Mikel was the main culprit of that yesterday, I saw Halsey having to elbow Mikel out of the way once to get past him after blowing his whistle. I can't remember if it was for a card or just to get to the spot of a foul, but I was irate, and I didn't much care who won the match. (is that better, sorry about my poor typing, I tend to type too fast when sneaking on at work)

dear god, a Divine, never buy a divine (unless its SP or keeper), the wages are insane. I've got 5 injures at the moment and got knocked out of the cup, so don't look at me.

of course we'd be happy... since that's 65 goals, not counting any from the midfield or defence (and we know that tugay, reid, gally, MGP, Bentley, and Samba are all good for 1-2 a season), and only ManU scored more than 65 in the prem last season.... No way they all get enough pitch time to score that many.... goals like that are great, but imho, that's be promising them more pitch time then they'd get (except benni, perhaps), which would cause more discontent when lack of playing time comes calling.

I'm in a rut at the moment, I have had 5 injuries since the start of the season, all but one were +2 or better (including two strikers now on +3s). When healthy team looksl ike this, a middle of the road USA Div 4 side, but looking to improve as I have a bit of spending cash if needed. Could win my series actually..... GK - World Class WB- Brilliant def - Excellent wing CD - World Class - inad wing (gets trained in wing) WB - Outstanding Def - formidable wing W - World Class wing - outstanding PM - solid Passing IM - Titanic IM - Titanic IM - Supernatural w. solid passing W - Formidable with World Class PM S - Magnificant with SN SP and inad passing S - Brilliant with inad passing and wing Need to upgrade strikers soon, and since I'm triainng winger, I'm in good shape, really. Although I'll rotate in a higher Def to train into a WB soon. My #1 winger will likely get trained to E-T wing and then I'll have to figure out what to do.... He's too valuable to sell, but I can't train him past this season....

How is he wearing "egg on his face" if he stays at Rovers. He has sung the club's praises in that interview. If not CL teams bid for him, then he can't move there, and a dream is unfullfilled. How is that an embarrasment to him? As a follow up... If an investor comes in and makes an offer to buy Rovers and has enough money to fund a run at the big four and another prem title, do you: a ) sell b ) say no thanks, Rovers are fine as is, we prefer being a team whose 'upper limit' financially is the UEFA Cup

I'm sorry but I have to laugh at the lot that are on here slagging him off for "going public". It so laughable that you think that every new report is a new interview where he says he wants to leave. Seriously. He gave one interview and they cherry picked the quotes to run their story. Now every other rag cherry picks the cherry picked quotes to run their story looking for some other over the top way to present it. Thus Benni has to fight off questions like crazy, and other will go to Chelsea (the obvious link) and find someone with the slightest link to the club and get them to say something in order to make a story. Benni is under contract, and supposedly there is no clause, therefore he's not leaving for 6 million, unless Hughes thinks its good business for the club (which he'd be daft to think, and he's clearly not daft.) When Benni is still here at the end of next season, and has netted another 20 or so goals, will all you slagging him off for his lack of love for Rovers still be hating him? Absolutely laughable.

That was close to what I was thinking... that McClaren is really trying to see how these younger players will interact with the more experienced players instead of seeing them in a vacuum. IE - making sure they play great in a great team with great players, not just being a great player unable to work with the others.

made it to round 6 of the US Open Cup, but I'm sure to bow out as I'm facing a team who had the 7th best hatstats int he country last round. I've got a trick up my sleeve that will limit the damage and perhaps give me a chance to win, but I'm not all that excited about my chances. However it is my first home game in like 5 seasons. Oh, I'm also surprisingly ahead in my division 4 series, and have a shot at promotion. Its going to be a hard choice, since I barely deserve to be in division 4, let alone division 3. But I'm not one to shy away from a challenge. I'll promote, get hammered, drop to divsion 4, and potentially get hammered again and drop back to 5, oh well.

