El-Reacho

Do Lambert and his coaches ever have any input on the academy teams? Is the academy completely separate from the senior squad? Would they watch many of the games?

It's a reaction to some of the media's lazy drawing of similarities of the two.

You could include 'Ability to adapt to the game on a wider level' O'Neill gets a resounding no from me in this department. He's set up his Sunderland team in exactly the same way that he set up his Villa team and his Celtic and arguably his Leicester teams. Two wingers and two strong strikers. It's effective to a point and loads of teams came to VP during the O'Neill era and were able to stop us from playing by dropping deep and doubling up on the wide players. We had no plan B. Lambert on the other hand has shown the ability to be tactically innovative so I don't imagine we'll be playing our current formation in 6 months or a year's time. When Benteke, Gabby, Albrighton, Ireland etc are all firing he will have any amount of options and I have no doubt he will use them all.

I'd be happy for us to drop points against the smaller teams in return for a couple of big wins against the big guys. Those wins we had under O'Neill against Chelsea before Mourinho got sacked, and United and Arsenal were so satisfying. Also the Monday night game against Liverpool. I'd absolutely love a few of those wins this season. The result against Swansea last season spoiled all of the excitement from the Chelsea win.

Honestly? You can't think of a player that's less like him than Gattuso? He does exactly the same thing that Gattuso does - stops the opposition playing.

Seems more like a Gennaro Gattuso type rather than the attacking player that I was expecting.

He probably wouldn't need any of it. Players that cost that amount seem to go against his philosophy.

Like Drummers in bands. No talent but every band needs one. Will stick up for my fellow sticksmen: John Bonham, Keith Moon, Neil Peart, Lars Ulrich, Jimmy Chamberlain.... Ringo gave drummers a bad name.

http://www.talksport.co.uk/radio/listen-again/episode/89319 Good interview with David Walsh with Keys and Gray here. It's after 11.00am.

Does anyone know how many of the squad were actually away on international duty? It will give Lambert a good fortnight to work with the bulk of the squad. I saw Benteke, Hutton, were with their respective squads over the weekend. Maybe Guzan Lichaz, Bannan, Holman?

If anything Trapattoni not picking him is something of compliment. He's in good company with James McClean, Seamus Coleman, Darron Gibson, Shane Long, all not supposedly good enough to play. James McCarthy will probably lose his spot to Keith Andrews for the Germany game. How he could bring Paul Green on in the Spain game with Darron Gibson on the bench is beyond me.

not for the As, but the Red Sox used it successfully Think all of the baseball teams use this approach now. Sabermetrics it's called.

USPS 1997 TdF Team: Vyacheslav Ekimov Adriano Baffi Jean-Cyril Robin George Hincapie Marty Jemison Tyler Hamilton Dariusz Baranowski Pascal Derame Peter Meinert Never heard of most of them. Lance must have got rid of the non-US guys except Ekimov.

Never knew about Zulle's post Festina EPO samples. I knew about his ONCE and Festina history, but I wondered if a lot of those guys in '99 were clean. Always really liked Zulle as a rider for some reason. Pretty sure USPS were about pre-Lance but I can't remember who would have been there - Hincapie maybe. A few of the Americans from Motorola ended up at Cofidis including Lance. You wonder how things may have turned out if he'd stayed at Cofidis? Probably exactly the same.

Bizarrely of all the runners up who would take Armstrong's spot if and when he has his titles officially stripped the guy who is most likely to be clean could be Alex Zulle. The Festina affair was something of a watershed moment in cycling that, unfortunately only lasted until Armstrong and USPS arrived at the Tour the next year. Supposedly most teams laid off that year, until they realised what Armstrong was up to at the Tour.

Think it would have been an even greater body blow to cycling if they hadn't have gone after Armstrong and uncovered this. The deeper and more damaging these claims are to the people involved the better it will be for cycling, at least there's a possibility of repairing the sport which wouldn't have been possible otherwise. People are now referring to the 90's and early 00's as the dark days, just as then they referred to the 80's as the dark days. I am still convinced that cycling is as filthy as ever and the only thing that's changed are the doses - they're still one step ahead of the testers. The same people are all still there. I actually don't think cycling will suffer a great deal in terms of sponsorship because of this. I'm convinced that it's corrupt and people are doped but I still watch every big race on TV, and buy the cycling products they are advertising. Festina still invest heavily in the sport despite what happened them. I think the American following has slowly dissipated since Lance retired anyway.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/us-postal-backers-could-be-under-investigation Now apparently it was Lance's backers that were the main donators to Floyd's legal costs. It kind of undermines Lance trying to discredit both Floyd and Tyler when he's trying to fund their respective defenses. Really is the story that keeps on giving. I reckon Bjarne Riis is panicking at the moment.

PL's signings seem to come across as quite intelligent characters. Bennett, Lowton, KEA, and Westwood have all spoken very eloquently about their respective moves (haven't heard the other guys speak). Not having a go at previous players but when you compare them to Ashley Young's first press conference, he was hard to listen to as he was so nervous and full of cliches. He still is to an extent. I'm not sure how this might translate into performances on the pitch but it's certainly something that's noticeable. It may give the team the strong character it so badly needs.

Great article Paulo - the book should be a hoot... I heard on twitter that he book's release date was changed from the 18th (Armstrong's birthday) to the 5th, which bizarrely turns out to be Pat McQuaid's birthday.

Like it! Half of that is Holman He was everywhere. Are we saying Newcastle had a player on both corner flags for the whole game, or is the map totally useless? I was wondering what that was too. Did both teams run and celebrate their goals in that corner or something? How did they come up with that analysis?

Not according to the quotes above, it isn't. Woodward KFA. UEFA have taken down the YouTube videos at the start of the thread, but the commentators on that pronounced it as I described. I hope we're going to be kinder to Benteke than the football world was to poor Lucas Radebe, whose name is most definitely pronounced RaDEHbeh, and yet he spent his whole career being called Raddibby or some such. (Of course you could argue that as a Leeds player he had no rights at all, but still.) I will now go in search of further YouTube links to spare CB from Radebe's awful fate... Same as Mark KINsella.

Sadly, I often say things are going better than they actually are at work, simply because it is what the boss wants to hear! I'm not making judgements on your current status within your workplace! - but I think Randy needs Lambert a lot more than Lambert needs Villa at the moment. I don't think he would lie to protect Lerner if he wasn't happy with the backing he got. Just as Rodgers was quite honest that Liverpool's owners/directors screwed things up badly on Friday re. Dempsey/Carroll. I reckon PL was being genuine when he said that.

Cheer up Big John.

They could be trying to force Genk's hand to get the Benteke deal through. As in we have £7m and no more to spend on an attacker - who wants it?

Another player in the squad who's not crippled with the scars of last season ;-) Hopefully he'll bring the same enthusiasm Ron and KEA have brought. Good luck Joe.