Grounded Wingman

I'll be 31 and I will have to start accepting the fact that it's unlikely that I will ever play for England. I'm 31 in August but can still hold out hope that Craig Brown returns to the Scotland job and I make the squad for Brazil 2014.

Has Ancelotti been in charge of transfer dealings at Milan (or has it been one of Leonardo, Galliani or Berlusconi)? Will he be in charge of transfer dealings at Chelsea? Remember, Hiddink didn't have a transfer window in which to fall out with Kenyon or Abramovich. It's unfair to have a go at a manager for his selection of players if he isn't the man making the decisions as to who is bought and sold, unless he does something daft like drop Mikel for Miniero.

Button said that they were both on a 3 stop strategy and that he felt 3 stops was the best way to go. However, after the safety car came out early, Brawn decided to put Button on a 2 stop to cover their bases, as Barrichello was already on a 3, so it was good team strategy. It just so happened it worked out for Button.

I'm sure I heard once that Norah Jones is the daughter of Ravi Shankar, so I would think she'd qualify.

In fairness to the ref, as Match of The Day showed, he was at least 2 yards away from the incident and looking right at it, and in those circumstances it's hard for a professional Premier League ref to make the correct decision.

It's the right move by Burley, the SFA, Walter Smith and Rangers. I am personally very impressed that Smith and Rangers took this stand as a lot (not all, but a lot) of Rangers fans couldn't care less about Scotland, and will be spitting fire if they drop points in the next 2 weks without McGregor or Ferguson. I expect both players will be leaving Rangers in the summer. Dick Advocaat has already said he needs a midfielder to replace Tymoschuk at Zenit St Petersburg and that he is interested in Ferguson. Both were linked with Newcastle in January too, and may move their in the summer if Shearer leaves and Kinnear takes charge again. The move only impacts the Scotland team if there are injuries. I'd rather Gordon in goal and a centre midfield or Fletcher and Brown, with Hartley holding if we play 4-5-1, than have McGregor or Ferguson play anyway. Anyone who doesn't want to play for Scotland, or who can't behave like it's a massive honour for them to be representing the country, should never be allowed to pull on the jersey for the national team, as it is a slap in the face to the supporters who would give just about anything to be able to be given the opportunity to play for Scotland.

Scotland's group has one less team, so in the other groups the second placed team has their results against the bottom team disregarded. In which case according to the running table at Wiki, Croatia are the bottom ranked second placed team just now. (Y) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_FIFA_Wor...nd-placed_teams Ireland and Croatia have games in hand. I'm sure most Scotland fans will be expecting that we will probably do something stupid like beat Holland at Hampden to finish 2nd in the group, but still not qualify for the playoffs. OR Get to the playoffs, get McFadden fit, draw France, 1-0 Scotland at Hampden, 1-0 Scotland in Paris and on to win the World Cup in South Africa. Those are the only two options I am willing to consider - it's the Scotland way.

Defoe always seems to get in amongst the goals. If you are looking for a target man then maybe Dean Ashton, or for raw pace there's Walcott.

I have played with non-symmetrical formations. As with standard formations, it takes time for the players to adapt but it works okay. I found that it helps if you have your reserves and youths mirror your formation, and stick any non playing first team squad player (including subs) in the reserves. Most of the time I play a back 4, 1 DM, 2MC's (one going forward), AML/R and ST but if I have a less capable team I play 4-4-1-1, make sure i have a silky AMC and a pacy striker, and set the AMC as playmaker (So he sees a lot of the ball) and the ST as target man with supply as"Run on to ball". Seems to work okay, I was hopeless at Newcastle but changed to the 4-4-1-1, assigned Van Der Vaart the playmaker role and signed Saviola from Madrid as a target man, and it was much better. To be honest, most of the fun in the game is playing around with the team's formations.

You could play a slightly unbalanced formation in order to fit the players in. GK: Reina - DR: Arbeloa, DC: Skrtel, DC: Carragher - WBL: Aurelio, DMC: Mascherano - MR: Kuyt, MC: Alonso, MC (or AMC): Gerrard - ST: Torres, ST: Keane. or go a 4-3-3 with 3 centre midfielders and 3 centre forwards, playing Kuyt up front.

Interesting thing is that it was widely reported that David Villa was available for £25m just prior to Euro 2008, so Liverpool could have potentially got him for just less than £5m more than what was paid for Keane. Now, I reckon if he leaves Valencia it'll be for Barcelona or Madrid. Shame, because he plays well enough with Torres and is just as good a striker.

