Risso

Yes, it's called John Carew and to a slightly lesser extent Ashley Young, two players signed in the same window.......... Ashley Young is a winger, and therefore irrelevant to the discussion at hand, and Carew's official cost was £4.5m as well, the same as Harewood. So, signing players between £4.5m and £30m, surely has to be a possibility. Even for somebody with as poor a record of signing strikers like O'Neill.

The General has said time and time again that the funds are there if O'Neill requests them. I think the problem is not insufficent money from lerner, just O'Neill's reticence or inability to spend it on a decent striker. I agree that a £30m player is highly unlikely, but there has to be something between that and the £3.5m and £4.5m he spent on Heskey and Harewood.

How many more goals do you think Heskey will score this season? Two, maybe three if we're lucky. Carew it's hard to say, if he suddenly gets the wind in his sails he could get another 10-15, but I'd argue around 6 to 8 is more likely. Now imagine we buy a striker who gets 10-15, and you can see what a difference that would make to our possible finishing place. I know finding one won't be easy, but we've got a brilliant manager, right?

Nice stats, but that one sentence sums it up perfectly. The 5 clubs we're competing with for the top 4 all have strikers who score more goals than us. Which is a problem, obviously.

Used to be a big deal back in the day when 60 was the level cap! And Brigga, depends what you like doing as to your profession. I used to make a packet out of skinning and leatherworking. When you get an area where you need to kill so many animals, skinning was great as you got to skin what you killed. I then made loads from rare recipes for twinks, and also purple armor patches for high levels. I got known by quite a few people as having all the recipes, so used to gets loads of whispers to make stuff when I was in orgri.

They may be talented when they arrive, but that soons gets coached out of them. Looks like it's happened to Downing already.

That's more like it Laura! A few years ago dinging 60 was a very big moment indeed. The day the XP bar disappeared forever.

James Milner wasn't very good today.

I thought Warnock just edged it for MOTM today over Dunne. I thought the defence were excellent today, which is maybe an odd thing to say after a 3-0 defeat. The midfield really let us down today. Milner looked like a llittle lost boy, and Downing had his worst game by a mile. Petrov couldn't get a grip of the game and Young was his usual infuriating self. Anyway, ratings: Friedel - 7 - not really his fault for the goals Young - 6 - Least effective of the defenders Dunne - 7.5 - Another blood and thunder display, love this bloke's defending. Cuellar - 7 - Pretty solid considering how much possession they had Warnock - 7.5 - Lost half a mark for his woeful pass that nearly led to a goal, but overall another quality display Downing - 6 - Time after time made the wrong decision today. Petrov - 5 - The Arsenal midfield want past him like he wasn't there. Looked lethargic. Milner - 4 - Poor today, not at the races and horrible pass gave them a goal that killed the game? Young - 4 - Worked hard, but that dive was an embarrassment to the club. Seemingly can't beat a man very often these days. Gabby - 6.5 - worked his balls off as usual, but was feeding off scraps Heskey - 6 - Worked hard, made some decent flicks, but usual shit attempts on goal.

Can't wait for this personally, looks awesome.

Stay, since Downing has arrived the quality of football has improved dramatically.

Another vote for Blumenthal, he's simply amazing. Self taught as well. When he was doing that series of shows about feats through the ages, his erupting chocolate dessert was a thing of beauty. On a slightly more mundane level, I really like that Bluenose (sorry) Glyn Purnell when he's been on Great British Menu. I made one of his curried fish dishes and it was culinary perfection.

Yes, let's arrange an online funeral in a contested area on a PvP server, I'm sure the other side will lay down their arms for the evening and let us quietly mourn our departed friend.

You mean this? One of the funniest things I've ever seen, I was laughing that hard it started to hurt!

Went to both League Cup finals, missed the FA Cup.

And if they'd "lost" at home 1-1, it would have at least gone to penalties. Given that we'd won away (and that's actually won, you know, that old "scoring more goals than the opposition routine)" at places like Arsenal and Everton last season, I don't share your certainty that we couldn't have overturned the first leg "defeat" (which of course, was nothing of the sort).

Oh, only about 99.99% of the people who use it at a rough estimate I'd say. My niece has something like 600 "friends" on there, I reckon she probably can't remember who a quarter of them are, at least.

Imagine if we'd gone on to win the cup and then finish 4th.

Indeed Nays, a lad from Wales who was in BOTS. It's mad, you play with people, speak to them on Vent, then a while later they're dead. I think there's still a certain stigma attached to having "internet friends" despite the fact collecting friends on Facebook is probably the social phenomenon of the 21st century,

I bet they've played more games together than Laursen and Mellberg!

Or to put it another way, absolutely yes.

Other then Moscow, which I thought was a disgraceful decision, I'd say my biggest gripe with O'Neill was our style of football. I didn't think it was good enough given the money he'd spent, but thankfully, the purchase of Downing, and the shifting of Milner to the centre has worked wonders on that.

Dan's just amused by the fact that other classes don't just auto attack while they go and put the kettle on.

I was actually referring to the incorrect usage of the word, but crack on.

I agree. Right decision at the time, and events turning out as they did doesn't make it otherwise. You can only decide on what you know at the time, not what later turns out to happen. I thought it was the wrong decision then, and still do. Success breeds success, and you could see the players were pissed off by throwing away a tournament they'd worked so hard at. It was the turning point in the season, for all the wrong reasons, and you don't need hindsight to realise what a shit decision it was. How could you "see the players were pissed off", were you privvy to spending time in the dressing room after the game or something? You can't be "privy to" spending time in the dressing room. But grammatical stupidity aside, I think it's clear that the players just didn't seem as motivated from then on. Man City away for example, was an absolute disgrace of a performance.