PloKoon13

Do you reckon Newcastle will accept Anelka as a swap for Owen? ;)

Whoa! Easy, there... Well Robinho's gone to City... The Arabs might even give Kaka a ring, But luckily Ben Haim's rather sh*tty So I doubt they'll win a thing.

lol, sad but true

You mean City, right? ;)

Have any of our squad other than Scott Sinclair been left out?

Rich or not... they still have Ben Haim as a regular starter in defence. Recently, the asking prices of various internationals from their clubs have gone through the roof. Five or so years ago, £17m for Berbatov would have been perfectly reasonable, but with all these "£100m for Kaka/Ronaldinho, etc..." rumours, everything has skyrocketed beyond all reason. To be honest, I really hope that we don't get lured into the Man City-style bidding pathetic amounts for unworthy players (although we have done in the past, for example paying 20m+ for Drogba, Essien, SWP, Shevvers, etc...), as I don't want player price inflation to continue as it has done. Also, I would like us to build on what we have. Miroslav Stoch and Di Santo are two very promising prospects...

Isn't that what Croatia said about Wayne Rooney in Euro 2004 as well? ;)

I didn't go... I can't say the lineup thrilled me much. Rage kind of lost it for me when their frontman got a perm... And Metallica lost it after 1991. As a pretty heavy Thin Lizzy fan, I lost all respect for them the day I heard their cover of Whiskey in the Jar. What happened to the good old days where Thin Lizzy would headline Reading and there was none of this filler 'indie' garbage to ruin everything? I'm glad you enjoyed yourselves though.

Oh boy... If this transfer went through it would leave us with the formidable striking force of... Didier "Crutches" Drogba Joe "Disappointing" Cole (Caroline Cheese said it so it must be true...) Nicolas "I don't want to be here" Anelka Franco "Toddler" Di Santo and... to top it off... Florent "shi*t" Malouda. I bet they're all quaking in their boots...

Don't expect Portsmouth to roll over like last time... they've got a decent team together there. Especially if we're away from home ¬___¬

We need him back fast... our only good attacking player atm is Joe Cole and he was shocking against Spurs... OK, maybe Kalou... Did we sell Pizarro or is he just on loan?

Why oh why did we offload SWP when we could have gotten rid of Malouda?... Why the HELL did we ever offload Robben? I'm all for giving Malouda more of a chance, but we now have no one to replace him with. I still think Duff and Robben were the best wing combo we're ever likely to see...

I completely agree with you on Makelele. He was man of the match by far. I also agree with the way our players look when they protest the many questionable decisions given in favour of Man Utd. To be honest, I don't think refs are necessarily biased AGAINST us... but in favour of Man Utd. When we play other teams, the unfair decisions are probably about 50/50. We'll concede a dodgy penalty one week, but then get awarded one the next. But against Man Utd it's all thrown to the side. In the fray in which Drogba was sent off, did the whole world miss Rio Ferdinand advancing on the ref and shouting in his face, Nemanja Vidic taking a wild swing at Drogba, and was only prevented from doing so by Terry holding him back. Drogba, in response, lightly slapped him... and was sent off. Vidic also made Drogba bleed with a particularly heavy challenge earlier in the game... From what I know of football, punching someone in the face gets you sent off... And Paul 'disgrace to football' Scholes should also have been sent off. (and this isn't a one-off, it's been the case in every Man Utd game I've seen this season). How many times did he come close to breaking someone's legs with his reckless bulldog-like challenges? He even got a nose bleed taking Makelele out at one point (for which Makelele was booked...) and at another point in the game, Makelele needed smelling salts. (His face upon smelling them was priceless, however...). Add in a couple of priceless dives from Ronaldo and the typical threat to the ref from Ferguson, and let's not forget the EIGHT set pieces wrongly given against the opposition and you have the typical Man Utd performance... Oh, and I thought I should just point out the dirty, snide hypocritical transfer work of "Sir" Alex Ferguson. After whining all summer that the "disgraceful" Real Madrid are using underhand tactics to sign Cristiano Ronaldo, he goes and employs EXACTLY the same tactics to attempt to sign Dimitar Berbatov and is left unpunished and undisgraced... I seem to remember the headlines being "Manchester United rip the Premiership alight with their attractive football". Well... it just goes to show how full of s**t the media are... And now you know why I hate Man Ure more than Arsenal and Liverpool. (well certainly more than Arsenal anyway...)

Well Ballack's not exactly handsome... And ugly or not ugly, they still fleeced us of a trophy...

I admit that I'm never happy with the draw for anything (unless we get Darlington at home or something...), as I always look for the worst case scenario... AS Roma - one of the best non-top teams in Europe. They are a massive attacking threat to any side they face, with the exception of Man Utd, where they consistently perform a no-show... Bordeaux - reasonably strong. On a par with Werder Bremen on a good day, who beat us a couple of years ago in the away fixture. Cluj - maybe small and unheard of but that makes them an unknown factor! Who knows what they could offer... they might just stick ten men in the box Barnsley-style and we might drop two points against them... ¬___¬

France won the 1998 World Cup without their strikers offering anything ;) On a serious note, Drogba is the best player in the world on his day. Hopefully with Scolari at the helm he'll get his arse into gear, and he won't have constant injury problems like last year... Kalou and Di Santo are very promising prospects, and will hopefully be reasonably good. As for Anelka... he's more inconsistent than Benitez's facial hair... But all it takes is for Drogba to get injured and have an off-day and Anelka off sulking somewhere and we're pretty much relying on Lampard and Deco, attack-wise... I had a half-hope that we might sign someone useful and hard-working like Michael Owen, who would score goals no matter what. I think Robinho would have been another Anelka... Sadly this wasn't the case... Joe Cole - Drogba - SWP would have been a pretty lethal front three for what it's worth...

He got us Ashley Cole... lol ;)

You what? SWP could run like the wind... he just couldn't do much else. ;)

Despite them supposedly being our local rivals, I gained a lot of respect for Fulham when Chris Coleman was in charge. And one of the players who has been behind any recent success has been their midfield engine, Jimmy Bullard. For the last couple of years, I've always hoped he'd get a chance in the England squad, and now he has. If Capello recalls SWP and Emile Heskey, he may well yet gain my respect... ;)

Brilliant! That disgrace to football Rio Ferdinand has been well and truly put in his place... Let's hope this is a permanent decision.

Breaking News A red faced old Scottish drunk has been arrested in Manchester shouting and slurring something about a "Bulgarian Tosspot" This is classic! It would be pretty funny if City nabbed Ronaldo as well. Although I don't know why they're putting so many bids in for strikers, considering they have Benjani and SWP, they're reasonably well-off.

Some victim he is... ...he could be in Paul Jewell's shoes right now.

Aw, I thought the mighty Chris Sutton had made a belated return from injury...

I guess it's just the Telegraph's fantasy football player prices?

Already? lol