I voted "Pleased" - I would much rather have a good striker that wasn't hated and wouldn't affect our struggling reputation and possibly ability to get future sponsors, but compared to having no big signing up front (which was starting to look a possibility) it's definitely good news. The best thing about it is that the Board was willing to push the boat out for a big signing, followed by confirmation of the pull factor of our manager/coaches.

Preston would be the worst outcome due to the competition for local fans - it's bad enough as it is. Ideally both them and Burnley will be relegated to Div 1 next season. West Ham next worst as they would get large crowds in the Premiership and soon be able to splash some cash, and being in London would be a prime target for any future Abramovich. Ipswich and Derby would both be fine as both have big debts and are never going to be big spenders. Unfortunately, I think West Ham will be the team to go up rather than Ipswich or Derby.

Thanks for the preview, although I'd have liked to ask the Birmingham respondents how their fans could justify getting so wound up about the Savage situation given the similarity to Bruce's even more acrimonious/dodgy departure from Palace. I hope we win this one, but with Pennant on form, Brum are probably playing too well for us to get more than a draw. I reckon 1-1 and am keeping my fingers crossed that Stead will finally get the goal he deserves.

The Intertoto was bad enough at tiring out players in the old days, but now that the UEFA Cup itself is even more games due to the league system, coping with the extra Intertoto games is probably beyond any English club with a squad smaller than Man U.

Or you could translate it as "I'm stating on the record that I'll instruct one of my players to injure Savage the next time we play", which I would argue is NOT the way football should be! The big plus points last night were Stead and Reid (the latter on recent form not just last night). Dickov's injury now looks like a plus point if it gets Stead another 5 full games and he continues his impressive improvements in his all-round game. IF, and admittedly it might be a big "If" we can improve their finishing over the summer then we have 2 genuinely good Premiership players on our hands. If Reid could become even an average finisher then he could easily get 10+ goals a season.

Had to stand for 2 1/2 hours on the train with nothing to lean against, but worth it for the atmosphere when the players came out and for the first 10 mins when I was sure we were going to win. The press comment is very harsh, as Arsenal's tackling was very cynical when it needed to be, e.g. Reid's heels getting clipped every time he got into his stride. I doubt we'd have seen the same reaction in the press if it wasn't for 2 things: 1) Thompson who lost it completely at the end of the 1st half after getting frustated at being continually hustled off the ball by stronger Arsenal players. I was astonished he wasn't subbed at half-time, but Hughes did a good anger management job and he improved in the 2nd half. 2) Flitty's stupid half-stamp on Viera. Yes his momentum was taking him onto Viera but you can see that he decided it was a chance to put the boot in. Players really need to remember that slow motion and multiple camera angles exist and indeed have existed for, hmm, quite some time. Van Persie definitely ran into Todd as he turned after scoring BUT you can see from the replay that Todd decides to take advantage and flick his forearm up to get a little bit of revenge. Happens all the time and normally it wouldn't have been a big deal, but unfortunately for Todd he happened to time it just "right" to really thump Van Persie. So in some ways, he'll be a bit unlucky to be charged, but equally if you try and take advantage of these situations then eventually you're going to get in trouble. It was stupid though as the game was over and so I'll be angry at Todd if we lose him for 3 games, take a few points less from those games as a result and lose £1m by finishing 2 places lower. Great performance by Friedel. Nelsen and Todd were solid as ever. Matteo had one of his better games apart from the end of the 1st half when he got taken to the cleaners a couple of times, which seemed to affect his confidence to push forward in the 2nd half. Neil was ok - haven't seen the replays of the 1st goal, but the 2nd wasn't his fault, more a case of a great turn by a fresh Van Persie on a not-so-fresh defender. Pedersen was ok - the other players should make an effort to play off his headers because he wins loads but there's never anyone near him to take advantage. Emerton was ok when he came on - again the other players don't seem to have twigged that he makes direct runs and so there's never anyone to help him out. Axe was solid as ever, but ditto the odd dodgy pass. Dickov tried his heart out, but with his lack of pace and creativity was never going to cause any problems on his own up front - there were 5 or 6 occasions he started off level with the last defender running for a ball behind the defence but of course nothing resulted. If only we had a quick forward!

Was he bought as a centre half or is this were Hughes saw him playing. Yes he may have been a centre half at previous clubs but perhaps Hughes bought him to play in the holding role. I remember a report when we bought him saying that he could play either centre-back or centre midfield, so think we should give Hughes the benefit of the doubt!

No Savage, and as we're at home we'll push forward a bit more, so I can see Soton's forwards getting a goal. So the test is whether we can score more than one, which I doubt at the moment, so a 1-1 is the best I think we're going to do with a Pedersen free-kick cancelling out a Crouch goal. I'd be happy with that though as it would keep Soton 6 points behind.

Aside from the Dugarry kick, he's no different from any other central defender. Every single defender playing at any half-decent level upwards spends most of the game grabbing and shoving the guy they're marking. The person they're marking will spend the whole game doing it back. Anyone who says different has never spent a game watching what individual players do over 90 mins, nor have they played at a decent level.

