Best's bust

The media continue to link us with prospective replacements for Rocky (ie anyone tall who's ever scored a goal or two) - the latest candidates being Malaga's Jose Salomon Rondon and, much more fancifully, Spurs' Champions League scourge Emmanuel Adebayor - but the news for one of those currently being asked to fill his size nines wasn't good. Leon Best will be up on bricks for the rest of the season as a result of surgery on his ankle injury.

Not so long ago most of us would have scoffed at the very thought of Best being able to cut it in the Premier League, but that hat-trick against West Ham turned a few heads and he's since netted another three times to average more than a goal every other start - not too shabby at all. So his loss - which leaves Nile Ranger and Shefki Kuqi as the less-than-convincing back-up for preferred pairing Big Lad and Peter Lovenkrands - could potentially be damaging.