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nearly had a coronary last year.

Stoke are going to go about 3rd if they win again aren't they?

1st goalscorer bets:
Huddlestone
Lampard
Wayne Bridge
Diamanti
Damien Duff
Kaboul

might have a pound on each of them.

Should be a good game but I can see Crouch terrorising our defence. We've looked good for a while now and I think the result last week was a bit of a freak so, if we keep it together and play without nerves, then we should be ok.

Arsenal 4 Spurs 2
Bolton 2 Chelsea 3
Burnley 0 Hull 0
Everton 3 Villa 1
Fulham 0 Liverpool 2
United 4 Blackburn 1
Pompey 1 Wigan 1
Stoke 1 Wolves 1
Sunderland 0 West Ham 2
Brum 1 City 3

Bentley has been put in my fantasy football for a week cameo as Harry said he'd play and he always seems to play amazing when he gets a chance which makes him being permanently on the bench a bit weird, why is he still at Tottenham especially in world cup year, anyone know? Oh and I think Tottenham will win 4-2 and Chelsea could struggle against Bolton.

thinking it might change today but am apprehensive nonetheless.

going for a 1-1 draw in the millwall-colchester fixture. lisbie with our goal.

hahahahaahahahaha

Slightly risky, but we shall see...

Also:
http://drownedinsound.com/community/boards/social/4204482

C'mon!!!!

I'll be very surprised if my accumulator still has legs by 4pm.

Just occured to me that Chelsea haven't had a 3pm Saturday game at home yet this season, which is odd.

man u
sunderland
chelsea
man city

i need the money this week...

but should come through.

i put 81p on fabregas to score and their lot to beat your lot 3-1. i didn't realise you could put 81p bets on but it forced me into it. i don't get betting but hopefully i get some money.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8335331.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8335331.stm

NOT Arsenal or Spurs, repeat NOT Arsenal or Spurs.

really hope they win promotion although I realise there's an awful long way to go. They could sneak a playoff place and get promoted that way.

I like seeing them do well because my closest friend is a Leicester fan, I'd really enjoy seeing them back in the Premiership. At the start of the season I told him they'd finish mid-table which is good for a promoted club, looks as though they could do even better. The fact it was QPR they beat last night makes me just that little bit happier.

Arsenal 4 Spurs 3
Bolton 1 Chelsea 2
Burnley 2 Hull 0
Everton 1 Villa 1
Fulham 1 Liverpool 2
United 2 Blackburn 0
Pompey 1 Wigan 1
Stoke 2 Wolves 0
Sunderland 2 West Ham 1
Brum 1 City 3

dreadful game, 2 - 0 defeat.

ME: Fulham v Liverpool, it's about time Fulham got tonked at home though not sure today is it. Lacking Murphy in midfield could be not that significant compared to Liverpools MIAs. Aqua-Nando to start please Rafa.

Score draw.

Easily our best performance of the season. We actually played football instead of hoofing it up to Steve Howard all the time. Waghorn (on loan from Sunderland) worked his arse off. Brown at the back is the toughest man in football and Fryatt finished both chances perfectly. Promotion is probably a step too far for the season but a cheeky play off spot would be amazing. Nigel Pearson is showing how good a manager he is. I've not been this optimistic about Leicester for many a season.

It's set me up for a great day of football, gambling and beer. I love it when there's actually Premiership games on a Saturday at 3pm.

would be suuuper appreciated!

I'm not really putting any hopes on promotion or even a playoff spot, I'm just happy for a season to be happy about, a platform for the next two years.

The last two weeks have been great compared to the performance against Newcastle, hoofing the ball up to Howard and then just watching it come back again.

Waghorn wants to stay until the end of the season, he's loving it, says it's a great club to learn his trade.
Wellens is awesome, I love him so much. I'm quietly surprised about Weale as well, considering we had around 50 keepers last season and we settle on this guy (who wasn't first choice at Bristol City?) and he's had a couple of really good games.