Awful game and lack of creativity from us against an average side, but I was never really concerned that they were going to score, which I guess is a decent achievement when we were so ineffective elsewhere on the pitch. The most worrying thing for me was the nerves after we scored, when we became unable to put 2 passes together for the rest of the game despite Leicester attempts to give the ball straight back to us. If we draw Man U or Arsenal, we need to score the winner with 10 seconds left on the clock (preferably 5 seconds just in case)

Shame Everton won at Villa as their confidence is probably now back after a pretty dodgy run of form. If Savage and Dickov are fit, I think we'll battle our way to a 1-1 draw, with Pedersen scoring a free-kick. If they're not, then I can see a 1-0 (No Dickov) or 2-0 (no Savage) to Everton. Either way, I expect a dreadful game for us spectators!

Thanks Philip - very much appreciated. Good that the Trust Fund has converted that chunk of debt into shares. Ok, it may make no difference in terms of cashflow in practice, but much better in the long run in case something odd happened and for whatever reason the Trust Fund decided it had to call some of the loan in or charge interest.

If Savage is only suffering from an international injury and plays then I think we'll win 2-1 - their defence is awful on paper, so even our shot shy forwards should manage something. If Savage isn't playing then alas I foresee a 1-0 defeat. However, I do have this awful feeling we'll have someone sent off again.

If Ferguson plays (i.e. we actually have a chance of keeping possession in midfield), we get a good forward in and a new left back then we have an outside chance of a 1-1 draw. Otherwise 0-2 is the best we can hope for.

The only way they'll cut out this kind of cheating is fining the club (v.unlikely) or, more realistically, banning for 3 games any player who dives and his team score from the resulting free-kick or penalty. This wouldn't be too much effort for the FA either as it would probably only mean watching 5 or so replays each weekend. Observations on the game: Can't believe Bothroyd has started falling over so easily given how strong he looked in his first couple of games. Someone should remove Heskey's phone number from his mobile. I thought he had real potential, but unfortunately he looks like becoming the new Nathan Blake, i.e. the odd moment to get your hopes up followed by weeks of underperformance. Hope Spector still comes on loan as with our lack of creativity we need a left-back who can attack. We can only sell Ferguson if we have another midfielder ready to come in as a replacement - any combination of Thommo, Savage & Flitcroft is far too short on composure on the ball and we cant play the long ball game with no attackers who can win a header. We desperately need a forward. Gallagher would be fine if the rest of the team was playing really well when we go forward...but they're not, so we need someone with more cutting edge. Johnson looked ok, but obviously we can't rely on him either after 20 mins of experience.

Hope we put out a proper team for this one as we need the money from a good cup run. If we do, then I reckon we'll escape with a 1-1 draw and a comfy win at Ewood in the replay.

If you use Pedersen's full name: Hughes is considering playing Pedersen regardless of the perils he could cause if he doesn't tackle well enough - so for our manager it's a case of "Norse danger tempts me"

It's the nickname for the South African football team, i.e. like the Wallabies for the Aussie rugby team.

Maybe not. We need 2 new centre-backs asap and I doubt the club expects both Nelsen and Mokoena to adapt immediately to the style of English football. Mind you, I doubt the wage bill will cope with Gabbidon as well unless we offload at least 2 of our existing centre-backs (Amoruso is probably 1st in line as presumably the biggest earner) in Jan.

Dickov is really struggling with his finishing. BUT the problem with replacing him is that Stead looks equally unlikely to score at the moment and would be half as good at retaining possession and putting himself about, while Gallagher is a better finisher but at the moment gets knocked off the ball far too easily. I suppose we might just get away with one of those two in place of Dickov at home, but not away where we have less possession.

I'm assuming Thommo will replace injured Tugay at centre-midfield. If we get the Thommo we saw against Brum then we'll win 3-1. If we get the version that appeared against Spurs then Palace will win 3-2.

The trickiest choice I've had so far as Brotherston was my favourite player when I started supporting Rovers as a nipper, followed by Sellars and then Wilcox of course had a key role in the Championship season. However, as someone said earlier, Duff was the best player in the world at his position at the end of his Blackburn career and that's clinched it for me.

Bad draw - despite current form, Cardiff will be a tough test with their crowd behind them. We need an early goal to shut up the crowd.

I can't understand this argument, Sellars had the same facilities available as everyone else at that time and never proved himself to be world class whereas Duff has. They were both operating an equal level to other players around at the time so I can't understand how it would make a difference which generation Sellars played in. I was going to say the same thing. The defenders he played against would be a lot fitter nowadays, plus I think it's more difficult for attacking wingers these days as opposing/managers and defenders are also armed with video tapes of their strengths and weaknesses. That said, it'll still be a tough decision for me between Sellars and Duff.

If Spurs had lost yesterday I'd have been pretty confident, but their confidence will be back up again now. Defoe is going to cause us all sorts of trouble and combinedwith Keane's pace I can see us having all sorts of trouble unless we deny Spurs any possession in our half. I think they'll score at least 2, but we should do as well if we're less shy about shooting than at Fulham. So I reckon a 2-2 draw.