El-Reacho

Fair point - but he's less convincing at LB. It's odd that the first player PL brought in was Lowton when we had both Herd and Lichaj who were two or our best players from last season and are best suited to RB IMHO.

You guys are always pigeon holing players - where's you're sense of total football ;-) Clark has played more games at LB than anyone else at the club I reckon - certainly anyone who's available. I stuck Herd back in at CB because there's no one else to take Clark's place and I thought he did alright against Norwich.

What about Herd at CB and Clark at LB?

I don't remember anyone having any difficulty with Randy splashing the cash at the time.

Of the new signings we made from the lower leagues this summer, that is Lowton, Westwood, Bowery, and Bennett - It was Bennett who had played football at the highest level, and from what I can recall there were Middlesborough fans/journalists who were tipping him to go on and play for England. So on that basis (flimsy though it might be), given the potential that Lowton and Westwood have shown, I reckon PL has spotted something similar that Bennett has to offer. Likewise Bowery; hopefully PL has spotted something in him similar to what he saw in Benteke.

Ashley Westwood got a 'one to watch' mention in the Guardian today. Also pointed out the 4-2-3-1 formation working for us.

Interesting action from Kimmage to counter attack Pat and Hein. Pat and Paul's relationship is like something out of a DC comic - buddies and training partners in amateur Irish cycling back in the late 70's early 80's - now both sworn enemies essentially battling for control of the sport. Good versus evil and all that. Got me thinking that Lance is probably watching carefully! Does he plan his confession and then turn around an become the key witness to Pat and Hein's demise?? The way this story has run to date it wouldn't surprise me one bit. The story that keeps on giving.....

That's our ideal midfield at the moment IMHO.

Hopefully Clark fit to partner Vlaar, with Herd, Ireland and Bannan in midfield three for Saturday. Herd will do more for our midfield than either Delph or KEA in our current position IMHO, he's better at stopping the opposition playing than the other two.

David Brailsford should have typed Sean Yates into google and looked at the third auto-complete option that comes up. Hardly thorough due diligence is it?

I drove up it - much easier. It was pretty exhilarating driving back down and being overtaken on both sides by riders descending like bullets.

It certainly does. I'm so disillusioned with this sport that I've booked flights to Paris for the Champs Elysee finish - a night time sprint. Should be spectacular. I'd say the organisers were delighted that Brad turned up to tell them he was going to ride the Giro instead! I wonder has Froome given Sky an ultimatum - I lead at the tour or else I'm gone?

That sounds right to me but makes you wonder what happened between the 2010 Tour when Sky were useless, and then 2011-12 when they became utterly dominant. I think the comments from Contador today show that the Armstrong mess is absolutely part of today's peloton - likewise Valverde, Sanchez etc. Nico Roche is the same - they all are furious about the people who confess and tell all, whereas if you get caught and deny deny deny you're fine. Roche is supposed to be one of the clean guys, has signed up to Bikepure etc etc, but then signs for Riis to be Contador's right hand man, and bitches about the Garmin guys confessing against Lance. Despite the big PR drive I don't think anything has changed one bit in cycling - why would it? It's just as easy to get away with it now as it was five years ago. Why would Riis or Bruyneel or any of the other DS's change their ways? No one did after Festina or OP - perhaps one or two of the french teams and they simply haven't been able to compete since then. The USADA report proved that the biological passport means nothing as when it flagged up LA's suspicious values in '09 and '10 they did nothing about it, so there's nothing to stop a rider transfusing his own blood today. As long as they can get away with it they will do it.

I can't get my head around a clean Wiggins finishing just 30 seconds behind a doped Armstrong over three weeks in the 2009 Tour. Especially when Matt White was the DS shouting instructions from the car.

I really like Cavendish the way he speaks about doping - he speaks with the natural anger and exasperation that you would expect of someone who's being cheated. Valverde, Samuel Sanchez, Schleck etc show that the the problems are still deep rooted in the peloton the way the have reacted. There still seems to be a culture of hatred towards the guys that have confessed to doping, and a total acceptance of those that have been caught and tired to maintain their innocence. It makes it pretty hard to banish everything to the past and draw a line under it when that still goes on. A good example is Levi Leipheimer being sacked by Omega Pharma Lotto. There's no way on this earth they can only have found out about Levi when the USADA report came out, but when the world's media are focused on them they hang Leipheimer out to dry. Am a bit gutted that Cavendish has gone there - there's no way those guys represent a clean future for cycling.