I love how the player who got robbed (don't know who offhand) just stood there and let it bounce off his shins.

dont think fabregas got the credit he deserved for it though, great run.

ha ha ha nil

BORING BORING CHELSEA

and then stringing Palacios, Huddlestone and Jenas across the midfield.

sensible move IMO.

Boring, YES

They were too slow, no creativity, little width for much of the first half, hoofing it forward, nothing along the ground. The defending for the 2nd goal was shambolic, and Gomes should have done better for the first and third.

One of the worst forwards in the Prem scores against the enemy. Nice.

Sunderland 0-2 West Ham! Shock on the cards as Commandercool's acca crumbles.

Chelsea winning and playing against 10 men
Liverpool not winning
Portsmouth winning
Hull losing
possible West Ham revival

:D

And now Liverpool down to 10.

Such a shame.

with blomqvist, park, cruyff and ronaldo.

lovely. bindippers will still probably go on to win it though.

Torres subbed just prior to the goal as well

but at least liverpool are worse.

Carragher off

vorinin the scorer

3-1

I was sure in the summer that Liverpool wouldn't challenge this season but never thought they'd be this bad. It's wonderful.

cheers Liverpool.

dont remember much of him though.

games like fulham are 'harder' for liverpool because theres no motivation factor, said that a while back. they need to play every game with the belief and spirit of when they drubbed us.

of course i dont want them to do so, but thats their problem anyway innit

From what I remember he barely played, like only a couple of appearances.

Is it National Red Card Day? Amazing scenes.

madness. Easily the best team in the league, not winning the title would be a failure (like I've said many times).

I've defended him loads of times before but it really is time for Rafa to go now, what the hell is he doing?

one more trophyless season and I fancy Barca will come sniffing

Cheers

we've got some big games in the next five (united home, arsenal and city away). if we win all them please resume.

i wonder how much will be made of the decision to bring eccles cake on for benayoun.
can go either way for a manager. fergie would have been bashed if macheda missed a sitter last season. it really makes you think

8 in the Prem alone. Madness. Two of the offenders are in my fantasy team, too. Just when I thought my team couldn't get any worse. Gonna have to use the wildcard, I think.

Straight red for a tackle which I'm guessing the ref will say was two-footed and therefore reckless, but it was a 'controlled,' blocking sort of two-footed challenge if you know what I mean. Don't think anyone would have argued for a red if he'd have booked him instead. 2nd yellow for Cuellar when he obviously won the ball. Ref was a tube all game though, missing obvious things and making downright idiotic mistakes like booking the wrong player. They weren't even twins.

macheda came on for nani (just checked) who is rather abysmal whilst benayoun was arguably your best attacking player still on the pitch. benitez is a foolish man for sure.

still massively cushioned by the raping we inflicted last week, but still. We went from controlling the game for 60 minutes to being whipping boys.

Some crazy subs from the big man again confirming my change of mind on him. 2-1 down, let's take our most threatening attacker (Benayoun) off for a kid who's played once before (Eccleston). Was he hoping this lad would get us an equaliser?

We're crying out for Kenny. We need someone who realises how much we want this championship. Europe's all well and good, and "we've won it six times" would be nice to chant at Chelsea rent boys and United, but I think this team's probably worse even than the one that won it in 05.

and I'm trying not to get carried away but it's really difficult at the moment. This isn't just based on our performances (although in general they've been very good this season) but more to do with the fact all the other contenders don't look anything special. Man Utd look dodgy at the back and are lacking a certain something (or someone). Arsenal are great going forward but are very naive defensively and don't always play for the full 90 minutes and Liverpool are bloody awful.

We might not win it but this would be a failure IMO.

despite being pretty awfull in the first half, which puts us 7 points clear :D Liverpool are only 2 points clear of stoke/ look like slipping down to at least 6th. Man-o-man i love this season!

was an easy decision. Not an awful challenge by any means but a foul that denied a clear goal scoring opportunity. Looking forward to seeing all these sending offs tonight!

for 9 years??? mental!

go fuck yourself.

and you make a point, but we're talking about two youngsters who've never played in the PL, so its similar innit

I just don't think I'll ever consider not finishing 1st to be a failure, on account of me a) not being Roman Abramovich and b) remembering Chelsea pre-1999.

