Eddie

I'll place a 10 pound bet with anyone who wants to take it that England make the final 4 in the world cup.

It was a fluke.

I'd agree with you that England's group wasn't particularly difficult, I was merely saying that there will almost never be a difficult qualification route for the likes of the United States and Mexico, whereas in Europe there will always be one or two tough groups. A perfect example of that would be the Republic of Ireland / France group, which has also thrown up a couple of other contenders, elsewhere some of the bigger boys are struggling. The nature of the qualification does mean that most of the big nations will have an easy ride, but Europe has enough good to very good teams to have one or two tough groups thrown in there.

Absolutely right. Before the last finals Brazil were being talked of as a shell of their former selves and a team who might not even make it through the group stages, while Germany had been hammered by England and were considered too old and slow to go anywhere. A few weeks later we had a Brazil v Germany World Cup Final, and I know that Germany had a fairly lucky and easy ride through to the final, while the tournament also turned up several shock results that meant the knock-out stages weren't contested by all of the "best" nations, but even so they made it to where everyone wanted to be. Now four years on Brazil are once again untouchable, much of this having to do with the simple fact that they go into these finals as the reigning champions, as well as possessing some of the most talented players on earth. England have one of the finest international squads around, certainly one good enough to compete with anyone else, now is the time for them to forget about the press and the public and go out and do their stuff. You know if, come the end of June, we are all celebrating England being crowned the new World Champions half of the critics will have been saying they had been predicting England as the dark horses. In reality, we would rather look to the likes of Mexico, who because of an easier qualification route and the participation in a joke tournament have suddenly become a team to beat, or to Brazil and the other usual suspects, than expect anything from our own nation.

I thought, and I think most on here would agree, that he was excellent in his first few months here. Rock solid at the back and also chipped in with a few goals. I think he then became bored with the situation, wanted to be back at Liverpool and started talking about our small little club in the press. Not really too impressive, but if he had maintained the form he had during his first couple of months then we probably would have all wanted to make the deal permanent and no one would have had any complaints.

USA, my point was that last year I was never able to listen to 5 live on the internet because it picked up the fact that I wasn't in the UK and so stopped me from listening to the broadcast, despite the fact that it was on the magical internet.

I'm sure 5 live will be but don't you have to be in the UK to listen? If that isn't true then yes they will be.

I think it was a joke.

I hope for England's sake he doesn't.

This England team has the talent to beat any other side in the world, the question is going to be if they are up for it and if they can actually start to perform anywhere near the levels they should be at. I have no doubt that they ill make the world cup finals, I'm just not sure if they'll produce the goods when they are there and in the knock out stages against other major nations. The squad has youth, talent, depth and experience. What more could you ask for? I'm a fan of Sven, I just think it would be almost impossible for him to change the seeming apathy his players have for international games at the moment. In many ways the only way to solve it would be for England to not qualify and in doing so give themselves a major shock to the system, I'm not hoping that, that happens though.

I thought that was only pigeons?

I was amazed how cheap this hp actually was. When I went to buy mine I was looking at a viao or a toshiba and was thinking i would have to be looking at around 3000-3500 euros, so 2000-2500 pounds (roughly). I saw this HP and saw the price, which I think was something like 1600, can't remember exactly, but it would probably be about 1200 pounds, I think thats what I saw it priced online as, and thought that theres no way the computer could be that could and not have one of the big price tags. Anyway, it didn't and after a couple months of use I can say it blows the socks off anything I've used before, even most desktops.

You're right, but then what if we pick a couple of injuries? With Gally gone we'd be in trouble. It had to be one or the other.

I may be mistaken, but isn't Kuqi quite fast? That is at least the impression he's given me.

Well it's not really surprising that sky's figures are down as well. Due to the mass amount of football on television people can become bored, they've had their fix and so they don't need to watch their 2nd, 3rd or 4th game of the weekend and will simply go and do something else. This means that not only do the clubs suffer, but sky will suffer as well. If you've become bored with the amount of football on television and the prices of tickets for the actual game are too much for you then you may well end up simply watching the team you support whenever they are on, meaning that sky will suffer and the club won't have supporters turning up either.

Well last time we won two league games in a row was the back end of last season, not sure about three games in a row in any competition.

Liverpool were just spanked, we're riding the crest of a wave, a win on the cards? No. To me that says Liverpool to win.

Sorry that for well. Sadly, my limited grasp of the English language doesn't allow me to insult people in quite the same way as TND, they only teach us how to talk nicely...

I must have hit the red button. Thanks den, and apologies TND, when I re-read it the last bit made sense to me, the first time through I'd just woken up and found the wording of the Heskey/Crouch comment unclear, my fault, not yours.

Could someone translate please?

That's right jim, take a negative from a good results and a player scoring two goals in a game.

Good good...Finally!

My head and heart would both be very happy with a Manchester United win.

2-2 now. Why would you want Fulham to pick up points?

We have one every league game he's scored in, but I believe he scored his first goal for us in the league cup last year when we were knocked out, I'd have to check that though.