Kuqi is awful, he needs to be reduced to a 10 minute man coming from the bench when we need to throw the ball forward. Interesting that we played better when we switched to 4-4-2...

Savage booking for those who couldn't see first time round. How he has the cheek to complain I'll never know...

Sorry, forgot about that: A couple of numbers are wrong and the kits are last seasons, I think the new update will come out when the transfer window has closed. All teams are done in that quality though, and there's new music on all the menus/replays etc, and Peter Brackley says proper team names instead of "Lancashire" and whatever. Apologies for the crapness of the pictures.

From afar I thought he'd got the ball, it was just one of those where the player had passed it a split second before Savage came in. It was only on the close-up that you could see what had happened.

You might want to watch that on TV again Rev. Nowhere near the ball and went clean through him, you won't see a more obvious yellow.

There was a funny moment on Sky Sports tonight regarding a Savage free-kick. They were talking to Tony Gale who was covering our game and we had a free-kick, he said something like: "Savage is about to take a free-kick, if you want to stay with me a moment I'll tell you when it hits the wall. <pause> It hit the wall."

10 man Rovers in 0-0 draw (with another suspension on the way). We can't complain anymore, the papers are right. Hughes said he wanted to show people that the comments last season were unfair...well, if anything, we're getting worse. It's hardly suprising when we're the same team but with a big striker instead of a little one.

We could replace Kuqi with a JCB and no-one would know the difference. He'll work all day but he's got the first touch of a brick wall. The problem is, with no Bellamy, he's the only player we can put up there in this formation...which is exactly the scenario we all feared when we put 'all our eggs into one basket'. With Tugay playing in a 4-5-1 we don't look that bad, we should also replace Matteo with Gresko to have more of a threat down the left though. On the subject of the lefthand side...I'm already wondering how long we can hang on to Pedersen. Tugay aside, he's at least one level above the entire squad in terms of technical ability and awareness. If he had pace he'd be one of the best wide players in the world.

After seeing the Spurs team I think we might have a chance, but I think they still might have a little too much for us.

He played Jarosik up-front with Pandiani tonight. You have to love him for comic value.

We'll get beat. I'll go for...3-1 to Spurs.

To borrow a quote from another topic: This for me is the main reason. This is the only way I can ever see us winning games...plenty of midfield battles and hopefully scrap a goal. We're not alone in that, which is one of the reasons why attendences everywhere are dropping, but we suffer more because we have less fans.

I'll post a few pictures of how mine looks later, you'll poo yourself when you see it.

Am I the only person who thinks Pedersen's goal was better than Tugay's? Both magnificent goals, but I think Pedersen's had the edge because; 1) The ball was coming across him, as opposed to relatively straight on as it was for Tugay. 2) If we're honest...either the goalkeeper or the player on the line should have stopped Tugay's effort, Pedersen's was simply unstoppable.

Edit: Nevermind...

Put Gresko at left back ahead of Matteo (he can cover Nelsen if he's absent) and that's possibly the most sensible team selection I've seen for a while. Savage needs a babysitter, and Reid isn't it...by moving Reid out wide we could possibly solve two problems in one go. It's still severely lacking any quality on the ball (Pedersen aside) but we can't solve that without a new face. I'd still like to see a fully fit Jansen giving a run alongside Bellamy at some point, but it might be too soon after the injury.

I never understand people who buy consoles straight away, there's very few games available and the ones that are tend to be poor. I always wait at least a year until there's a decent selection available, and of course until it's cheaper.

This is one thing I take issue with...I don't agree with it at all. Look at Wigan today, they coped with Chelsea's 5 man midfield despite playing a 4-4-2...it's about getting the team organised as a whole rather than appointing a babysitter to Savage and Reid. That formation is great for keeping the ball in the defensive third of the pitch, you can get some nice triangles going with the spare man (I seem to remember us playing out the Everton game last season with similar tactics), but against West Ham we needed to find a way of getting more possesion in the attacking third...and that was completely the wrong move. If we're going to retreat to a 4-5-1 every time someone starts getting on top of us then we're in for a disappointing (and boring) season, Hughes should have more ideas and flexibility up his sleeve than that.

