blackandwhiteboy

Well, you got ur Fulham 2-0 Quite fancy Liverpool tonight. They are decent value due to their recent poor form but they also have home advantage and according to the beeb, Gerrard is back.

The bookies have us down for a win - see the Championship preview, but I'm a little wary about tonight. Hughton has yet to prove himself in terms of turning round sides in trouble - his record as caretaker boss up untill the start of this season was very poor - and we are erring on the edge of trouble. Scunthorpe also picked up a good win against Sheff Utd at the weekend and have home advantage. Bearing in mind recent matches I would take a draw if it was partnered by a good performance.

I'm not suprised in the slightest that he's been offered the job full time - keep costs down etc - but the timing doesn't make any sense at all. Why not offer him it at the start of the season, thus providing the team with a slightly more solid foundation from which to build. Also, purely in terms of results, why offer him the job now, when we're just starting to stutter? Why not give it a few more weeks and wait and see if he's good enough to halt a poor run of form?

In a bid to take this thread in a slightly different direction, would anyone be bothered if we were bought by decidedly dodgy foreign owners ala Pompey or is it a case of 'anyone but ashley?' Reason I ask, is this Premier League blog, I was reading earlier about the recent spate of foreign takeovers. It's of the opinion that the self-made English chairmen could be on the way out, due to clubs having to look abroad to keep up with other clubs financially. Personally, I'd sooner have a transparent, honest chairman with a bit less money but the clubs best interests at heart. We need stability, not more uncertainty.

So very true... I mean, just look at how long it took for us to sign Lovenkrands! Hoping for anybody else is pushing it a bit

hes way too injury prone, as a keeper thats bad He has been okay for the past couple of seasons though? (I say - without checking the stats) Not sure, off the top of my head I don't think he's had any major injuries, just a lot of small niggling injuries (Here are some stats actually. Looks like he's played around 75% of their games in the last couple of years.) On the subject of Harper, Not sure if I'd actually pick him if I was England manager, it was more the shocking realisation of how poor our goalkeepers are and just how few are first choice in the Premier League - at least Harper is playing regularly.

Well what does everyone think? Surely he can't do any worse than the rest of them. I was reading this World Cup article earlier and it really serves to highlight the lack of quality that we have in that position. For example only 1 English keeper is first choice at a Premier League team currently in the top half of the table.

Is it wrong that I'm actually starting to quite like him?! He's entertaining if nothing else and although he can be an idiot with a very high opinion of himself, its not that irritating cos you can't take him seriously. At the start of the season I wanted Hull relegated and Brown sacked but I'm now starting to warm towards him/them.

Well it wasn't the most convincing apology! Here it is for anyone that missed it. Amongst the quotes is this one: Is that not just saying - I'm sorry for offending you but I was right?!

It's not their (the referees) fault that video technology hasn't been brought in!

Not old enough to have seen Cruyff play first hand but I would imagine he had a far better career than Ronaldinho, who only really had a handful of outstanding seasons. As for Messi there is a La Liga article here about the division's leading lights. While goals aren't everything, it seems he is only 4th favourite for the golden boot. Some cracking players above him - Villa, Ibrahimovic and the portugese lad.

I'm amazed it's not happened already. It's clearly not that difficult to sell a football club - 10 Premier League teams now have fairly new foreign owners. Liverpool could be set for a second takeover of that type. A Saudi prince apparently.

'Emergency' loans can be made at virtually anytime anyway I think. Well here is the ruling (from another forum) So we've got till the end of November but I'm not sure quite what constitutes an emergency.

Villa v Man City tonight - Premier League preview here. Should be an interesting game, what with Adebayor returning to the team. I reckon there could be a few goals in this one, 2-2 draw perhaps...

Definitely and I hope it fails miserably. It would serve them right - having to pay to watch England matches is one thing but having to pay for the privilege of watching one on the internet beggars belief.

Here's last seasons Russian league table. They won it comfortably enough and there's some decent teams there, so they cant be that bad.

Guthrie should be back. Only had a one match ban. Suspensions aren't really an issue unless they miss really big games. Injuries are the a problem though. There's a whole lot of matches to get through in the Championship...

how much did you make off that?! A fair bit I bet! I've only ever won one scorecast (don't do em very often mind you) and I pocketed £100. Plenty of action in the Championship tonight and I've stumbled across a betting preview here for those that are after a few tips. Personally I quite fancy a West Brom Peterborough double. Both are decent odds, WBA will want to bounce back after losing at the weekend and Peterborough are at home to Plymouth, who are a mess.

I know we're doing well at the minute but we've got to remember that this isn't too dissimilar to the side that got us relegated - we haven't really signed anyone so the only real difference is that we have more young and hungry platers in the side. While that's a good thing at this level, they may just be found wanting in the Premier League. IF we go up this season then the squad is definitely going to need investment.

doubt villa will will want him back. he's probably ours for the season if he works out It does look that way. He's never really won a first team place there and I imagine he'll be available to sign permanently at the end of the season (or even January) if we want him/are allowed to buy him.

It does seem to be a lot weaker than in previous years. The fact that boro are top three says it all This Championship blog was backing the 3 relegated Prem teams to go straight back up and that was written a couple of weeks ago - it looks even more of a possibility now. We've gotta make sure that over confidence doesn't set in but it's definitely a case of so far so good.

The difference is the most deluded fans in the world as they are, they rated Boumsong in the Baresi bracket. They always conceded this bloke was shit, so if Rangers think he's shit, how shit must he be? To be fair he is £10million less than Boumsong and being a loan signing it really doesn't matter if he's no good - we can just send him back.

Exactly. Poor team performance, as we should have had enough quality to beat Blackpool. The coming weeks will be interesting to see how Hughton handles being forced to leave players out. I started a thread last week (I think it was) in which I stated he hadn't been really forced to make any decisions due to the team virtually picking itself. Things are different now with more senior players becoming available for too few places. If Hughton can look past the seniority and start picking balanced sides it will be a help. He had Lovenkrands and Ranger available yesterday so he wasn't exactly forced to pick four central midfielders. Yeah, I think that's they key, seniority shouldn't really come into it. Yes experience is useful but it's not the be all and end all. I'd sooner have an inexperienced specialist winger than a makeshift one.

Yeah I think that's the point, he'll do a job at this level. From what I've seen off him he's not really Prem standard but I think we all know that that's not necessarilly a problem in the Championship.

No he's still at Fulhm and has made a few appearances this season. I think he's a really good player and whenever he gets a decent run in a Prem side he seems to score goals. Unfortunately, like others have I said, I think it's unlikely that we'll be allowed to sign anybody while we're top of the league.