Chez

I'm surprised so many people loved it so much. I know expectations were low, but for such a prestigious event I thought it looked cobbled together in places. The transitions between parts were clumsy at best, lots of long pauses and considering Boyle is a film director you'd think he would have worked closely with the BBC to get the right camera angles to show the best elements in the right way. Some shots chosen were terrible, revealing the absolute worst parts of the performance such as bored out of time dancers and uncomfortable shuffling to dismantle the early set. Why did the we need to see the flag carriers from above opening lids to slot flags in on the hill? Lots of small things like that just take a little of the shine off. That said I loved the grassy scene at the start. It looked fantastic. The industrial revolution forging of the rings was brilliant, great idea, excellently done. The transition between greenery to industrial just looked like a huge mess of people moving stuff though. This went on for ages and was visually poor. This was the time for a video interlude. I thought more could have been made of honouring our armed services. Bond and the queen was inspired and Bean for a minute or two was funny. I'd of liked to have seen more of that, humour not Bean. As proud I am of our national health service I just thought visually it looked strange. I love Abide with me, it brought tear to my eye at the cup final, but it failed miserably to stir me this time for some reason. The event nosedived badly after that, especially the music/dancing section, which was just a complete mess of bad dancing and poor costumes. Our TV and film culture is also certainly something to be proud of, but I'm not sure that was shown well all. The tinniest clips of shows hardly anyone knows didn't show us in a great light. Great exports like Monty Python??? The text messaging story was totally lost on me as was the lost phone love story. Again terrible editing caused this. The lighting of the torch was a great idea, and even going for future blood was OK, if slightly disappointing, but again it was shot badly by the BBC and the link between the gold medal winners and their nominated youngsters didn't show up well. Was Daley Thompson's face even shown? Did McCartney **** up his song? It seemed to overlap itself with a recording. **** poor. Also towards the end I felt that perhaps the whole thing could have started to move into the world of sport. We showed some excellent things about our country, but in the end its a sporting event and it just seemed to jump from a theatre production about the UK one minute to the athletes walking out the next. How about showing some of our sporting history. We invented some of the worlds greatest sports FFS. One last gripe. Why on earth did we have to suffer several U2 songs as the athletes came out? Were there not enough British tunes to pick from? I also thought it was a shame we couldn't hear the crowd applauding the athletes from all the countries or did no one bother? It went on far too long and the speeches killed the atmosphere. Apart from that I enjoyed it tremendously! Did anyone else watch it on HD? The `commentary' from Colin Jackson was quite simply unbelievable. Think Alan Partridge, but with less to say and doing so with less thought. Colin Jackson describing Industrial revolution "Of course lots of people got very rich and lots of people worked very hard" "there's Afghanistan. I guess they are just happy to be here" "the M25, which is the main ring road that goes round the city if London" "the colours of red, white and blue in the crowd...they are very significant" "the sound of the those drums signifies drummers".

wish Fox had Harding's nastiness and willingness to do everything in his power to prevent the winger going past him, outpaced or otherwise. Also wish Fox could pass it 5 yards down the line to Lallana then overlap as Harding used to do.

on the other hand he can try to kick the **** out of the **** every single day of training.

perfect player for Forest. Give it a few months and they'll be singing the old Des Walker ditty to his name. Brilliant player for us, did a fantastic job. He'll be great for Forest. I wish him all the best. Onwards and upwards for us though.

no booking fee for online purchases doesn't.

decent system, glad money spent on shirts etc. doesn't go towards loyalty. Will previous history be used at all?

I'll take that each way me thinks.

I'm all for aiming high, but who exactly is this CB that is better than Dann that is willing to come here (and allowed to leave his club for buttons)?

I didn't see Dann last season, was he any good? I saw Brum live four times in the Prem season before and the pairing of him and Johnson looked outstanding. Dann just did things in an unfussy way, almost going under the radar in games. Very solid, nothing flashy. Very much a Jos style player. Good in the air and getting tight to strikers. Johnson was the class act, carrying the ball out from the back and generally looking like a future England player. He caught the eye much more (not unlike Fonte does) simply because he had the ball more. Johnson certainly lost his way badly last season, but I wouldn't write him off. Can we bring them back together?

