The9

I thought you said "End of" ?

How much you enjoy as season doesn't have any bearing on the relative merits of the managers or their achievements. Anyway, finishing 8th in the Prem on a limited budget is harder than getting promoted from League One when you're outspending everyone. Of course there's a recent Saints comparison to be made as well... if Pardew gets Newcastle into the top 4 this season it will be astonishing, if they finish top 8 it will be a huge success - and he's also already got a team to a Cup Final and narrowly lost to an overwhelming favourite too...

At least one of those teams will have won their nation's competition to get there.

It's comfortable driving distance, I drove there and back for Euro 2000 to watch France v Czechs, you can easily do it in a day. I have to say, I rarely watch any CL matches and will only watch Europa League ties if I'm REALLY bored on a Thursday night, and even then not with any attentiveness or interest. The next time I'll care about European football is the next time Saints qualify for it - and even then I can't see me putting in the dedication to go to Braga / Guimaraes / Gdansk / Plovdiv / etc when I have a job to go to and a mortgage to pay. The League format just sucks all the fun out of it for me, and the costs are too high for a bunch of nothing matches. And honestly, who gives a crap about playing against Slovakia or Finland's or Estonia's best or Portugal's second best ? And this is coming from someone who's been to USA 94, England 96, France 98, Belgium 2000, Portugal 2004, saw a European Cup Winners Cup Quarter Final as an 8 year old, and went to Bucharest to see Saints. European football is just not interesting enough if it's not a knockout match.

I will readily accept that him being the poor sod who has to come short for the Suicide Short Goal Kick can't be helping matters.

I didn't go, but that was certainly the impression I got from my usual crowd who did.

When we get to a Cup Final for a competition involving the top two divisions and finish above 10th in the Prem a couple of times I'll take that view seriously. Until then Adkins is still unproven in the top division.

If it was West Brom, then we should sign Bednar.

For those with selective reading : Unlike some I'm not happy to just gloss over where there have been mistakes, and I'm able to see where improvements can still be made to ensure our recent success continues. I wouldn't expect Adkins to be doing any different, and he obviously left Cork out for a reason, which I doubt was "squad rotation".

But even then we were all pretty sure it wouldn't last. This time round... we're becoming more convinced. For a start they have to win 5 straight with us losing them all just to get ahead...

Do you think you could edit the OP to remove the downward blips (ie the 6, the 10s and the 11 in amongst the gradual rise ?). Looks so much nicer... I hear they've been singing "we're waiting for you"...

Unfortunately "those in power" in England are now "those running the biggest clubs in the Premier League" as the FA has abdicated all responsibility to them since 1992.

On the contrary, Carew won pretty much everything there was any point in him winning - Hooiveld won a lot of free headers (and so did Fonte), but Carew won endless flicks in and around the box, especially in the first half when the hoofs were a little more controlled. Had Allardyce not chosen to play Baldock 20 yards away from Carew those would have been much more dangerous than they were with no-one supporting him. Even a lot of the stuff our centre-backs did win when challenged fell into those Pro-Zone Percentage Hotspots Allardyce likes to use so much and therefore to West Ham's midfielders. All of this just makes Carew a good player though, as opposed to any problem with Hooiveld or Fonte.

He's been a great signing. There's a debate in our current position about whether we should be signing players to get up to the Prem or to stay there, but I'd sign Hooiveld within a minute. The flaws in our defensive record have been due to a lack of defensive midfield support and the fullbacks being forward a lot, not because the centre backs have been poor at all. Hooiveld's size and strength, and ability to play a low pass out of defence have all been assets. We should be discussing who else to sign to challenge him and Fonte.

What it also does is encourages the top clubs to stockpile anything resembling talent from basically any aged player up to 18(ish) and any location on the offchance they might be decent, whilst also knowing that they probably won't have to pay much the clubs they're acquiring from because the players are unlikely to wade through the treacle of stockpiled colleagues, and only very few will achieve any kind of success. The regional restriction lifting and the ability for top clubs to grab players from anywhere with a tiny downpayment moves the focus from lower league clubs developing players onto elite clubs, meaning the lower clubs will essentially ONLY get the top clubs' cast-offs (and cast-offs with less experience than they would have now due to more limited opportunities), rather than getting some cast offs and some home-produced talent as they do now. It basically just removes the short period that the developing club benefits from a talented young player being in its team and any significant compensation fee which could be used to replace them immediately, in favour of only potential income in the future. Saints wouldn't have got half a season and about £10m for Walcott and/or Chamberlain for a start... and is Bale worth less because Wales will never win a World Cup ?

..and Turkish and CB Fry take the rise out of you, thinking computer games aren't how football works. You've been ahead of reality all along.

Personally I'd rather it was fair and equitable for all clubs. But then I'd rather than the profits from league-related activity were re-invested across the Premier League and Football League evenly to maintain a level of fair competition rather than perpetuating the hegemony of massively over-funded Champions League qualifiers.

It was, but they'd already sold out a while before that and there were still one or two on their forum who were in the home stands.

I honestly have never, ever seen a side play like that before at this level. Even in the 80s there was some kind of logic to the long ball stuff and the target man was supported, last night West Ham played 4-5-1 and Baldock's runs for the (mostly successfully won) flick-ons of Carew were coming from 20 yards away, giving him no chance to get near the ball. And their defenders weren't even looking for him from the clearances, just wanging it as far and as quick as they could. I saw Carew play for Stoke v Brighton in the FA Cup last season and he looked a class apart, best player on the park by a mile - winning the usual headers but also able to pull deep, kill the ball, turn, link wide men and get into the box for the return - the difficulty he posed to the defence was in sometimes coming out of the back lineand making the defenders make decisions, not just being easy to mark up with the defenders with no support. I know he's not even their first choice, but to use him as a target for hoofs hugely underutilises him.

Song 2 by Blur apparently, we've never scored a crap enough goal for me to know for sure. We do play "Unbelievable" by EMF after a win though, which is equally as pointless.

Weirdly yesterday was the first time I've actually heard the music in ages, and it was also one of the loudest goal-roars for a while too due to the extra numbers. I also went a bit fuzzy and things went kinda blurry and slo-mo for a second, which is usually a sign of over-excitement.

Heh, the only time I ever emailed the club it was on that exact subject. Wrote a lengthy diatribe about it undermining the genuine atmosphere, etc. and asking if the club could reconsider. I sent it the day before we went into Administration.

I'd hope the West Ham fans were thinking "why would we want to support this hoofing crap?". For a side with a reputation for decent football they're remarkably calm about Big Sam ruining them so far.

I'm pretty sure I can't make the noise of 29,000 people no matter how much the wife moans about me "singing too loudly".

Come to think of it, I'm actually mid-41, but same difference.