OTF

Wonder if he's bringing the awesome hat from his site.... All his charity work is good. Another opportunistic signing, could work out to be good but there's plenty of other areas on the pitch where more attention should have been paid. As it is if noone else comes in I'd give him a go playing behind Carroll up top (when he returns) keeping Nolan in central midfield along Tiote.

Don't mind that. With a team like Fulham I'd probably prefer that to a gutsy 2-1. Might come in playing like they were at 2, 3 or 4-0 up and we should be able to show more grit than Tottenham have.

Ok, now that we're temporarily rid of our midfield Xisco what are we going to do about our striker? At the time Depor fans rated Xisco, wonder if they still will when he gets back, or whether they'll wonder what we did to him down here. I'm picking the latter (though they would have been able to see him when playing for Racing Santander*). * - Who are a pretty shit team always hanging around the drop zone in a league where the quality drops off significantly after the first two teams then even more so after the first 6 or so.

Way to ruin a thread Leazes. Sure, we won't qualify for Champions League under Mike Ashley but that's hardly surprising. We're currently behind two clubs in Manchester City and Chelsea who we can't compete with in terms of money. They're happy to be losing fistfulls of cash by the second. Then you have Manchester United who we can't compete with for their international profile and worldwide appeal. Liverpool too have a larger profile. Next down the list is Tottenham who have leveraged a continual growth by making excellent corporate and sponsorship deals that have helped them to continue their rise. Arsenal alll the while have been comparatively frugal squirreling away money to pay for their new stadium, whilst maintaining their European presence through continual Champions League status. ....Anyways.... Does the window technically close at midnight tonight? Or do they also get to use Monday to finalise their deals? I'm thought that was the case previously?

The wages the champions league sides are starting to pay nowadays are ridiculous. Many player on upwards of 100K per week, some over 200k. We're not in a posotion to even consider competing with them, because they're willing to throw away money in order to make a run for the top.

...and he didn't play quite frequently...

Is it cos he is gay? Whenever he has played he's looked no worse than Ranger/Best. Agreed. Very mysterious saga all in all. Is it something to do with if we play him again we trigger an extra payment on his fee? And doesn't really make sense that we were able to loan him out under those circumstances either. Before he came here he was supposed to be a good target man, problem us there's no way he'd be a patch on Carroll. May be a better target man than Best though, Shola is sometimes good sometimes bad - should be a lot better based on his size alone.

If he isn't out injured. Aye, he spent a lot of time out "injured" at our place. Around the time Kinnear arrived and he stopped turning up for training funnily enough. I heard he had trouble sleeping, was apparently out late at night with insomnia...

Not really someone you want to be coming up against for fearing that he'll put out one of his speculators. He is the guy however that you want taking one on one chances for the opposition as he's bound to miss it or slam it straight at Harper. Interesting signing.

Villa should also be fined an equal amount for only just beating a team that was apparently so bad it was illegal.

Bit serious that like.. I suppose Germany and England don't exactly have the greatest footballing history. I wore a Spain to the World Cup last year to see them play. Wore it in Spain as well as other places (nice lightweight thing good for traveling). Only problem was the people coming up to me speaking in Spanish I also have a Hungary shirt cause I have Hungarian heritage.

Woodgate does have a horrible ring, so Sol says anyway...

Hmm, You reckon it'd be worth getting an average room in a better hotel then? We're going to be there Tuesday & Wednesday nights. The location I guess would be key. The strip itself doesn't seem that big but when you need to traverse from one end to the other it's massive and takes quite some time. We were walking for 15 minutes from our room before we were even leaving the Bellagio and going into the adjoining Caesar's Palace. We were almost late to seeing Jersey Boys as a result (they were doing the 1 minute call when we got there) having to walk all the way down the the Palazzo. We didn't even see the Fremont St Experience or do plenty of things worth doing, so maximising your time is key if you're only going to be there a short time. The Bellagio, Caesar's Palace and Paris are three of the most central located Casinos on the Strip. We arrived in the evening one night and had the full next day and then left the next morning, so had bugger all time. The reason being that we didn't originally plan to go to Vegas but figured whey the hell not when it cost no extra for the flights. It was good to be able to have an ultra relaxing morning in a spacious ultra-comfortable suite... But it would have been good also to have spent more time seeing Vegas. As it was we had a late dinner the night we arrived, went out for a walk then a big lunch the next day and that evening saw two shows finishing at midnight. By the time we walked back to the hotel room I was tired (granted we were on a very whirl wind world trip). So in closing few people would go to Vegas and see less of it than I did.

