A mate and I have been watching the World Cup to try and see who's gonna get a big-money move on the back of their performances (and then, probably, ultimately flop!) My tips are Kader of Togo, Barnetta of Switzerland and Tenorio of Ecuador. What does everyone else reckon?

I put my name down for it but, living in the South, it hasn't been in any of the shops (guess I could have ordered it!) So if anyone has 5 minutes, and is bored, could they look to see if Andrew Minter is in it (there can't be too many of them surely)?

Where's the "blame Grooby" option?

Pansy, fairy, mummy's boy?

I've got money riding on Serbia & Montenegro, and would have tipped the Ivory Coast too but can't see them both qualifying from that group with Argentina and Holland.

Had any of the players been on a free for more than a year? It seems that players out of contract for a certain length of time retire no matter what their age.

I consider it an achievement that ranks alongside every other team that's won the Premiership. It's all well and good to claim that Chelsea "bought the league" but every team buys players that they hope will win success. I don't see Chelsea as any different.

That was a thoroughly enjoyable read! I really hope we win this one as I couldn't bare it if Newcastle beat us to Europe. Praying for a 2-1 win. Any win in fact!

OH YES ROBBIE! GET IN!

Pennant off to be replaced by Melchiot. By the sounds of it the ref's pandering to the crowd a fair bit and we're starting to get into it. Come on you Blues!

Well nice to see Lucas Neill helping Brad out; "Cross by Jermaine Pennant (Birmingham), shot by Julian Gray (Birmingham) right-footed from centre of penalty area (12 yards), save (parried) by Lucas Neill (Blackburn). "

Can't see it mentioned, but this can't have helped Birmingham's cause.

What did everyone think of tonight's episode? I personally thought it was a pretty good with a fairly decent concept and sustained plot for the 45 minute time frame. *Spoilers* And the quote from Casandra (in Billie Piper's body) exclaiming; "I'm a chav!" was worth the licence fee alone!!

I'm torn between so many players this year... Todd's been excellent when in the team, Nelsen's been awesome - with the exception of Carragher I've not seen a better defender this year, Bellamy's been world class on occassions, Friedel's been back to his best, Reid's been brilliant in midfield, while Savage has been the driving force behind most of our play... ... might have to wait till the end of the season before I call this one.

On the subject of Costil, there are quite a few French players at the beginning of the game who develop into stars - Mascarte, Cetout, Nimani, Mangani, Digard, Van den Bruwaene, Malaury Martin, Mandanne, Benzema to name but a few! Give them some time with top level coaches and they'll all develop into superstars. In fact the French league in general is littered with quality players such as Emana, Toualan, Gourcuff, Mathieu, Makoun, Mavuba, Faty and Digot. Only thing they don't really develop is strikers.

Surely even if one team scored 3 own goals, the other would have to touch the ball from kick off?

Whichever one Ralf Little played I guess.

Isn't that Robbie Earnshaw as well?

