On the bright side Bentley will have been training with Becks all week. So I'm sure he'll have learnt a lot despite not setting foot on the pitch.

Time for a rant.

Did McLaren not say at the start of his reign that he'd take friendlies more serious and make it an honour to wear the shirt again. Let's ignore the fact that Crouch didnt start so that a token Man U player could play in the case of the god awful Alan Smith. At least that might keep a portion of the 9 zillion Man U fans buying shirts. We were in front for what would be a moral boosting win. Then the cahnges. First Downing for Joe Cole who looked more lively than Rhubarb and Custard had done in the middle of the pitch. Second Kieren Dyer on instead of Englands most potent marksman of the last 18 months. Finally Jermaine flippin Jenas on for Beckham. By the time 'JJ' wasted the glorious 3 on 2 break I'd had enough and hoped Brazil scored to put what is surely deserved pressure on McLaren. I cheered the equaliser.

Lawro thinks we'll play a 'lone' striker against Estonia on Wednesday, similar to when we got absolutely battered in Croatia. Personally, I'd go with a Bentley, Cole, Gerrard Beckham midfield, 2 strikers and go at them all guns blazing. We wont though, we'll sit back in the hope of grinding out a 'professional' solitary goal win. If we don't start with 2 strikers on Wednesday, and if Crouch isn't one of them, for the good of English football I hope we don't win. At least we'd still have a slim chance of qualifying. People would say who would we replace McLaren with. I don't care. Anyone. ian Holloway. At least we'd be useless but get a laugh. This is just plain frustrating. People, especially other nations, always say 'why can't you accept you're not as good as you think you should be'. I think the reason is because most people know that we suffer from favouritism within the camp (Lampard), not getting the best out of players in their correct positions and strange and ultimately stupid decisions from the 'management'. Even then we'd still not be good enough but at least we'd sleep at night knowing we'd done all we can.

Rant over (and I've not mentioned Paul Robinson once!)

I agree with you 100% mate.

Although I thought Shorey had a steady game at left-back. He seemed to not want to push on and offer an option going foward. Surely our own Warnock would be a better option, oh i forget he doesn't play for one of the big clubs anymore he's no chance of playing then.

It seems McClaren as decided to follow Sven's weird subs system.

If Bentley can't get on the pitch ahead of Stewart 'He's left-footed you know' Downing, Kieron 'I average five games a season' Dyer or Jermaine 'JJ' Jenas then i'm afriad he's never going to get on.

Also can anyone confirm that Lampard was playing, because I didn't hear his name mentioned?

Yeah brilliant news well done David.

Although it will be unlikely he'll get a starting postion now that Joe Cole & Beckham are in the squad.

If Shevenchko's worth £30million surely Benni's worth at least £45million

Bellamy and Barton Grizfoot? do you want the nightclubs and hotels of Britain to be littered with people's body parts?

They could both also improve our team for next season. Although your point is also quite valid.

So Benni's officially in the shop window for tommorrow's game. That's if Sparky doesn't choose to drop him which could be a possibility.

If Chelsea are prepared to pay 8, 9 maybe 10 million for him then I suppose we'd have no option but to accept it.

On the bright side if he was sold. Maybe we could bring in a few more players in the summer Bellamy & Barton maybe.

Couldn't he have least waited till the end of the season before basically announcing he'd bugger off if a big club came in for him.

Yeah Dunny was amazing on Sunday. Never stopped running. It was no coincidence that our performance dropped after he went off.

Currently Listening:

Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

Patrick Wolf - The Magic Postion

The Shins - Wincing The Night Away

Also looking foward to the new Arctic Monkeys and White Stripes albums that are due out this year.

yes, lucas neill!

Apart from him I meant, you lemon

It might be the only record Lucash will ever get.

ha ha ha flipping hillarious, that's them basically down now

We should be able to smash in a bagful at Ewood against that leaky defence.

Oh yeah and just I question,

As any player ever been captain of two different premiership teams in one season?

AFCW got docked 18 points as that is how many points they won whilst fielding their eligible player.

WHU won no points whilst Mascherano was playing, and alledgedly that was the dodgiest transfer.

Shouldn't make no odds though should it. Dock them points I say, they are basically already down anyways

New Modest Mouse album is simply superb.

Albums I've been listening to recentley:

Klaxons - Myths of the Near Future

The View - Hats off to the Buskers

Jamie T - Panic Prevention

All of them are brilliant

No Passion. No Creativity. No Ideas.

Utterly boring and why the likes of Dyer & Phil Neville are in the England team is beyond me. Carrick was also poor tonight, thought he was meant to be a sublime passer of the ball saw nothing of that tonight.

This west ham forum thread saying Lucas out for 6 weeks.

We aren't the only ones laughing.

We've got to thank him for his service over the time he's been at the club. Most the time he's been a terrific player for us.

Leaving for a team below us in the league and apparently just for the money leaves a sour taste in the mouth. But hey what the heck Rovers have got £1.5m for a player who's contract is up in the summer, that is some good business.

I'll lookout for you in the Championship next year Lucash

Money-grapping D@*#

I really do hope West Ham go down now.

A little song I made up:

He's Rovers through and through,

He made Big Fat Sam cry,

Dunnyyeeeeee woooooooo Dunnyyeeeeeeeeeee

I don't see how a pairing of Savage & Dunn in centre-midfield would work. Dunny will naturally want to get foward and involved in play, whilst Savage does his usual job by chasing and closing people down. Problem will be that they'll be leaving a massive gap in the middle of the pitch. On second thoughts Reid & Savage played well together in centre-midfield last season, although Dunny probably doesn't have the ability to get up and down the pitch as much as Reidy.

Anyway we'll have to wait and see.

Welcome Home Dunny

And well done for rejecting notlob and Fat Sam in the process.

I smell something odd, Notlob actually paying a transfer fee no this must be wrong

And a brilliant taken goal it was as well. Surely that must get him a spot on the bench at the very least for the Arsenal match.

I think Gally is a far better player than Derbyshire at the moment. Gally obviously has some skill there some of the passes and finishing he has displayed in the past have been awesome. Whereas Derbyshire is more of workman like player, reminds me a lot of Dickov with his recent performances.

Personally I think we should trying to push both into the first-team.

Despite the goal last night I still think he's been poor compared to his performances in previous seasons. Passing seems to have gone to pot at times and seems to pull out of tackles which he never would have a couple of seasons ago. Maybe that's why he was getting booed (which was by only small amount of people, which was blown out of all proportion by the press 'fans have turned against him', ect.) and not because he wants to leave.

A decent player and a good servant to the club, might as well go and sell him in Janaury and get some cash for him whilst we can.

Tugay for new captain!