Tiresias

Yeah, hopefully this will convince Pardew to push Santon in team, sad he's gone backwards though.

It's a measure of how far we've come that I'm rather disappointed to be losing to Man City Oh well really, not one I had chalked up for any points

Great Ben Arfa pass, more of that please.

De Jong wanted to meet Ben Arfa before the game? http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6202/itsatrap.jpg

The guy in charge of football is a racist corrupt idiot, I think it's a fairly big story, though there is a lot of mock outrage going on, FIFA has become everything that's wrong with football, corporate money grabbing and unfriendly. While Blatter is probably guilty in this case of being a bit behind the times rather than an 'outright racist' (there#s not really a proper term) at all, all the negative publicity is good for convincing people what a piece of work he is.

hahaha just like Father Ted http://p.twimg.com/AecnVtECQAAUMKJ.png:large (stolen from this tweet http://twitter.com/?photo_id=1#!/gmfalcone/status/137121567481151488/photo/1)

shocking truth behind that photo http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6202/lolblatter.jpg

The funniest thing is to clear this up Blatter posted a picture of him hugging a black guy on FIFA website

I had a similar dream except we won 4-3 with Santon scoring the winner. But like you, none of my dreams come true I had a dream that I set up Meatloaf to score the winner, then Stephen Fry jumped out of the crowed hugged him and they made out. But none of my dreams come true I've had that dream too!

Yeah I do too. It's a rubbish podcast for Newcastle, even when trying to, but I think their european coverage is pretty great, though they won't stop going on about wolves frequently, which is odd. Their ripping into John Terry has been funny.

Jonas is experienced enough to manage more than others I suspect. I have been encouraged with Guthrie, and his interplay with HBA was good with quick short passes, the sort that might allow Arfa to shine, hence me pondering whether guthrie could start in midfield 3 with HBA out wide on right. All academic, it'll be the usual 4-4-2 and Obertan sounds likely to be back

Is their reserve team better than their first team lol?

Lets not get too ahead of ourselves, injured now doesn't mean injured forever, I guess it was a gamble that he'd come good, and he may yet

I dunno I really appreciate a settled back line, though I wonder if Pardew is slightly hoping for Simpson to get a knock so he can get Santon on and then he'd probably lock down the position

I know Santon can play there, but how recently has he? Is he going to be Jonas like and be very defensive. It would narrow the game a lot, but unlike Stoke they do carry a lot of threat through middle. If Tiote and Cabaye can keep Silva penned back have a chance

cross fingers for Poland, Sweden, Denmark... Group games are very tough whatever at Euros, pretty much every team has bogey potential. France also have far too good players to be seeded that low. Spain probably punished for being seeded highly as they could have germany in their group.

Yeah that's almost spot on, though I personally doubt we'll make 4th, (regardless of where we end up, this team is a great achievement, and he's absolutely right, why not aim high?), but I've got sick of if we can beat the 3 best teams is the 'real test'. Still if QPR can nearly beat City we should have some hope. I would not be upset if they hammered us though, their players cost a load more.

We should be tight as we have been wouldn't mind seeing a Krul Simspon Saylor Colo Raylor Tiote Cabaye Guthrie Ba Guti Best (if fit) Defensive, packing the midfield, best to counter Silva, hit them on the break, would prefer Marveaux or even Obertan for a fast outlet but since both are injured, might as well ask Ba to do that in a fairly free role, he'll be involved on counter, Guthrie asked to help him out defensively.

He's gonna get a red card in the first 10 minutes :|

Should have put up a statue much earlier - it might have made a better manager and stopped us going down

Was it Steklenburg or whatevershisname? He's a good keeper, not great maybe but experienced and earned his keep, bad games allowed. This may persuade them to go with Krul whose maybe more of a risk with youth but got oooodles of potential

Reasonably solid but should have been punished for our poor finishing, even if we were fairly dominant most the game. Impressed by Walker and Baines. A lot of the others workmanlike without being inspired, though that's actually a step up. Good points are it's a performance to build on, we're better on the ball, and look compact at the back and stream forwards on the attack. Bad points are that we still lack someone who can play footy in the final third, and had to rely on Zamora holding play up, this will be fixed when Wilshere is back, but a deep lying playmaker would be nice rather than the still uninspiring Barry and Jones partnership. Couldn't get away with that against a good team, but thought we looking a lot less shambolic than have done. Of course the worry is we looked more workmanlike with Capello before the world cup, and then at world cup that all fell apart.

I dunno about Rodwell, he looks comfortable enough in possession, which is something England rather need, but wouldn't make squad I suspect if Wilshere was fit. Not sure, don't mind him being tested at all