Arizona

Bart was very assured tonight. Dealt with pretty much everything. Since he has been back in the team, he has conceded a goal against Charlton, which was offside in the build up, a freak own goal and a penalty at Northants and kept clean sheets in 3 of his other 4 games.

W00T!!! Missed the first 15 minutes because of queues at the flippin' ticket office. TBH though, I could have been an hour late into the ground and not missed any action. Great second half though. This had 0-0 or 0-1 written all over it at HT, but Saints are made from sterner stuff these days. Two candidates for goal of the season in a game I never thought I'd be able to get to. :D 'ave it!! Players: Bart - 8 No problems with having him in for Davis IMO. Dealt with everything that came his way expertly. Had one flap at a corner, but only because Jaidi got to it first. James - 6 Was decent enough by his standards. One horror backpass though. Jaidi - 7 Won a lot in the air, a few sliced clearances. Perry - 7 I don't think he's up to it against tougher opposition, but there was nothing wrong tonight. Harding - 8 Dealt with the long balls that came his way. Brilliant goal. Antonio - 7 Good running and made a lot of space. Hammond - 7 Got around the midfield well. Schneiderlin - 6 Seemed a bit quiet. A few quality crossfield balls. Guessing he got taken off because he was booked. Lallana - 7 Decent movement, worked well with Harding down the left. Connolly - 7 Everything is just so much better with him up front. He moves, he shoots, he passes, he scores. Lambert plays a lot better when Connolly plays. 4-4-2, it's the future. Lambert - 9 A decent strikers performance, but that free kick gives him the MOTM award on it's own. Worthy of Ronaldo in a World Cup final. Fantastic!!! Subs: Wotton - 7 Came on and was solid. Pretty reliable passing too. Waigo - 6 I didn't have the best view from the Kingsland North, but I could have sworn he was 3 yards onside for THAT chance. I think the lino panicked when their defender messed up and stuck his flag up in sympathy. Mellis - n/a Meh. P.S. Thankyou Tranmere for not bringing any strikers to this match. If other teams could be this generous, I'd much appreciate it.

Di Grassi signs for Virgin.

I think the first batch of Typhoons were geared more towards air superiority, which isn't an issue in the Middle East at the mo. Couldn't say if any of them have seen service though.

I've been counting the number of s**ts I could give. Turns out there aren't any.

You have a good point RE: Pompey. Years from now, if I were a Pompey fan I'd be saying, "yeah we won the cup, but we got blown out the sky financially doing it."

To put it simply. Neither Murty, James nor Thomas is the answer at right back. Murty - Too old, to many injuries. James - Too slow, doesn't jump, bad positioning, makes mistakes, doesn't jump... there's more but you get the idea. Thomas - Slow and can't cross. If we are serious about the CCC and beyond, we need conclusive answers in each possition. At RB it's more a case of, "well, erm... he'll do for now and this bloke's always injured."

I can't really say it much simpler without just repeating myself. To put it as simply as I can: Yes, we have spent more than any club in League 1. Yes, we have also sold more players (price wise) than anyone except Leeds. No, we don't have that money to spend. Yes, our owner is investing a similar amount to replace those players. Yes, our wage bill is higher than most in this league. Yes, our income from gates is higher than most in this league. Yes, our transfer spending is proportional to our income. No we are not the Man City of League 1. Other clubs like Leeds, Norwich and Charlton CAN maintain a squad similar to ours. Why? They also have proportionally more income, like we do.

I've changed my mind. James is fantastic.

That's a massive exageration IMO. Yes, we have spent more than any other club in League 1 this season. However, when it's all totted up transfer fees and signing on fees probably add up to around £2m. We also had to sell our best players in the summer to the tune of £3m (plus a few who left on a Bosman and would get into most L1 teams). I know we don't have that £3m to spend, but we needed to replace those players with ones of equivalent quality and therefore cost. As I pointed out, we probably bring in an extra £6m a year from gates than a team like Oldham. £6m extra income, minus the £2m on transfers still leaves £4m for extra wages (roughly 8 players on £10k a week). Basically our spending is proportional to our spending. This is unlike Pompey who spent nearly £100m with gates of less than 20k and Man City who spent Real Madrid money with Everton or Spurs levels of income. Notts Co are in L2, bringing in barely 7,000 fans a week and signing people like Sven (40k a week, or 4 Rickie Lamberts) and Campbell (Couldn't have taken much less than £60kpw to get him there).

