sandwichsaint

Hopefully that would see Hughes back to another of his failed spiritual homes. Infamy, infamy, they've all got it in for me; looks like David Squires has got his number with this take on last week's training! https://www.theguardian.com/football/ng-interactive/2018/nov/06/david-squires-on-a-european-super-league-and-other-life-affirming-stories

Paul Gilchrist.

What choice did the FL have when 18 teams walked out to form the PL? Life went on for the FA and the FL,UEFA can kick the rebel teams out and continue as they are now, or they can suck it up, get the best deal they can and carry on with a second level of European competitions etc and preserve the best players in international football etc. My money is on a messy compromise.

Unlikely to go completely outside the current establishment imho, that would be the end of international football/world cup etc. How would players transfer in/transfer out etc? More likely to be a messy compromise with the new EL throwing crumbs to the remains of UEFA. When the PL was formed the FA had no choice but to go along with it, this will be the same, FIFA/EUFA won't want to excommunicate 500 of the world's best players out of the world game.

Why do people assume they would leave the domestic league? If this was instead of the CL the big clubs could easily play their domestic lge and then the 20-odd european games on top (no domestic cups); they keep 25+ first team standard players on the books now and they could afford more. I would suggest they will continue to play their B team in the PL. No incentive for the PL/FA to exclude the big 5/6 from domestic football.

I'll bite, is it 12 a-side where you come from?

Add in Mark Wright Alan Ball Keegan Channon winners!

The lack of interest is almost total, ten or a dozen people on the match thread on a Saturday afternoon. (and a few of them are the same person:o). I've been listening at home on TalkSport while doing the ironing:lol:. Sounds grim, no confidence, no leaders, no goals. Comes to a pretty pass when mowing the lawn or doing the ironing trumps watching a stream. We'll win 1-0, which will paper over the cracks for a few more weeks.

One of Rupert Lowe's things was a PL2, prob 10 or 15 years ago now. Remember at the time hearing a piece where he said we were a 'top 30' club and bracketing us with Watford, Ipswich, and possibly Forest too. Guess the only diff to the current set-up would be they divide the TV money more widely, so less money for us and more money for the 20 teams below us. Big 6 would continue to dominate but a more competetive field below. I'm sort of coming round to the idea of a 16 team PL1 and a 20 team PL2 with 6! up and 6! down. The Big 6 can beat up a different set of minnows each year, the dug outs can stay as permanent mid-table mediocrities, everybody else can play for their place, none of this limping to 40 points/happy to stay up nonsense. In PL2 with 6 up and maybe 4 down, just about every game would have something on it. More time for European football, International breaks, overseas tours, a proper mid-winter break, etc. Fewer league games, more room for a focus on the cup comps. Never happen but it would be a better model for us than where we are at the moment!

Cahill is 32:mcinnes:, did you mean signing a 27-28 year-old of similar experience?

Duh, but that would mean he has to play every game. I'd take Chris Perry to give us some leadership and PL know-how. Quicker than Hoedt and better in the air than Vestergaard; hopefully he's kept himself in good nick, I'd get him straight in next week.

This has gone a bit under the radar, at least for me. Does 'groupon' refer just to the Brighton game or was it in place for the Chelsea game too? Presumably no database history is needed so have we officially now got ourselves a 'neutral section'? What stops Brighton (Chelsea?) fans buying tickets in home areas - as far as I can see 'nothing'. Are the groupon tkts all in one area or do they allocate them randomly amongst the seats that are available? I think we should be told.

Agree with all of this, yesterday was a dismal advert for the 'best league in the world' and yet another indication of how far we have fallen and how fast. Hughes is getting pelters (rightly, the players aren't fit/aren't motivated/aren't coached to play in any sort of structure or system/can't defend collectively or individually etc etc.). All said and done what was a par score yesterday? 0-2 or 0-3 probably ... exactly what we got! It was one of the most uncompetitive prem games I've ever seen; Chelsea so superior in every dept, they won easily without really getting out of second gear. We had not one player who would get in their starting 11 (or their match-day 16) and probably not in their 25 listed players either. It was like watching a cross between a one-sided school game, Scottish football or a mismatched cup tie. At least in a cup tie the under-dog usually fights! I'm astonished the number of people who will still pay out to watch a mis-match like this. Not sure where we go from here? Do we keep chopping and changing or do we go for some semblance of continuity? We seem to be reprising the end of the Lowe era, a squad full of very average players, lots of who are stuck on long expensive contracts. Maybe we will hang on by our fingertips again, maybe we won't; just don't see financially how we will survive relegation, we won't be able to pay the wage bill and we will struggle to off-load players like Forster, Hoedt, Carillo, Davies, etc. Anybody that can go will go, leaving a team of has-beens, never-weres, and kids. Happy days, at least we will get rid of the tourists and the happy clappers but we won't be seeing world-class players at SMS anymore, which for me would be a decent swap!

Calling BS on this, how many Lazio fans have even heard of Seabourne let alone seen him play?

Liverpool had bigger fish to fry and eased back at 3, Wolves don't. They have looked good in pretty much every game so far and will want to start scoring the goals their approach play deserves. They will have far too much for us, 4-0 min, 5 or 6 is possible. Cardiff and 'udders are likely to go down so really only one place to play for, Newc and CP are poor, then it's us/Burn/WHam/Fulham as the worst of the rest. Win that mini league (how!) and we could be 12th., not out of Sept yet and most people now would take 17th if offered!

Shares in vestergaards seem to have tumbled alarmingly in a very short space of time. A few short weeks ago they were seen as a decent investment and just what our portfolio was crying out for. Fast fd a couple of weeks and they appear to be ponderous and ill-suited to our needs, and we probably need to go to market, again. Spoiler alert: I've not actually seen him play but it looks to me like he's probably as good as we are going to get for our current level and budget, FWIW I think he'd make a decent pairing with Yoshi, in a big man/quick man combo.

Generous! Bong looked (on telly) one of the weakest players in the PL. God only knows what he (Bong) was doing on that header, Cedric-esque only more so.

Presumably it's all part of being on MNF? a Sky give us loads of money on condition we put on a firework show 2 or 3 times a year? b Sky gives us loads of money on the condition we spend a minuscule part of it on a fireworks show 2 or 3 times a season? All part and parcel of the modern world but ultimately you do have a choice, I'm sure Eastleigh would be very glad of your money. I've been to one game in the last two seasons and don't really miss it at all.

Never going to be in a top 5 but CMFG away at Ipswich was a proper 'I was there when' moment.

Could do with playing all our home games at Selhurst Park really. After yesterday we've won 5 of our last 7 games there. Can't think we've had many stronger sequences on an away ground just about any when in our existence!

Much more of this thread and Vestergaard will be.

So, after all the grumblings and rumblings, what's the verdict on the 'new' shirt/kit after seeing it in the actual heat of battle a couple of times? I said I liked it on first seeing and i haven't seen anything to make me change my mind - I still like it. Is it wrong to like Watford's stripey kit? It's a bit Aussie rules/rugby league but I think it's something a bit different.

#WeMarchOn, the first team to have floodlights to the first PL team without floodlights in 50 short years. #mess Hopefully the dug outs are still there though?

I remember when Celtic had ambition .....

And the one obvious improvement - bring in central timing, the ref indicates when the clock is running/stopped, big stadium clock, when we get to 45 mins it's a rugby style finish.