I stayed at the Bellagio in July, unfortunately only for 2 nights. For no apparent reason they upgraded our room to a suite and so for $130 a night (80 pounds) we had an awesome suit with a huge sitting room with 42" plasma with full length windows with automatic blinds overlooking the Bellagio fountains, a table, powder room, then an equally large bedroom also with full length windows overlooking the fountains also with a 42" plasma with a massive luxurious king sized bed, then two separate bathrooms one with a spa-bath the other with a huge shower with a steam/sauna function both with TVs. Twice daily maid service including a turn down service if you're so inclined. Didn't want to leave the room!

Smith and Perch deserve the criticism, though in Perch's case it's not really his fault. The whole Xisco affair was a massive, costly fuck up by the club not because Xisco is a bad player (we don't really know whether that's the case), but because they bought a young promising player for overs and then proceeded to deride his value and confidence by not playing him. As for Guthrie, I still think he's a decent player that can fill in if required like he did against Tottenham. He was off the boil for a while this season, but seems to be back playing ok (excellent pass to pick out Colo for our goal against Spurs). Obviously would need to play consistently to get to his best, but the conundrum is that he won't because there's better players in the side than him.

Panic buys ahoy!!! If the injury really is going to be long term then better that it was found out now while there is still time to act in the window. Please oh please don't buy Robbie Keane. ... Nolan seemed to be a reactive purchase in Jan 2009 after Barton picked up a lengthy injury, so it's not out of the ordinary for FMA to make some cash available to cover injuries. We should have had a crack at Santa Cruz.

Has he played any for us? Even without the lump sum we're still hoying wages his way. I doubt they're particularly big wages, but over time they all add up. Perhaps foolishly I'm still keen to see him be given a go, though I'd say he's probably just a slightly more talented version of Leon Best.

The guy motorboating the hefty bird in the ultra-chic tie-dyed top

We've got a game in hand over them still thankfully. ....and it's not just 4 points from those two games that we've dropped unfortunately

Yeah, still need the drafted squads as they'll be used with mates. Sounds like you can play a ranked game which will reset to the default squads which will make this a non-isssue. Other thing for me is the vastly different timezones.. Weekday nights (6:30-10:30PM) are usually good for me.. but that would be morning for you guys like (7:30-11:30AM) I assume that's going to be a pain/impossible for most. Could probably play most before toon kick-offs where I'll be up at odd hours to watch?

To be fair Jonas has had quite a few good games this year. Had a bad patch that's for sure but is playing well again. Ben Arfa is a diffferent sort of player, from the little we saw of him he seems to have a much better passing game, seemed someone who can weight a cross nicely, dink a little ball over the top or slot a ball through on the deck, as opposed to your average player who hits a cross seemingly the same each time with mixed and varied results.

Tis cause as a midfielder you're less like;y to always e picked up by their opposing midfielder, but when you're a striker or in behind a lone striker they'll have a defender there exclusively to defend. Nolan is at his best when he's ghosting into the box late, or treading on their goalkeepers toes. If he's marked he struggles.

I assume the games are being played as friend matches (whatever they're called), because if that's the case I think it uses the local teams even if the players are modified and the teams are changed. Reason it's a concern is because I've drafted teams with mates so the best 80 odd players for me are in 5 or 6 sides so... and I'll need to switch some back at least for Bayern Munich.. If it's not the case and it uses the default rosters then I've got nothing to worry about?

He'll make the squad once he hits puberty.

Put me in for Bayern Munich please. My user ID is DJB19K