I guess that's a no for me then... the wife hates my current level of computer use, anything like this is bound to make things worse!

Hey, I kept seeing this forum, so I figured I'd finally ask about the game. I've seen this game, but never played. The who on-line subscription stuff always did slightly turn me off since I don't have more than 1 hour on-line time in total each night, so not really enough to get into a game like WoW on line, I think. Is there an off-line version of it? is it worth it to get if I'm only gonna play ~3-4 hours a week? Any advice is appreciated!

My top tips for hattrick: #1 - have fun, if any of the following rules prevent you from having fun, ignore it (but if fun=winning, follow these rules) #2 - midfield is god, king and country. win midfield and the game is basically yours to lose. #3 - train whatever main skill you want, but maximize your training for at least your first 5 seasons #4 - This is a money management sim just as much as it is a sports sim, so plan your finances and upgades in advance #5 - if in doubt, go to the newbie forum and ask, and only take advice from people who don't sound like they are 15 or younger when they post.

Also hearing-reading people drumming up support for Celtic's Lee Naylor. That'd be something....

I thought I'd have a bit of fun, and dredge up this beaut of a thread since the Bolton win did put us on the magical 40 mark!

Okay, I have to raise this point about the captain. Does it really matter? Seriously, they are 11 professional footballers on the pitch, 5 more ont he bench, a there's a staff of coaches on the sides and hopefully 20,000 more more bums in the seats. If you need a named captain branded with an armband to motivate you, especially with all the influential players this team currently has injured, why are you a professional athelete? When and if the rules was enforced that the captain was the only one allowed to talk to the ref, having a vocal captain that all the players would talk to and who understood the game was one thing. But now that all 11 players can crowd aroudn the ref saying whatever the heck they want without penalty, unless they swear or ask him who he placed a tenner on, is there really a value in having a captain. I say coin flip pre-match

According to Bellamy, Neill's new deal won't have a release clause

I started with a 5-2 win to vault into the top 300 teams in the USA, against the other auto-promoter.

Same for me Oklahoma... but I got a div 4 with 2 bots, so I'm guaranteed at least a qually to stay up!

9 pts up with 2 to play, so I've won. Also 5 points ahead of the autopromote line, so I'm likely heading up as well. I posted exactly 200 hatstats in my last matches. the home one was artificially low since I had my Extra IM redcarded in the ~20th minute! I'd give myself aabout a 40% chance of NOT autodemoting from division 4 unless I get a pathetically easy division with a bot or seomthing. a nice week 1 youth pull and the income it'll generate would go a long way in improving my chances to stay up! oh and in the quarterfinals of the Rovers cup, I got a +7 injury to my 33 yo IM who will be made my coach in the offseason.

and silly me thought I was going to see some news about the racism charge... I guess I shouldn't read this thread if I want to know something about the topic....

First time I think I can ever remember agreeing with you LeChuck!

and so much for a Chelsea reserve side.... Henrique Hilario Khalid Boulahrouz Ashley Cole John Terry Michael Ballack Joe Cole Michael Essien Njitap Geremi Claude Makelele Salomon Kalou Arjen Robben Bench: Yves Makaba-Makalamby Alberto Ricardo Carvalho Frank Lampard Shaun Wright-Phillips Didier Drogba 11

We need to write a book, how to go from discussions of football to one-sided political commentary in 4 posts or less. If I anted to hear discussions of how to fix the morrally corrupt youth, I'd read ICBINF (or whatever its called), here I thought we'd be discussion the racism claim Benni made that will be "dealt with" by UEFA in the next day or so.

Hard to argue with what Terry says in that one, roversmum. Hard to not see Chelsea coming alive at some point and really dominating some team. I don't think it will be Rovers today, and I didn't see any place where he says it would be us.

Left Winger, you aren't really so daft as to not know the answer to that question are you?

yeah, roberts on for Gamst is definitely signalling that we intend to press for all 3 points