I think we'll win the league. I think that now, I thought that in August and I'll think it next week even if Utd rape us.

He's one of FOUR managers to have won the Premier League.

He loves the club, is a Liverpool fan, and is universally adored by every red in the land.

Also, he's British. I don't care about manager nationality too much but the players do. Gerrard in particular prefers them.

five losses in the pl. yet to play city and arsenal in the first round of pl games. out of the carling cup. almost out of the cl.
gerrard injured til december, torres off injured, johnston carrying a knock, carragher and degen out for three games.

a big possibility you'll finish behind man utd in everything for the third season running, which seems to be the only thing liverpool 'fans' seem to care about.

because I'm not always that good humoured about taking it!

shearer and newcastle. lets hope the result is the same.

you are either not a liverpool fan or don't think benayoun is better than kuyt, voronin and lucas.

so you're not a liverpool fan.

is this overflow from the "we" for a supported team thread? if so i apologise.

because whenever I suggest this I'm always accused of seeing things through blue-tinted glasses.

I remember where the club was at all those years ago but times change, if you've got the best squad in the league then why would you expect anything but finishing 1st?

Our title was killed by the beach ball.

The one thing we don't want to happen is for you lot to win the league. You can have the FA Cup, and at a push, a Champions League. That won't happen because your CBs are clowns and your midfield is very poor. As long as you don't make it 19, we'll be ok.

screw what i said about carra and degen

As you say, there's not much choice but I'd take Benitez over Dalglish. As j_229_2 says, Dalglish taking over would be Newcastle-esque

Uncanny.

Newcastle were fighting for survival, and that Kenny was the last manager to win it for us, and one of the only four to win it in the last 20 years?

I expect us to be play professionally, to play in a committed, passionate manner. I expect us to be there or thereabouts. I just also like to give credit to winners where it's due; if we don't win the league, it'll be because the side(s) that finish above us were better over the season.

Just how I see things.

not only would they have to pay off his contract, but any new manager is going to want transfer funds. They'd probably be looking at £50m+.

be a bad choice if you'r desperate for an english manager, he's managed inter before, so should be used to fans with v high expectations/ i think he'd be a good stabilising influence. Otherwise i think Hiddink would be an excellent appointment, a great motivator with a good eye for a player, give rafa to the end of the season and then sign him up after the world cup, simples...

in that it'd very much be a heart-over-head decision, rather than the specific circumstances. Try and blank out the current Liverpool situation and consider whether or not you genuinely feel Dalglish would do a good job.

vidic flakes out against you. our midfields fine, and will only get stronger this season.
i dont think we'll win the title this season, but i dont see how its any comfort for such woeful football

I dunno.

Actually... Oi Fergie. Fancy a new job?

Ipswich actually won.

You'd be even worse than you are now.

what a joker!

Then again I don't recognise your username so if you're fairly new then fair play.

BUT I'd be disappointed if any of our current title rivals ended up being better than us over 38 games, the year before last (for example) wasn't a disappointment because Man Utd were excellent throughout and it would've taken a lot to finish above them. Obviously I could be proved wrong and Man Utd or Arsenal could start winning virtually every game from now on but I can't see that happening.

absolutely dominating but, as usual, our strikers look incompetent.

Is currently unemployed...

I just got in from Fulham v Liverpool, you'll win nothing this year liverpool and you still haven't replaced Hyppia and Henchoz.

Carra was lucky to be on the pitch to get sent off when he did. Liverpool would surely want to get rid of that clown rafa but have they got the cheque book for it?

yes, your strikers are CLEARLY the problem at the moment.