Saturday the 8th April sees the mighty Rovers travel south to Fratton Park, home of ‘Arry Redknapp’s Portsmouth. Pompey have had several decent results in recent weeks with victories over Man City, West Ham and Fulham, and with the return to form of Lomana Lua-Lua and Birmingham seemingly on a downward spiral, Portsmouth will be looking to continue their run of form, toward escaping relegation, against us. As part of this preview I thought I’d take a quick look through the wheeling-dealing career of “Dodgy ‘Arry”™, charting the highs, the lows, and the bloody awfuls. We’ll start at the top… Paolo Di Canio, signed by that man Harry in January 1999 from Sheffield Wednesday for £1.7m – the mercurial Italian will always be remembered for shoving a referee, winning the Fair Play Award for catching the ball (maybe Robbie Savage should try that one?), and ‘that’ volley against Manchester United. ‘Arry’s man management seemed to get the best out of him and he finished his career at West Ham (by which time ‘Arry had left) with stats of 48 goals in 117 appearances. Matty “Batty” Taylor, signed early on in Harry’s time at Portsmouth for £400,000 from Luton Town. A quality left wing back with an eye for a goal, his performances recently caught the eye of Fulham who offered £2.25m for the guy; however they opted for Wayne Bridge, who was ironically at fault for Portsmouth’s first goal on Saturday. A real team player, what Graeme Sounness might call, “a man’s man”. Yakubu raised a few eyebrows when Harry signed him from Maccabi Haifa in 2003, but he repaid the faith with some scintillating displays and a goal return of almost 1 every 2 games. Although the transfer fee was undisclosed, it was certainly considerably less than the £7.5m than Middlesbrough forked out for him at the beginning of the season. Other goodies: Teddy Sheringham, Lomano Lua-Lua, Amdy Faye, John Hartson, Trevor Sinclair, Freddie Kanoute, Jermaine Defoe, Paolo Wanchope, Dejan Stefanovic, Paul Merson, Steve Stone. And at the other end of Harry’s transfer collection… Marco Boogers, signed for £1m in July 1995 as one of Redknapp’s first signings after taking charge at West Ham. The words “bloody” and “useless” spring to mind as this “striker” managed just 4 substitute appearances, blazed wide of an open goal, fell over a bit and generally looked like a poor imitation of a Sunday league player. Some might liken him to Corrado Grabbi, Ashley Ward, Nathan Blake or Kabi Diawara in that respect! A name best illustrated in pictures… Titi Camara, signed from Liverpool for £1.5m – where he hadn’t had the most glittering of careers – but only featured 7 times in 3 years at West Ham. Quite why Harry was buying another striker when he already had approximately 26 to choose from was a mystery to many, even more so when they saw him play. The t1ts camera eventually disappeared into the football wilderness somewhere in Qatar, with a West Ham career perhaps best summed up by whoever wrote the wikipedia article on him – “At West Ham the only reason he was signed was because the manager, Harry Redknapp, was a wheeler-dealer manager who would bring in really random players in the hope that they would be successful.” LINK Aliou Cisse had, to be fair, had a good World Cup in 2002 before Birmingham bought him, but when Harry signed him in 2004 for half a million he’d been crocked for about a year and not looked like adjusting too well to English football. Despite appearing 28 times for Portsmouth he’s never looked like recapturing the form of 2002 and spent most of his time on the treatment table. Other baddies: Rigobert Song, John Curtis, Ricardo Fuller, Florin Raducioiu, Samassi Abou, Javier Margas, Davor Suker, Ragnvald Soma, Christian Dailly, Olivier Bernard. Going to University in the South-West I have been “lucky” enough to come across a Pompey fan, my mate Chris, who’s agreed to answer a few questions! He’s not quite Adrian Charles though I’m afraid! Having just done a preview on the man, what are your feelings about current boss Harry Redknapp? I’ve always liked Harry, he dragged us up by the bootlaces from Division One and brought on board some quality players like Stone, Sheringham and Merson. He’s started to get us sorted this season too! So you think you can avoid relegation then? Yer, definitely, we bought more good players in January, particularly Mendes who’s become a real crowd favourite already and West Brom and Birmingham are playing like the Midlands weather, rubbish! Who can we expect to be your dangermen on Saturday then? Well Lua-Lua’s the obvious one as, when he’s on form, he’s one of the best attacking players in the prem! D’Alessandro has started to show some of what he’s all about too. Any of our players concern you? Bellamy’s been on fire recently, but the likes of Savage, Dickov, Neil and Todd are always going to go in hard, so I’m most worried about us still having 11 fit players by the end! Come on then, prediction before I let you go back to the student bar! Can’t see your boys beating us the way we’re playing, 2-0 Pompey. Thank you and good night! For what it’s worth I’m not exactly brimming with confidence about this one after two lacklusture performances against Sunderland and Wigan – despite the fact they’ve yielded 4 points – so I’m gonna go for a prediction of 1-1. Bellamy for us, one of ‘Arry’s stooges for them.

ignore me!

Don Goodman and Thingy Rosenior rarely have a clue what they're going on about, Le Saux, Bright, Pleat and Peacock are all rubbish too.

That'd still do a better job than Birmingham's backline!

Villa creating a number of great chances, from the sounds of it our defence has been shocking today.

If that wasn't an advert for Premiership football, I don't know what is. An absolutely superb display by Rovers, and a ruthless one by Spurs - probably the reason they'll make the Champions League ahead of us. Fair enough the refereeing was very dodgy, but as an attacking display I thought it was terrific to watch. Doesn't make this dejected feeling go away though

Thanks for clearing that up, been bugging me that whole time!!