I'm going for a 2-0 loss and Spurs to dominate. I think our only chance will is packing the midfield and having Tugay as a creative outlet in the centr of the park.

Just watched the 50+ minutes of prem plus highlights and I have to say that I am very impressed with our performance, considering we were mssing Bellamy and Mokoena. Although our game was low in quality, I thought it was high in hard work, stability and sensible play, and Hughes certainly got it right playing the 4-5-1. In defence, Todd and Nelsen were as strong as ever, although Todd really should have got goal side for McBrides goal. What worked really well about the 4-5-1 was that the attacks lead from the back, in Neill, who had an oustanding game, and Nelsen, who fed Pedersen up the left wing on numerous occasions. This was only achived by having the extra man in midfield and we certainly looked more attack minded than playing 4-4-2 at West Ham. In midfield, Savage had a far better game than last week with no stupid fouls or dodgy tackles, but some hard graft and winning loose balls in the centre. Reid was pretty anonymous, but atleast his passing wasn't awful, as it was last week. Tugay added that extra bit of spark, and although coming to the end of his career, played a couple of stunning balls and added that extra bit of creativity. I thought Pedersen had an excellent first third to the game, with some excellent movement, crosses, corners, one-twos and good vision. However, as is so common with Pedersen, he drifted out of the game and wasn't to be seen again until midway through the second half. Emerton, however, really is a liability on the right and gave away so many attacks by running into defenders and passing poorly. Neill was excellent today and desperately needed a decent midfielder in front of him to feed. Instead, he had to go it alone on many occasions and luckily succeded today. Although, the two linked brilliantly towards the end of the match when Neill flicked the ball into Emertons path, who brought a good save from Warner. Neill was then desperately unlucky when he hit the bar, after again going past a number of players. Up front, Kuqi did the job he was required to do, but nothing more. he is so right footed it's untrue and he messed up a few opportunities today looking to bring the ball from left foot to right foot. He has the build and suits this formation but doesn't possess the quality to score the goals required. I thought both goals today were absolutely superb and I am gutted I couldn't go to this match. Pedersen's was not just about the finish, but the awesome build up. Overall, I would rate the players as follows... Freidel - 7 Neill - 9 Todd - 7 Nelsen - 8 Matteo - 7 Emerton - 5 Tugay - 7 Reid - 6 Savage - 7 Pedersen - 8 Kuqi - 6

Well I thought Reid was absolutely abysmal against West Ham and that we had absolutely no creativity what so ever. With Tugay in the team we have that creativity and the ability of Mokoena to break up the opponents attacks. Pedersen and Emerton regularly swap flanks during games and I reckon he could play well there.

We are going to need a massive improvement to get anything out of this game, especially in midfield. If we persist with Savage and Reid in the centre and Bouba Diop is fit, then I can see us being easily over run. If Mokoena is fit, then he has to play to break up Fulham attacks and prevent the counter attack - something Hughes HAS to sort out. If Nelsen is fit then that will be a huge boost - Mokoena was awful against West Ham. I would go for this formation... Freidel Neill / Todd / Nelsen / Matteo Pedersen / Mokoena / Tugay / Gresko Kuqi / Gallagher In Pedersen and Gresko we don't have the fastest wingers, but both can provide pin point crosses, which will be essential for Kuqi to play well. With Tugay in the midfield, we should have the creativity to feed the wings and get plenty of crosses inthe box for Kuqi.

I'm very surprised to hear people say that we were the better team in the first half and shocked to hear people say that it was all Rovers. For fifteen minutes or so we were passing quickly and tackling well, and the game was end to end and quite entertaining. However, from then on West Ham were by far the better team and should have gone into the break at atleast 1-1, maybe even 2 or 3-1 up. Their midfield was just too quick and ours was static and hopeless - how many times did one of Reid and Savage just giuve the ball away with useless passing and control? Well, that's how I saw it atleast.

Try sitting in the West Ham centenary lower, with many of the loudest hammers fans! It's not too difficult hiding you glea when your team scores, but pretending to be jubilent when the opposition scores three times is just too much.

A bit late, but my sentiments are that none of the players looked up for this match. What the hell was this "a good start is vital" rubbish that the players were spouting in the media, because I certainly didn't see any will to win yesterday. Mokoena was appauling in defence, but what lost us the game was Savage and Reid in midfield. West Ham were excellent on the break and have extremely fast midfielders and counter attacked us at every opportunity. Savage and Reid failed to break up many attacks at all, and worse, lost the ball WAY too many times for a premiership match. The only time we looked strong was for a five minute period in the second half when Gresko was brought on and stabilised the team and for the first fifteen minutes. When we were getting the ball to Pedersen and winning free kicks / corners, we looked dangerous. After Pedersen drifted out of the game, we had no creative outlets and Bellamy was starved of service. The ball was played in at chest or head height to him so many times and he just doesn't have the strength to trouble defenders. With Kuqi having an average match and Dickov being a very similar player to Bellamy, there was no-body for Bellamy to feed off and we didn't see any diagonal runs or anything really. I really hope Hughes either pairs Jansen with Bellamy for our next match, because i know Jansen will really be willing to fight for his place and has the ability to win headers and feed Bellamy, or plays 4-5-1 with Mokoena, Reid and Tugay in midfield, with Jansen on his own up front. Oh, and one last thing, when is Savage going to stop these ridiculous sliding tackles that succeed in nothing but gaining a yellow card and a free kick against us.

What it says in the title really... I would really like some season reviews or important games in the clubs recent history on video or DVD and would also like to buy any read/unwanted books detailing Rovers recent history. If anybody has anything they want to get rid of, then please PM me and we'll discuss a price. Many thanks.

