wiggy

Now I know we all like a good wind up. I reckon that in light of Arsenal banning national flags amongst their own supporters we should take as many as possible to our upcoming FA cup match. If we take one each, I reckon we might just about manage the 194 countries in the World.

Not trying to pick on you personally but this certainly wouldn't be the first time that our fans have been wrong about Sam's signings!

Actually it's supposed to be ??250m over 5 years which works out at near as damn it ??1m per week.

Nelson Mandela, The Queen, Princess Diana, Prince Charles, John Major .... and Clare Sweeney.

So after half a season the question is..... Anelka & Meite or Johnson & Lescott?

The guys around me spent quite a lot of the match abusing Hunt. They seemed happy to ignore everything good he did in the match though. Funnily enough they didn't have much to say when he got over to put in a brilliant block over to the left of Jussi and stopped a certain goal. Yes his distribution is worse than Jussi's at the moment, but Nicky always gives 100%, would never shirk a tackle (Vat Te) and I've lost count of the number of times he's got across to cover the centre backs and even left back. To be honest I thought the worst thing about yesterday was the performance of the fans. They seemed even less interested than the players.

Well again we played better once he came on. Any idea why he hasn't been starting?

I'm assuming he thinks we should stick with Lampard, Gerrard, Carrick and Dowing ...... because that seems to be working so well. And if anyone deserves a call up then it has to be Jenas.

Now we have definitive proof that McLaren really does hate Nolan. Half of the squad have pulled out with injury and instead of calling up the next most deserving player(s) he decides he'll go with what he's got. I genuinely believe he'd rather play a man short and with David James up front than give him a cap. pussy

One incident in this match summed up everything I hate about football today. In the second half Deco went down under the slightest of contact and was doing is usual play acting. When Terry kicked the ball in his knackers he couldn't get up quick enough to confront him and then demand a yellow card.

Afraid that it's very very unlikely to be moved as Sky are already showing a couple of matches on the Saturday: Sat 13 January: Watford v Liverpool 12.45pm Sat 13 January: Blackburn v Arsenal 5.15pm

Anyone who saw the match on TV this afternoon might have seen Rooney call Rob Styles an f***ing c**t in a rant at him in the opening minutes after a challenge on the edge of our box. It could have been so different if Giggs hadn't been on the scene. He went up to him and said "Rob, it was nothing". And so they carried on as if nothing had happened. I'm sure players have been sent off for swearing at refs in the past....

Their movement and passing in the opening 20 minutes was as good as anything that you will see from Arsenal and their defending (Vidic in particular) was as good as you will see from Chelsea. Put those together and I'm afraid we were always in trouble.

No-one could have lived with United the way they played today.

Beaten by an excellent excellent United performance today. I really think that they will push Chelsea very very hard this year

So having failed to win away since last Christmas we've now been treated to 3 in a row (and it could so easily have been 5!) Who else has been lucky enough to be at all of them?

Afraid that the comparison simply doesn't stack up. Those 3 Italians are consistently successful, winning cups and leagues before and after he was manager at each. Bolton on the other hand are a small club who have won nothing in our recent past. Plus we were struggling in the Championship when Sam took over. In my opinion Sam has been infinitely more successful than Sven in relative terms. I genuinely don't think that Sven could have done for our club what Sam has.

So in his 10 years at Roma, Fiorentina and Sampdoria he won a total of 2 cups. I guess that each of us can spin it how we want.

Personally I think belief that he has been successful is a bit misguided. Winning things with Gothenburg and Benfica isn't particularly difficult - particularly not at the time when he was managing them. Arguably his greatest succes was at Lazio where he won two Italian Cups, the European Cup Winners' Cup and a league title. However if you look deeper you'll see that he effectively did a Leeds and bought short term success with drastic long term consequences. I go watch football in Rome fairly frequently and despite his 'success' most Lazio supporters do not have a very high opinion of Sven. They see him as the reason that they almost lost their club a few seasons ago. I don't know everything about him so I'm happy to be corrected if I've missed anything. More than anything I simply wasn't impressed by what he did for England. I in no way expected to win tournaments, but I just don't see what he brought to the party as we didn't overachieve in any way shape or form. He didn't discover any surprising players, never introduced any novel tactics and certainly didn't seem to have a plan B - his substitutions were bizarre to say the least. Sven demands very very high wages and at a club like Bolton where it is all about getting the best out of very limited resources I just don't think he would offer value for money. Now if West Ham genuinely have ??100m to spend then maybe he's the right man ... if you want to win one FA cup and then spend 10 years paying off the debt.

Would you want him as our next manager?

Natasha?

It just gets better .... Sven lined up as new West Ham manager. Brilliant!

Paul http://football.guardian.co.uk/comment/sto...=rss&feed=5 Just wondered when we were going to see your apology in the paper? If I was as bad at my job as you clearly are at yours then I'd be sacked. What you wrote wasn't factual impartial journalism, but rather self-indulgent abuse of a club that you clearly don't like. Now do you support Spurs or West Ham? Either way I'd like to congratulate you on an excellent start to the season!

A few snippets included in Paul Doyles recent articles....

May 5th 2007 - West Ham vs Bolton Wanderers A Bolton win at Upton Park on the penultimate weekend of the season gives us a fourth place finish and relegates the media darlings. We can but dream