I'd taken my two daughters to see that game as their first trip to see the Hammers. Strict instructions to them not to cheer if we scored as we were in a Man U stand, so what did I do when we scored. Did I get some stick from about 10,000 Man U fans. They told me in no uncertain terms where I should be sitting...but the two daughters are, of course, now ardent WH followers. Anyone know what happened to the Norwegian centre half who had a blinder that day?

Not sure I agree Roy. My earliest recollection of Budgie was a game against Arsenal...Ian Ure put him into the chicken run near me after about five minutes and he then disappeared for the rest of the game. He was good, but didn't like the rough stuff enough to qualify as a West Ham great in my opinion.

The team I would play against Millwall (assuming fit):

------------------Green-----------------
Demel--Tomkins--Reid---Taylor
------------------Diop------------------
Faubert- -----Noble-- ---Vaz Te
-----------Baldock---Maynard---------
Subs: Faye Collison Nolan Cole Lansbury
Too adventurous?

Are you suggesting that we should take anything Braderz says with a pinch of salt then?

Love it. Presumably we'll also try to get some dark energy when training to take into night games (will the dark matter?) and adopt a string theory defence!

When he first came to West Ham I was mightily impressed by his ability to cross the ball whilst "bending it like Beckham"; No defence likes a ball whipped in from wide positions that is going away from the goal and towards incoming forwards. Being played at right back negated this but it did teach him what is expected from the defensive duties of the wide midfield position. Now he is rediscovering his ability to get forward and is also very strong when getting back and covering. Long may it continue.

Actually, I think it's the rate at which some of the South American currencies devalued some years ago!

Well, despite the defeat on Saturday, the target hasn’t changed: I still reckon that we need 10 points from our remaining games to be safe and can see us beating Wigan and Sunderland and Fulham and getting a point from Man City – anything else would be a bonus.
If McCarthy is not fit then we need to think about playing Diamante in his best position, in the hole behind Cole. I don’t like the guy but have also reflected on perhaps why, and have concluded that it’s probably because he has been asked to play wide right or left and put in a defensive shift occasionally – not what he was bought for methinks.
I agree with SJ that we need Collison back to get some inventiveness into midfield, and he’s played well wide left when fit. Everton don’t have Fellaini available so we don’t need Kovac to start to counter his height in midfield so I’d go with:
Green
Faubert/Tomkins (Da Costa)/Upson/Spector (Ilunga if fit to start)
Behrami/Parker/Noble/Collison (if Collison is not fit then Kovac – and play a tightly packed midfield with the full-backs asked to push up wide when they can)
McCarthy (or Diamante)/Cole
Subs: Kuruz, Ilunga (Spector), Gabiddon, Dyer, Stanislas, Franco, Diamante (or Mido)
At the moment I’m swinging between hope (I’m an optimist) and despair but glad to be reminded by others this morning that we are neither relegated yet nor actually in the relegation places!

Good post SJ, a well-balanced summary of the frustrated posts and events that have followed Tuesday’s debacle.
For tomorrow I would go with the following:
Green
Faubert/Gabbidon/Upson/Ilunga
Behrami/Parker/Noble/Stanislas
Cole/Franco
With bench of
Stech, Spector, Da Costa, Diamante (late on for Stanislas), McCarthy (late on for Franco), Dyer, Collison
I’ve already got my umbrella up for the expected rain-shower of reaction for including Upson (and a few others!) but do think that he now has something to prove. I also feel that just making wholesale changes is not the way forward at this critical stage of the season.
10 points from our remaining games could be enough to stay up so 3 wins at home and 1 point away should do it.

The only way this that I have found is to create the message in a "word document" and then "copy all" the text and then "paste" into the box on this site (it also helps with the spellchecker!)