CB Fry

Again, you're all over the shop. Sure, it's me that can't argue a point. We've got a strategy that is proven to work - keep wages under control, let players that want to leave go for a good price. Replace with the next lot who, all being well, will also prove to be CL level class. Get them when they're hungry and ambitious to be elite. Sell well, invest well. 8th, 7th, 6th. Arguably the most successful era in our entire history. You've written off that very successful strategy as "roulette" but when pressed to show me a club who isn't playing roulette, you can't, or you just name clubs that are far bigger and richer than us. Round of applause. Your point about how close we got to those clubs proves my point, not yours. It ain't roulette, it's a bloody successful strategy. Yeah, we're mid table right now but then why wouldn't we be, it's pretty normal kind of position for us. Your non-roulette clubs - Liverpool, Spurs, City, United - are all underperforming this season and before relative to their size and spend. Some are hugely underperforming, season after season after season. They're allowed to underperform then, and you drool over them, but Southampton never are? No club our size has been more consistently successful across as we have over these last few seasons. Go back 20 years of the Premier League of a club that's been top eight 3 times in a row and kept it going and going and going. Bolton got close, Fulham a bit, Middlesbrough. Even clubs far bigger: Newcastle, Villa couldn't do it. Leicester win the league, keep their players, spend a fortune and wake up this morning in the relegation zone. It's effing difficult. But we have a strategy, the best strategy, to keep us competitive and hungry. Not fu cking roulette in any way at all. Keep trying. I'm off to Wembley.

Milling about Baker Street waiting for my brother (and ticket) to turn up. Fair few sashes seen so far. Sat on a packed train from the midlands, but packed with rugger types and a handful of plastic Mancs.

Gawd knows what you're blathering about. But if we go by your list we can summarise your copper-bottomed strategic masterplan as being Waaah waah waah why can't we be Man City waah waah waah why can't we be Liverpool or Spurs. Brilliant stuff as ever.

We've finished sixth, seventh, eighth and all you can see is doom. In the week we've seen the club that followed pretty much to the letter your wet-dream non-roulette strategy of spunking huge wages to KEEP THEIR BEST PLAYERS plus spunked more and more in INVESTING IN THE SQUAD be shown to be in absolute chaos and facing a relegation dogfight. Players want leave, let them go if we get the fees, replace them and go again. It's so odd that people so despise a strategy that works when there is no evidence anywhere that anyone else's strategy is better for a club our size. I'll ask again which club is winning this roulette game better than us? Which one?

How many other clubs of our size can you name that have finished so consistently high over the last five years? Nah, we messed up this January so we're sh it at everything forever. Enjoy the cup final.

Can you give us an example of a football club that doesn't play roulette every season?

I'm starting to think he despises Southampton Football Club nearly as much as you do.

I don't remember sacking anyone.

That's pretty bloody shameful. He had earned the right to relegate them quite frankly. And I think a lot of Leicester fans would have forgiven him that. That said, I fully expected CR to cobble together enough points to stay up.

Not really relevant. The referendum was myriad issues/gripes/concerns/agendas wrapped up in a diametric yes/no question. A general election is all of those issues, plus loads more, wrapped up in a far more complicated parliamentary system. As we saw in 2015, immigration will be one issue but so will everything else that impacts people lives. If Party A don't achieve the immigration level people want, do folk really think that the electorate will then neatly vote in Party B to achieve it instead. To hell with any other policy either party A or B esposes, because every election from now on is just a straw poll on the immigration number. Yay sovereignty.

Hahahahahaha. If you seriously believe that entire general elections are based on single issues like immigration then bless you. Thankfully them Tories took a right kicking in 2015 following their complete failure to deliver on their "tens of thousands" pledge in 2010. Lastly, the establishment of big business and government will decide on immigration and they really won't give a stuff what you vote.

Looking forward to the game. Just had a little tip off from someone in the know that I thought I'd share for those who like a flutter. All I'm saying is that there are already a couple of online bookies that a running a book on Katharina eating a large cream scone during the second half. Get on it now while there's still a bit of value.

Kipper heart-throbs like Dan Hannan and that bloke from Wetherspoons were and are very clear that "control" over immigration shouldn't ever actually mean reduction in immigration. But that kind of thing got lost in the dizzy glory of all that additional money the NHS are definitely getting. So all the poor saps in Boston and Grimsby and indeed Shirley who think them, like, scrounging dirty foreigners are going back where they came from/enough's enough/we're full etc will be in for something of a shock. The rich establishment will ensure the steady flow of cash generating cheap labour will continue to flow in just as it always has. Especially when we've whored ourselves in trade deals with India and Oz. But, on the plus side, no more foreign bananas.

If he had wilfully not eaten a pie then he would also need to be investigated as that influences the outcome of the bet as well.

It's not been moved because of United's cup final you bunch of hysterical old tarts.

To be honest it's more realistic to imagine Gareth from the office being too cripplingly thick to understand the point being made. But he's, like, Argie doh, ain't he doh?

Would we? I doubt we do much more than 30-40k shirts in total every season, expecting us to shift another 30% or so for one match seems fanciful. And of course you've used the classic stadium expansion argument of let's just cut the price to sell more - new release shirts would be normally be closer to £50. Being that this would be a premium, short run, high risk item you'd have to sell it for its normal RRP. And then there are the logistics. From design sign off to how many sizes are they producing to freight timelines there is a lot to work out. All this for something that between the decision to wear it at the fixture and the point at which the club needs to sell 80% of the stock is about four weeks. While in one world it may be possible to buy time in a factory and air freight the stock, on planet earth the whole thing becomes pointless if the club/under armour lose or nearly lose money on every shirt. It's not beyond the wit of man to understand the club and UA likely did review the opportunity and decided not to proceed.

In the Daily Express.

Scratch that, then. A replay would have been a worse result TBH.

Another fixture for Leicester coming, then. Oh dear.

I still can't see Leicester going down. They've still got a little flurry of results in them, and they have the players for a solid mid table finish. It would be a great story if they do go down but there is so much dross down there that I think it will be relatively easy for them to stay up.

I've just been reading an in depth interview with Manolo from a couple of years ago off the Gazetta Dello Sport website. There's some interesting snippets in there but what stood out for me was he seems to have a really savage dislike of Portsmouth Football Club. Does anyone think this would be something we should commemorate in a chant for him?

That post was entirely about him being on the bench in the cup final, not being on the bench forever, unless in your world "his first game in English football" has some different meaning. Read it, and read it again.

He's Segunda Division standard at best.

The post you were replying to was specifically talking about him being on the bench for the final.