"It was both insensitive and stupid of me. I did not think deeply enough about the situation and the consequences when I was asked to dress up in the shirt," Borgan said. ...dear God. How could anybody not realise what a stupid thing to do that is? Especially with all the corruption stories emanating from Italy- people are going to be more sceptical than ever about officials fixing matches. Absolute numpty.

Not meaning to sound stupid if it's a joke, but are you serious?

I can't see Chelsea adopting a formation that doesn't use their wide talent. I think the BBC are stupid for suggesting it. They've got Duff, Robben, Cole (Who has improved in colossal strides this season), and SWP. Mourinho has said one of those will leave this summer, but that he's targetting Simao at Benfica. So it's blatantly obvious that he plans to continue working the flanks.

That Matt Dickinson called Patrick Veira a 'Premiership reject'. That could be the stupidest thing I've heard in a long time.

That's 2 years ago though...not saying you're wrong, but still, could've changed.

To be fair, every England manager has an assistant. Sven had McClaren, didn't mean we might as well have hired McClaren.

Fairly sure I heard 450k a place too, though don't recall the source. The board will know we have a little extra coming in through the UEFA Cup too, so Hughes should get a fairly nice little kitty, especially with deadwood like Amo and co out of the club.

Why do people assume we need an English manager to coach the England team? Australia had been using Australian coaches for some time and never made a World Cup until now- under Hiddink. Who we should have got. Good luck to McClaren, even if I can't envision him having any.

Bob, at the risk of sounding stupid, the remark about us signing Zura for nothing, was that as a setup for the joke, or do you actually know something?

It says 'all rights reserved' at the bottom...that better mean our right to Europe!!

Nope, not calmed down. After using my meagre transfer budget to the best possible effect- bolstering my squad in the only weak spots that were left, the full backs- I found my amazing team utterly floundering the next season. In the lower half of the table, and it's November now. Yes, I've brought in a lot of (amazing) players, a lot of them promising youngsters, but that doesn't explain why I can't do squat. In the past when I've brought in tons of new players after promotion, my team has always gone straight up. It's only gonna get worse now too, as the team is unsettled due to us 'underachieving'. I think there's just something about being in your second season in the Premiership that's tons harder. It happened when I was Blackburn, just like it seems to happen to most people on here who've been Blackburn. Good first season, European qualification, awful second season. I'm at a loss as to what I should do. I'm using the same tactics as ever, the same tactics that have yielded success. There's only one thing for it- restart the season, before my retarded board sack me despite the success I've brought them. They can stuff their 14 million quid dividends too!!

My biggest gripe with the game at present is my board. They're utter tosspots. I've taken Gainsborough Trinity from Conference North obscurity and no cash to 5th in the Premiership in my first season up. As the second season there began, the bank balance was at a healthy 46 million smackers, despite atrocious attendances. This was almost purely down to MY excellent player investments over the years. Great, I thought, I can finally splash the cash on world class players and make us challenge very seriously indeed for the title against the superpowers that are Chelsea and Arsenal. Except as soon as our balance hit 46 million due to the new Sky money, it went straight back down to 33 as my board inexplicably paid out 13 million to 'shareholders'. What shareholders? There hasn't been ANY shareholder investment over the years. I've had to scrimp, save and scrape my way up from the lower echelons, never receiving any real backing from the board. They always rejected stadium expansion requests despite everything I'd done, even though I knew we would need a new stadium. They never gave me funds when we had them etc. I made this fricking club! I've rejected probably close to 50 job offers (Some of them only putting me as the main candidate in the media, granted) from bigger clubs over the years. When we won the Championship, AC Milan offered me the job there (twice) and I rejected it. I'm on only 1,800 a week at Gainsborough. Most of the main players are on more. So I figure, damn, they've wiped 13 million off a hefty budget for losers who've contributed nothing to the club. That's a shame, but I should still get at the very least 20 million as a budget, right? Wrong. 9 million. NINE MILLION! And that was pushing it to the max, minimising my wage budget. Absolute fools. Much of that money came from me selling on star players for big bucks over 2 year deals. Speaking of which, the clubs finances are guaranteed for ages to come. My wage budget is about a fifth of what I'm allowed, and I have TONS of cash filtering in constantly from deals I made. But I get given zip to invest with. Plus European competition and rising attendances (now they've finally agreed to expand the stadium...to a paltry 9k, which I can guarantee we will fill instantly and need more expansion to..we really need a 15k seater to avoid rebuilding yearly). I asked them for a bigger transfer budget. They declined. I issued an ultimatum- they sacked me. Worst board EVER. If I were really in this situation, creating this club from nothing, making them mega rich, then getting this treatment...I'd fist fight every member of the board, and sod right off for that Milan job soaked in blood.