Reina
Agger
Skrtel (I guess)
Aquilani
Gerrard
Benayoun
Kuyt
Torres

You'd obviously want to keep Mascherano if he wants to stay but he looks completely disinterested this season. Maybe a couple of players with potential like Insua could stay, well... Insua can stay. There's a worrying (or amusing, depending on how you look at it) amount of average players at Liverpool and a manger who doesn't care enough about league games.

Milan v Chievo, Juve v Samp and Inter v Palermo have been thrilling in the last week, and so has this. Trezeguet and the pocket rocket Giovinco put Juve 2-0 up at half time. But despite being the better team in the 2nd half, Napoli have put together an amazing display of counterattacking football to lead 3-2 with goals from Hamsik (twice) and Datolo. Napoli minutes away from their first away win at Juve since 1988.

and creating hardly anything, especially rooney after the first give games.

Whipped into the box, scramble, Amauri goes to turn it in but kicks the Napoli keeper in the head. Amauri sent off as the two teams engage in handbags, quality.

and wrightylew, appointing dalglish as manager after rafa would be absolutely disastorous for the team. You need someone that can make intelligent signings, someone who knows the game. It'll just be Keegan all over again.

as for deportivo, with any luck we'll destroy sporting tomorrow at home.
We spent about 500k this summer, on a player that hasn't made a single appearance for the team yet, and we're 5th, joint with Valencia on points, and could be third if results go our way with sevilla. More than happy. We'll be playing in the europa league definitely next season and I wouldn't be surprised if we made the cl. Of course the fact Atletico and Villarreal have turned into relegation contenders has sort of helped us, but who cares.

rant about rafa, and Alan Green pretend he's not a red.

"these American Muppets owning the club" Alan Green 31/10/09

"I imagine Alan Green will have something to say, he watches liverpool a lot"

:D

Seemed like a good game that we dominated, and nice to see the donkey Rasiak get two goals, he's the only decent striker we've got now Hunts out

Alan Green was just talking about how he wasn't working mideweek, but was sat at home watching the arsenal liverpool game, as anyone would do ; )

Silly old fool just admit it, Muppet owners, vornin dreadful, you're seething!

someone who can afford to sack Rafa

Man United all looks kind of pointless now. It will be interesting to find out why Torres was taken off at 1-1.

Looks like a fantastic night of football in store - goals and red cards all over the place.

I enjoyed Garth Crooks' anger at the performance of the referee in the Burnley v Hull match claiming that the 3 contentious decisions could cost Phil Brown his job. Never mind the 3 wins in the other 30 odd games in 2009.

Great result for Pompey.

Great result for Chelsea.

Great result for Rochdale.

Especially seeing Carragher getting his comeuppance and acting like a bit of a twat after the decision.

Nah they're all drowning their sorrows in the eight bells, taher than ring in. never seen a bunch of quiet scousers before, amzing.

He didn't lose his job because of the 'goal that never was' against Reading. He lost it because he lost the plot for about 12 months after a very good start to his management career.

Stop it, everyone, this year is rubbish, no good games, i've not seen a good game, this is the worst premiership i've seen, what?!?!?!

this is just from YOUR perspective, yes UTD are struggline, YES Liverpool are shite, but do Sunderland fans think it's rubbish, Arsenal fans? City? Stoke? Fulham??? doubt it. How was a Utd treble and winning the league before xmas any better?

Sorry, 606 inspired rant.

this season has been wonderful so far. More entertaining and unpredictable than in recent years. I'm loving it.

this season has been wonderful so far. More entertaining and unpredictable than in recent years. I'm loving it.

ummm yes Alan you bloody well did, senile now too.

Over the last 20 years we've all been indoctrinated to believe that the only good football comes when a big team thrashes everyone else out of sight. That total domination is the only important thing and no mistakes should be made at all.

Never mind that in the same breath they'll talk about how interesting and tight the Championship is.

To be fair, the truth lies somewhere in the middle - yes quality is important, but there's a lot more to the game than that.

manc derby 4-3 chelsea scoring loads but losing away, arsenal playing brilliant (in attack) spurs, city, villa having a crack at the top, nobody adrift at the bottom it's really quite competitive this year. not boring, plenty of memorable games though maybe not for utd fans.

