Can Ronaldo ever forgive Nani after this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaX8NTtkllw&feature=player_embedded

This just from the BBC: "Keith Treacy grabs his sixth goal of the season to make it Preston 3-1 Crystal Palace and what a strike it is. From 25 yards out he rifles his effort into the top corner giving the keeper no chance, this after Owen Garvan had smashed in a sensational strike of his own to level matters."

Sweden just crashed to a humiliating 1-4 loss against Holland in Amsterdam. The Dutch are an awesome force offensively, and a somewhat new Swedish team lacking our best defender Mellberg due to suspension got severely punished for mistakes from new full backs. Hopefully a lesson learned, and a different game in Stockholm next time.

How could he not get as much as he expected? He did actually look at the contract before signing it, didn't he?

Tongue firmly in cheek and all that... I agree that he's not in the same league as any of the names you mentioned, but he's a personal favorite of mine due to his playing style.

Absolute legend. Probably one of the last specialist full backs who concentrated 100 % on his defensive game, and did it very well too.

What's the odds on a training ground "incident" between those two?

Won a bronze medal in the World Cup, won the Champions League and played for Bayern München and Barcelona. It should however be added that he moved from central midfield to central defense shortly after leaving Rovers, and never played in midfield again. He's now a scout for Manchester United.

Sweden took a nice and comfortable 6-0 win against San Marino tonight, with Olof Mellberg stupidly taking a straight red card at 3-0 which means he will miss the Netherlands away. Nice going there Olof!

I remember Sculli as a talented striker who never quite made it, has he finally blossomed in his new midfield position?

Trezeguet actually stopped playing football somewhere around 2008. Nowadays he just follows Juventus around and somehow ends up on the pitch.

Nice guy. Really.

Can you please explain the allusions made to racism earlier in the thread about Mihajlovic?

Did anyone see this? Quite spectacular.

...and Kane was one of our brighter prospects if I recall. Bit sad.

...and our old left back prodigy Jay McEveley scored his second goal in two games today against Birmingham.

Word.

He might be lazy and overweight, but he's without a doubt our biggest forward threat. Who do you think will be the next striker to bag over 50 goals for us?

With a bit of luck we might have a Tugay-Savage situation growing here. Tugay seemed to be over the hill before Savage came to the club, but with Sav on the other central midfield spot Tugay could concentrate on his passing and skill while leaving all his running to a deranged Welshman. The seasons he played with a fit Savage were probably the best Tugs ever had for Rovers. Benni has looked overweight and slow (albeit still dangerous in front of goal) for the last two seasons, but today he played in an attacking midfield role not demanding that much running since Emerton, N´Zonzi and Pedersen all have good engines that can make up for Benni's lack of it. Just what we need to give him an indian summer like Tugay had.

I wouldn't mind Allardyce managing United at all... On a more serious note, if he sends Benni away and brings someone in on loan, our whole strike force will be consisting of Jason Roberts and Kalinic at the end of the season. Lovely.

I have all the time in the world for Dunny, but relying on him to carry a team for a whole season just isn't very smart. With Benni on the pitch no one would have to carry the team and we would be much more likely to actually score.

Zigic might want to see out the situation at Valencia, they may very well have to sell Villa in the next transfer window and that could be his big chance. Janko is however not so unlikely, his value should have dropped a bit by now.

You have some good points there, but none of them surpasses the obvious: McCarthy scores goals, and we can't afford to turn that down in our situation. If we had a more solid squad we could have got those goals/levelled out the difference some other way, bu we don't.

Benni might not be the easiest of individuals to coach, but this smells a lot of Sam Allardyce to me. Benni don't run around and get stuck in like Kevin Davies or Di Santo, and in Allardyce's book that means that you're not going to play. I guess it's the price we pay for having him as a manager.

Werder Bremen played Diego as a central midfielder in a 4-4-2 before he went to Juventus, with great success. Then again they used Frings as a right sided midfielder to help their midfield sitter with his defensive duties in harder away games (Champions League etc.), and then again Dunn isn't Diego...