I won't go into a big match report, but overall it wasn't a brilliant game, but the moment where the ball got stuck up a Spurs player's shirt was worth the free entrance fee alone. I thought Clarke was our best player. he was rapid and strong, though perhaps not as selfish as he should have been. Garner was quiet really - Spurs seemed to do a good job with him. I thought everybody played pretty well and Frankie didn't have many saves to make, though when he did he did comfortably. I'm guessing Woods was playing left wing (didn't get a team sheet and I've not seen the guy recently) but he looks OK enough, if unspectacular. When the guy was playing schools football he looked absolutely magical on the ball but truth be told he looks no better or worse than most of the 22 on the pitch last night.

Well that's nice.

Fair enough points Philly but you have to beat them sometime. If USA have a legit case to be ahead of Mexico as first seeds then progressing from that group is the ideal way to show it. The Czechs and the Ghanaians are beatable, and Italy are still a bit of an enigma. It's the group of death though certainly, I'll give you that. As for England, they should be very happy with that one. All beatable (although Sweden are invincible against us) which is all you can ask for at this stage. Avoided some of the more traditionally powerful 2nd seeds. And AESF, give it a rest. You're nearly as predictable as Vinjay. I like the world cup format because every region is represented and you get to know a bit more about those unknown entities. I'd personally have taken a team off Africa and given one more to South America but I don't want another European Championships because we get to watch one of those every four years as well.

Mexico Vs Portugal. That'll do me. I knew I was destined to see the Mexicans. Plus, according to The Simpsons, these are the two superpowers of world football.

EXACTLY! So tell me why they should put more millions into Rovers than they actually do. And tell me who, if they pull out or sold Rovers, would put more money into us than they actually do already. You seem to be forgetting that Jack Walker was a Rovers fan and that is why we had so much money and that is why we saw that much success. We now don't have any Rovers fans with that much heart and that much wealth so people aren't living in expectations of trying to win the Premiership again because that simply isn't going to happen!

That really really annoyed me. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen a player dive against us this season and not booked. Yet every single time a player takes hsi shirt off it is an automatic booking. There's just no common sense at all.

Those keyrings were put together by the best in the business!

Radio Lancs packed in for me, looks like it's the Roversworld coverage for me.

:D Seriously, I think we were extremely unlucky to concede what we did at Arsenal and Chelsea. Look at Joe Cole's goal for example. And van Persie won't do that again all season. We always seem to have a goal up our sleeve. That makes us so much more heartneing to watch than last season when we relied on either Dickov or MGP to come up with a moment of magic.

Poor lad. I'm glad that this has been sorted out. As Philip says, it won't be long until the next one. Then the one after that. These people crying rape are doing real rape victims no good at all. There are real rapists and real rape victims out there, and all the attention gets heaped on some poor footballer who a girl thinks can be taken to the cleaners. It's just sad.

I think it's great news. If the LET promote BRISA heavily it gives us a very solid base to work with. The more interest we get, the more likely we are to receive opinions and members from those who haven't been interested so far.

Remember to hold up when taking a free kick from range to hit it flatter and faster, and to hold down when taking one from close range to get it up and over the wall.

Good point on Mills. I've always rated him, basically on the strength that he used to keep Duffer quiet more often than he didn't. Not many fullbacks I can say that about. Gary Neville was another. As has been said by many on here, MGP's all-round game is not that of a top Premiership player. Fortunately for us, he has an extraordinary goalscoring ability and, like Jansen, is better in the air than he looks. This is why he remains a very important player for us. We have to forgive his inconsistancy and drifting out of games because without him we would score far fewer goals.

(I'm doing this from memory, and I've only done this about three times so bare with me.) You should have the file on your maxdrive. Just click in the max-drive folder to check that it's there. You're most likely going to have to delete your current option file off your memory card so that it doesn't get confused. Then load the PS2 max-drive CD and watch all the boring stuff about Virtual Replay or whatever it is. I found that if I pressed START during it then it wouldn't load. You should have the option of playing about with memory cards on the main screen. Bring this up and a list of things on your max-drive should pop up. Uncompress or move or copy (sorry I can't be specific, but at least one of them certainly works) and it should become apparent that the max drive file is now on your memory card. Then simply reset and whack in PES5. If nothing happens then I may have misguided you as to what to do to get the file onto the memory card. Just try all the options. I'm pretty sure it's uncompress or extract or something.

