Great way to end the year. Not able to watch the game myself, but we had more shots, more posession, more corners and more goals. What else is there to ask for? And by the reports I'm hearing the first two goals were stunners.

Our season runs from April to October, that's how we manage During Royal League, played between seasons, the pitches are bad, but playable. However if one of the more northern teams would qualify it'd be more or less unplayable.

I like it how both most Swedes and most Englishmen seem delighted to have drawn eachother I don't necessarily think England are worse than any of the other teams in the first pool (Well, bar Brazil and perhaps Argentina), but I do think we have a better chance against them than any of the other teams. Partly because of history, and partly because I fear very quick and technical teams more than the kind of football both England and ourselves play. My prediction for the group is Sweden and England on 7 points, England topping the group on goal difference. Though Paraguay are by no means a pushover, they can ruin the "expected" outcome for both of our countries.

Sorry to dissapoint you, but it's an "i"

TOTTENHAM: Cerny, Kelly, Naybet, King, Edman, Davies, Davis, Carrick, Reid, Keane, Kanoute. Subs: Bunjevcevic, Riegler, Defoe, Fulop, Marney. ROVERS: Friedel, Neill, Todd, Nelsen, McEveley, Emerton, Thompson, Mokoena, Savage, Pedersen, Stead. Subs: Enckelman, Tugay, Johansson, Douglas, Johnson.

Thought we were the slightly better team overall, although we didn't create too much. WBA had some dangerous set pieces which gave Clement (twice) and someone else a couple of decent chances to score, but other than that they didn't really have anything. Stead hit the post, Reid had a long range effort sail inches wide and Hoult produced an excellent save to deny Savage. The main difference was how we contained them in the second half while they desperately needed an equaliser. Even after Mokoena went off we completely controlled midfield.

You can't really get much closer than Stead's effort in the first half. When you hit the inside of the post and the ball goes out for a goal kick on the other side of goal.. well, that's close Reid had an excellent effort late on too. Good display from the entire team really, I don't really have any complains except that it took some time for Pedersen and Neill to develop an understanding after MGP and Emerton had switched wings. I haven't seen much of him for some time, but today I really got a reminder of what an amazing player Tugay really is. Some excellent through balls, although a couple of them were intercepted. I don't think he gave away the ball even once, excluding the aforementioned intercepted through balls or other difficult attacking passes. I honestly don't think there's any player with a better combination of passing, vision, awareness and technique in the league. It's too bad he's not the quickest or strongest player any more. Truly an artist... All this praise isn't based on tonights performance though, it just reminded me of what he CAN do. Also a brilliant freekick by Richardson, nothing Friedel could do about it.

1. I'm not using the console. 2. To listen to the commentary I'm listening to you'd need to login to RoversWorld anyway. I made sure of that before making that last post. Oh, and the link to the console crashed my computer for some reason too.

Just pressed the "Live Commentary" link on RoversWorld. But maybe you meant something else?

Same team as on Wednesday. RR is working fine for me btw. Friedel, Neill, Todd, Nelsen, Matteo, Emerton, Reid, Mokoena, Savage, Pedersen, Stead. Subs: Enckelman, Flitcroft, Tugay, Gallagher, Thompon.

A couple of things that leave me confident about the future; It's true that when playing Arsenal, United, Chelsea, Liverpool, Everton etc. we do look a very unimaginative side, who don't look like scoring. But that doesn't bother me, for two reasons; 1) We grind out those 0-0 draws. 1 point is 1 point more than we should expect from those games. 2) When we play the teams around us, we actually play some rather nice attacking football, while at the same time keeping that defensive solidity. Just look at the game today, or the one against Norwich.

Both teams were poor, many misplaced passes. But five points from the away games against Liverpool, Everton and United is something we've got to be very happy about Norwich and Crystal Palace lost. Oh, and Kieron Dyer and Lee Bowyer are dismissed at St James' Park for fighting each other, in front of a disbelieving Graeme Souness.

Based on today's performance I'd actually prefer Matteo. Johansson didn't do much right at all. Several times he messed up when he had plenty of time and still ended up giving the ball to an Arsenal player or putting it out of touch.

I've got a feeling we're gonna concede one more in the second half with Mokoena in defense. Hasn't impressed me at all, I'm worried every time the ball goes near him .

