bazza

Fabulous game of football. I loved every minute. Let's have more footy like this.

I was speaking to Franz Carr about 6 months ago.He told me a few things. He was Preston born and bred. However, his childhood football team was Nottingham Forest. He went for trial at North End. They didn't want him and he was taken on by Rovers. As soon as Forest came in for him it was a "no brainer". Sean Dyche used to clean his boots at Forest. "It's because Dyche learned his trade at Forest that Burnley are doing so well now", Franz said.

I would love to see Egypt and Uruguay progress from this group. That would require a draw between the two followed by both beating Russia and Arabia. Not going to happen methinks.

That's a bit over the top. You mean the ex Bolton Wanderers centre back? My dark horse, almost black TBH, is Egypt. I'm looking forward to watching them play.

My prediction for winner is........................Belgium

Off the top of my head; Lothar Mattheus, Dino Zoff, Paulo Maldini, Rashin, Stanley Matthews(?), Beckenbaur, Socrates, Hadji. Pure guesswork of course.

Didn't we get Nzonzi from French div 5?

Husky, you are as useless at predictions as I am.?

Looking forward to next Sunday, lunch time kick-offs in the Championship. The battle for survival is immense and all but one of the teams are up against teams battling for automatic promotion or scrabbling to get in the play-offs. I hope to see Birmingham relegated but I think that that won't happen. An exciting Sunday lunchtime.

No. He needs his wages halving until he shows some bottle.

I want to see Brum relegated after how they managed to stay up last season at our expense. Going down, going down, going down............ I hope!

It's the opposite of Arsenal v Man C league game where the attendance was declared as 58,420 and the capacity is 59,867. I quote from the BBC report, "The match was played in front of tens of thousands of empty seats in north London, surely not all as a result of the snowy weather." Surely the powers that be (whoever) should require the actual number of people who've attended to be announced.

The two CMs for me would be Travis and Lenihan in place of Smallwood and Bennett.

I thought you were there, Chaddy, until I saw "twitter account". Thanks for the update anyway.

Yes

Thank you.

Got those, Hanks. It's the words for Smallwood I want.

Holt must have packed up after we replaced him with the excellent Willie Kelly. Holt played for a poor, struggling Rovers side. We only got better after nearly half the team had been replaced.

I've been searching the topics for the words to September by Earth, Wind and Fire which are used for Ritchie Smallwood. Cannot find them. Can someone help? However, reading this thread I've come up with a song for Bradley Dack. To the song, "Black is black" by Los Bravos:- Dack is Dack He's on fire in attack He shoots, he shoots He wears those golden boots Wo ho, what can we do When Bradley Dack he wears Half white and blue. Well there it is for what it's worth. Needs a bit of tweaking.

Reads like the Germans are over-complicating a simple method. 'oo'd a thowt?

Just read the "How will VAR work" on BBC Sport. The majority of it sounds OK to me. I'm not too sure of refs having to form a square with their index fingers so the players and the crowd know he is consulting the VAR. But the general description of how it will work seems OK.

With regard to youngsters playing for the first team, from what I've seen recently I would say Travis is ready, Tomlinson and Nuttall need to improve a bit, Wharton looks ready, don't know about Jack Doyle, Charley Doyle, Matt Platt, Butterworth, Hardcastle or Rankin Costello. I'm glad to see TM trying them out; something Sparky would never do.

My idea of VAR is that the ref is in constant communication with the person viewing the video. They can talk to each other as the ref already can with his linesmen/ assistant referees. So simple! No need for players, managers, clubs, etc. to get involved by "asking the ref to review".

Let's hope they do it in a simple way and not make it over-complicated.

I have seen him and his family sitting in the Riverside slightly towards the Darwen End in about Row 13. I think he is a reasonable fellow, not a pillock. Don't agree with his politics, though. He did very well with his answers. I got most but didn't know we finished 6 points behind United in 1994 and didn't know the Fazackerley one.