The9

Well, I agree with all of that, other than thinking you're deluded for expecting an explanation, and mental to think you boycotting will even register - unless you're planning on waving placards outside the entrance on a Saturday, and even then...

LOL at the people still clinging to the Norwich one-off, which we're already 4 points behind of even at this stage. I'd rather consider it in the context of having lost 4 matches in a row with a side that a month ago was odds-on to be promoted. Just for the record, we've only played two sides in the top half - this isn't going to get any easier. We can still go up, but there are various on-field issues which have to be addressed rapidly. At least we have someone who might be able to do that in place now, rather than a massive void caused by a pointless sacking.

There's an app that streams internet radio, but that's no use as none of the web radio streams have the digital broadcasting rights, so they all have some tedious local tosser blabbing on about car parking, hedges and crisp packets instead. I'm sitting here radio-less trying to find myself a free stream.

He played there against Rochdale for a while too, silly fcker kept cutting inside onto his weak foot, instead of cutting inside on his strong foot which he used to do all the time on the other wing. Now THAT was a stupid gameplan.

We certainly would if we started taking songs from 1985 as new chants, yes.

I think the problem with opinions on Cortese seems to be that his decisions are gospel and even when there are other options, people are drawn into Pro- or Anti- slanging matches. For instance, 300 defaulters is clearly a problem. However, the admin delay was the only reason why we used direct debit in the first place, and it had never been the method the club had offered to pay for STs previously, which had always been a finance agreement with instalments which were paid by the start of the season. Had the club wanted to provide this option they would have had to have put ST information in the public domain in March, as we had done in most of the previous 5 seasons (March Madness etc) and fans could have signed up to instalments which paid off the ST cost before the season even began. This was not done, and there are no reasons given why it wasn't the case. But somehow, this oversight, and the removal of instalment plan is acceptable, because Cortese decided that the defaulters were adequate reason for removing the instalment plan, as if there weren't any other options which could have prevented people defaulting.

Honestly ? I don't think we've made a substitution at St Mary's in about 5 years when it hasn't been immediately apparent what the plan was. Other than taking Oxlade-Chamberlain off last week of course, which has retrospectively been allocated to "cramp" by Wilkins' comments about his substitution in the following match.

This is starting to become urban legend - I assure you he fell over on the edge of our box and stumbled to the halfway line (all the time with the ball variously about his person, somehow). I have never seen a giraffe on crack but sounds about right.

Lambert for one is tangibly not as slim as he was at the end of last season, and in his first league game was barely moving off the ball and was obviously not fit. I had it down to the slimming effect of stripes for about 10 minutes, then he just didn't bother running and most notably failed to get himself out wide into the positions I think he shouldn't be in anyway (when he invariably crosses it to our shorter other striker), so I figured he had to be unfit.

You should be shot for wasting a valuable ticket to that match on a non-believer. My wife is an ST holder in the seat next to me, comes to the pub before and after home matches, goes to away matches whenever I do, has pitched up at Staplewood on occasion, plus comes along to watch the Sunday side I player-manage and occasionally our training too. If we weren't married I'd have her down as some kind of stalker.

Spooky, must be the match for it. Have to say Gerrard's goal didn't look much "kop" (ahaha) from the front of the stand at the opposite end of the ground either, was much better on the telly later.

Makes sense to get some accurate measures of the type that the new manager wants, maybe the ones who undoubtedly already have from pre-season don't meet his requirements. Or maybe he's just trying to scare the sh111t out of the players so they try a bit harder.

