The Sport Thread

No, that match was always going to be on Friday, hence the inconvenience of Brighton having to play twice in three days. This was a bit awkward for Sky as whichever nights they picked for these two League Cup games - which were always the best - two of the four teams would have to play twice in three days as Man U and Liverpool both played on Sunday and Leeds and Brighton are playing on Friday.

Well they were never going to make the Premiership sides play twice in three days - even though it's likely in both cases they were pretty much different teams.

Why did they not go for one of three all FAPL ties? City v Birmingham, Chelsea v Stoke or even Everton v West Brom? Surely any of these would have been a better game than Brighton v Liverpool?

Oi! Don't forget Southampton...

Southampton aren't in the Premier League!

Anyway. Sky Sports will be available for free this weekend to basic tier customers on Sky, Virgin Media, UPC, Talk Talk, and Small World:

http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,12040_7178416,00.html

And neither are Birmingham, and even if they were Brighton vs Liverpool is a more interesting game than all of them because Brighton are top if the Championship, it's Sky's first chance to go to their new stadium and Liverpool will always pull in a decent audience, and it turned out to be the right choice as well because Brighton made a right go of it. Why would they pick all-Premier League ties anyway, they can show them when they play each other in the league?

Of course Man U did play twice in three days this week but obviously with very different teams. Of course back in 2001 Man U vs Arsenal in the League Cup was postponed from its original slot because of 9/11 (because Man U's Champions League match on September 12th was cancelled, and played while everyone else was in the League Cup) and ended up being played on a Monday, which both teams having played the previous day. Both put out massively changed teams - only Richard Wright played both, though three others started one game and were subs in the other - but in fact they asked to play it on the Monday, rather than the planned Wednesday, as there were internationals the following weekend and they'd have to had put out even weaker teams because of call-ups.

Forgotten Birmingham had been relegated of course... actually Brighton gave Liverpool a good game in the end as you say!

If it's meant to be a pooled interview surely the organisers would take issue with the microphone having 'ITV sport' on the spit guard?

Seems that ESPN are to use ESPN Classic for a live Europa League tie on Thursday.

Looks like some updated graphics for BBC football. Scorebar is very small, can barely read it!

its awful.

F1 on BBC has put a small invision box to show Michael schumacher interview in the pit lane. In the top right of the screen it had a yellow line around the box (lap 45?)