I too view the FA cup with suspicion. It started a few years ago when I was regailed with tales of officials putting balls in the microwave before the draw to ensure top notch ties. Since the time media types starting writing that the FA cup "has lost some of its lustre" these dodgy draws have become commonplace. Everyone on here was not surprised last year when we got Arsenal in the semi. I was not surprised to see us playing Burnley also after they won a few. I know that during the latter stages the good teams will still be there and as such the probability of them playing each other will increase but Man U Burton smells. If I had longer I would recant more dodgy draws. Chelsea playing Man U every round guarantees the FA money and exposure; a 5th round tie of Colchester v. Hull does not, but they have to be played so they make sure every round has a super tie to keep interest.

I have also been waiting for a while for G14 to get some stick. It is in international interest to shut these clubs up. Yes, they are the most wealthy, but thay have gotten that way by beating the rest over the years. UEFA is the governing body and they are finally doing something that was needed a long time ago. Let the big clubs make their money in our league, if they want to make more let them go and be greedy, but ban them from anything worthwhile.

Don't forget the Super Sunday drinking because of the Bank Holiday. Nice weather will mean that the pubs will be full of people drinking it up watching the game

Ste, I'm in the US and they always show the 5:15pm game live. The Sky Super Sunday game is per per view so I may lose out.

A bit of a ba!!s up if you ask me. Reduced prices for Rovers fans would give them a lift, but most, if not all will have already been bought. From my perspective I just hope that it is on TV still as I had my saturday lunchtime organized around it. We'll get short shrift in the media too no doubt.

Will, who is the chick in your signature?

Some bright spark should make a video showing plenty of incidents of diving/play-acting and incidents of genuine fouls/injuries and then report the findings to the FA and referees giving them a concise report on what to look for with fouls/cheating. Experienced ref's should be able to to this already but it may be a nice thing to do. The papers would like it. For example: in my experiences playing and watching someone who is fouled does not have ther knees buckle, kick their legs back, and go up in the air before hitting the ground. They tend to fall or try to play on as they are concentrating on the ball not the acting. Also when a player is genuinely injured they do not roll around like they are putting out a fire on their back. Not much movement is key here. Really injured players stay still as movement may cause further injury. I hate all the cheating that goes on but it is just a part of today's game; the only thing that matters is winning. I played for a team once and the boss was very anti-diving. We won a cup semi final 2-1 thanks to a blatent penalty. The boss was ecstatic, then he watched a video of the game. The camera angle caught our winger's swan dive perfectly; the defender was 3 yards away, but the ref couldn't see. Was the boss p!ssed off? Not a chance, cup final here we come. Quashie's sending off was funny. He deserved to go as there was intent in the kick. Frustration maybe but he still planted Boateng in the back. Boateng's Oscar performance reaction should have got a booking also.

I've just had a chance to read this thread; quite amusing I might add. Aggy and Theno must still be using old money and even own one of those new fangled wireless machines judging from their comments. Some great words of wisdom from those two. Football advances, it appears that some want the game to be the kick fest it was in the 1940's. I'm not condoning diving, shirt pulling, cheating, or all the other things that get my goat about football, but come on fellas move on.

When I broke my leg they took the boot off right there. The sock was cut off from what I remember, I was in shock. The worst bit was having x-rays with my lower leg at a cock eyed angle.

To translate US sports parlance: Depth chart = pecking order Mikel and Messi were streets ahead of Adu at the u-20's but both are older, Messi plays for Barca and Mikel is built like a brick wall.

My honest opinion of him is that he has all the talent in the world but right now isn't using it right. As has been said he has been sent home from the US camp, but he's no chance of going as he is streets behind Donovan and McBride, plus the crop of decent MLS strikers. It wouldn't make sense to take him to Germany as it would be a waste of a slot; they are the USA not Brazil. His league performances have been up and down; one game he is great then he will fade away into nothing and get taken off after an hour. He isn't the biggest so tends to get knocked off the ball easily, but unlike Michael Owen, Adu likes dribbling so he gets caught out alot. The MLS is not that bad; granted it's a bit boring to watch but I think that most sides would hold their own in the Championship, which wasn't the case for the first few years of the league. The U-20 tournament was a good opportunity to see him and he failed to impress there. He is still not 17 so time is on his side, but his main aim right now is to improve the profile of the sport over here. The fact that the USA have some decent players seems lost on the money men as they are focusing on him and him alone.

The usual suspects are being touted, and have been so since Sven was put in charge. There is nothing new with Curbishley, McClaren, Allardyce. I have no idea who we should get but it isn't any one of these. Top level football management is quickly turning into a two man approach; a coach who does training and a motivator who is the top man. Rovers had it with Dalglish and Harford, Sven doesn't do much coaching, so why not get a spot on coach in and a master motivator with a bit of respect.

Ste, does that still mean though that they can get into trouble? What if the rumour is true? What would happen then. Example: If someone on this site reported that politician X had a fling with politician Y. would the site be in trouble, even if it came out shortly thereafter that it was true?

How can the BBC boards post allsorts of rumours and this site cannot do a thing? The BBC topic board is quite blatent; have a read.

I can't get home 3. I'll vote for that one if it has genuine halves, not the "extra" opposites 1 and 2 have on the sides, they will look like Sheffield Wednesday. I do like the red bit on 2 though. Away has to be 1. Red is a home kit; not ours either.

I'm with Rainmaker on this one. What are you on about? Do you have inside knowledge of what Hughes tells him? Pedersen may not be a direct winger but his deadball delivery is great, and most importantly he scores loads of goals; a very precious commodity in a midfielder. What do you want, Keith Gillespie. He can run, get to the byline etc. but he's crap.

