CB Fry

It's an arguable point but if we just let him go in the summer, we have lost a transfer fee we would have got last summer, or this January but we haven't lost money per se. He only cost £750k or so and we've had our money's worth. If we give him a two year contract and he does a J-Rod then we could actually lose more money than by just letting him go. Basically, just giving him a contract to force someone to pay a transfer fee might just be a pointless exercise on a player we have already realised the fee for. If the manager wants to let him go, then let him go nice and cleanly in the summer.

Hmmm....It can't be a "value for money" table if it is based on external valuations.

Fair enough. My point remains that the Christmas schedule is part of the terrain of the English football season. We want to finish third or fourth? We need to navigate through it, not complain about something that is basically older than God.

Bob Nudd robbed again.

Not really reading what I've written then. It's not in favour of anyone, because if you got rid of it, the big clubs would still be at an advantage because they still have better squads. They're at an advantage all season anyway. Getting rid of the Christmas schedule doesn't suddenly throw the race for the Champions League spots wide open. It would pan out just the same. Not sure how many times you want me to mention the fact that bigger clubs are favoured in the other months of the year too, but they are. Christmas football a tradition pretty much as old as football, not designed to be in favour of anyone.

So your answer to the question I asked in both my replies to you is "nothing". Having a bigger squad is an advantage in August, November, March and May. And also on Boxing Day. Glad that's clear. Carry on!

Yes, yes. The big clubs have bigger and better squads. You've already said that, and I know anyway. What's that got to do with scrapping the Christmas fixtures? If we want to finish fourth in the English Premier League in England then don't you think we need to do that by playing a full, real league season in England and seeing where we finish at the end if it? Navigating through Christmas/New Year is a central part of that season. And, in most seasons the biggest teams win the most matches even when they're spread apart by a nice long week, and kinda think they'd still win the most matches even if they banned all gaps less than seven days between each match. If they scrapped the Christmas fixtures for us, they'd scrap them for everyone else and we'd be no better off. Except we'd have got rid of some of the best football days of the year. Effing great. Let's do that.

What a mess we're in.

21. Forgot Jay Rod. What a plank. Annoyed I forgot Ostenstad. Would never have said Neil Heaney in a million years.

Forgot about this. Basically sweepstaked myself into frustrating hour and a bit. I hope I'm not right.

It's an occupational hazard of being right about pretty much everything, all the time.

If you can't work out my stance on this issue there is no helping you.

That's just "the bigger clubs have bigger squads". Yep, fine. True in August, true in May. What's that got to do with the Christmas fixtures? It's an integral part of an English football season, like the mountains stages in the Tour De France. Just part of the challenge. Long, long may they survive. Merry Boxing Day everyone.

Didn't say that, or that. Nice try.

It's been a fixture in football for decades and usually the highest gate of the season for most clubs. So yeah, disagree that we should scrap that tradition. When did I say I wasn't clear about Koeman's views? I disagree, that's different.

Fair enough. Completely disagree on all of those points. But not worth bickering over. I hope we have a Christmas schedule like this for years to come.

Not sure what bothers you about football matches on Boxing Day and on 28th. For whose benefit is it if they aren't played?

Christmas games pre-dates Sky by about 100 years. I think there used to be games on Christmas Day with the return match on Boxing Day. The kind of thing our historians will know.

Odd.

It's not in favour of anyone really, just how it is and has been for years. Christmas football is brilliant.

For the love of god.

Probably as least as many as Liverpool still have nationally and world wide despite not winning the league championship in many people's life time? We're not going to get three years of CL in a row, either.

Newspapers fawning over the big clubs again, then.

In that case, I'm with you. Barring an appalling injury crisis, we can do this.

We are going all out. If you are suggesting massive overspending on a raft of new players in January, then that won't happen. Don't get your hopes up. We'll get into the Champions League our way, or we won't get in the Champions League. We're not about to turn into Liverpool/Spurs in our spending.