I would reaally like to see Gally and McEvely play some part today.

Bellamy,Reid and MGP all need some rest after a long season ...

The 4th/5th/6th thread was closed so am posting this news here.

Probably some sick frogs dropped by Wenger and Co. in their stews...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/4982144.stm

Spurs game on after illness scare

Spurs have a number of players suffering from food poisoning

Tottenham's crucial game at West Ham will go ahead, despite seven of their players going down with food poisoning.

Martin Jol's side will clinch the fourth Champions League place if they win at Upton Park, although Arsenal may still pip them in the race.

Premier League officials went to the Spurs team hotel to assess the situation before confirming the game would definitely go ahead.

Boss Jol now looks certain to have to field an under-strength team.

Spurs would seal fourth place with a win - but they will still face an anxious wait to see if they can compete in the Champions League next season.

Even if they finish fourth, Spurs will be replaced by in the competition by Arsenal if the Gunners beat Barcelona in the Champions League final on 17 May.

I'll do Portugal-Iran

So we beat Man Utd, Arsenal adn now Chelsea at Ewood Park

How unfortunate that last night wa steh first game i couldnt watch since November, i feel liek crying

Well done to the lads anyways.

Without wanting to be being wise after the event it wasn't that unpredictable at all -merely a continuation of the form that got us out of trouble in the second half of last season.

That's taking nothing at all away from Hughes and his coaching staff who must obviously be a top notch combination. 

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That form last season was based on 4-5-1 with us grinding out results. This season we have progressed to 4-4-2, have played flowing and attractive football, and yet managed to get results.

I hate Spurs too. Stems mainly from the 2001 Final, and the fact that even though its the first time in 15 years they are playing well, some of their fans are already touting Spurs as title challengers. When Spurs come 4th, they are "realising their potential", when we come 6th, we are over achievers.

And oh, if i ever hear that phrase "Spurs have shown success can be achieved with young English players" again, I will flip out!

we did the least fouls out of all prem teams

yet got the joint amount of most bookings

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Thats what we call reputation. Mourinho and Arsene's rants last season made a permanent impression of referees' minds.

Surprising how the media uses bookings as the sole measure of "ill discipline"

I felt we switched to 3-5-2 after Nelsen came off and Reid did a good job in both attack and defence. For most of the 2nd half it looked like we were playing against 10 . Dont know whether thats a reflection of our passing and movement off the ball, or of Charlton being plain s***

I doubt if Wenger would be interested. But assuming he did get the job, we would be treated to seeing England playing expansive flowing football, but with a strange tendency for the players to fall over if the wind blew on them.

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I think Rooney, Owen, Terry and Gerrard have all gained points/matches by diving and none of them play under Wenger. Its unfair to focus on Arsenal's admittedly shameful diving when most other teams have players who regularly do similar acts or worse.

Look how far Boro got, and we're better than them.

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Looking at which reminds me that we could very easily have been in the FA Cup final if only we were in good form when we played West Ham. Both WH and Boro are extremely mediocre sides as was shown yesterday where neither could put up more than 2 or 3 proper passes.

However Chelsea have had 2 seasons where practically nothing has gone wrong for them in terms of bad luck or injury. How many consecutive games has Lampard played?

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On the other hand Man Utd and Arsenal have been incredibly unlucky with injuries. I would really like to see Chelsea play a few games without Terry, Lampard, Makalele and Gallas, which is pretty much what Manure and Arsenal had to face this season and last.

As much as i hate Arsenal and Man Utd, i respect them to a certain extent.

On the other hand i have no respect for Chelsea not because of their success, but because of their manager. I liked them under Ranieri and i wont hate them under someone like Jol or Benitez. But Mourinho and his claims that Barcelona are not better than Chelsea or that they deserve to win each and every game make me hate them

Spurs are way out of their skin, they have never been to the dizzying (by their standards) heights of 4th place, and they are willing to cheat and play dirty just to get into Europe.

