Cornish Steve

Sorry, it was a bad joke. Real....McCoy?

Never heard of him. Is he for real?

Then I'm plain too old. I'm remembering the UEFA Cup from the days I lived in Britain.

I've had the good fortune or misfortune, whichever you prefer, of having traveled the world extensively. (I'm a 4 million miler on Delta and have flown over 6 million miles in total.) You'd think that the 10- or 12-hour time differences would get you the most, but that's not the case. For me, the 2- or 3-hour differences are the worst. Your body seems to hold on to the old time zone, and you feel constantly tired and lethargic. As a rule of thumb, they say it takes one day to recover for each hour's difference in time zone, but those 2- and 3-hour differences always seemed worse to me. So, it's not just the travel: It's adjusting to two time zone changes in quick succession.

But Mike, I seem to remember that the UEFA was a straight knockout tournament. Now there are qualifying rounds, then group tables, and then two-leg knockout. The number of games in the Europa exceed the number played in the UEFA cup.

The strain on the team is greater in the Europa, especially with the qualifying rounds, and the financial rewards are simply not there.

That's not what statistics reveal of the impact of the Europa League. I read something the other day that shows just how much league form is affecting all clubs in that tournament. At the start of the season, I thought it was a good thing to be playing in Europe. After this year, I've changed my mind. While playing in the Champions league is good, playing in the Europa league is a negative.

Now, almost 30 years have passed since I worked in central London, so maybe my comments are no longer typical.

Not at all! The British sense of humour is legendary, and we're one of the few cultures willing to laugh at ourselves. I'm not sure what fuels the pressure to drink.

Let me say upfront that my thoughts on this will sound very controversial, but...I really think the drinking problem is made worse by, and in some respects a reflection of, British culture. When I worked in central London, everyone went out to the pub at Friday lunchtime, and few got anything done for the rest of the day. That's a productivity hit right there of ten percent. There was a certain pride and expectation about getting drunk (which I admit I have never been), so the social pressure was there. Now living in the US, I can pretty much guarantee the first few words most visiting British businessmen will say when they show up at a meeting: "So how's the beer?" During meeting breaks, conversation will again revolve around beer. The evenings will be spent searching for beer. At the start of the next day's meetings, we'll all hear about who drank the most and who was the most stupidly drunk. Honestly, to an independent observer, it borders on obsession. Why? Because of British culture. That's not to say that other nations aren't heavy drinkers - I've attended far too many meetings in Russia to think otherwise - but I don't see how the problem can be fixed in general while an entire culture is so obsessed with the expectation that men must be heavy drinkers. Waiting for quite a few tomatoes.

It'll have to be Ipswich, because I have a feeling that Derby will fail to be a qualifier. Brentford might be the fourth team in the mix.

Liverpool 7th, struggling through the qualifying rounds of Europa. Everton 8th, ready and waiting to move up the table. It would be nice to have finished above them, but the burden of Europa qualifying, and subsequent impact on their league performance, would be some compensation, for sure.

Given the form of the two teams right now, the answer could well be "one place below Liverpool." Now, it would be better to be one place above Liverpool, but that's still an achievement few would have thought a month or two ago.

Don't you know that two wrongs make a right? We need an odd number: We're getting spanked!

"We have been working in training on a different style of play"

Is that corners or goals?

Well done, Milesey, for predicting the correct score. No one predicted any of the three scorers, which, I believe, is a first. My 10-pointer last weekend means I managed to win for the month of April, despite scoring a goose egg on this game. Interestingly, the Forum Average has taken the lead for points this season and points per prediction. Also of note, TonkaRoost has overtaken Romey for points per prediction. Thank you, Haf, for joining the prediction game - even though it meant I had to make a lot of manual changes to the spreadsheet. If you fail to make any more predictions after all that work, be prepared for some snarky comments!

We learn far more from being wrong than from being right - which makes me a real expert!

Disagree on this. A draw is preferable, but, if it must be a victory, go for Swansea. Their remaining games are much tougher than Stoke's.

Big whoop!

Now we can add "scores goals".

Hey, no problem here. It has been a disappointing season. On the other hand, it's certainly nice to see Everton give United the biggest hiding at our hands in 20 years - especially when everyone claimed they were the team in form.

Well, that cost me a point. Have been driving from south Pennsylvania to New York today, so apologies for not yet posting results. I should be able to get to it later this evening.

Been something of a super-sub.

Are they wanting to send everyone to sleep? It's quite amusing to read of Mourinho and Wenger traded blows about whose team is the most boring.