To get back to the point of this thread without an out-of-place discussion of the merits of the repercussions or otherwise... I was working on IT Support at a government building in South Wales, heard the news about the first plane crash, like everyone else assumed it was a light aircraft or something, then realised that as we couldn't get to CNN, BBC news or any other news website, that we'd better find out what was going on, because at the very least our internet server was knackered and we needed to reboot it. When the second plane hit sometime around 2pm (5 hour time difference, so that's about right) we all sat around watching the clips being repeated over and over all afternoon on whatever website we could find - the more obscure the site the better, because all the main ones were "crashing the internet". There was genuine concern for a little while that the web communications failing were all part of a plot linked to the Tower bombings too, a bit half-baked but representative of the kind of fear and panic that was going about on a day which signalled the end of the post-Cold War "peace" (ignoring the US-led "UN"'s role in Angola, Balkans etc) and plunged the western world back into a time of fear and crisis with an attack that from a terrorist perspective was a huge great big free advert for the anti-Western capitalist cause. I wasn't directly impacted, but I knew a colleague who'd been at the top of the tower the week before, and I'd been up the thing 18 months previously - and had been amazed at the sheer scale of the building, the surface area and how much stuff there was at the top - it was the scale of West Quay x 4 sides, with 100 floors below it. Anyone who saw the coverage wherever they could get at it whilst at work would have been in a half-waking surreal daze, and aside from refusing to watch the news for the rest of the day after catching up at 6pm, the only other thing I can recall is that I nearly ran two kids over on the way home whilst driving to pick my girlfriend up from work. They ran straight out into the road and stopped on the white lines in the middle of the road about a yard short of getting wiped out by me - I know I wasn't speeding, but I was in a bit of a daze and definitely wouldn't have stopped in time. The whole day was a bit weird, as was the world for a good few days afterwards. We all knew things had changed, though we didn't know how exactly, yet. As for the Diana thing, I couldn't care less that she'd died, was more annoyed at the loss of proper tv for a few days ( until Sky put the Simpsons on loop), the people who were mourning her were mostly chav mental celeb-idolising idiots, and there was no similarity between the two things whatsoever. The 9/11 thing was a like a surreal Hollywood movie-stlye mass murder performed live on television with some harrowing images, and with the knowledge that it was real you'd have to be some kind of empty vessel or show a severe lack of comprehension not to have been emotionally affected by it, at least in the immediate aftermath.

Bizarrely for me, I think the early access online to the player creation function in FIFA is going to lead to me not bothering to buy the game at all. That's usually the most fun part for me anyway, and I've already done it.

Don't try and confuse people with rational and relevant articles from magazines I subscribe to, they won't have it ! Nov 2007 though... and I assure you all my Cortese slating has been on the proven side of libellous.

We don't have a team of "hoofball specialists", if we did have we'd be a lot more successful at it than we are when other teams give our least ball-playing defender all the possession. I don't think we're a long ball side in any way shape or form, but we have been known to revert to long passes at Lambert late on in matches when sides press us in midfield, which is as much Hammond and Schniederlin's fault for not being free to receive the ball as it is Jaidi or Seaborne's for not giving it easy.

Part of the dealing with 11 men behind the ball is getting the thing in amongst the defending side before they have the chance to organise themselves. The fact that sides are able to get 11 back in the first place has been down to the lack of urgency when we're in possession. So if we build up quickly (THIS DOES NOT MEAN LONG BALL, MENTAL MIDGETS) we're able to create opportunities with (e.g.) crosses, which won't happen as often when there are 2 donkeys there to head it away every time.

Other than 1994/5 presumably ?

We'll see.

Whatever happened to Patrick Bateman anyway ?

Have to laugh, with the exception of the bits about "the fans" that stuff about all attacking and all defending and making the pitch wide and narrow is exactly what I said to my Sunday side when I took over. Probably should get my badges now, LOL.

Actually I had pretty much the same experience on 01.01.01 (Soltvedt scored) but without the swearing.

I still can't be bothered.

If Pardew had been around for the last 3 matches as manager with the mostly weak-willed and unimaginative defeats, I might suggest we'd probably all have been fine with him being sacked. Of course he wasn't, and him not being there must be regarded as a significant contributory factor to the terrible results, when his record in the previous games was at least "middling".

It might have helped if we hadn't been ten further points behind by the time we'd played 2 more league matches just due to everyone else playing league games while we were in the FA Cup and had a match postponed. But anyway, take it outside.