Let's hope we win the thing, waggy might stop moaning about Souness for a bit then. England to win. (Touch wood, cross fingers).

Was our winning the rugby WC pre-ordained then? Why didn't someone tell, I would've stuck a bet on! D'oh! When England win, people get carried away. I'm not sure if some of the comments on here are an attempt to temper that, or whether some people are just peeved when England do well.

Gabriella's OK, a solid right-back, though not exactly Josimar. Philomena though - ouch! Are you "Romania" sure Tris? I can handle him playing for England, but not at left-back! The Man Utd nickname for them "busy coots" (or something) is quite apt.

??? Oi, RIML, what the flip are you on about?! Have you been going down the pub or a nursing home?!

Won't even be watching it at this rate. Will probably still be stuck at poxy work trying to get reports to poxy run.

well, his full name is Francisco Javier De Pedro, but nobody calls him Francisco, just Javier De Pedro or Javi de Pedro (Javi to Javier is the same that Jack to John). BTW: Real Sociedad = Royal Society (of San Sebastian, the full name) Javi de Ped-i-ro! Javi de Ped-i-ro! Javi De Pedro, Javi de Pedro!

It's either from Cosi fan Tutte or Madam Butterfly, anyway, the chant had already been appropriated for Di Canio. "Franciso de Pedro! Franciso de Pedro!" then higher: "Franciso de Pedro! Franciso de Pedro!" or something

We love Francisco We love Francisco Lalalala, lalalala! That is his first name, after all!

Gordon Bennett, give the poor bugger a chance! So many armchair experts ... !

Thanks for your input LiquidSaint. PS: T4E, perhaps he's addicted to Um Bongo? Big problem re: dental bills!

"Big problem"? Something illicit rather than illegal I'd guess. Maybe he has a large library of bongo books, can't see how that would affect his play.

But how can we afford his wages if we have no money? Shouldn't we be sacking people instead?

To be fair Andy, Williams did say that he went to Tromso with a bid, but it had been turned down, and they weren't sure whether they would submit another bid. I'm not sure where the 1.5 mill came from, whether it was from the horse's mouth or whether it was Norwegian papers. But in any case, JW admitted we made a bid, so what did we bid with? Black pudding?

Who? Who again?!

OK, fair enough Revidge, I more or less agree with that! As Bobodopopolous Flemingus says, smoke and mirrors, what the eyes hear and the mind reads the ears believe. Or something. I can only think of three reasons why this has happened: a) They're preparing the ground for a disappointing summer of transfer arrivals, and are accordingly operating off of a reduced revenue "model"; They're trying to give the appearance of being utterly potless in the hope that it strengthens their hand in transfer negotiations whilst not hitting ticket sales too hard or; c) They're just plain nuts.

He should've stuck it straight down the middle, 200mph. That's my uneducated view.

So should they have come clean after this "huge surge"

I suppose it could've been worse, it could've come out after people had bought their season tickets. No doubt Mr Revidge would've got on his soapbox then as well!

Why would we make a 1.5million pound bid if we didn't have any money to buy Pedersen? What would have happened if the bid had been accepted? "Ooops, sorry, we've just had a tot up and we're 1.49 million short. Sorry."

Depends whether it's genuine or whether it's a smokescreen to get eg Matteo to lower his demands, and Tromso to accept a lower fee. Of course, I haven't seen the article yet, so will wait until it's online.

And Man Utd of course! Nothing to do with Brian Kidd at all, whose coaching abilities are well-respected.

"Floating Baby Moses Syndrome"

Throw ze chicken up into ze air, zhoot ze chicken wif shotgun. Stew chicken wit ze herring for 72 hours. Meaningwhile, pop into sauna and thrash yourself with twigs. Throw chicken out of doors and eat ze herring. I think that's what it says.

Probably don't need Z, you're right. These eastern Europeans are not all they're cracked up to be. Looking at the "upside"we now have a very impressive range of potential scapegoats. I've looked at myself very hard in the mirror, liked what I've seen, thought hard about holiday destinations, and what I should do about that hair growing out of my ear. And I firmly believe Dickov is to blame. For what I don't know.But there's something going on which I don't like. Perhaps it's other people having more sex than me. Maybe not. But perhaps it is. Whatever it is, once we found out what it is, I firmly believe that once we've found out who's to blame for whatever it is, that man to blame will be Dickov.