The Cat

Brentford have some good players. I wonder if their forum had posters moaning they were all hipster signings because they hadn't heard of half of them? They've even got a chap from Dulwich Hamlet whose fans I imagine ride to the ground on penny farthings after having their handlebar moustaches styled at an achingly cool East London barbers. This is possibly the weakest line up I can ever remember from Arsenal though.

Yeah, I didn't think you were. It's football. I don't know why people are still surprised by others have funny opinions on all sorts of players. I heard fans laying into Le Tissier at the Dell on occasions FFS.

He's not going to sign for us anyway so it's a completely pointless argument.

Personally I quite like reading about players I've never heard of. Much like I enjoy hearing and seeing new bands rather than just listening to the same old stuff I did 25 years ago.

I tried to see if I could do that but our ticket website is even more frustrating than the team. If anyone works out how to do it let me know!

I remember when our ticket office was decent. Is it still even run by us or outsourced as I can't imagine the club can be happy with the current situation. We come back from Wales on 23rd which includes driving past Newport so I'm not driving straight back there the next day. If the game is on the Wednesday I'll probably go if you fancy a lift?

Absolutely. Ridiculous they can't get that organised in good time. I'm sure there will be plenty of people in my situation who will be away and can't now give the tickets to friends.

Logged into my ticket account and it had this info next to the tickets. We go away on Monday and aren't back until after the Man Utd game so I was hoping to give them to friends.

It's not quite though is it? Still has a GK without the skills he needs, Bednarek, Redmond and even Romeu probably don't start in his ideal system. As I said it's getting there but your line up is 2 or 3 injuries away from having to start with a large percentage of players he inherited. Football is a squad game. Before Ducky starts rambling on about me being part of Ralph's cult I'm not making excuses for him, it's just how it is. We have rarely had a manager who has stayed long enough to build their own team or squad or whatever. Closest to this in recent times was probably Koeman because of the mass clear out but he still had a reasonable amount of inherited players by the end although most of them were a lot better than the dross Ralph was handed.

It's definitely getting there but I think we're still 2 or 3 windows away from it totally being his team. Need to sort a GK who can pass and make actual saves plus another central midfielder, a Number 10 and a striker who isn't a loan. We'll obviously have a new CB soon so that adds another player to his team.

Week commencing 23rd August.

I voted McCarthy based on him having better technique although it wasn't a vote made with any confidence. Forster seems to make more saves but is so scruffy and it largely seems due to him being massive rather than anything else. He is also obscenely poor at catching for a Premier League keeper. The kicking thing is weird. McCarthy obviously does as he's told even though he's not comfortable with playing it out from the back whereas Forster seems to ignore that and smash it aimlessly down the field at most opportunities. Neither of them are particularly great on crosses although McCarthy is better because he at least comes for them sometimes and is more likely to claim one than Forster. The unnecessary contract extension for Forster has royally screwed us as he'd be gone by now and we could be buying another keeper with McCarthy as back up.

I think he'd be a very solid addition to the squad. Bags of experience and covers an area we are reasonably light in. For a team who are likely to finish bottom half he's a perfect addition for a few years. We will be looking to push on but this season is likely to be another one of consolidation in the league while we carry on slowly sorting the squad out. I don't think he'll join though, we just don't have the cash unless someone else leaves.

Shrewsbury beat Lincoln last night so I presume they are North too unless the cut off changes now due to the location of the remaining teams.

Love him for Liverpool away and all the times he's made me laugh by running into players and getting hurt. On the flip side that vomit inducing song of his they used to play before kick off was a truly low moment in the history of the club.

They should give away promotional ones like they were outside that Leicester away game. Meat starved fans stuffing their pockets with heavily processed reclaimed pork products is just what the Forest Green owners would love to see.

They lost 2-1 to Millwall. Pity really as would have been fun to play them again. Forest Green away as I've not been there. Definitely not a boring fixture against another Premier League team.

Outside Anfield and walk across Stanley Park.

Have we sold him already?

We should allocate squad numbers alphabetically to really mess with people.

Think I was lost at the bit where you have us finishing 8th. Nice idea though.

We played different football when he was bought, but no he's unlikely to be the the sort of defender Hasenhuttl would buy now if he was given the choice. The way I see it at the moment is that we are very slowly rebuilding the squad with the type of players Hasenhuttl wants. Due to our financial restraints it's going to take at least another 4 windows before we get a squad with a majority of players that fit his system. I'm encouraged though by recent moves. We've got rid of some unwanted crap and seemingly started replacing well. I have more confidence in the way the day to day side of the club is being run now. The only way to accelerate the rebuild is with an injection of cash, which is obviously completely dependant on Gao selling the club. The key to everything is staying up this season. Then we have more dross out of contract and the ability to start prioritising other areas as suitable players in our price range become available. Bednarek is reasonably young still, there's not exactly a glut of great CB's in the top flight who are his age. He does a decent job for a team at our level. In an ideal world we probably would sign another more experienced CB to play with him and Salisu if Vestergaard leaves but who knows if the right player is available at a price we can afford?

Edited as it was the same article whelk posted above

A very successful Olympics for GB and some stunning performances. Seems ages ago that Tom Pidcock won our first gold. Nice to see a couple more on the last day too. Despite the lack of crowds it was a brilliant event.