I too agree that he's had it. It is a shame, fans want him to return to what he was, but I seriously dobut that it will happen. It is now over 3 years, his prime is passing him by. He will be back at Carlisle soon.

Andy, I'm assuming that it includes everything, as Beckham's ridiculous figure cannot be purely football related, and it would also explain Bergkamp's cheese business. Is that why he doesn't travel well?

This year's football rich list has been published: Find the richest people here. What do you think? I'm not surprised at the top two in either group; Beckham and Red Rom, but Bergkamp in second confuses me. I'll expect Vinjay will have something to say about the Walker's being in the top 10.

In theory we should win all of these, but football does not work that way. Everton (h) Last season a crap Rovers did the double over a Champs League Toffees, and before that they beat us. I reckon this season is their turn. Loss. West Ham (h) Easy win in revenge for them tubbing us on opening day. Win. Fulham (a) We normally do well at Fulham. They are the streakiest team around though. Win. Middlesbrough (a) Why do we always play them around Christmas, even dating back to our old Division 2 days? I view this fixture as I did back then when we used to get turned over at Ayresome Park. Loss. Sunderland (h) If we don't win this one it's time to give up. Under Souness we would lose, but not now. Win. Wigan (a) The kind fixture list has again given Rovers fans a chance to go to a close Christmas away game. THe joy will show on the pitch. Win. Pompey (h) We should beat this lot easily. Draw. I'm not one for predictions but procrastination does wonders for the soul.

The difference betweeen the two teams yesterday was about £50 million (conservative figure?) worth of striking talent. They could call on Henry, Bergkamp, and Pires then bring on van Persil to rub it in. What do we do? Bring on Dickov. The early goal didn't help our cause as, no doubt, our game plan was affected, but we gave a very good showing of ourselves. I've skimmed through the last page or so and I disagree with some: Savage played very well yesterday, he is a spolier who does his job with aplomb. He winds people up all the time but is very effective in stopping opposition attacks. The Reyes incident was a bit stupid, but imagine the reaction if it was the other way around, Reyes would have gone down like he'd been shot and the press would have called for a lynch mob. Our corners were pathetic.

Petrol in the US is currently around 50p a litre, and has been since late August. The powers that be have been blaming both recent hurricanes saying that they disrupted supply. But this has been happenning for a while and nothing has been done. Brits will no doubt tut that it is still half of what it is there but when prices have doubled in less than a year it puts pressure on everything. The funny thing is that now US politicians are mounting a campaign to have the average US householder to "save energy" by buying long lasting lightbulbs. It's a bit rich really when the same government officials accept boat loads of cash from oil and motor companies and only recently decided to increase the average mpg of cars built in the US but by a figure lower than what most wanted. The US is no angel but China and India are the ones to watch as they don't really care at all.

I always want England to win. Sven is a bit mystifying but you have to stick it through. We could go on all day about what he should do but the bare facts, unfortunately, for us are that we are 2 or 3 players short of winning the World Cup. Our left back is out so Phil Neville may get another chance to cock something up. We have no left winger at all, and haven't had since Barnes and Waddle. Our strikeforce has two exceptional players, Owen and Rooney, but they do not play well together so Sven brings in the only "traditional" English centre forward we have; Peter Crouch. The same goes for central midfield. We have 3 very good players in Beckham, Lampard, and Gerrard. Beckham is getting on a bit and will probably play wide but the other two clowns are too similar and they are not clever enough to think; "oh, well he can do that so maybe I should change my game a little and have a little discipline". World class should mean being able to adapt for the cause. If you are a Lampard or Gerrard fan what do you do? Play one only, or tell one of them to hold regardless of how it might affect them. Who else do we have in the middle who can hold? Jenas? Smith? Greece did well because they played to a system and believed in each other. England can never be like that because of all the egos involved and the horrible national press. Euro 2004; Gerrard couldn't concentrate because agents were tapping him up. Arsenal and Man U players have learned to hate each other. The predictable North-South divide also plays a part. Must go my computer is acting up.

I went to watch him a couple of times and he was far and away the best player on the park. My mate, a season ticket holder back then (3rd division - league 2 now), said that he never misplaced a pass in all his time there. He also said that Beckham was in the crowd when they got promoted later on that year. How things change, eh? As far as Bentley goes, I think it is pretty obvious that he has no future at Arsenal. It is his second season on loan. The poor bloke was compared to Giggs a few years ago and hasn't lived up to it, but he will be a Premiership player, no Giggs though. He will be a good squad player for us as he can fill in a few positions which is sometimes bad for footballers. Managers like players who can play in more than one spot but it puts the player at a disadvantage as he can't forge his own role and has to juggle a few.

Foorball will have to deal with this very very soon, but will the clubs care? If Sky manage to sell the English game elsewhere they will keep pumping money into clubs who in turn will become more dependent on that money rather than concentrating on gates. This dependence is evident with BFRC and their scant gates. The club will be happy to finish 17th every season to guarantee that money. It will be great for me as I will get to see us play on a regular basis. When we went down in 1999 I had two lean years watching nothing. I do wonder too though; why go? You can see extended hightlights on Sky at night with loads of good angles, unlike at the game where you see it once. I love going to live games but understand that there is no need to go any more as you will not miss out. I think most people are in agreement that prices for games across the board are too high and clubs would rather cater to Roy Keane's prawn sandwidch brigade than the traditional fan. Fan power should ultimately decide the outcome. Football is an entertainment business and if its true customers are fans walking through the gates they need to vote with their feet and keep away. Many may feel that they are doing an injustice to their club by not going but this chain reaction, if done properly, will force clubs and greedy agents to reassess what they pay their players. Right now, Chelsea will not suffer because they do not need gate money for funding, but every other club does. Maybe this protest will make players realise that £60,000+ per week is a tad excessive.