Yngwie

It lets our guys get home in time to see the WC QF at 5pm.

I noticed that Toby Agdestein was an unused sub tonight in Haugesund's Europa match v Airbus.

The fact that he's gone home so early without agreeing to sign, and Hughes implying our financial offer didn't meet the player's expectations, means that we are probably the last club he'll be signing for. Forget him.

So the player wants more money than we are offering. Next!

Let's eat, children! Let's eat children! I need my hair cut, badly. I need my hair cut badly.

As mentioned on the Clach thread, we have Jean-Christophe Ayina on trial. Age 23, French, but also eligible for either Benin or Congo depending on which source you look at. He has a year left to run on his contract with Racing Santander (Spanish 3rd division) but they may well have released him. They have evidently had severe financial difficulties recently and didn't pay their players for months. Famously, in their Copa del Rey quarter final v Sociedad a few months ago, when the game kicked off the unpaid players protested, just standing with arms linked, until the ref abandoned the match. Best stats on him I found were here: http://www.footmercato.net/joueur/j157950_john-christophe-ayina Vast majority of his career appearances have been off the bench, and when he starts he's usually been subbed off. If you look at game time, though, at Santander he wasn't far away from a goal every 90 minutes, which sounds good to me. So if we sign Ayina, we'll be laughing.

Just announced : we are home to Fleetwood Town on Sunday 27th July.

Translation - he's totally unfit!

I read somewhere that the Muslims at the tournament (not just Algeria but also the likes of Mezut Ozil) generally haven't been following Ramadan. Apparently they can use an exemption for going into battle.

I like the way the Brazilian crowds boo negative or poor quality football.

Is this why Brazil and Colombia are wearing white shorts with their yellow tops, instead of their "classic" and much smarter blue shorts?

I just want the best side to win, but whilst the pundits and bookies are understandably tipping Brazil, Argentina and Germany, I think the Dutch are in with a very decent chance. Was a better side in the group stage? And they now have an easier route to the semis than anyone else - Mexico, then Greece/Cost Rica. And if they make it that far, they are well capable of beating any of Argentina/Switz/Belgium/USA. They made the final 4 years ago and they also made the final last time it was held in South America. I wouldn't be surprised if they do that again.

We need players who are good enough for the Primer League.

True, but they also have a history of punching below the belt to achieve that success.

Let's hope this guy doesn't give us the brush-off.

48 games down, only 16 left. And there's no game on tonight!

Would it not just have been the German equivalent "scheiße"?

Latest is that it seems like they are giving him the chop ! Suarez must be the only person whose face lights up at the prospect of getting the cold shoulder!

Hardly surprising - they've only won 1 of their last 10 matches, and even that was only against the worst team in their group!

If he was a dog he'd be put down.

I see England have now won just 1 of their last 8 matches at World Cups. That's almost as bad as Scotland! Scotland, however, despite all their failures, have never been knocked out prior to playing their final group match.

Not sure about that, it could just be a badly written sentence - ie Pepper has followed Greenhalgh by leaving ICT, rather than following him to Morton.

This is the best world cup ever!

4 out of 4 now. Quite remarkable, but it also has me kicking myself. Last weekend when Costa Rica were 1-0 down at half time, I was looking at the odds for which team would win that group. They were 50/1 which seemed quite generous for a team that looked they could play a bit, and I was literally within a mouseclick of putting a cheeky couple of quid on it before deciding it would almost certainly be money down the drain.

Lots of doom and gloom, understandably, but as you say they can still go through if the 3 remaining games in the group are each won by the favourites. So it's very possible - although the first 3 games in the group were each won by the underdog!