 4 clean sheets out of 5 in 2006 didn't we? I have every confidence we'll defend well again. We did defend well. We didn't come up against anyone particularly near the same standard as this current Spain side, though. I have faith we'll defend well against most teams, but Spain aren't (currently) like 'most teams'.

The problem however isn't just Xavi and Iniesta. Villa and Torres for example could punish a tiny error. They're such a slick, well-oiled machine, and I think are too good to be simply outmuscled, outpowered, or whatever word you want to use. We'll need to take our chance against them and defend like we've never fucking defended before.

Go Ahead Eagles. Do the rational thing and bet bigger tomorrow/Wednesday.

Disagree. Personally I think Brazil and Spain are ahead of the rest. I would be particularly annoyed if we got beat by anyone else.

Yep. As has been chanted relentlessly, it's getting best out of the 11 players collectively that will give us the best chance, not picking the 11 'best' players. Of course, we do need players with particularly outstanding quality - Rooney being the prime example.

That might be the case, Im thinking about that run on the break against Liverpool last season, but I'd still have Beckham purely for that reliability in his 1 dimensional game. I think if we're taking Agbonlahor, then there's no need for Walcott. Unless Walcott ups his game with Arsenal (or Agbonlahor has a serious decline) it would be a travesty if the former went ahead of the latter. We don't need (don't have space for) both.

Hope you have better luck than I've had in the 2nd half this weekend Rich.

What the fuck were Dortmund playing at? 2-1 at home to Frankfurt just pissing imploded. A thoroughly bad betting weekend.

This is just cruel.

Exactly the same situation mate - Dortmund 2-1 up, fingers crossed. Edit: sigh.

Bilbao and Mallorca, I never doubted you. Howay Dortmund.

Xerez, no wins away this season, are winning at Bilbao. ffs.

mattis or whoever, is Eto'o usually this bad for you?