I reckon the FA will drag it's feet a while to wait and see if the Hammers are going down. Once it's more or less a foregone conclusion they'll then dock them a few points. Should the Hammers somehow claw themselves to a situation where the loss of any points is crucial the FA will just fine them.

Just for anyone wondering the Premier League Darts at King Georges Hall on the 19th of April doesn't clash with a possible Rovers UEFA cup game. QF's 2nd leg is the week before and the semi final is the week after. Phew.

He's been very dodgy in the first three weeks. He could easily have lost to both Scholten and Preistley. Jenkins has started the tournament well. He bottled it a bit first night but did well to beat Scholten and played well against Taylor tonight in defeat.

I'm glad I'm not a Wigan fan because after watching their game against Arsenal just now I was fuming myself so they must be really peeved. Shocking big club favouring by the ref. Firstly they should probably have had a penalty when Flamini tripped Heskey clean through. Although most of the commentators focused on Flaminis arm of Emiles shoulder, it was the contact with his leg that brought him down. It wasnt a nailed on pen but it would have gone against us and I imagine it would have been given at the other end. Then the referee take his time allowing an injured Wigan player back on the pitch. Whilst down to 10 men Wigan concede. To make matters worse the goal is clearly offside. Wigan had been wasting quite a bit of time (as most clubs would do away to Arsenal when leading), especially Kirkland. In a rather uncharacteristic way, Henry then pulled the ball out of the net, presented it to Kirkland as if to say "where has your time wasting got you now" and got involved in a slanging match with him. Bit rich after their antics at Ewood a few weeks back. Arsenal then score a winner whereby Rosicky runs 5 yards offside whilst the right winger is played clear down the wing. The winger cuts it back for Rosicky to slam home. One day some team is going to really try and explot this and deliberatly tell their striker to keep running offside whilst the other players know to play the balls down the wing. Arsenal infront, everyone happy. Injury time board comes up. Despite all the timewasting, all the moaning by Arsenal players and Wenger and all the jotting down of the ref and the forth official, now the Arse are infront - 4 minutes. I'm glad that wasnt Rovers.

Knowing I was going to be off work for a while I bought San Andreas off Amazon a couple of weekends ago. I'd played, finished and loved GTAIII but borrowed Vice City straight after and got bored of it. The break sure has done me good because this game is superb. It's not just the Missions , sub-missions and races but the pure amount of freedom you can have to do whatever you want. For example at the minute I'm nearly clearing all the missions (I think) onSan Fierro (the 2nd Island). However I've spent most of the afternoon knicking various speedy vehicles, taking them up to the top of Mount Chiliad and then plunging them off various sides of the cliffs. So stupid, so childish but such fun. I only went right to the top of the mountain in the first place because I knew it was the kind of game that would reqard you for trying it (the parachute and the mountain bike race) and that the sick game makers would have put a big wooden ramp there for me. Unlike some posters on here (I've just read most pages out of curiosity), I like the fact that some of the missions are different enough to cause you to retry several times (mainly the Zero remote missions). My only slight gripe is that in the bars, its too easy to win at pool. A little bit more time spent on the ball dynamics would have been nice. Top marks. £12 well spent that has passed a very dull week. Anyone know when the next installment is due out on the PS3 or XBox 360 ?

2 quick points. First SWP. Can't get in the Chelsea side for two years. When he does get in the side he doesnt look anything like the player he was at City. Why is he being picked ahead of people in form (or at least not as out of form)? Secondly, and most annoyingly, how bad was Michael Carrick. I've not noticed him too much this season but I imagine he's being carried at Man U at the moment by Scholes, Giggs and the awesome Ronaldo. I know he's not meant to be the most gifted footballer but every pass he played was awful. Either found a spaniard or was wieghted suicidally. As an example, in the second half he played two cross field balls to the right wing that were nowhere near an England man and just dribbled out of play or to their goalie. He was completely inept. If that had been Owen Hargreaves (before we realised he was being played out of poistion and was actually quite good) he would be being lambasted on every forum and radio/TV talkshow going. But as he's a golden boy at Man Utd he'll get rated 5 or 6 out of 10 in the rags tommorow. Shocking performance. Worryingly unlike some players on that pitch I think McClaren might be considering him as a first choicer.

