The9

For a starter, the 4 year parachutes were £16m/£16m/£8m/£8m from 2010 so worth £48m. Until 2010 they were 2 years and £16m each year, so they were already £16m better off and that gave them an extra year. They also had their first PP advanced, and any economist will tell you there's more value in money you are holding. Even the flipping article uses them for the photo ! : http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1276538/Premier-League-years-parachute-payments-worth-48m-relegated-clubs.html However, the final "£8m" year will be more anyway, though not sure how much more has been confirmed yet ?

They won't get Hughes in if the problem is fans feeling they've stagnated and the style isn't what they want. Funnily enough when Adkins took over at Reading I posed the question "why doesn't he wait for Stoke ?" and turns out that could have been a possibility.

There is that as well, I'm happy to head back to "ignore mode" now, apart from WTFILN.

We signed Boruc on 22 September which was the day we played Villa, Adkins only played Gazzaniga against Everton and Fulham after that (he made mistakes costing goals in both, but we weren't getting anything at Everton anyway).

It is a terrible, nonsensical, pointless song.

To be fair * Cortese wants Europe within 2 seasons - confirmed in Sky Sports Interview with Cortese from Barcelona in January * He's going to splash to cash both on and off the field - seems fairly evident from what we've seen/heard re Astori and evidenced with Ramirez, off field from the ST DVD and Staplewood redevelopment * Firstly, expect a couple of big signings (don't know when, but he's going to really go for it) - at the very least implied by the Statement when Cortese stayed, and I believe Pochettino has already said "doing business by July 1st", plus aforementioned Astori stuff) Which only leaves * £1m will be spent on revamping the corporate/media side of things to be aligned with European football, for example, the ground must have 40 different camera angles for European matches (I don't know the rules/regs on this, but that's what I was told) * If we qualify for Europe the stadium will be expanded, with an additional tier added to the Kingsland. Which are both hinted at in the ST DVD too.

I'm with you, provided we sign someone who can move along the defensive line and give us penetration around the opposition box on the occasions we don't get the ball in transitions.

He needs someone to pass to in the final third, or Steven Davis may as well be there.

I've stuck it on my FB wall too, will probably be 50/50 between Joiners and Le Pub out of that lot, though Le Pub isn't even the best venue within 200 yards and would have been at least 4th within half a mile if the NCLA and TJs hadn't closed. Beats me how they got on the list. Then again I suppose Talking Heads et al could say the same in Southampton.

Erm, I voted for Concorde 2, liked it more than the Joiners. Le Pub in Newport is a total hole though. Still, I'll vote again from work tomorrow.

The first thing he should do is flag the incorrect apostrophe.

Suffice to say that despite the £5.75m PP, their plans show they will pay off the outstanding debts to players by 2016... or was it 2018? I forget.

I see no point in doing this until we see who signs whom in the summer transfer window. I can see Stoke going down if Pulis leaves though, unless they sign half a new team : http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/22614097

I think he could have done a lot better with the Arsenal goal, and would have done had it happened later in the season. His reaction was panicked and contributed to the goal instead of saving it - but it was only the third Prem match he'd played in and our defence was far from settled into the Prem and constantly being found that split-second too slow at that stage.

Bear "more popular than Cortese" unshocker.

True, what's Vermaelen's excuse ?

Ooh, handy. I still think we might do it better though.

Hah, yeah £35m. Whatever, it was far too much for Andy Carroll.

I'd be a lot more bothered about Vermaelen's tendency to make errors leading to chances, and Craig Gardner getting dribbled past repeatedly, than Hooiveld's OGs.

What are you on about ?

It was the fact they had a team full of players who'd played in the Prem in 2010/11 plus a £35m striker suited to their style, so they hit the ground running. We took 11 games to get comfortable with what was required. They were more than 10 points and 15 places ahead of us by then.

Cortese said outright in an interview with Jim White on Sky Sports from Barcelona just after Pochettino became Head Coach that he expected with a few additions we could establish ourselves as a top 6 club within a few years, so most of the rumours are not a surprise.

Is it possible to do the same list cross-referenced by newspaper/online source as well ? That way we have evidence of how useless certain papers are at reporting rumours. Dates for the links would also be a good idea if possible, not all websites have date stamps on them and it would then also be easier to see the original source for the cases where other sites jump all over news after it's already out there.

I did wonder if they were allowed to do that, had assumed not. Certainly felt like we weren't on 10 times, turns out we weren't ! I'm actually alright with that in terms of not being inconvenienced by kick off times, but does that then mean that the other clubs who were shown more still get the additional fees as well ? Seems likely. Will be interesting to see if we're ever on next season with this precedent !

Seeing as most clubs seem to source their players from overseas now, it makes a difference compared to international wages and makes it easier for Prem sides to attract non-English based players, but agreed the raising of the bar across the Prem won't affect our competitiveness with the other sides (except the promoted teams).