Saint_clark

Getting into a ridiculous analogy, but this is exactly my point. If someone wants to come out, crack on, but they shouldn't need to announce it to the world. How do we know that there aren't gay footballers that have come out to their colleagues and it just hasn't reached the public domain? It's none of our f*cking business what any of them get up to in their personal lives and by building it up and up and up is only going to serve to add to the pressure to anyone considering it and make them less likely to do so.

The fact that it's such a big moment is still part of the problem - it shouldn't be. It should just be another facet of a personality like a favourite colour or food type. Put it this way - would you have the same awe-struck, humbled and touched reaction to being told the ground breaking news that someone is straight? That is every bit as important a piece of information as someone being gay.

Well I for one will never set foot inside St Marys again. FFS, this shouldn't be news. Making it news, making a big deal of it and applauding him as a hero for this only works to exaggerate how "different" he is and make it out to be a bigger deal than it actually is. Batman is completely spot on that the best response to this kind of news should be everyone just shrugging their shoulders and turning the page, not going "OMG what an amazing step forward".

We may not have pressed but we started last season on top, creating loads of chances and just not putting them away. It was only as the season went on, players lost confidence and fatigue set in that our performances became much more subdued and defensive. Don't believe me - just take a quick look at match threads from the start of last season.

...but not in anyway different to how we started last season.

Arsenal looking poor with El-Nenny and Holding playing, why have they not strengthened!?

D'ya know, it was only two days ago I was able to bring myself to watch highlights of the cup final. Good god, were we robbed. Goal disallowed, hit the post, ball TWICE flashed across the goal begging to be tapped in...heart break all over again.

Yeah fair point...Stephens spent the best part of 3 years out on loan before getting his chance with us.

Could be looking at pushing another young centreback into the first team fold then?

I don't know, if they come back with £100million i'd take it, everyone would say we've played it perfectly if that happens.

Yeeeeeeah....which isn't a sponsor. It's the English Football League Cup.

It's happened before, Carling Cup anyone? Pretty sure last season was the first time in ages it was just called the League Cup.

Very good player - a goalscoring attacking midfielder.

Make it a quid to season ticket holders as well, let's get the core fanbase in for definite, good atmosphere going...good chance to build some early season momentum and the crowd can play a big part of that.

Didn't watch it, in what way did they f*ck it up?

Away to West Brom shortly after Rickie scored his first goal for Scotland, 1-0 win.

You can't have been to watch many games then.

Bednarek only turned 21 in april so won't count towards the 25.

They're properly, truly deluded on that RAWK forum. Just had a quick look at the last couple of pages of their VVD thread, and i've seen someone suggest that if we refuse to accept a bid from Liverpool Van Dijk can take us to court (?) and another suggesting that he is simply an employee of a company and as such should be able to just hand in his notice and leave - mental!

We're not talking about squad numbers, we're talking about centre midfield numbers. For those two slots we now have Romeu, Lemina, Hojberg, JWP, Davis and Clasie. If you argue he can play further forward you still have JWP, Davis, Tadic, Boufal and Gabbiadini who might end up playing there.

Shame for Clasie but I think his times up. He never got regular gametime playing further forward than DM (where I think he is best suited). Whenever he did get closer to the opposition box he looked a lot better, including scoring a couple of goals from the edge of it.

Written off for absolutely no reason, I keep hoping the club haven't done the same.

Personally I won't chant or boo him, but if he is somehow still playing for us when Liverpool come around then I think this would be best; We've got Van Dijk, Virgil Van Dijk I just don't think you understand He'll never play for you, whatever you might do We've got Virgil Van Dijk

When Ferguson sold Beckham it showed that the club was bigger than any one player. To sell Van Dijk to Liverpool now would show that the player is bigger than our club.