Mattster

Seems harmless enough to me, just a bit of fun - we were all young once! I've always liked him as a player and it would be a criminal waste of a career to spend the rest of it on the bench at Man U. Agree though that West Ham is the obvious destination - he really should have gone there over the summer, as it was clear he was enjoying his time there. Wouldn't say no if we went in for him though but can't see it happening.

Agreed - seems completely crazy to me, unless there is more going on behind the scenes that we don't know about. Norwich look nailed on for relegation, and with no incoming funds likely I think it will take more than a change of manager to prevent it. What they really need is a manager who can get them promoted again asap, and Farke has done that twice in the last 4 years, both times by winning the Championship. Is there really anyone better suited to the job right now, and who also wants to have an inevitable relegation this season on their CV? I wonder why Norwich seem so incapable of pushing on in the prem after promotion - they are on course for their 4th relegation from the prem in 9 seasons which is surely some kind of record.

I must admit I quite like it, and my kids love it!

Sounds like it is going to be Eddie Howe!

True, that was a good effort. I'm still hopeful that one of those goes in soon, and we start to see a different player. Confidence is everything for strikers.

Sounds about right - I don't think we have found the target on any of the good missed chances or made the goalkeeper work at all. I have been on the fence about AA, and perhaps it is just a confidence thing, but he really needs to start hitting the target at least. The header maybe not the easiest chance (I think many would have done better tho), but the miss from the pullback was poor.

I don't think the situation would be much different if we bought a bargain player outright who turned out to be special. Once bigger clubs take notice, and offer enough cash, they're off within 2-3 years anyway - that's just the way it is in the PL. The only thing the buy-back clause really does is limit the amount of profit we can make (still healthy, if it really is £40m), the flip side being it probably makes the initial purchase cheaper. I think it looks like a good deal, and we should enjoy him while we can. It would be interesting to know if there is a minimum duration in the buy-back, and what that is - at least if it is a couple of years, we can all relax a bit.

Hopefully can put it against the outstanding balance since we are doing the installments?

It's a mess IMO because they obviously didn't have any sort of contingency plan, they knew the tickets were delayed and - presumably - were aware that the postal service is not working as well as it usually does. They have failed to acknowledge the true state of the problem or to offer any sort of reasonable solution, as evidenced by opening just a few ticket booths today for only 4 hours (I don't know if they ended up extending). There could have been other solutions that would have been a lot less hassle for the fans - e.g. issuing e-tickets, or printable paper tickets - but they haven't done any of this, or even issued any sort of apology to those affected. Tomorrow could be total chaos unless they really pull their fingers out - I suspect any "savings" made by using a cheaper Chinese supplier will be more than lost in refunds issued.

This is £10 now, or at least it was for the 19/20 season - it went up from a fiver the year before. Hopefully it is still going, and they haven't put the price up any further as I am planning to park there tomorrow!

Update here is that no post came today, so as a final act of desperation I went up to the sorting office before it shut at 2. Hallelujah! Our remaining tickets were there! They were extremely helpful, actually, and it turns out no one in our immediate area has had any post for two days due to absences. So maybe some culpability for the PO there, but that is exactly why you don't leave it until the last minute to send these things out - and the response (such that it is) from the club has been apalling. I am curious to see just how big the queue is going to be tomorrow.. On the subject of dodgy cards - my eldest son's card is listed as adult, and mine is listed as U18. How they managed to get this wrong since our details haven't changed on the website for at least 3 years is beyond me, but between us we have an U11, U18 and an adult so that is good enough for me. It does have a whiff of cock up about it tho.. and no, I won't be putting any time or effort into trying to get the tickets changed.

Once the ticket is used for the day, it is used - so if they give you a print out then you can either use that or your card (if you have it), but not both. Shouldn't be a problem, and they could more or less sort this problem out today if they just emailed everyone a print at home ticket as a precaution. I assume if we do have the queue at the office, they are just going to print something with a QR code anyway, so why not save everyone the hassle and send them to us. Those without access to email might still have to queue, but it should be a much shorter wait. The original mess up is bad enough, but the fact that they don't seem to be doing anything about it and just have the attitude of "get here early" is really getting on my tits. As it happens we are tight for time anyway on Sunday as my boy has football of his own until 12.30 - so we'll probably have to give that a miss.

Shameful. I hope the club are aware of the extent of this problem, if not there are going to be a lot of very p*ssed off people hanging around the ticket office on Sunday. They need to think of a new plan, and fast.

Nothing in today's post, but we got 1 of our 3 tickets yesterday (could they not have put them all in the same envelope, if they are so worried about saving money??). Starting to get a bit twitchy now, since Saturday post here is unreliable at best. This has every indication of ruining Sunday - I can envisage 5000 people queuing up which could literally take all game. What they could do now, if they would ackowledge this almighty screw up, is email every single season ticket holder a printable PDF ticket so that we can get in on Sunday if our tickets haven't arrived. Surely this is possible? Or send us e-tickets or whatever. This is a shambles.

I think you'd need to demonstrate a loss to the aggrieved party before the police were interested. Lending someone your ticket voluntarily wouldn't fall into that category, and it's no skin off the club's nose either.

Against the T&Cs maybe, but I doubt fraud comes into it unless you are trying to get an adult in on a child ticket or similar. I've never had any issues lending my ticket to someone if I can't make a game and I reckon there'd be significant push back if they start enforcing checks. Some clubs - e.g. Brighton - are formally making tickets "shareable" now, but this just smacks of revenue rasing IMO (extra £20 at Brighton).

Finally stopped lurking and registered just to post in this thread. One of three season tickets arrived this morning, for my 11 year old boy. It says on it "Price band: adult" - I must admit I am fearing some sort of screw up here. Still, probably better than my ticket being for an 11 year old, and as long as we have an adult and two kids between us I'll be happy enough (assuming the other two arrive!).