Eddie

Who the f*** are you? Tiger Woods.

Inception: Competing with Avatar for the most overrated film of recent years. Wonderful to look at, but had no interest in the storyline or the characters.

Even in France it isn't viewed as acceptable for athletes to be smokers. There are probably more smokers here and it certainly plays a greater role in society and is far more accepted when it comes to work (where smoking breaks every hour are seen as necessary) and social situations (although this is being reduced slightly by the smoking ban), but people understand that it isn't good for your health and that you can't be a smoker and be in top physical condition. Thing is, he never ran those players off of the pitch, he played them off of the pitch. Imagine the player he could have been had he had that extra yard into his 30's. His game never required pace or a huge amount of movement, it relied on incredible vision and ability, but had he been able to cover a bit more ground and recover that bit faster he could have been an even better player. It was a tremendous pleasure to watch him play and he will always be one of my favourite ever players, but maybe we would have seen the invisible friend a little less and seen a few more Tugay masterclasses.

That's true of most clubs in France though. The fact is French clubs can't afford to buy many players from abroad, so that makes it necessary to produce a reasonable amount of talent and encourages clubs to give youth a chance. It has positives and negatives, but it's nice as a supporter that there are often "home grown" players and that players do stay at clubs a bit longer.

I saw Four Lions the other day and really enjoyed it. There are some really funny moments and its a pretty original comedy. Has to be said that you find yourself wondering how funny it would be had you had a family member die on 9/11 or 7/7 or in some other terrorist attack, but then again we make comedies about everything else so I don't see why terrorism should be left out. Would highly recommend it.

Bought it and it has instantly become my favourite non-sports game. Really great. The era suits the GTA style more and the multiplayer is quite a bit of fun too. Very, very good.

News saying that Henry will move to New York after the World Cup.

I find chatroulette strangely fascinating. It's the perfect format to randomly meet and interact with people and yet it is basically used solely for men to get their junk out and everyone else to spend an hour pressing next every 3 seconds.

Pleased for McCoy and a nice win for Don't Push It. Don't think I'll ever pick 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th again in the Grand National, so have to be pleased.

out to 40s...shows what I know, but like it even more at that price.

I've backed a few of the horses at various prices as I had a good day yesterday so have house money to play with: Black Apalachi is the main one I've picked, so hoping he will be the winner. One of my horses that I always back. Dream Alliance is a very interesting one and a nice horse with good odds. I'd expect the odds to come in significantly, so if you want you could just bet at 33/1 now and probably lay at around 25 which I think might be the starting price. Irish Raptor, Ballyfitz, Snowy Morning, Ballyholland and Made in Taipan are all worth a look E/W. No point ignoring Big Fella Thanks and Don't Push It could do it for McCoy this year. Any one of those and I'll be a happy man.

I bet the house on Marseille winning the league and still think they are the best side in French football. I think they'll do it.

I think you are being overly harsh on Rooney there and making him out to sound like some goal-poacher. He can score goals from pretty much anywhere, it's just down to the role that he is asked to play. At the moment he plays up front by himself with attacking wingers, which means he has to take up a very forward position. In previous seasons he has been able to drop back into midfield and pick up the ball and has scored some wonderful goals as a result of it. They are both fantastic players and offer something different, but you can't definitively say who is better between Ronaldo, Rooney and Messi in my opinion. Each is a little bit more suited to different leagues, styles of team play and the role that they are then given within that team. I'd love to see Rooney play in Spain against defenses that back off a bit more and don't go into the tackle as hard, he'd thrive as all attack-minded players do. Say what you want (and we've had this debate before), but Messi wouldn't be QUITE so effective in England. He'd handle the physical game well and would be in the elite group of players in the league, but if you want to show off an attacking game it is always best to be on the continent.

Not sure he's quite once a generation; hard to separate Messi, Rooney and Ronaldo.

Wrong thread.

I'm going to miss him. He was the only player left in his squad who I thought could really produce something out of nothing at any moment. He hasn't done it much lately, but you always knew when he had the ball that you could be about to witness a moment of pure inspiration. I'll probably end up remembering him for the firs season he was here and for the part he played in the Hughes regime. Very good signing for the club and most likely one of the most talented players that we've ever had. Shame that he couldn't stay focused and fit, but can't help but feel this was mismanaged. Fact of the matter is that he wasn't an Allardyce player and he was never going to be. Even Allardyce owes a lot to Benni, he played a big part in our turn-around in December and January of last year. I hope that we get to see a player of his talent again sometime soon, but I'm not holding my breath. Hopefully he won't score too many at West Ham.

Yeah, Shillito is being a bit unfair to Benni. He's had a very good career and certainly can be proud of what he has achieved when he does eventually retire.

Propaganda to get a reaction? He's clearly fit enough to play how he plays. Based on his performance today, in the cups, last season he deserves to play.

Good performance, helped turn things around. He's come on and put in effort everytime he's been asked to this season and no one can fault him for his application and attitude. He has to stay and, more importantly, he has to play. Can we give up on trying to be a rebranded Bolton and play two up front please, a formation where we are quite clearly better.

Had they won last night they would have "simply" needed to win their last two games, one of which is a fairly easy game by Champions League standards. With Lyon and Fiorentina still to play it would have virtually guaranteed that 9 points from those three games would have put them ahead of one of them, so their head-to-head record wouldn't have come into play.

Are you comparing Allardyce with Ramsay? You don't half talk some crap. Fact is we look best when playing 4-4-2. We did under Souness. We did under Hughes. We did under Ince. We still have plenty of players left from those regimes. We looked best last year doing it when Allardyce first came in. Even at Old Trafford we looked better once we had two up front. We don't have the players necessary to play 4-5-1, the main reason being that we don't have pace. We can't properly support a loan striker because our players can't get forward fast enough. In the games when our team is actually better it does work because we are able to retain possession and have sustained attacks, but this would be true in a 4-4-2 as well. As of yet there has been little evidence that the extra midfielder adds to our defensive strength. This formation clearly isn't working, that is why we are in the relegation zone. It leads to one of our best players (Benni) being on the bench, our big summer signing (McCarthy) being on the bench and also seems to require that our least talented central midfielder (Andrews) plays in every game.

When they were winning 1-0 they had a very good chance of qualifying. Now their chances are slim, but they could still do it.

Yep, the question is the same as it always is: we have some important games coming up, if the ball is going to drop to anyone in our squad in the box who do you want there?

Agreed and also, as stupid as this sounds, he seemed to enjoy others scoring as much as those scoring enjoyed the experience. He's obviously a positive influence in the squad. He needs to play in the upcoming matches.

Not surprising that our best goalscorer wants to leave when he isn't even being given a chance? He's been our best striker under Allardyce. His goals when Allardyce first joined kept us up and even this year he's look pretty good whenever he's been given a chance. We have to keep him and he needs to play.