We have some speculation for you this morning and it involves Birmingham, Blackburn and Bolton and their willingness to battle it out for £5mn rated Nigel Reo-Coker.

First, he is valued more than that, we paid £8.5mn for him in 2007 and second - none of this is true because Martin O'Neill has told us, twice, that all is forgotten. Actually, it probably is true because Reo-Coker is probably not a happy chap and this isn't the 80's, you can't treat players this way and hope that all will be okay in a few weeks.

Well, you can treat players that way, but it doesn't work out so well, not with the money they have these days and the options they have to find another club very quickly. Reo-Coker joined us on a four year deal so while I'm not a lawyer I'd hazard a guess that next season he will be entering the last year of his contract with us and from January 2011 he'll be able to start talking to clubs about signing for them, with no transfer fee.

He will be 26 years old when he can start talking to other clubs and 27 when he joins them - I think he'll get a very nice signing on fee or extremely high weekly wage. Or, he could be sold this summer or he could sign a new contract. What do you think he will do?

Actually, it doesn't matter what he does but what should matter is why he was having the argument with O'Neill. Could it really be because he wanted the manager to talk about tactics and passing the ball about instead of long balls?

Starting Eleven

With the quick questions we have been running this week we have identified that Brad Friedel, Luke Young, James Collins, Richard Dunne and Stephen Warnock are the preferred defensive line up and that most of you would have us play 4-2-3-1, so now we have to decide who is going to be playing in the middle of the park and up front.

Whichever player you pick for the midfield today will be out of the vote for the other place tomorrow. So vote away while I run downstairs to make myself a sausage sandwich with loads of brown sauce.