I stand corrected RE: Leeds, but I stand by my original point. Spending less on players than you received from selling them doesn't make you a big spender, regardless of where the money comes and goes. Yes I know Marcus is a couple of million out of pocket, I still wouldn't call us big spenders.

Neither James nor Thomas are right backs. James is a half decent midfielder, Thomas is a half decent centre half. Both could fill in at RB in an emergency, but neither is a solution to our problem. James is not more than good enough. I can think of at least two goals when he was directly at fault. If it were Bart or Kelvin at fault we'd all be howling for them to be replaced. I will also stick my neck out and say this wont be Murty's last injury this season.

I think we're singing from the same him sheet, just a nit out of key. The players we have brought in are needed to replace some of the (quite good) players who have left. I know we don't have the money from those transfers as it went towards keeping the club aflot. Never the less, they did need replacing. In that sense we aren't the Man City of League 1. We're the Man City, IF they had sold SWP, Robinho, Ireland, Bellamy and Richards.

FAO People who don't think we need a new right back in January: We need a new right back in January. I'll just correct this minor grammatical error.

It is relevant to the playing side of things. Imagine if Leeds had to sell theur best players in January due to financial restraints, then a new owner spent half as much on bring in replacements. You wouldn't call them big spending, they're just replacing the players they've already lost. This is just responding to financial changes and replacing the massive damage sustained before the takeover. This isn't a Man City scenario where they had a reasonable squad and spent massive amounts of money trying to make a team of world beaters.

We could take as much as £6m more in extra gates from some of the teams in this League. £400k for Hammond and £1m for Lambert, whilst big for this League, isn't excessive for the size of the club. Added to that Nott's Co didn't sell players their better players for over £3m in the summer.

Just seen a thread on Planet-f1 (Those ferkers wont let me register ) about the battle of the airlines. Kingfisher (FI), Virgin (obviously), Etihad (Ferrari) and Air Asia (Williams). Maybe if Prodrive/Renault get sponsored by Easyjet they can keep their revolting colour scheme.

Bates, there are no panties in that picture, please stay on topic.

Liebherr's conservative approach was always going to be the beast long term plan. I don't think some people have quite grasped the concept yet however. I keep seeing statements like, "give Lallana £5m to make him stay" and, "forget the FA Cup, we don't need the prize money"

Seen a few pics of that. Have to say other than losing Bridge I quite like it. Might add a couple more overtaking spots. I've read it was designed in Part by Damon and one of the Moto GP guys. Does look a little bit like Tilke's work though. Whilst his tracks are good on paper, they seem to lack any real soul. He could design a track with 10 overtaking spots, it still wouldn't excite me as much as Spa or Monza.

It's the "Genuine 100%" part that would send me running.

Plan on going to this one. Don't know why though, everytime we play Colchester it's a completely s**te game.

IMO Good The Darkness - Don't let the Bells End Shakin Stevens - Merry Christmas Everyone Band Aid - Do they know it's Christmas Band Aid 20 Slade - Merry Christmas Everybody Wizzard - I wish it could be Christmas Every Day The Pogues - Fairytale of New York Get on my tits Wham - Last Christmas Mariah Carey - All I want for Christmas Elton John - Step into Christmas Paul McCartnety - Wonderful Christmas Time East Seventeen - Stay Another Day Cliff Richard - Saviour's Day Boney M - Mary's Boy Child ANY X-factor Winner - Pointless cover of a teary ballad, with a video made of slow motion, black and white clips of them crying on the show.

I think Pompey will come close to matching that. They're already on their 4th manager in a little over a year. When they go bust and Rupert Lowe takes over, they can have a new manager every week.

Okay guys, we've done the, "I'd spend the money on myself" gag about fifteen times on this thread now. I think it's gotten as funny as it's ever going to get.