Me either...I'll have very mixed feelings that I won't be able to reconcile til the last day of the season if it happens.

...and if Arsenal balls up too, yeh. It's pretty unlikely, but then again, it's only a couple games left to go. It's dependent on 8 results pretty much ALL going our way though. But never say never Spurs' last games= Bolton at White Hart Lane, then West Ham away. Tricky games. Arsenal's last games= Sunderland away, Man City away, Wigan at home. Probably less tricky. Assuming we beat Chelski and City, Arsenal would need 5 points from those 3 games. Their GD beats our vastly. So they'd need to lose (best candidate for that being City away probably), and draw with Wigan at home (we can assume they'll murder Sunderland). They would also need to lose to Barcelona.

Aye, still scares the ###### out of me But we can do the buggers on these terms. Although, it's probably best for Chelsea's chances of getting points too, to rest some of their main stars and give hungry players a chance. It's never fun to face a bunch of hungry superstars...

Good stuff again Bob. Particularly liked the Cisse and pilot bits, as well as the bit about the automated Sparky. Plenty of other highlights too though...unlike our April campaign

We've lost our last 5 visits to London Also, Charlton's last 9 home games haven't seen any defeats. The skysports preview reckons 1-0 to us though. Where did you see the Charlie Nicholas prediction? We seem to get the wrong results most of the time when we're on Sky...

Fair enough, just figured you'd post it say, Saturday. And do the Chelsea one first (Unless you have and I missed it)

Good, lengthy, and er...bloody early review!

I think we're a bit spoilt here, because we had Duff. There's absolutely no need to compare Pedersen to Duff, it's irrelevant because we'll never get Duff again. These people who want to sell Pedersen ought to think about getting an equal quality or superior player for the same or preferably less money than what we would get for Pedersen. If that isn't a possibility, then there's absolutely no point. As much as Peter might be as good or better (I don't feed into what people say about him just not being ready just cos he's young and inexperienced...if he never plays he'll never be experienced, and look at what Rooney did when he burst on the scene), we have no way to tell right now, and definitely should be aiming to give it one more season where we play Ped and Pet intermittently. Pedersen is clearly suffering from fatigue (If you think that being paid lots of money makes the human body less susceptible to wear and tear, you're an idiot), and it would be good to rest him now and again for Sergio next year.

What's best is I'm partly responsible for their demise, having insulted Ferguson constantly in the press and piled the pressure on him. He got sacked, and replaced by Jewell. I like Jewell, so I'm having a tough time deciding whether to insult him purely for being Man U manager. Oh and I just beat United 4-0 away in my first season in the Prem

Thanks Tango, I checked those players out, though I found only one or two of them- a couple of wingers- to be worth paying any attention to. Except Makoun, of course, who I'd already spotted (good player, but on my version he's now somewhere from 28-30, would cost me about 5 mill, and I've already got about 4 or 5 players in his position that are at least as good). Faty is at United, and won European Defender of the Year or something. Despite having ATROCIOUS technical stats. On my game, Man United are now playing at Maine Road!

I long for the day that United collapse completely. Imagine if it got so bad they got relegated- Heaven!!! On the Football Manager game I'm playing now, United are starting to go into freefall in 2012. They're about 10th in the league, and they're playing at Maine Road

That hardly matters. I'm talking about things like belting Dugarry up the arse. Though admittedly, there was the headbutt on Reid earlier in the season...but that pillock had just injured him a second before.

Actually, I dare say it depends equally as much on what Rovers team shows up. Maybe more. With both teams on their best form, we're better.