The9

No reason to think Puncheon will have to play wide right, he was most successful at the side of a diamond (like for Millwall oddly enough) and on the left. He could easily get a run ahead of Falque, who played both on the left and in the middle at times on Monday.

Well that's about as stage managed as you can get, FFS. So what about the thing that was keeping him out of the side for the previous 18 months, prior to the (clearly suggested by the club as a means to mutually move on) stupid tweet ? We're all supposed to forget that tweeting about Cortese WASN'T the reason he was out in the cold in the first place ? If this was WWE, we'd be being "worked", and I checked the date twice to make sure it wasn't April 1. Having said that, if it gets our best players on the pitch during an injury crisis, great. But Puncheon has barely kicked a ball in competition since leaving Blackpool.

What you said, but with more death.

I would like to kill everyone involved with music at football matches. Does this help ? I especially hate what they do at Cardiff (and Wales) matches, which is some bellend yelling "Make some noise" for 10 seconds, thereby drowning out any noise being made already.

Yeah, I'm in. Can we try and pass the ball to defenders on the edge of the box from goal kicks all match please, what could possibloy go rong ?

I don't see any logic in writing off at worst being in the top 4 of the Championship going into February 2012 in order to build a team that will firstly have to get us into an equally good position in February 2013 and then push on from there. Much easier to launch a challenge from where we are, there's no guaranteee that the players we want will be there next year anyway.

FWIW I also thought Falque's movement was good and he kept finding spaces without receiving the ball, but the few times he did get it he didn't really do much with it - but that's about getting to know your teammates and getting used to the tempo of the match, reasonably hopeful he'll start to get more comfortable. Whether he'll get the chance to do that with the pressure on results is questionable - same goes for De Ridder, though he's already shown a more tangible end product a few times, he's not had one decent match when he's started and is a guaranteed booking for tackling someone from behind nearly every time he plays.

I thought De Ridder and Holmes were getting on for our best two players last night. I also appreciate that isn't saying much.

As in former Everton left back Michael Ball, who wasn't even any good then ? I think I'd rather play Fox there !

Fairly sure Richardson was touch and go and wouldn't have been on the bench if we'd had more depth. Even then Richardson was only chucked on only because Hooiveld got injured and he was the only defender left on the bench (aside from one-time left back Ben Reeves, who's been playing much further forward for a while now). I think Harding is at competent Championship left back, having to cut inside at right back isn't going to help anyone, but isn't Butterfield injured at the moment too ? Jack Stephens might be worth the gamble in that situation, but if there's one thing I'm not going to criticise the manager for it's his record in developing kids and younger professionals.

I don't think pace is all that useful when you're using it to chase 40 yard hoofs off the pitch all the time... we're missing 4 or 5 starters and there was a tangible lack of confidence as soon as Leicester started pressurising - we were actually competing and passing quite well in the period when we went 2 goals behind, it was after that we looked short of ideas - probably because Leicester stopped slinging Konchesky past us and left him to defend, and most of the time all they had to defend were long balls at Connolly. It was the lack of cohesion and confidence through the middle of the park and the inability to pass the ball short in there that cost us, allied to the failure to attempt to do so - earlier in the season we'd have persisted with the passing until the opposition ran out of steam, it was never on the agenda yesterday, we whacked and their midfield just mopped up the knock-downs from their positions sitting in front of their defence. No-one tried to get them out of their by changing things. I'll spare a mention for Fox constantly whacking 45 yard crossfield balls to marked shortarses when he had half a pitch to run into in front of him as well - why would you keep doing that ? Falque will take time, which he is unlikely to get, and looked lost and unimpressive - but it's only one match for him. Good job it was half a reserve team or I'd be really cheesed off - unless we make some key signings in the next few days to build on what we've achieved so far and plug the gaps in the squad, I think we're going to have to accept a few poorly-timed defeats to promotion rivals with a weakened squad until mid-Feb and push on from there when our opponents are a bit easier. The lack of support for the man on the ball at points yesterday was ridiculous, time and again Harding ended up with the ball with Cork marked in front of him and no-one else within 20 yards for the pass. Where were the midfielders there ? How many times did we have defensive throw-ins and we just didn't have an option ? At least Richardson coming back and Lambert's suspension ending are plus points, even if most teams have worked out that little combo.

He never stops. If he stopped sometimes that might be better.