Last season was probably the best in living memory, in my opinion. I'm not sure this will better that, but it's been fantastic. Some weekends i anticipate will be dull, but they rarely are, infact i can only think of one thus far. Also, there are lots more shit sides in the division nowadays, i will say that, but most weekends are exciting.

The big four are all more beatable than they have been in a while, the also rans are stronger, then there's loads of pap that will take points off eachother.

Something i have noticed is that there's not a side in the league who defends well consistantly. Even the better sides are conceding their fair share of sloppy goals.

More a rant against those callers on 6-0-6 who think that a bit of competition is bad for the league.

callers who protested that they had in fact been to some great games were shouted down.

BARCA YOU FUCKING FUCKING FUCKING FUCKING FUCKINNG FUCKINGH CUNTS

I see. Pleased I didn't stick them in my accumulator. Phew.

a fucking retarded own goal from Boggins as well. Completely unnecessary. 93rd minute. Done my bank in

Barca are shit this season, just look a shadow of the last campaign

it was going to be a pretty big ask for them to emulate what they did last season. So long as they beat Madrid to the title, they'll do me.

Real are miles worse

Sweet Jesus.

(though this is cos he's too busy watching Liverpool occcasionally misfire, but are actually from an objective viewpoint involved in exciting games)

Also Kik, you have as you've admitted been one of these people going on about dull games with rubbish teams. Not a personal attack just an observation (and unfortunately can't think of the other disers). I may be a little more sensitive due to supporting a "shit"/"dull"/"team of cloggers" but really, is this year any different? Sheff Utd, Watford, Palace, Barnsley, Swindon.......and who's missing from this elite and making the prem full of shit sides Newcastle, Boro, Reading, Ipswich? I'm personally not missing them.

for the Portsmouth game on motd. Fuck off

http://twitter.com/robertearnshaw

i think i might need to wake up in time for the MOTD repeat tomorrow

with all the also-rans (Villa, Everton, Liverpool & Sunderland) all dropping points, a victory at Brum would be huge, even a point would take us 4th, and we'd still have a game in hand. Don't let me down City, thre points, please.

gotta cut him some slack

and he got himself into two great goalscoring positions in 20 minutes. by the law of averages a few will end up going in if he can keep getting into such positions.
he looked the opposite of nani yesterday

that lad needs to pull his finger out, reminds me a bit of the way Robinho get's bullied out of games. But I surely can't be the only person who thinks he looks like Sammy Davis Jr??

http://mra.ci.manchester.ct.us/images/SammiSing.jpg

a Forest win would be the better for us, plus I like what I've seen of them so far this season. Definitely two of the better footballing sides of the division right here.

I can see us getting tripped up again tomorrow night. I've just got a feeling that Sheff Utd will be a bogey for us and our away form is getting pretty shakey.

Would've been extremely harsh had we bagged a late goal.

Decent game actually, considering, though we weren't at our best.

Given was immense, bridge was your best attacker.

We should have won, McFadden you silly billy. Benitez and Jeromes first touches were awful, so many time balls into their feet heavy touches gave the ball back and you countered. And i don't recall seeing so many hand balls by a team before.

Oh well, happy enough with a point, would have been gutted to have lost.

; )

I fear we're going to get absolutely tortured up at The Toon next week. The Cardiff-Forest game has just shown how far apart from those sort of teams we are...

Also, I can see no way we're not going to lose George Boyd in January. He's pretty much single handedly kept us from being about 10 points adrift. Today's NOTW says Spurs are going to give us 6million for him. Obviously there's no way we'll get anywhere near that, but I hope he doesn't go there anyway, and be ruined by Redknapp...

"Same old Man City. All the money in the world - can't score, can't win. The clock is ticking for Mark Hughes." <3

You started brightly and might've scored at least one, but you basically ran out of puff after about fifteen minutes, and we ran the game, if not turning that posession into clearcut chances.