AIK Solna won the Swedish league in 1998 after scoring a whooping 25 goals in 26 league games. So maybe we don't need to improve our attack much Nah, ofcourse that was a freak thing. That year there really wasn't much competition, everyone won against everyone else. That's not the case in the PL. Although imagine if we'd had this solid defense all season, we are after all only 12 points of 5th place. We may not have had 12 points more, but top 10 would certainly have been achievable. I'm not as sold on Mokoena as you guys are, but on the other hand I haven't been able to watch all the games. Still, he's played well enough when I've seen him. I'll take your word for it regarding the other games. Nelsen and Todd though... both really came out of nowhere and have played some great football. Not elegant players by any means, but good positioning, strength and aerial ability can get you quite far. And ofcourse, their workrate, committment and attitude. After reading the reviews philip posted, as well as a few more, it's really refreshing to see the praise these three are getting. And what's even better, I don't think they'd be particularly inclined to leave if a bid came in. Seeing as it won't be Chelsea, Arsenal and United doing the bidding there'd really be no reason to leave.

Yeah. Haven't read anything else by him that I can remember, but I thought that was an excellent preview.

One thing about Stead that I think was already mentioned, but is worth another mention; He looked so incredibly happy after scoring. Most players do, but it was like he was about to explode, didn't know what to do with all that joy.

He played at right back, although he always maintained that right wing was his preferred position. Didn't he play right wing back in a 3-5-2 formation?

The BBC site mentioned "skipper Dickov", and tbh I didn't really take any note myself. But I'm pretty sure that Todd was the first player onto the pitch, followed by Friedel. Which would indicate that he was captain. And why shouldn't he have been? Oh, and I won a bit of money today as well. Unfortunately it was very very little, as I only spent the remaining few quids on my Ladbrokes account just to empty it. Looks like I'll have to try and empty it again next week 10/1 on a halftime draw with Rovers winning. Put some money on Pedersen to score first at 14/1 (I think), but I'm equally happy with Stead scoring

It's amazing how much better Stead looked after his goal. He DID look "like a rabbit in the headlights", but then he made well timed run, recieved a good pass from Reid and finished in the bottom corner, just out of reach for Martyn. After that he played with much more confidence, and looked more like the Stead of last season. This was a very gritty game, and my thinking before the game that replacing Tugay with Mokoena was a bad move turned out to be wrong. There simply was no room for players like Tugay up until the last quarter or so when Everton pushed forward. Solid defensive display by defenders, and Flitcroft made some well-timed tackles as well. Thompson was very lively and I thought he did well. But my MoM will have to be Reid. He was everywhere today making tackles and interceptions, as well as setting up the goal and a couple of other chances. Before the game I was thinking that if we'd win this, we'll stay up. Obviously a lot of things can happen still, but we're in a good position now. Fulham and Portsmouth are in this relegation battle equally as much as we are now, so all we have to do now is outperform one of Crystal Palace, Portsmouth, Fulham or Southampton and we'll stay up.

I really can't see us scoring. Mokoena didn't impress me in midfield, and Flitty isn't the most creative player around, and neither is Reid. Tugay should have started IMO.

A win today will see us leapfrog Portsmouth and Fulham. What makes it even better is that we'd still have a game in hand against Pompey as well as all the clubs below us atm apart from WBA. Which means that even if both Palace and Southampton surge up the table we can still make it. Obviously we really don't want that to happen, but we could manage. 1-1 draw today btw.

Englishmen overrate English players. Americans overrate American players. Swedes overrate Swedish players. Norwegians overrate Norwegian players (Apart from MGP ofcourse, he can't be overrated). That's just the way it is, and always will be.

"Certain people" on here seems to be imaging that us Euros despise everything to do with the MLS or American players etc, and go on about how right they were and that we're all "eating humble pie"... now I haven't checked the transfer threads for a while, but I can't remember a great deal of "He sucks cuz he's in the MLS" or any of that. Or at least not any more of that than similar comments about Norway before Pedersen signed. I really don't get why many Americans seems to be so offended by someone stating that the MLS is a few notches below the EPL or Serie A. It IS, plain and simple. It's not intended as an insult. People simply say, and rightly so, that it's always a bit of a risk signing players without PL experience. That's true even for players who have done well in Spain, Italy or Germany (And the other way around for those leagues too ofcourse). No need to take offense...

No. Extra time and penalties.