I'm very pleased with my team. Usually I do poorly at these fantasy football games, but I think I will do well this time. GK - Fridel SUB1 - Carroll DEF - Carragher DEF - Kroldrup DEF - Nelsen DEF - De Zeeuw SUB2 - Gabbidon MID - Gerrard MID - Downing MID - Pennant MID - Etherington SUB3 - Campo FWD - Henry © FWD - Cisse SUB4 - Earnshaw

People are absolutely insane if they seriously think Newcastle will get relegated. Even with Souness in charge, they have the players to easily make the top 6 and fat Fred will no doubt let the manager spend in the transfer window if they are struggling.

1 Chelsea 2 Arsenal 3 Liverpool 4 Manchester United 5 Newcastle United 6 Middlesbrough 7 Everton 8 Tottenham Hotspur 9 Manchester City 10 Bolton Wanderers 11 Blackburn Rovers 12 Aston Villa 13 Birmingham City 14 Portsmouth 15 Fulham 16 Charlton 17 West Ham 18 West Bromwich 19 Sunderland 20 Wigan

Let's reverse this, imagine if an englishman was found next to a vulnerable building in Iraq, wearing western attire, soon after several bombs had gone been blown up in the same city. I wonder if they would be searching the thousands or muslims in traditional attire, or the westerner in shorts and sunglasses. Bit of a bad example, but you get the idea. You cannot afford to be cautious in situations like these.

You don't have to spell it out for me theno, I agree fully. He's explained why, lets leave it at this.

Not at all. What I was trying to display is that Scotty is all too ready to childishly accuse AESF of racism just because his views are realistic and different to a lot of members on the board and is then hypocritcal enough to accuse Thenodrog of hypocrisy over insulting people on this board when he is one of the most insulting himself. Silly boy, indeed...

It seems your hypocrisy knows no bounds, seeing as I find your posts far, far more rude, personal, and ill-judged than most on the board, including theno. ...racist!

If we could bring in either Cole or McCarhty, or even both, then I would be ecstatic. This is a very good signing, but I still do not believe we have the goalscorer we are craving for.

Well I for one respect AESF's views, and agree with much of what he says. If there is anything I hate more than racism, it's people pulling the racist card, or brandishing people a racist at every possible moment.

Just got through to my dad after 20 minutes of trying. Usually he works very close to Aldgate station and I think he sometimes uses the line on which Aldgate is on. Thankfully he's not working today... Are we looking at the underground being down for a long while?

Not if 150,000 were on offer at Chelsea... I'm really disapointed, but hopefully Benitez can spen wisely and get some good young players in.

There's nothing I hate more than players running the ball into the corner to run the clock down - surely that qualifies as time wasting? What's the difference between that and a keeper holding onto the ball for more than 6 seconds, or 60 seconds for that matter.

According to Bet365 we are 7th favourite for relegation. http://www.bet365.com/home/default.asp West Ham are favourites for the drop and all three promoted clubs are expected to go back down. Personally I wouldn't put money on any of the newly promoted clubs being relegated and think the likes of Fulham, Charlton, West Brom, Birmingham and ourselves, if we do not spend our suspected 6-8million wisely, will be amongst those fighting for survival. It would appear that West Ham infact have a 20million wage and transfer budget for next season allowing them to double their wage bill and still retain 8million for transfers. Can anybody confirm for me that they do have a 6million wage budget currently? link

Obviously I got confused with the penalties, but even still it's hardly a great return. In the many of the games Stead started he appeared desperately unlucky and, in my opinion, played far better than Dickov had for most of the season. I'm clutching at straws somewhat but even if he has scored more goals, it does not mean he has played the better out of the two, although it is the goals which count. For arguements sake, if Stead had started the same amount of games and gained some amount of confidence, rather than being chopped anc changed, he could have equalled Dickov's account. In any case, I think we can both agree that he is not good enough to lead the line next season.

Yea, because Stead is so much better in that respect! If we're comparing the two, Dickov made 27 starts and scored 9 goals - thats 1 in every 3 games. Stead made 19 starts and scored 2 - thats 1 in every 9.5 games. Whatever you think about Dickov moaning and whatnot, the fact is he's scored some very vital goals and without them we'd be off to Burnley for two more games this season. Neither record is good enough but Dickov's is better. As for selling Stead, I'm unsure. Given another season he may come good and return to the form of 03/04, but Hughes might not be willing to take that chance if he can use Stead to get a better player. 319150[/snapback] Valid points Clare, but take away what, three/four penalties and that's 5/6 goals in 27, a far worse return. Then theres the fact that Dickov is extremely difficult to play along side and next season I really hope we are neither playing 4-5-1 on a regular basis and that Dickov is not starting. Admittedly I watched far fewer games than you last season but I'd probably say if Stead had any kind of confidence, he'd be a much better one on one finisher. On so many occasions Dickov has had the opportunity to wrap games up or to save them but he's missed, badly. Not disagreeing with you entirely though, Dickov has scored some good and vital goals this season. But whos to say Stead wouldn't have in his position?

Lets see, Dickov is the teams penalty taker, he has played far, FAR more games, with Stead usually coming off the bench, Dickov is one of the poorest one on one finishers I have seen, he is a headless chicken who upsets any balance the team may have, he is impossible to play alongside or use as a target man... Dickov is not a good player; he moan, winges, falls over, cannot score one on ones and is getting on in age and therefore must be the most logical player to release. I fear for our future if we persist with him up front next season, I really do. I appreciate Hughes' ruthlessness and aility to make the big decision, however, in this instance, I think he has made the wrong one.

Well seeing as it was you that started or "designed" this thread, you must be feeling pretty stupid...