We were still relatively poor, Kompany and Lescott struggled with your front two, Barry had his only poor game so far in a City shirt, his passing was way off, though he did improve, Tevez was playing too deep, SWP's final ball was poor, though he played reasonably well. Santa Cruz and Bellamy are obviously not matchfit.

A goalless draw was fair, neither side did enough in the final third. A point's okay considering our record there in recent seasons, and given that most of the spine of our side was missing. If we keep winning our home games and drawing away we'll do very well. Sometimes you have to win ugly, or draw ugly. We're not playing well but managing to get something from every game. We got a point today playing at about 60% against a side who probably can't play too much better.

idst

Cardiff are no mugs so to come away from there with a point is a massive achievement. Must have been an exciting game for the neurtrals and a great advert for the Championship. Once again though, the standard of refereeing was abysmal. We had a definite penalty not given after 6 minutes (replays conclusively proved it) and how Whittingham and Chopra stayed on the pitch for two footed tackles when two weeks ago we had a player sent off for celebrating a goal(!) is beyond me.
Proud to be a Forest fan at the moment, and that record as the last remaining unbeaten side away from home this season shows just how much progress we've made under Billy Davies this past year.

lots of great little runs but fuck all end product.
a draw probably was a fair result after the first twenty minutes, a nicely contested game anyway.
i thought swp had a really good game, also.

I see it as 2 points dropped not 1 gained. Shay Given MOTM speaks volumes.

looks like Lucas Radebe on doughnuts.

I was at the game, and i call shenannigans with regards to this monstrously mis-informed statement.

You really couldn't deny that you played very well for 15 or 20 minutes then tired. You weren't awful after that, but your chances were more limited and we edged a 50/50 game.

really gutsy competitive stuff from two strong forward thinking sides

was unsustainable. The rest of the first half was scrappy on both team's accounts. I thought we were stronger team with the better chances for the majority of the second half, although you did finish strongly. SWP was decent enough, and Petrov was also good once introduced.

I was happy with a point before kick off, but couldn't help but feeling after, and the reaction of the citeh fans after the whistle would tend to back up my assertion, that we could and should have won it.

could be just as interesting. I honestly think any 3 out of about 10-11 clubs could go up this season. Exciting stuff!

i don't know what game kansas was watching.. Brum were the only team with a chance of winning today. The worked hard, kept it tight and posed a threat to our extremely flakey, miles up the pitch defence. We were wide open at the back, partly due to the fact that half the team was stood on the halfway line. But you can't have it both ways.. either you're a solid, organised soaking team like Brum or you're a possession driven, dominant, passing round the box team like Barca or United. We fall between 2 stools and land in the dog plop in the middle.

that City team today was just.. nothing. No invention or ideas, no cutting edge, no team movement, no penetration. They could've played for another decade and not troubled Maik with another shot on target. One shot on target. One.

It's just the same old City from last season.. we can't play away from home. Probably because the team has no clue what they're doing, so just bobble it around aimlessly. How have they not realised that they shouldn't pass it around the back four then pump it forwards? It's utter bullshit, and any manager worth his salt would've stopped it long ago. Any chance of scoring from a set piece again this season? Nah

i'd say Hughes out, but i can't ever be arsed. I'm just sick of watching City play like shit.. that's what i've had to put up with all my life, there's no excuse for it nowadays. Come on media, where's the manager witchhunt when you need one? If it was Rafa they'd be calling for his head. City, despite being a big team now, are still the guys that nobody actually bothers watching, yet they still all say "yeah, nailed on for the top 4"

The reason the manager hasn't stopped them from passing it around the back 4 then lumping it forward? It's his plan. Why do you think he was so hell bent on paying the earth for Santa Cruz?

We've lost ONE game out of 14. You basically have to go into pub football to find a club who've lost fewer games than us. We've got the third best defence in the league even though without Toure they're all at sea. Though occasionally we don't play fantastically well we're harder to beat, and are getting results at places we didn't last year, already we're eight points up on the same fixtures last season.