Savage was completely to blame for that first goal, I honestly don't know what he's thinking sometimes. Emerton was taking the throw-in, Reid was forward as you would expect, same with Pedersen, Savage is sitting back. Everything seems good. Then, just as Emerton throws it, Savage decides he's going to make a break into the box...the ball is cleared, Benayoun is free to carry the ball and do what he wants with it. What an utter tool, do we have to appoint a babystitter in midfield because he can't think? Mokoena was to blame for the second, completely sold himself for no reason...all he had to do was stay goal-side of Reo-coker and he can't shoot. Hughes pulled off a masterstroke by bringing Nelsen in, but we have to accept Mokoena is a failure. At £300,000 for an International captain it was certainly worth the risk, but we now know why no-one else did it before us. He's not good enough. The tactical switch wasn't a good move, asking Bellamy to be a lone striker when he's not fit wasn't smart. If West Ham can play 4-4-2 including an attacking midfielder like Benayoun then we shouldn't have to resort to something like that at the first sign of trouble, it seems very simplistic and naive to me. He should have been looking at a way of keeping the ball more in the attacking third, not the defensive third. I really can't understand why everyone is so down on Emerton, he wasn't good, but he was certainly no worse than anyone else (dodgy pass aside). Dickov's tackle was shocking, I've never seen anyone try to block a clearance like that. 5th choice behind Bellamy, Kuqi, Jansen and Gallagher should suit him nicely. It wasn't ALL bad, not as bad as people are making out. Three mistakes cost us, and I think even the most pessimistic of us would have to concede they were uncharacteristic. Go 4-4-2 in the next game, push Matteo to centre back with Gresko coming in at left back...and tell Savage not to go into the final third. No knee-jerk reactions Mr Hughes...I still believe we're on the right track. Oh, as a final (and maybe irrelevant) point, Liverpool played 4-5-1 against Middlesbrough and were pants until Ehiogu got sent off. I wouldn't expect them to make an impression on the championship race with an attitude like that. Is that a joke? He's the only player who looked technically competent today.

Yeah, that's fair point. What I will say though is that I believe every single one of our players is capable of consistently playing well in a 4-4-2, apart from Mokoena and Savage. Like I said earlier, I just hope we don't push the panic button and retreat to a 4-5-1 and hope to scrap some 1-0's, especially not until Nelsen returns and Bellamy is fully fit.

I disagree completely...just look at Jose Mourinho. He sticks to that 4-3-3 religiously, which included turning Gudjohnsen into a central midfielder to fit into the team, it worked excellently. He also turned Joe Cole into an effective winger. To be fair, I think Hughes has done this to a certain extent, he adapted Steven Reid to be the type of central midfielder he likes (almost like Gary Speed was for Wales). Mokoena also said he'd never played midfield before (although you'd think he'd never played defence before too).

We need a central midfielder, but we won't get one because Hughes loves Savage. His headless chicken style of play isn't suited to this level, it's probably why his career peaked at the mighty Birmingham City. Reid is a good box-to-box player and if we could have a holding midfielder who's intelligent with the ball alongside him we'd have a perfect combination. Savage is just impossible to put into a pair, his positioning is too erratic to be a holding player and he's not intelligent enough to be the forward running one. Apart from that, and possibly cover at centre back, there isn't a whole lot wrong.

I agree, I just hope there's not a knee-jerk reaction by Hughes that makes him ditch the style of play that was obviously working in pre-season.

Oh well, at least Dickov can't play for a few games... I guess this means we'll go back to 4-5-1. Fun.

Matteo ahead of Gresko? I hope that's for fitness reasons and nothing else. Otherwise, no suprises there.