Pat McQuaid (if he can be believed) has said that cyclists make up only one quarter of the athletes that were identified in Operacion Puerto. Given the money that Fuentes was charging you could only have paid for his services if you were a top level professional athlete. The cyclists who were interviewed about Fuentes reportedly said they saw La Liga footballers in the offices when they were there. L'equipe reported that there was Barcelona and Real players identified within the investigation but it's always been denied by the Spanish. Rafa Nadal has also been heavily linked. You would imagine the Spanish authorities would be absolutely desperate to ensure a doping scandal involving Barca, Real, or even Nadal didn't come out. Something like that would dwarf the Armstrong scandal. But you have to ask the question what other athletes could afford to spend the money Ullrich, Hamilton, Basso etc. could spend to make up the other three quarters?

Pat McQuaid will be interviewed on RTE Radio 1 this morning (it's online). It's with Pat Kenny, with good reason as it would be the equivalent of him going on Lorraine Kelly in UK. Hopefully he will try and ask him some of the questions everyone wants answered but I wouldn't hold my breath. McQuaid has refused to go on any of the other radio shows where he'd be taken to pieces. Kimmage was on Matt Cooper last night: media.todayfm.com/podcast/68383

Grenade tossed ;-) Differing opinions in here I think.

Pantani's biography is superb - it's anything but amusing; is very dark and very sad. Whilst both he and Lance were both dopers, Pantani is still incredibly likeable. Totally self-destructive though. He was in a crash in the mid-90's and when they took him to the hospital and took his blood his heamatocrit was 60%.

I see Cadel finally admitted to working with Ferrari - for fitness training only.... A good day to bury some news!

I'd say there's more chance that Zulle was clean in 1999 than Escartin. Kelme (Escartin's team) was one of the filthiest of that era - Fuentes was actually their team doctor at one stage I think. Zulle had just been arrested, interrogated, strip searched, and jailed and then banned the year before. 1999 was supposedly pretty clean (with the obvious exception of USPS) who had motoman following them, as everyone was scared to death of being arrested. There's as good an argument that Zulle was clean for the race, as there is that Escartin was doped IMHO. But then as EPO gave a 15-20% increase in performance at the time, the strongest argument would suggest the top 30-40 riders could have been doped.

Schleck showed exactly where he stands when he begrudgingly won the 2010 Tour because of Contador's positive - I reckon he still considers Contador to be the winner; Alberto certainly does. It's clearly not the done thing in the omerta to take your rightful win when someone else gets caught. Unless they actually confess to it in which case they are immediately thrown under the bus. Schleck and Contador are likely to be challenging for Tour for the next 5/6/7 years - doesn't exactly fill you with confidence that the dark days are behind us. It's clear that the omerta is still very much in place - does that definitely mean the drugs are still there too? Or is it just the attitudes regarding the past? It's just as easy to beat the tests now as it was 10 years ago, if you were a doper why would you stop?

This is well worth a listen. Millar immediately went on the PR drive about how clean the sport was now and the enormous amount of work that had been done, despite Dick Pound, Michael Ashenden, Tyler, and Matt Dicanio all saying there was still serious problems in cycling and in wider sport - I only wish they'd challenged him on it directly. It's amazing that Ashenden didn't bother watching the olympics he's so unconvinced by the integrity of the performances. Great programme though.

Wow - have never heard that. That would leave Nike's image in tatters too. I'm sure you were impressed with Phil's comments yesterday Paulo? Utterly utterly ludicrous. Does anyone think Lance will confess? I think the pressure on him to respond will grow and grow, and if he denies it again now after the media have ditched him he'll probably only harm what's left of his reputation even more (if possible!).

http://goo.gl/HRLrx Good article - first other than kimmage to ask questions of current and 'new age' teams.