Personally I like them and the majority of their fans. They have had it very tough for many years and I'm glad they have come through those tough times to be where they are now. They deserved to win League 1 and they showed last season that they are still moving in an upwardly direction. The stadium is terrific and now they have permission to fill in the gaps it will become a superb venue. I think it is better than ours visually, all be it at a lot more cost. Our own stadium expansion plans might tip things back in our favour though. I think they might get promoted this season and I wouldn't have a problem with that at all. Great place to visit, excellent away day. Yes the manager is a bit of a plum, but compared to moaners like the Clot he's not that bad. He's a winner and if Adkins went for any reason he'd be a great replacement. I have massive respect for their owner. He has pumped in millions to get that stadium built.

He has got the first touch for the Prem, but has to improve on the performances he put in when returning to the fold last season. He was terrible, far worse than when he was getting grief from fans before his problems started. I've always been a fan, but I'd like to see a bit more pace down that right hand side.

I see Len comes with a few caps as well. Can't stand flash in the pan players.

I wonder if we will try to go back to our very short passing game (right from the back all the time) from the first half of the season, or have we lost our bottle to be able to play it the Swansea way?

very good player is Joe Allen.

that's a lot of dough. I'm not sure he's worth it, not that it matters as we won't be in that market.

Why the extra year on his contract?

and this outstanding coming together of raps finest just before Ice Cube took his services elsewhere http://www.youtube.com/embed/CpSJjIaEalE With Forecast going out on loan that must mean we are bringing in a third keeper.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/FQmsC4XwZJ4

Gazza looks massive, which I always think is a bonus. As for massive old skool tunes I's like to offer these three tunes into the mix. 89 again baby: http://www.youtube.com/embed/Bwkj5wd0kc0

Puncheon is not quick, neither is Rodriguez. I'm not sure Lee is overly pacey to be honest.

Who knows. There are so many reasons why transfers don't happen. If you are aiming high then your choices become limited. Budgets will play a major factor. If you are trying to get a guy for a million and the seller won't go lower than 2 million, then your hands are tied. Maybe our negotiators have been absolutely fantastic. Perhaps we have got pretty everyone we wanted and all on budget. Who knows? If we are offering 2million when the seller only wants 1 million and we still don't manage to buy the player, then we have a problem! we will always have a problem attracting the very best players. We are not the biggest fish in either prestige or monetary terms. We our down the pecking order but we want to buy the best. That doesn't work, so naturally it will always be tough going. Money talks, but hopefully now we have reached the top level we will no longer spend more than we earn. Not sure the club has ever lead us to believe anything regarding transfer budget. The fact is we went £20m into debt in terms of transfers and wages to get us into the division, so the owners have shown great ambition. Now we are in the top flight the money is there and we are spending it. Transfer fees are just one part. the wage bill has to be covered too. Not sure Adkins `talks' about transfers. He tends to be asked questions and he gives realistic answers. All managers want the best players at their disposal and that means bringing in better than you have. he merely says we'll continue to improve the club. It's not a motivating tool if that's what you mean. We were massive massive wage payers in league 1. We paid Championship size wages. Promotion increased wages, and promotion again has done the same. Potentially therefore in Forte's case have a league 1 player on top enbd Championship wages. With that in mind the players wants to stay, get a chance to play in the prem. he doesn't want to leave. If he does he doesn't want to take a pay cut. Do you pay a percentage of their wages? Not easy to get rid of unwanted players unless you are willing to take a big loss. For any manager/chairman that is hard to swallow. See Man City and their wealth of talent they have found incredibly hard to shift. We are like that but on a smaller scale. Anything but. We seem to be all about lots of research and extensive scouting, interviews and long term contact. Rodriguez wasn't last minute. He was watched a lot through the season. Why would you think we would do that for him but not for others?

The Scottish FA have refused to sign the clearance papers. They never sign clearance papers if there is a dispute. In such circumstances Southampton must apply to FIFA for a temporary clearance whilst the dispute is ongoing. SFC have done this and in due course will get clearance from FIFA. At some point this may be revoked - if Rangers win their case, but until then Davis will have no problems playing for SFC. Whether he's any good or not is another matter. Can't wit to find out.

No goalkeeping cover is not a fact. Doubts about our midfield being strong enough is not a fact. Saying four signings doesn't make us strong enough to stay in the Prem is not a fact. Stop trying to argue that grey is black.

what about if you applied, but didn't know the wage in advance, then found out at the interview it wasn't quite as high as you'd hoped. Would you want a bit of time to mull the offer over then?

he didn't, it was more like £1.2m, but still a lot considering he was available for about £250,000 to everyone else but us desperate mugs.