madsent

As mentioned above, we lost on opening day 1989 which was the day the curse began. The Coventry win in 1999 came after 8 consecutive opening day home games. Since then, 6 of the 9 opening day games have also been at home. Our overall record in the last 20 opening days is : Home - 0 wins, 6 draws, 9 defeats Away - 1 win, 3 draws, 1 defeat

The Sky curse is very recent when compared to the opening day curse which has been running since 1989. Despite most of our opening games being at home since then (I think there have been 3 away) in that period, we have had a solitary opening day win (at Coventry in 1999) to celebrate. Lets hope our new-found optimism will lead to us getting to -7 points before the rest of the league even kicks off their season.

As far as I can recall, there was no mention on BBC radio or TalkSport and it's not in the list of friendly results on the BBC website despite it listing such important games as Spalding Utd v Luton XI. That said, the BBC has no record of our game against Ajax either.

Apart from a few games with Jermaine Wright and Ostlund at LB, we've had left-footers at LB in the last 3 years. I'm pretty certain that Bale, Surman, Skacel and Vignal are all left footed. It's not as if we've been lacking left footed players in the that time.

wooton :confused: Why pick on that one. What about Davies, Gillet, Patterson and Lanacaster ?

I'm sure our academy has been in the top 5 in the country for a few years. We could compete with Arsenal who run their academy like a finishing school for European players and we're definitely behind Manchester Utd and Middlesbrough in terms of pure numbers of quality players. That said, we have a large number of our graduates in the top 2 divisions in English football and a few in decent leagues abroad. The academy has generated significantly more money than it has cost which is part of the purpose of having it in the first place.

Are you talking about Saganowski ?

He was our most consistent player for a season but I don't think he'd be tall enough to cope with being a centre back in L1. The lower down the leagues you go, the more emphasis is placed on scoring from set pieces. His lack of height was seldom exposed in open play because he was usually well positioned and could get off the ground well when running to meet the ball. He was exposed at free kicks and corners though where he had to get off the ground without the momentum of running forwards. At the time, it wasn't so much of an issue because we had Kenwyne Jones who is rarely beaten to a header. Rasiak often did a good job at set pieces as well. I could never understand why Burley always seemed to replace Jones with Wright-Phillips with 20 minutes to go. We never defended as well with him off the pitch. As it stands, our squad is not blessed with height. For that reason alone. Paul Wotton will be playing a lot of games in midfield unless Pardew can get in some big lumps at centre back. Chris Baird would not even be on his signing radar in that regard.

You failed to mention that the "little team" are already 10 games into their season and Real Madrid are still introducing their players to each other. The Spanish season doesn't start for another 6 weeks. On the other hand, Ajax's season starts a week before ours so it was always going to be a tough assignment. As for Kelvin Davis keeping us in it, you could say that he opened for flood-gates by letting a near-post shot squirm through his arms. However, he did perform very well for most of the game and won't come across a team as good as Ajax in the league this season.

Pardew would be a very small factor considering he was Lita's manager at Charlton for a grand total of 6 weeks. There's no way Lita will drop down to L1.

Surely, they aren't his machines as he has nothing to do with the running of the Liebherr group any more. He runs his own companies now and I think they all come under the "Mali" banner.

8 or 9 depending on whether you count Portsmouth twice. Tottenham don't count as he never got a game in their first team. Dulwich Hamlet (loan) Hässleholm (loan) QPR Portsmouth Aston Villa Norwich (loan) Saints Liverpool Portsmouth

To be honest, our best team since Chris Nicholl was manager were outplayed by Steaua Bucharest in the UEFA Cup and Ajax are much better than them. I'd expect a 0-3 half-time score and a final score of 1-4 or 1-5 with our goal coming with Ajax's reserves on the pitch.

Of course Rasiak and Saganowski are in the squad. They're still our players and we're still paying their wages. Also, no-one would be willing to buy an unfit player with the new season coming up.

Maybe the recession will help us again. We had the best period in our history in a period of political upheaval with recession, high oil prices (when we could get it), fighting wars on two fronts, high unemployment and a failing bank system. Not so different to the climate we find ourselves now. Even the price of a ticket this season is comparable, in real terms, to the price in the late 70s and the 80s.

Strangely, Van der Sar was listed as the worst keeper in the Premier League in his last season at Fulham. It was calculated that he cost them more points through errors than they gained from his world-class saves keeping them in matches.

What have you got against him ? He was a good keeper in his time

KK is a hypocrite in that regard, along with Harry Redknapp. Both of them complain about having directors of football and say they take too much power from the manager and that they don't fit into the structure of English clubs but KK was DoF at Fulham and Redknapp was DoF at Pompey. Neither of them seemed upset about it at the time and they were both well-regarded in their positions.

My thoughts exactly. Kelvin was great last season but we've got Michael Poke, if necessary, and there are plenty of decent keepers around. For example, Ian Bennett, Nick Colgan, Gabor Kiraly, Andy Marshall, Andy Oakes, Gavin Ward and Nicky Weaver have all had decent careers are all available for free.

While I agree that Davis is a good keeper, I wouldn't lose any sleep if he left. There are always plenty of good keepers available and most of them would be bigger and more commanding than Davis. That's not to mention Michael Poke who could be a decent keeper at L1 level. I'm not so confident about Bart or Forecast though.

Pompey already have a player with vast relegation experience. Hermann Hreidarsson has been relegated with Palace, Wimbledon and Ipswich and has just signed an extension. With their takeover still to happen despite due diligence starting in May (sound familiar ?) and a heap of players having left, it may well be that he joins Nigel Quashie and Ashley Ward with 4 relegations.

To this day, I never understood why we the fans refused to accept the new stadium being called "The Friends Provident Stadium". I've never heard Bolton, Huddersfield, Leicester, Coventry or Arsenal fans complain about the names of their stadia. By refusing total naming rights to the stadium, we drastically reduced our annual sponsorship money.

Jermaine Pennant with a hat-trick against us at Highbury when we lost 6-1. The only 3 league goals he ever scored for Arsenal. Jimmy Carter scored twice against us for Arsenal in a 4-3 defeat at Highbury. Only 2 goals he ever scored for Arsenal. That hat-trick by Chris Bart-Williams for Sheffield Wednesday when they had no available strikers and we still lost 5-2. Think Jason Dodd got his first goal for us that day. For me the most demoralising away performance was Jostein Flo scoring 2 headed goals from corners in the last 2 minutes for Sheffield United when they were 3-1 down and down to 10 men at the Dell when Branfoot was in charge.

This is certainly worth discussing. If we can get Rasiak and Saganowski off the pay-roll (I'm assuming we won't get anyone to take Wayne Thomas), combined with the £2m+ from player sales and a potential £3m+ from season tickets, we could actually come out of administration and run without an immediate takeover. Obviously SLH would need a board but there are plenty of good people who would give their time for free.

He could easily be following a well-worn path into a Premier League reserve team or a Championship / L1 team on loan. Chris Baird, Martin Cranie, Matt Mills, Lukas Jutkiewicz (via Swindon) and Nile Ranger have all joined Premiership clubs in the last couple of seasons and done nothing. Gareth Bale may get a game next season if he finds a new club. Redknapp clearly doesn't rate him at LB or LW. That said, I wish Surman well if he leaves. His form wasn't great last season but the team didn't play well around him. He was very good the previous season and he's certainly better than L1 standard. At 23 years old, he needs to be thinking of bettering himself rather than hanging around at a L1 club. Hopefully he can do as well as Kenwyne Jones or Theo Walcott rather than the other players I mentioned.