Basically, if the situation warrants a goalkeeper up, you hang on and watch the radar to see if he is doing so. Sometimes he stops at the halfway line. Sometimes he comes all the way up. You just have to wait. I don't think there's actually a way of doing it every time.

I'm really starting to enjoy views like this. We're clearly very underestimated technically by many these days, and there are constant worries about how players will stand up to our midfield. I'd much rather this than the reputation of, say, Norwich, who made people say "well they can play a bit" but provided very little substance. If Citeh want to protect players against us for fear of intimidation of injury then let them. They're the ones making the mistakes - it isn't as if Tugay, MGP and Emo are cloggers in midfield.

Speaking of Goal!, I was a massive fan of that. Had it on my Amiga and played it for hours upon hours. Had another go about a year ago, and it just seemed awful. It's amazing to think how far games have come in 10/15 years. This Sensi looks interesting, but somethimes things need to be left in the past where they are best remembered.

I think the ultimate plan for Hughes would be to have Bentley play off Bellamy, but we don't have the team to do this. If Hughes can get us playing some more of the slick passing stuff that we've seen recently then a link-up man to feed Bellamy would be ideal. As it is, we need a physical presence up front for when we need to lump the ball forwards quickly. I know he doesn't play in his preferred position, but one of the things counting against him in this role is his lack of goals. I'm sure he only scored about 4 for Norwich.

It need to be Hargreaves. The lad is playing regularly for a team who have one of the best set of midfield options in the world. So far his England career has been a joke - brought on by Sven with ten minutes left and needing a goal. Gerrard has to make way because Lampard has been very good at international level and Gerrard has consistantly failed to impress. Hargreaves can sit and allow Lamps to go forward.

Jesus what a tangent to take this debate off onto. Everybody at BRISA has been delighted with the input we've had from Scotty. From his research on the FSF, to speaking at the launch, to being a regular attendee and contributor at the meetings. He has given up a lot of time and effort, as have a lot of other people involved with BRISA, and doesn't deserve critical viewpoints on players and posting style to come back to what is a totally separate entity. I'd be interested to see if anybody at BRISA meetings thinks he is rude, arrogant and closed-minded when having discussions, because that certainly hasn't been the case. So what has that got to do with Brad Friedel? People are perfectly entitled to criticise him and people are perfectly entitled to defend him. How well people present their cases and how childish their replies may be are completely different from committees and representations. The personal nature of this discussion completely undermines the points that people are wishing to make.

I just says it how I sees it.

I'm not saying you are getting them mixed up. I answered your question as to how I know you'd changed the buttons to woman-buttons. There must be a reason why you're skying the ball all the time if you're just 'tapping' shoot. Make sure you aren't holding anything else down (except R2 which should give a more accurate shot). Maybe you're just too used to being able to score from 75 yards in FIFA, and are having a puzzled reaction to this not being the easiest game of all time?

Because circle is chip, not shoot. I'm having big trouble finishing chances, especially one on ones. It's not so much that they go over, but I seem to hit the keeper far too much. One on ones aren't a guarenteed source of goals any more.

First tip is to use the right controls. Only women change the control system to FIFA buttons. Square is shoot, deal with it Holding R2 whilst you shoot from range gives a more precise shot although it looks like it really prefers you to do it on your strongest foot. Make sure you aren't doing something silly like holding L1 to make it a chip, because just tapping shoot shouldn't sky the ball anywhere. I'm finding it's just practise with this one. It has been a difficult shift from PES4 to PES5, some aspects of the game I'm just learning from scratch.

Good lord. EDIT: Quoted the wrong thing there. Was referring to Hughesey wanting to pen the "ethnics" into a stand, like some sort of farm.