As an aside I went to the Sunderland Arsenal game last night and Stead was poor. He was really lacking in confidence and was too easily shrugged off the ball or lost control.

He's an excellent candidate to be turned into a coach, you just need to hope he pops to solid experience soon!

Justifying your point by referring to past actions of other fans doesn't make it any better. There's nothing wrong with a good bit of banter (singing about Phil Thompson's nose for example when he was assistant manager) but I'm amazed you can't see the difference between that and making several references to someone having their leg broken in a career threatening injury. As you say yourself you detest racism yet some neandrathals would say that they're merely creating an atmosphere or having some banter when making monkey chants. It's a similar situation here I'm afraid.

I rather sense you missed an opportunity to ask some "provocative" questions there;).

Defenders are a bit higher atm but that's not always the case. You can train more of them though which is good! As for the formid PM defending isn't as valued as passing. Imo if you do change to defending you may want to consider an offensive central defender to help keep midfield strength up (I'm doing this now). This guy would then be ideal. If you think you're fine in the midfield department then I'd sell and buy a defence trainee as you'll get more cash training an 19yo formid defender up a few levels than the multi skilled PM. Btw what will you do for your third/fourth PMs if you sell all but two? Thinking of an upgrade in midfield?

Robbie Fowler, it was him or Cole I seem to remember. Lucky that Liverpool accepted the offer from Leeds instead.

Sorry sam as of yesterday I'm no longer English U20 manager and I think it'd be a wee bit illegal anyway. Someone interested will buy him though, there's a fair amount of interest for english born players in the English leagues.

Isn't that what Santa gives to naughty children?

Biased in favour of Supporters, that's a classic. Good luck to one and all this season, may your cup runs be extensive and your youths profitable (18yo multi-skilled player for me first up, just a pity it was a multi-skilled inad).

I found sitting at the back of the stand you got your view obscured by the overhang from the structure of the upper tier.

Simone Perrota I think?

I'm switching back to defence training after six seasons away so all my cash is going on that atm sam. I won't have anything to spare for a new striker.

So how's everyone doing as the season draws to a close? I'm on course for my best ever finish in III, as it looks like I'll finish second. I was running the league leader close for quite a while but a 3-2 loss to him last week saw him take the title.

Isn't football fickle? The West Ham fans I know were calling for Pardew's head last season, now it seems they can't get enough of him though it remains to be seen whether their attitude will change if (when?) they struggle this season. The sort of game we need to get something from really, a draw wouldn't be too bad especially considering our recent record at West Ham.

Don't the "traditional" numbers differ from country to country? I thought that in England 4 is generally a defensive midfielder because numbers were first used with the WM system that Chapman(?) used at Arsenal. So: -----------1---------- 2--------------------3 ---------4----------- ----5----------6----- 7-------------------11 ------8------10------ ---------9----------- I'm not sure that's entirely right but you get the picture. Other countries used different systems (eg. 4 and 5 being regular centre backs in a 4-4-2) I believe.

I sold a brilliant winger without much else for £1M (that's $1.5m I think) in the middle of last season. Hmm well unfortunatly I'm out of the cup now although I'm pleased to say that pg's still flying the BRFCS flag. I may be interested in a BRFCS cup although things look rather complicated as I think I'll be playing in another cup after round 8 of the league.

I'd really be interested in supernat - ex-t, ideally with quick speciality. I doubt I'll be upgrading for some time though, changing from keeper to defender training next season will take up most of my cash for a good while. After that it'll be striker shopping time!

I'd potentially be interested although I do play a friendly cup every season from around weeks 8 or 10 onwards. It depends if I go out of the cup early or not I guess as to whether I'd be interested. I'm happy to go along with what you guys want, you might want to consider having preliminary rounds for the lower league clubs with myself and pg joining at a later stage.

Coaches can still play and age doesn't matter. They just need to have at least solid XP to be made into a solid coach. If I were to train defence I'd play 4-4-2 in the league with a young midfielder as an offensive centre back and then a 5-x-x (probably 5-3-2) in the cup and friendlies.

A good day out and the game wasn't too bad either. I thought our best chances actually came on the break when Stead, Thompson, MGP and Emerton worked well together. In less hurried attacking moves they seemed to be able to create a lot less. Thompson was enigmatic, at times he was great and posed Spurs lots of problems running with the balls, at other times he was full of misplaced passes and a return to the old headless chicken. When Reid's fit I'd prefer him over Thompson. 4-5-1 again proved reasonably solid although the defence looked shaky at times in the first half with Kanoute causing problems. However Stead can't play up front on his own, he can't hold the ball up well and really needs someone else alongside. Johnson when he came on looked much more lively and caused Ledley King a couple of problems, he certainly looks one for the future. A quick word about Neill today who I thought was very, very good. He linked up with Emerton going forward and looked pretty useful defensively too.

Hattrick Tips This site is pretty good about training and how to get a decent training scheme going. Training really is the lifeblood of the game and the way to make money and improve. Btw an english hattricker has been developing a cricket version now for some time. It launched this week at Battrick and is looking pretty good.

I had a great day yesterday, only spoiled by missing the first quarter because the train broke down and was forty five minutes late. I missed the Dickov "goal" and from watching MOTD it looks like we were unfortunate there. From what I saw of the first half we didn't seem to carry much threat going forwards although i thought we had a number of questionable offsides given against us and the referee was fully conned by the Arsenal player's over exaggeration throughout the game. 3-0 was harsh and we played quite well without really looking threatening for the first 85 minutes. Friedel was excellent as usual and I thought Emerton played well when he came on, much better than Thompson from what I saw who always gives the impression of never fully being in control. Neill and Matteo were like black and white. Matteo was solid defensively but awful going forward while I thought Neill had a good game offensively. Unfortunatly he let his guard slip at times defensively. Reid looked good as well but we really lacked a creative spark and a forward presence. Dickov does his best but sometimes he's just too small to play the lone striker role properly. I'd have preferred Hughes to have left MGP on the left in the second half and bought on Stead, MGP's not a striker really. Tugay would have livened things up and would have been a gamble but he could have made something happen and in the cup you might as well lose 3-0 as lose 1-0. Having said all that I was proud of my team today and proud of the fans too. We didn't deserve 3-0 and we caused Arsenal a few problems as evidenced by their play acting and the fact that in the second half they were commiting as many fouls as we were. Not a disaster as some doom mongers were portraying it and a fun day out. Now let's make sure of safety.

Rang up Great Western the other day and I was told it's pretty much first come first served at Paddington. As I've got no other way of getting to Cardiff it looks like I'll just have to be at Paddington nice and early.

Hmm somehow I'm into the cup quarter finals although it's the end of the road for me now I suspect. Up against Durham City of the PremierLeague and four times cup winners...

We phoned up yesterday afternoon for two tickets together and there were very few left right next to each other apparently. So tickets must be selling okish I'd think.