Wurzel

Well he's sort of right. He can do that. It's just that he has to give 6 years notice (well, 5 and 1/2 now)

Agreed. VVD wouldn't even get a placeon the bench if we had the two gingers Wright and Svensson, with Watson and Richards as back up.

BIB: Do we know this for sure or speculating? May affect my fantasy team.

I don't think people *are* demanding all year round excitement. I think most fans need, and actually look forward to, that between seasons gap. Like the players it's that chance to mentally refresh and start all over ago in August. It's the media, who rely on maintaining viewers/readers/visitors numbers to maximise their advertising revenue that are imposing this made-up "excitement" on us. 60/1 possibly but 600/1? Not a chance

Pah. I could do all that 20 Years ago Down the park Against my daughters Seriously, the more I read about him the more I like the sound of him. Yet another foreign signing I've never heard of previous to us being linked with them, but we haven't got too many wrong so far.

Off topic slightly, probably because I was around in the 80s but as soon as that clip starts, seeing us lining up in "that" kit gives me a feeling of optimism straight away that stripes never do. Unfortunately none of the players are old enough to remember it, hopefully they are shown videos like this daily at Staplehurst

A club that's firmly established itself in the top half of the "best league in the world" ? Feel free to to keep embarrassing me with these difficult unpleasant situations. Could we have done better (i.e. finished higher) over the period referred to in the article? Probably. Couldn't every club in the league also have done better ? Almost definitely.

*We* made big profits on then because we bought them cheap and improved them. We got good prices for all 3 at the time - certainly didn't undervalue any of them. Of course they could now be sold at a profit by their current clubs. That's down transfer fees going through the roof due to the tv deals. None of them have improved since leaving us, if they were still with us now on decent length contracts we'd be making bigger profits on them too, but that doesn't mean we undervalued them then. I'd go as far as to say we have a history of getting excellent prices for players we sell - even those than want to go - and I'm talking 40 years or more dealings, not just the last couple of years. The only one I would say was considerably undervalued was Bale and his departure was down to circumstances beyond our control at the time.

When did he last play before joining us? He appeared just the once for Saints. We've let him go and he's joined Lazio. They have *immediately* loaned him to Hellas Verona for 6 months. Does no-one actually want the guy?

This I would love to see. And thinking back over some of our media teams efforts - Dr Barry Gale, #TaylorAnnounced to name a couple - we could really turn the situation to our advantage

BIB: This really annoys me too. He is far from the only culprit. It's not diving, Long (and all others that do it) are unavoidably clattered into and brought down, but IMO fouls shouldn't be given for this. Some forwards seem to treat this as a skill but for me it's just as much cheating as diving. The defender probably has no intention of fouling but unavoidably makes contact due to the forwards actions. As much as I want to see divers punished I'd like to see any yellow/red cards given to defenders in these circumstances reviewed as well.

A rudderless ship is unable to change course. #WeFloatOn .. and on..and on ...

And that line up is, for me, the reason I'd like to think this story has legs. For those saying we'd never spend £40-50m on one player, I doubt you'd bat an eyelid if we spent £15m on 3 different ones. This season, for the first time, we've openly told other clubs - and our own players - nobody is going anywhere. We don't need to buy 2 or 3 this season, we've already done it last season (that front 3 would be like new signings this year having had time to gel and with GS behind them) . Just keep what we have and spend it all on one big signing that completes our jigsaw. That lineup (coupled with the fact that the law of averages says we can't fail to take so many chances again this season as we did last) and bench looks more than a top half ambition, that to me says serious top 5 challengers.

SFC " So Mr Black, we are a top half premier club, what justifies you for a role as our Senior First Team Coach?" EB "Well, let's see, how about last season I was Assistant Manager at a club that finished in the top half of the Premier League" SFC "You're re-hired"

Wasn't it said earlier in the summer (can't remember if it was LR or RK) that that *was* our business model up to the point where we had a PL squad consisting of 2 genuine PL quality players for ever position. They feel that they have now achieved that, which is why, along with long contracts for the majority, we are in position this summer of not needing to sell.

. Twitter account no longer exists Think that says it all about that story then

If the thread title is The Battle for Seventh why aren't Arsenal involved in the discussion?

No, but if that leads to her having secret phone calls and meetings with those doing the flirting you'd at the very least have a few words.

Just wondering, would running around with the logo of Sky and BT's biggest rival on our chests influence that in any way ?

I can't ever remember us having so much of the ball and so many chances in a season whilst scoring so few goals. By my sums if we'd scored one goal in every game more than we did ( Ok I "know" that's not likely) we'd have had an extra 27 points. If we can get our strikers to locate the back of the net again, get the AM contributing, and/or simply instill a degree of confidence back into our attacking play, combined with less reason to rotate the squad this year, it's quite possible, if not likely, that we will catch at least one of those teams above us. Whether that requires signing a new proven scorer or making the best of what we've got will (hopefully) be down to Pellegrino to decide. Of course, the eternal optimist in me didn't bother to calculate what would have happened if we'd conceded an extra goal per game.

Southampton Way is the B217 running between Camberwell and Peckham. West Ham are not deemed worthy of a way, but there is a West Ham Lane in Basingstoke. To be fair, looking at those locations not sure which of us comes out the better from that

He is, but he's "our" knob. This +1 (except I did buy the sash).

Didn't realise Pellegrino had left Alaves, that news passed me by (ironically happened whilst I was in Spain). Having watched La Liga highlights all season we could do a lot worse than him. Assuming we're not going to chase someone under contract elsewhere (we're far too nice ) he is now top of my favourites list for the job.

You're not looking hard enough, he's in there (36secs he's on the Tackling banner, and Davis on the Stamina banner)

So, top of the league till bonfire night then all downhill from there