1000 pages later and the bastards have sucked me back in. Good God I hope this is the end.

Old enough to do my running for me...

Previous experience indicates if you have a pulse and a pair of shoes (not necessarily boots) you'll be in with a chance for the away games, but it's up to stevegrant to confirm, of course.

Never had a football shirt with anyone's name other than my own, except the 1998 Brazil 9 Ronaldo shirt and my 1999 Etxeberria 17 Bilbao centenary shirt. Would have got Pahars 17 on the back of my 2004 Latvia shirt if the right adidas numbering had been available, but it wasn't.

I'd hope pretty much all of us know that "Alloha Athletic" are more likely to be a Hawaiian side than a Scottish one.

This is absolutely in line with our transfer policy so far and I can't imagine for a second that this definitely won't happen. I also don't care if West Ham sign him, they can only play at most 2 of their big immobile target men strikers at any one time and they've already got Carew and the slightly more mobile Cole... so that just means they wouldn't be picking the half decent Baldock, or Sears, etc.

Don't tell me, tell the bloke that published the figure and the thousands of people who definitely chucked money into buckets.

Me neither, hence drawing attention to it.

We know your dad

If we don't concede any goals we won't lose, which away from home is the key. So I'd prefer a 2-0 away, but prefer 4-2 at home as I'm hoping we take the game to the opposition at St Mary's.

Essruu, I hardly think refusing to support something 4 years before it is replaced is being "ahead of the game". It might be "playing the game" to achieve an end they wanted eventually (presumably non-proprietary development, or preferably Apple-controlled platform development), and doubtless Apple's success despite their non-Flash stance hasn't helped Adobe, but the 4 years of no Flash has meant that viable alternatives have sprung up with a built-in selling point, allowing opponents a foothold in the market they might not otherwise have had. Dealing purely in facts without speculation on why this might be, Flash is dead because Adobe want to focus on HTML5... http://www.techspot.com/news/46192-adobe-stops-mobile-flash-development-will-focus-on-html5.html I'd be inclined to say that as Apple didn't support flash for 5 years it forced other methods to be developed (eventually HTML5), but that's been the expectation for a long time, and it's the emergence of HTML5 as a viable alternative and the refusal of others to continue to support Flash on their products that has killed it. If everyone else had demanded Flash, Adobe probably would have kept on - but everyone is moving on. Samsung were mocking Apple as recently as June for the lack of flash in ads, so it's a recent decision for them to move on, as is Adobe's decision. Looking at significant devices releases like the Sony Vita, Windows 8 Metro UI and less significant but representative ones like Samsung Galaxy Y, none of them run Flash.

Oh yeah, and here's Carlos Tevez being "very happy here" at Manchester City in January 2011. http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/jan/17/manchester-city-wolverhampton-wanderers-premier-league

In unrelated news, here's another Celtic player saying exactly the same thing on 3rd Jan, I wonder if they read it off the same sheet ? http://www.eyefootball.com/news/11873/Victor-Wanyama-wants-Celtic-stay.html Hmmm : Emmanuel Adebayor being "very happy" at... Arsenal : http://www.metro.co.uk/sport/football/636156-football-booty-adebayor-compares-ac-milan-interest-to-being-fancied-by-beyonce Harry Redknapp on the England job (Dec) : http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/16167110.stm here's Michael Bradley pointing out that he was very happy at a club he left... http://www.goal.com/en-us/news/1614/americans-abroad/2011/10/06/2699462/michael-bradley-is-back-to-focusing-on-football plus there is this lot... which all remain to be seen... Raul at Schalke : http://www.espnstar.com/football/bundesliga/news/detail/item731514/Raul-eyes-Schalke-extension/ Mario Balotelli (Jan) : http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/4050639/Carlos-Tevez-transfer-news-Inter-Milan-confirm-bid.html Jordi Alba of Valencia (Jan) : http://www.valenciafootballclub.com/2011/11/jordi-alba-offers-i-am-very-happy-here.html Marteen Stekelenberg of Roma (Dec) : http://www.footballpress.net/?action=read&idsel=95769 Franck Ribery at Bayern (Jan) : http://www.bet365.com/news/en/betting/football/bundesliga/ribery-happy-at-bayern Isaac Boakye of Bielefeld : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Boakye It's a well used phrase, not always genuinely.