Colinjb

14:07 [TABLE=width: 100%] [TR] [TD][/TD] [TD]Comment From Phil OMac Chainrai has learnt what the club means to him. He can't walk away because the fans are so passionate about the club that it has turned his opinion of it. PUP! [/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] Ok, who was it?

The same status as Preston North End then. Core fanbase of about 10k? Check Proud History? Check Could only compete in recent years by unsustainably overspending? Well, we'll let Preston off that one.

Of course, my mistake to use logic. Thankyou for the correction.

Wow, Mancini "I can't critcise the team.... not Joe Hart....."

It's probably the closest we are going to get for a like for like comparison of fixtures. Swindon at home, when we were on -10 in the league and needing to get going. 22,000 attended. Skates at home, on the verge of -10 but not yet and looking to get going. 12,000 attended. Assume that the away end was the same for both, 2000.... Then when the chips are down and it's just about the core of the fanbase needing to get behind their team when they need it..... we have double the equivalent fanbase. Is this too simplistic a calculation? Probably. But once again the overbaring evidence is there that there is not that many of them.

It happens to the best of us!

Which considering their wage bill........ ha! 1/18th of the wage bill they had last year...... What did it work out as again? How would it compare with say..... Yeovil?

The vibe on the Skate forum is League 2 is fine if the Trust are in charge.... Survival over competitiveness. I think they are finally getting it. Coventry losing 4-0 at Shrewsbury, christ.

Andy Williams 0-2 "Music to watch Skates by....."

It'll be interesting to see what changes happen under Chinese rule.

As things stand they are outside of the drop zone on goal difference. And this is before the fans buyout puts them 10 points south. Coventry bottom of the league, harsh.... Oh and someone please remind the Skates it's 4 down in this league, before they start saying it's so unfair as it's usually three down....

Now remind me, where did Matt Ritchie start his career?

Do you sit in the family end Leicestersaint?

That's the thing...... If he has spent £30 million without 'success,' then that is a stick to beat him with. Quite what Cortese would consider as success i'm not sure, but survival will probably be as aspect of it. Adkins should be given the season as far as i'm concerned, but then again, I wouldn't have sacked Pardew.

Too early to judge Wickham too I would say, very young when signed and with the pressure of the Price tag. Rodriguez has proven to more prolific then Wickham and Nugent at Championship level and trailed by Adkins for a long time. It would be unfair to judge him on the basis of the first four games before writing him off as a waste of money. And even if he is..... the bare statistics show we paid the going rate for a prolific young english championship striker on a long contract.

Connor Wickham - £8 Million David Nugent - £6 million I would even throw in Jordan Rhodes for £8 Million It's not unprecidented.

Nuclear Fusion when they finally sort out the finer details. Mark my words.

Bullet Point Reasons to be happy: - We're Premier League - We are capable now of being the 7th Highest Spenders in Europe! - Taking the lead against both Manchester sides. I bet not many other clubs manage that this year. - Rickie Lambert scoring twice in 4 games, in with a shout of being the top english goalscorer this year. - The Japanese Olympic captain has joined us.. we get to see how he adapts now Jos is injured. - Adam Lallana is on the fringes of the England squad, great reward for him. - Our academy is still working at full tilt. JWP, Shaw, Callum Chambers etc... - New training facilities, we are in the top tier of English clubs on this front alone. - Come to mention it, the infrastructure remains first rate. - Our 'rivals' are now on a distant plain to us, and will be for a very long time. (Think Stoke/Port Vale) - The in-ground catering is sh*te and we have no radio station, therefore we must be putting the money into the right areas. - Gary Neville credits us as tactically doing the right things. - Danny Fox has now scored for us. - 23,000 or so season ticket holders. - Even if we do go down, Parachute payments and extremely high sell on values for our players.

What's Dave Bassett up to now? #runsandhides

Don't, just.... don't......

Feel free to help take us back on topic.

Watch them cry for the FPPT for this one.

Using Ramirez and Mayuka effectively will be an interesting challenge for Adkins. They are not typical wingers, they play more centrally but then how we have played recently has utilised players who are not typical widemen and deployed them in a fluid system that encourages them to spread to the wings and deliver the ball. Memories of Rickie Lambert drifting out to the left and right wings in League 1, totally contrary to the all out target/hold up man deployed by Pardew. Adam lallana, a man without pace being used as a left sided winger/attacker. The nurturing of a 4-3-3 esque wing forward type system to encorporate this talent and the usen of our then record signing on the left flank against Man City with Do Prado at the centre forward. It would be no surprise for me at all to see Ramirez and Mayuka used on the flanks of a three way attack. It may defy convention but it seems to be the direction Adkins is taking us. Could it also be his downfall at this level? Only time will tell.

Now, the idea of many exam boards. At School and Sixth form a decade ago, it wasn't so much a case of being taught a curriculum, it was an obvious and open philosophy for both Kings' School Winchester and Peter Symmond's College to play the exam boards to maximise chances of success, grades and therefore funding rather then teaching within a set format to get the Children to learn for their own benefit. It's quite symptomatic of the country as a whole. A culture of playing the system rather then reach for true excellence and achievement. For me, the use of only one exam board for the Baccalaureate qualifications can only be a good thing in preventing this game playing.

So, back to the optimism. The dilemma of fitting in a 7 million pound striker and 12 million pound playmaker into a side. What a terrible trauma.