I've always found that for England U21 games players try to do to much on their own. They seem to be trying to prove they are good enough for the elevation to the full sqaud and often teamwork goes out of the window. Skillfull players are not content with beating one man but they have to take on two or three rather than play the simple ball. Strikers tend to shoot from anywhere within 25 yards regardless of a teammates position (Stead used to do this for the U21's). They only start to play as a unit when they need to (i.e crucial qualifiers or when they are behind like last night) To his credit most of the times Bentley tried to drift past a player it worked and quite often he'd receive the ball from his defenders, turn and play it forward. That's why he looked so much better than the likes of Milner and Young. As we now come to expect, that ability to create a couple of yards on the wing and whip a dangerous cross in was again evident but as Gumboots pointed out an England player was never expecting this and they were always on the back foot. One other point, how bad did the Spaniards make Huddlestone look! (And he's been playing well for Spuds)

Bentley is back in the Under 21's and is playing quite well at the moment, better than most other Englanders (we've been pretty poor at the moment and are 1-0 down.) This reminded me of the last few posts in this thread. It seems rather daft now that Peter Taylor actually dropped Bentley for a U21 qualifyer at the start of the season from the entire squad!

Found this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vueRZaoX3q4

I know I'm living in fantasy land here, but do the winners of the UEFA cup still play the winners of the Champions League in that European Super Cup thing in August? Bring on the Barca.

I should have given up the day I started 10 yrs ago. Too late now! Swindon, Blackpool and Partick - treble One More round EW 3.25 Ling

Nah 3 is the worst one I feel. Mr T just doesnt cut the mustard. As films go the original is probably the best, but for cheesy entertainment Rocky IV is best. My favs to watch in order are:- IV , I , RB , II , III ................................................................. V

This from a supporter of a team that made a cult hero out of Julian Dicks !

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

Sav is out for the season Where have all the good men gone And where are all the gods? Where's the street-wise Hercules To fight the rising odds? Sorry

So why didnt we sell in the summer if we wanted the money?

Apart from Sherwood, exactly which one of those players did Rovers want to lose at that time. None. But they all left at short notice leaving us having to unexpectedly find replacements. A player screwing a club post Bosman means that he dallys signig a new contract until it runs out so that his club cant get a transfer fee for him and he can command big wages. Lucas gave us 18 months notice. If we wanted to add to our £38million we could have sold him in the summer for much more than £1.5m. By the way, theres only two Lucas Neils !

I agree with everything Tris said. As I posted many times at the time, what Neill did at the end of the Nancy game was purely aimed at the idoits in the back corner of the BBurn End lower and IMO was bang on. Barry Ferguson, Alan Shearer, Craig Bellamy, Crhis Sutton, Tim Sherwood. If only they'd been as open with the club before they left as Lucas Neill was. People forget that one of the worst examples in recent times of how to leave a club was performed by own Robbie Savage.

In all honesty, I expect West Ham to sign another 3 players at least before the end of Jan and would be extremely suprised if they went down. Would be funny though. I doubt the millionaire Icelanders (???) have come in with dreams of Premiership and European glory, and then to just rely on Lucas Neill.

I know there's another long thread burried away in ICBINF somewhere about this, but having seen Snakes on a Plane last night it's so bad it's brilliant. I have not laughed at any film so much for a long time, and that takes some doing keeping in mind it's not meant to be a comedy. Complete cheesy plot, outragous steroetypical characters, pointless swearing and nudity, gory deaths, one-liners galore and loads of snakes. If you like 'bad' movies and aint seen it get it. Let's be honest, you know from the title whether you'll like it or not.

In light of the Ooijer injury I just want to add a bit of praise for Henchoz. When we signed him I thought it was not a good move. He's probably played more this season than Sparky would have wanted. However he has been suprisingly good in camparison to what I thought he would be. Yes he's slow but he still shows with his reading of the game that he's a quality defender who has a habit of getting blocks in when needed. I wouldnt want him to have a long spell in the side as he does get found out at this level with pace now but, credit where credit is due, he's proved to be a valuable squad player. Fair play to Stephane and Sparky.

Best reception a visting player ever got at Ewood surely has to be Miklosko in 95/96

Hughes told Sky that he 'hadnt really thought' whether OOijers injury would affect the deal, then replied 'probably not'.

The last prem place is Adrian Lewis. How dull!

Not very big, which is why sometihng is strange here. I get the feeling Rovers don't want him anymore. Maybe he did fail a medical. Maybe we have someone else lined up.