One of the best things about Benitez is that he corrects his mistakes quickly. Look at the Champions League final - Finnan off, Hamann on. Epic win follows. Transfer wise he does the same - Morientes, Cisse and Keane were heralded as exciting signings and the media were creaming themselves about them, then they flopped so he got rid of them quickly (though in Cisse's case it was more due to injury and the fact he was always running offside).

Being a bit of a desperate money grabber, I have never turned down a renewal on my existing contract in FM. What I'm wondering is, if you refuse to sign a contract extension, does the club sack you or do they just let your contract run out?

84 minutes gone: "Oh, Rafa - you so crazy" Full Time: "Rafa Benitez - tactical genius".

MSI. I couldn't remember the name of them. Yeah, the FA said basically that they will not allow any form of third party ownership after the whole West Ham mess. So after this loan period Tevez's registration will have to be held and owned by the club he plays for, not MSI. Whether this ruling will apply abroad, I don't know... It's not going to be a major concern to Kia Joorabchian, or anyone else involved with MSI, given that they made £18m when Mascherano was sold and will make £30m odd (if they are lucky) when Tevez is sold.

Any idea why Attila Sekerlioglu (once named Squiggly Igloo by one of my English mates) was called Dino? Dino was a legend though, coming over and doing his Mexican wave to all sides of the stadium, that had Saintees supporters in them, at the end of every game.

Why? Are you basing your slection on which name scores the most points in Scrabble?

Belletti's a right back (who Scolari sometimes plays in midfield). Chelsea also have Ferreira and Bosingwa for right back, but Cashley Cole is the only left back.

They usually are, given that England's representatives are usually 2 London clubs and 2 North West clubs they tend to keep them apart. Works in the group stages too. Liverpool and Man Utd don't play on the same night and neither do Chelsea and Arsenal. Confident we'll beat Madrid. It was the draw that I wanted (I wanted us to avoid Villarreal).

Lots of players get in on name and reputation. I don't think Gerrard or Kaka should be as high, based on last season's performances. Can't argue with Ronaldo winning. Messi played well but in a Barcelona team that was falling to bits and didn't win anything - he didn't score nearly as many goals as Ronaldo either, Torres was blinding for Liverpool but not Spain's star man in the European Championships (despite the goal in the final). Xavi was the player of the tournament at the European Championships. Arshavin, Casillas and Villa deserve to be in as well. Senna should be higher than Gerrard and Kaka.

What crazy shit will Man City pull off, if any? They'll make two or three fake spectacular signings (Roundnaldo, some other Brazilians like Luis Fabiano or maybe Adriano) and probably go in for Podolski. Then they'll sack Hughes in the first week of February. Will Everton get a replacement for Yakubu? Yes. maybe Henrik Larsson but probably/hopefully Alan Smith from Newcastle. Will Owen and Heskey get new contracts? or join new clubs? Heskey will move to a bigger English team (Villa, Spurs - someone like that). Owen will either force Newcastle to continue paying him silly money or he'll get a move to a desperate club. As long as he doesn't end up at Liverpool then it's ok. Will Redknapp raid Pompey? He'll try, but he'll only get Lassana Diarra, who must be due a move soon or else he'll have to unpack his boxes. I doubt Spurs will sign Sol Campbell Will Hull persuade another big name that's out of contract to join the Circle? The Ghanaian bloke that was at Fenerbahce. Stephen Appiah? Will the credit crunch stop most PL activity? No, it'll increase it, because nobody is cut adrift like Derby and they'll all spend to try to stay up. Clubs will be given, and will make, much more money in the Premier League in 2009/10 than in the Championship, so they'll take the risk.

From what I remember, Makalele announced that he wanted to retire from international football but Raymond Domenech said that he was going to select him in the France squad anyway, and if he didn't turn up and play then France would invoke the 5 day rule, preventing him from playing for Chelsea in the match before and after the international break.

But he was right, they were making the same mistake they made vs. Tottenham, trying to play the same football rather than run the game down. Maybe so, but there was 30 or 40 minutes left in the game, not 3 or 4. I mean, if a team is 2-0 up after 10 minutes then they won't be thinking about running the game down for the last 80.

Anyone else notice that Andy Gray was still criticizing how Arsenal were playing when they were 2-0 up?

Klaus Augenthaler, about 15-20 years ago. I remember seeing this goal on Scotsport's European round up when I was a kid.