Kieron Dyer injury

The tackle that left Keiron Dyer with a broken leg doesn't look any worse than many every weekend in my view. What do you reckon?

My petty issues

I watch many football matches both live and on TV. Here are the three things that annoy me the most about watching professional football:

1 - Foul throws. These are never given by referees and linesmen and yet would be penalised every time in Sunday League football. Why can't professional footballers take throw-ins properly?

2 - Half-time and full-time whistle - Why do referees so often wait for a goal kick to be up in the air before they blow for half-time or full-time? This makes absolutely no sense. Their watches are still running when the ball is out of play or in the goalkeeper's hands, so why not blow the whistle then?

3 - Free-kicks - Basic trigonometry. Why do players so often knock the ball one yard to the right or left for someone else to strike it? This changes the angle slightly, but allows the defenders to be 5 yards closer when the ball is struck, thus being completely counter-productive.

I feel much better now. Thank you

Solskjaer retires

Sad news that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has been forced to retire.

Is he up there with Gary Lineker as the most amiable of footballers? Logic would say that he should be a great man manager in the coaching staff, but time will tell - logic doesn't always seem to have much to do with it!

"Fullbackery"?

I think Adrain Chiles managed to invent a word on MOTD2 last night with "fullbackery". Apparently there was some high quality fullbackery, especially from Chimbonda for Spurs, during yesterday's 1-0 win for Manchester United.

In my view it was a penalty and it did hit Wes Brown's arm....

Top 4 prediction

It seems cowardly not to make a prediction for the end of the season in the Premier League.

Top 4 in order:

Liverpool
Manchester United
Chelsea
Arsenal

We'll see how far wide of the mark that is come May '08.

Money well spent?

When you're manager of a side that's likely to be struggling at the foot of the table, what's the best area to spend money in? That must have been the thought process of Roy Keane prior to this season, before he decided to spend big for the goal keeping talents of Craig Gordon. At the time, I have to admit I thought he could have used that money to strengthen the outfield players, but I've definitely changed that opinion. Barring a slump in form Gordon seems like an excellent purchase to me.

In the game against Liverpool yesterday he made a few great saves and wasn't far away from saving the shots that did go in either. If he converts a few losses to draws and draws into wins, the £9m price tag will seem small to Sunderland, given the huge value of staying in the Premier League.

Styles admits he got it wrong

It doesn't make Liverpool feel any better that Rob Styles has admitted he was wrong to award Chelsea their penalty on Sunday. The mistake has cost Liverpool two points - all we can do is hope that this doesn't change who comes top at the end of the season. The chances of wrong decisions not changing things are slim though, if you consider that we're only 2 or 3 games into the season and there has already been a goal not given that crossed the line and this penalty, not to mention several other controversial incidents.

King is pick at Watford

Somehow, this Times article isn't quite the same without the large image that accompanied the printed version today. The headline "King is pick at Watford" shows a large picture of King picking his nose!

Another goal isn't given

We're only 2 weeks into the new season and already a goal has been disallowed for apparently not crossing the line. Fulham were denied a perfectly good goal because technology wasn't used to determine if the ball had crossed the line. No blame to the linesman or referee - it was a tough call, but it's cost Fulham 2 points, so what happens if they are relegated by a slender margin? They will rightly be able to blame this, as well as many other things such as Warner's howler in goal to let in Middlesborough's 1st, for costing them many millions of pounds.

Steve Bruce seeing things?

I couldn't help but laugh when I heard Steve Bruce complaining about the penalty decision against Birmingham yesterday. Could there have ever been a more definite penalty? Attacker gets to ball first, nudges ball past keeper, keeper wipes out attacker. Come on Bruce, even the most one-eyed observer can't argue that wasn't a penalty....can they?

His argument seemed to be that the player had kicked the ball out of play, but that's an argument for why to have a go at your keeper for a rediculous challenge isn't it, rather than to get the rules wrong and suggest that this is grounds for not giving the foul? Anyway, thanks for giving us all a giggle Steve Bruce.