We are due a spanking away from home, cant see it coming at Charlton, so it has to be here

Brum 2 Rovers 0

Of course, if Neill had scythed through Cisse to get at the ball, it wouldn't have been a penalty as Cisse wasn't interfering....

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That reminds me of Neill's horror challenge on Cisse. What exactly was he thinking?

It was a lot like his challenge that broke Carraghers leg 2 years back, and if Cisse broke his leg again, I shudder to think of the bad press we would have had (which thankfully has almost disappeared this season)

It would have to be Newcastle that come out of the pack wouldnt it.

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They will look upon it as divien retribution for the Hand of Ped.

I woudl gladly lose 6th to West Ham but not to Newcastle

I am amazed at two things this morning.

1. If United had beaten us twice rather than us beating them twice they would be 1point behind Chelsea.

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So pretty much, its Blackburn who succesfully stood between Man Utd and the title.

Rooooooney!!!!!!!!!!

  1-0 Utd

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Never thought I would see this here

Arsenal have an easy run-in though, ad i expect 5th place to be a battle between us and Spurs

I dont think theres any point in being "scared" of getting into Europe.

On another side, The Soccernet's Insider has no doubt that a "big club" like Spurs deserve Europe more than small town Rovers

And in comparison to a couple of the sides who have represented the Premiership in Europe this season - Bolton and Middlesbrough spring to mind - Martin Jol's men are more worthy of the prize as they have a fan base that would appreciate the sight of the continents best coming into their lair.

Proof that Tottenham should be hailed as one of the true giants of English football is provided as the 'Sold Out' signs are hoisted at White Hart Lane for each and every home game

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story...england&cc=4716

Once again, where is this stupid negativity coming from?

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The same source from which doomsayers were predicting the end after we lost at West Brom.

Some of us are expecting the team to win each and every game. Its all "natural" for Notlob to lose at Brum but when we draw against a side who were on a roll, its all gloom and doom.

We werent that god but lets not forget Portsmouth were playing for their lives and would have won against a lot of teams. They did win 3 games before this one, on the trot.

I have no idea why Pogolle or kuqi didnt come on for dickov

Pleased to see that the next 5 games and possibly the last one being aired here in Norway. 5 or 6 Rovers games on TV in a month! Fantastic!

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Same here in the UAE. They are planning to televise almost all our games till end of season. In fact they missed only a couple of games over the last 3 months, Boro and Newcastle.

What about Englands "best" side, the one that ran away with the title last season and is doing the same this season? They lost to Barcelona, were outplayed, couldnt muster a chance away from home, and only scored from a last gasp "pity" penalty? They also lost with their best side at Betis.

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Honestly speaking, I feel a fully fit Man United and Arsenal is as good as a fully fit Chelsea side. This season, Man Utd would have been level with them at the top if not for Blackburn Rovers, who beat them twice! And thats after they played half the season without a recognized central midfielder in the side or their first choice left back.

An in form Man Utd or Arsenal would definitely have put in a better show than an off-form Chelsea

it's becoming increasingly obvious arsenal will finish 4th. to be fair, worse things happen at sea. they are worthy of that 4th champions league spot, let's be honest. on their day they are much better than us, bolton or spurs. i would have loved to have seen us finish in 4th...to see us on the biggest stage and not to mention the extra revenue we'd recieve which may have made the playing field between us and the big city clubs that bit more fair.

what would have irked me is if bolton or spurs got that 4th place, as we're at least the equal of spurs and a better side than bolton, as i'm sure will be proved next season.

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Fully agree.

If Arsenal have a good finish to the season, theres nothing that can make us beat them to the 4th position. Lets not forget that we are the 2nd or 3rd in current form and it will be kind to difficult for us to win 4 more games out of 6. Even more so because I really dont fancy our trips to Brum and Ports mouth.

When Kuqi started his run down the left I could imagine Bellamy thinking in Homer's style, "please dont let him miskick it, please dont let him miskick it, please dont let him miskick it, .....D'OHHHHH'