4-5-1 against West Ham? Madness. Mokoena to replace Nelsen, Dickov to replace Bellamy. Simple.

Ah ok, I thought you meant the 4-5-1 we played last season, in a 4-4-1-1 it would make sense...although I'd prefer Bellamy to be either wide or on the shoulder of the last defender to use his pace.

It's blindly obvious that Reid and Savage would play in the centre with Mokoena behind them, I don't believe either Bellamy or Dickov have ever played that position before... If we do play 4-5-1 then Bellamy will play wide, I don't think that's even in doubt. Dickov will be on the bench, unless there's injuries. I can't see why we would play 4-4-2 all pre-season if we planned to go 4-5-1 in the league anyway, hardly seems the best way to prepare.

Why put this up now?

Has anyone seen Keith Treacy in action? I know this guy was talked about briefly on another thread, but I can't find it... He sounds promising from the report on the reserves victory, and I can remember people saying good things about him in the other thread. Maybe a possible for the first team in a few years?

Right...I don't think there's going to be anything significant happen before Saturday, so here's mine: 1. Arsenal 2. Chelsea 3. Manchester United 4. Tottenham Hotspur 5. Liverpool 6. Middlesbrough 7. Newcastle United 8. Blackburn Rovers 9. Aston Villa 10. Portsmouth 11. Charlton Athletic 12. Manchester City 13. Everton 14. West Ham United 15. Bolton Wanderers 16. Birmingham City 17. Wigan Athletic 18. Fulham 19. Sunderland 20. West Bromwich Albion

Well...it would be the equivalent of sending Everton or Bolton to Spain and expecting people to flock to see them.

Espanyol was a bit of a disaster as far as choices go for the 'illustrious' opposition. Even Crystal Palace and Leicester played Inter Milan...we got some Spanish also-rans. If we can't get one of the major European clubs then we should get local opposition, like other people have suggested.

I think West Ham will do well this year, they should be safe in mid-table. I'll go for a 1-1 draw, they'll be really up for it. Reid to score for us. I think we'll line-up like... Friedel Neill Todd Nelsen Gresko Emerton Reid Savage Pedersen Bellamy Kuqi

Could someone post a few screenshots of how it looks please?

Could you PLEASE put titles on the links you post? It's very annoying. I remember someone asked before as well.

Haha, am I at the point where agreeing with me is a shameful thing to do? I did notice one thing...none of those attribures you listed were terribly defensive. I think the only thing that is suspect is his positioning, if he gets there he usually puts in a decent tackle...hopefully Hughes' organisational skills will sort out his positioning.

That's easily the best piece of news I've heard come from this game...if we can get him to somewhere near the form he was showing when he first arrived (or when he persuaded Inter to pay £8 million for him) then he'll save us a good few million.

Just a thought...instead of entering those teams into the same league and therefore messing it up slightly...why not just make another league to enter those teams into? It would be far easier to keep track of the teams aiming for a low score as well that way.

Agreed. If it's going to be interesting then it has to be £100 million, otherwise it's hardly an over-rated team.

Artmedia 5 - 0 Celtic I think I'll be off to a few Celtic messageboards tonight. How could Bellamy turn down Champions League football to play for us?

Ancona went bust after being relegated from Serie A and got put into Serie C...something, one of the low leagues anyway. The last I read he was training with Ternana (who we bought him from) with the plan of re-signing for them. I don't know whether it happened or not.

Confused? I'll give you that. But why did he run? If you were in a foreign country would you leap barriers in train stations to run away if you hadn't done anything? Stupid sod could have saved his own life.

Apparently the big news tomorrow will be that City are preparing to sack their former England Under 21 midfielder Joey Barton following an incident on their Asian tour. He was lucky to get away with a 6 week fine after his incident when he put a lit cigar into the eye of a youth team 'keeper...however, this time he must have surely crossed the line. The Times' report on the incident. A similar story has been reported by almost every credible source without any denial from the club, so I'll be very suprised if this turns out to be false. I hope the FA slap a ban on him to prevent him returning to the Premiership straight away, hitting a 15 year old kid then attacking a team-mate trying to calm him down must surely rank amongst the worst incidents in recent times by a Premiership player.

Yay. I love these. Edit: My team: Jeremy Beadle's Claw GK: Reina GK: Carroll (every man and his dog is going to have him as sub keeper) DF: Carragher DF: Terry DF: Nelsen DF: McEveley DF: Repka MF: Lampard MF: Parker MF: Viafara MF: Etherington MF: Piper FW: Henry FW: Bellamy FW: D. Bent

I fancy Pompey to do well next season, I think they could be this seasons Bolton. Mandaric has shown real ambition with the signings they've made this season, I made have a bet on them to get into the top 6 if the odds are good enough.

Bellamy is wearing number 36 on his training top. Is that significant in anyway?

I'm actually quite worried that Souness is building a decent team...it's been reported he's going to use (steal?) the 4-5-1/4-3-3 used by Chelsea with Keiron Dyer being one of the wide strikers and maybe Boa Morte as the other if they can stump up enough cash. Fat Freddy has also said they'll be bringing in a central defender and a striker, I think they need more than that but the first 11 is looking quite good: Given Carr Boumsong ? Babayaro Jenas Parker Emre Dyer ? Shearer The midfield trio looks exciting, I can see Emre and Parker doing real damage coming forward together. Put Boa Morte and a good centre back into the question marks and it's a very strong looking team. Having said that...I don't think Souness has the tactical ability to do that formation as succesfully as Mourinho has. He'd probably be better off sticking to what he knows.

If that's true...that's fantastic! We 'should' have enough for another player, which would seem to be supported by the comments coming from the club about more players. If we assume that Bellamy was paid for out of the Ferguson money, we should still have the Stead money to spend. Exciting times.

When your original comment goes tits up just create something completely false to cover it up. Genius.