Lighthouse

The true story behind that film is fairly interesting. It's based on FC Start a bunch of Dynamo Kiev players who worked in a bakery before the war. They played the Luftwaffe in 'The Death Match' and half of them were executed after they battered the German's in the match. Not sure about the team, just as long as Vinnie Jones isn't in it. Mean Machine made my eyes bleed.

I'm going with 4-0 to City too. Anything better and I wont be too unhappy, this game is about competitive experience and keeping the GD respectable for this season. Let's not "just go for it" because there is nothing to lose. If we go to OT, Emirates, WHL, Stamford etc and lose 1-0 we will be doing a heck of a lot better than a lot of the teams we will be fighting against. I would actually be happy if we lose 1-0. Welcome to the Premier League.

You could quite easily swap Lambert and Rod around in the 4231 formation, infact there are a lot of options available to us. Lambert, Rod and Sharp can all play up front, you could also have Guly, Lallana, Puncheon or Lee in the hole. Puncheon, De Ridder and Chaplow can play out wide. Cork can play the holding role too. I agree with your second point entirely. I don't think we're good enough yet, we need 3 players in at least. Will we get any before Man City? It's looking unlikely.

We seem to be experimenting a lot with a 541/433 formation and although you can say it's only a preseason and results don't matter etc. we haven't exactly been impressive either. I'm not sure why we're persisting with it if I'm honnest. It doesn't seem to suit any of our players. Lallana isn't as effective sitting deeper in the middle, Rodriguez isn't a winger and Lambert seems to be isolated. I personally am a fan of a 4-2-3-1 formation. I vaguely remember something similar under Poortaloo, the formation was good we didn't have the players to pull it off. A good idea poorly executed. We could go with a front six of something like. - - - - Davis - - - Morgan - - - Guly - - - Lambert - - - Lallana - - - - - - Rodriguez - - - - - - I think it has a lot of benefits. Lallana and Guly would both be able to go forwards freely knowing Morgan and Davis can cover them from behind if we lose the ball. It suits Lambert a lot more as he would have a lot of players around him to feed of his neat build-up play. Rod obsiously is better in a central roll, rather than out wide.

Go Mo!

I much prefer the 4-2-3-1 system personally and I think it suits our players much better. Davis and Morgan holding in midfield, Puncheon/Guly, Lambert and Lallana in front of them and Rodriguez leading the line. Morgan - Davis Guly - Lambert - Lallana Rodriguez The 4-3-3- system doesn't suit Lallana playing deep in the middle, or Rodriguez wide left IMO.

Whenever anyone mentions Wolves and Bristol City it walway reminds me of this

You guys are joking right? This place is full of Paddies and 2nd generation Paddies most of whom will pay their TV license and be watching the Olympics on the BBC. I'd say there was more interest in Irelands first gold than just another GB gold

Surely an olympic cyclist would be better off just going as they were riding along. I know it's none too pleasant but surely as an olympic athlete it's better than giving up 30 seconds to your rivals. I know most F1 drivers take a wizz in their overalls at some point during the race.

"In Sydney in 2000 organisers had to order 20,000 more condoms after the initial allocation of 70,000 ran out" Christ, I'm in the wrong job.

My job involves a fair amount of flying around Europe. I personally wouldn't skimp on the hotels to save money, unless times really are tight. An extra 20 euors a night can be the difference between a nightmare and a place you might choose to go on holiday. I don't know what the deal is with your travel expenses, just my $0.02.

Good looking and win penalty shoot outs. Think I'm pretty much done with the England football team.

Khacheridi is a big lad but is hardly the kind of cultured centre half I'd want along side Jos. He also has a bit of a temperament and a nack of picking up cards. I'd probably stillbe happy if we did go for him though. If we're going for anyone from Kiev I'd rather Husyev or Yarmolenko.

I'm not being pedantic, I just don't see your point. Why shouldn't we have played Bristol City?

Agreed. Can we wait for these people to actually turn up before we take the moral high ground over them. BTW, saying things like, 'we need to improve,' 'Player X isn't playing well' or 'we need to sign another XXXXXX' doesn't count. That's just making a rational observation.

So you're saying we shouldn't have played there because one of our players picked up an injury at that ground last season. By that logic we shouldn't play any games at St Marys either because Barnard got a bad injury there.

Since when was the point of pre-season games to win easily? Games like this one and Ajax will provide us with a decent test, as opposed to those Swedish pub teams we beat 12-0 a few years ago.

Dalek is repeatedly telling this forum 4 + 4 = 9 Some people can't resist posting long winded explanations as to why 4 + 4 = 8 This is the bit some people just can't seem to grasp; It doesn't matter how right you are and how wrong he is. YOU ARE NOT WINNING He knows the answer is 8, he doesn't care. His life appears to be based largely around having utterly pointless and completely wrong arguments on the internet. It's quite tragic if I'm being brutally honnest. Please for your own sanity add him to your ignore list and don't indulge his tedious nonsense.

Clare Balding is a man. Watch out Gary.

The front 6 looks interesting, I'd go with this kind of formation - - - - - Morgan - - - Davies - - - - - Guly - - - - - Rodriguez - - - - - Lallana - - - - - - - - Lambert - - - - - - - - - It's flexible and suits the strengths of most of our better players. Guly and Lallana can play out wide and cut inside. They would also have more freedom to attack as Morgan and Davies can pull out wide and fill the space to help prevent a counter attack. Rodriguez and Lambert can swap around easily and Sharp, Lee and Guly could also play in the central role. Puncheon, Lee and Chaplow could also play on either side as well as De Ridder on the right. Cork and JWP can also play the deep central holding roles too.

Are they Skates playing 5-a-side or something? The mathematics of that team sheet doesn't look right to me.

Another rowing gold, fantastic!

They're probably only want £15m because it's Liverpool asking. Any other club and they'd probably say £5m, not that I know anything about him.

Last time I saw Bates he was haunting Bedford's Place on matchdays, that was years ago now though. I think Lee moved to Hull, claiming they don't have the internet there. The Ted Bates statue and Big Sam's phone threads were the best freds on here.