To say you'd replace Hughes is absolutely mental, and at odds with what 99.9% of supporters think, infact, it's so stupid it doesn't even warrant bringing up. We're going through a run of not playing well but not losing. That's about four league games on the bounce we've been mediocre, none of them lost, after ten or fifteen years of watching City NOW you're bothered about us playing crap? Mental.

We've had to adapt our playing style to become harder to beat, simple as that. It's no coincidence that these poorer performances have come when we've so many players carrying knocks - Toure, Kompany, Ireland, Bellamy, Petrov, Adebayor, Santa Cruz, all injured or coming back from injuries. Once they're fully fit the performances will improve again. Stop being so reactionary. Going away from home and getting draws is more than okay, so long as we keep winning at fortress Eastlands.

I didn't say we played well, i said that after the first twenty minutes neither did they.

maybe he's bothered because for the last ten or fifteen years City have been pretty crap and now you're good so getting upset about bad showings is worth a little more

This broad opinion that we should win every week just because we've spent a bit more money is pretty dumb. All teams play crap, United do it, Chelsea do it, Arsenal do it, Liverpool certainly do. I'd rather we still got results in games when we're going through a bit of a bad run performance-wise.

Bottom line is we've gone to three very tough away grounds and not been beaten. Dropping points to Fulham was pretty inexcusable, but a dozen games in we've lost once and sit in 4th with a game in hand, brilliant, nothing less.

Every player on the pitch for us today has been signed within twelve months. We're still very much growing as a side, and learning as a side. Some weeks we'll play brilliantly, some we won't, important thing is to get results, and we are. Joleon Lescott being a bit rubbish, or the odd bad showing shouldn't take away from the bigger picture.

moaning is more legit when you've got better players than joey barton leading the charge

Some of our fans will always have something to moan about. We could win the league and they'd bring up a dropped point somewhere.

There are minor issues the manager will be looking to address over the coming weeks; Joleon Lescott isn't very good, you can't play Barry, de Jong AND Ireland, neither can you play Ireland, Tevez AND Wright-Phillips. The current system isn't as fluid as we'd like, but that's not a huge deal.

The main issue is injuries, and we're coping pretty well. To win games regularly you need your best players fit, good squad or not, we haven't had that, and we're still not losing.

Hughes is doing an excellent job. Shows how far we've come, really, that the moaners are beating their chests after a couple of away draws.

but a good performance every now and then would cheer me up a bit. At my count that's 4 dire performances in a row, against teams where we had a very decent chance. Teams where, if you want to get anywhere in the league, you have to do a lot better

and i'm not being reactionary, i've thought all this for a long while, and every game seems to make it seem more accurate. The fact is, we don't look much better than we did last season, and getting undeserved draws out of games we deservedly lost last season doesn't count as much of an improvement in my book. We still don't look like a team, we still don't look like we can grab hold of games against the odds or change games, we still don't work anywhere near as hard as our opponents, or defend as well as they do. It's all just a load of wafty nothingness, with seemingly no tactical plan behind it

Talking about getting rid of Hughes is a moot point, since the owners clearly have a massive lob on for him. Unless we finish outside of the top 4 for the next 3 years he'll be safe and sound. But i still reckon he's a ninny

they've got to hope Liverpool don't get bought by some equally rich arab.

At the moment, every super player is happy to come play for you because you'll offer better wages than everyone else.

But as soon as the yanks get us off their hands and we're even slightly closer to you in terms of burnable money, you should start worrying.

When it comes to bidding for the best of the best, if City's bids are matched by anyone with even a pinch of history, they'll be screwed.

The sole attraction to sign for them is the fat wage slip at the end of the week. That's City's USP. When the rightful top 4 catch up with you in the financial respect, you'll come right back down to earth.

Chelsea have only recently come into a lot of money. Several years ago you could have said that Newcastle were up there.

When there's this much money being gambled and thrown around (independent of the number of supporters or size of the ground) there is no natural order.