The Kraken

Yoda had a point when he said "fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering".

Remember him scoring a hat-trick at St. Mary's in a reserve game against Chelsea many years back. No thanks; don't rate him at all.

Forren really is the fly in that ointment; its utterly impossible to tell what is expected of him other than the utterings that he's being developed or whatever. Extremely strange that he didn't get on the pitch at all this season. I really don't know what to make of that, for a mid 20s international footballer who was signed in January, yet couldn't even get ahead of Fonte in the pecking order for coming on from the bench.

True, but I'd have said 4 CBs is the minimum you should be looking at for proper cover. A squad of 22 would typically have a reserve spot for every position on the pitch (plus maybe younger developing players), so 4 senior CBs. Jones and Luiz do double up in other positions but they were bought as CBs. If Forren isn't a complete dud I wonder if it'll turn out he can also cover LB; we'll see. But I agree that we should bring in at least one CB (personally I'd prefer a couple) and if we bring in 2 then room in the squad would have to be found. Fonte would be at risk, I reckon, as Hooiveld (however limited he is) is currently the only bruiser of a CB we have.

Someone's been watching The West Wing....

I know that this season my mate's 2 staff tickets have stayed empty as many times as they've been used. Not next season though....

I'd say they'd only leave if we bring one or two more centre backs in. We currently only have those 3 who have played CB in the PL for us. God knows what'll happen with Forren. For a squad game we need at least 4 CBs. Look at Man United last season; they had 5 in Ferdinand, Vidic, Jones, Smalling and Evans. Chelsea had 4 in Terry, Ivanovic, Cahill, Luiz.

I know that this season some members of staff got given 2 tickets per home game; typically around blocks 2-3. Perhaps there's a change afoot for next season; I shall certainly have to verify this for, er, educational purposes......

Keith Granger Jeff Kenna - Malcolm Waldron - Mark Blake - Wayne Bridge Steve Williams - Nick Holmes Rod Wallace - Matt Le Tissier - Gareth Bale Alan Shearer

There are even designs of safe standing that have only one row of standing but with the folding seat and barrier for each row. Comparing old style terracing to new safe standing is utterly pointless, the two systems are so far apart in all ways. And as has been said on here, safe standing with a barrier is actually safer than standing with a seat in front at shin level.

It's not just emotional, it's factually incorrect. Only stadia in the top two divisions have to be all seater, in practically every other division you can watch football from a terrace.

Perhaps it would be interesting next season for posters to also provide their prediction alongside those of Captain Moustache for comparison purposes.

Correct, but the Justice campaign have been vociferous in their stance against safe standing, claiming it is disrespectful to what they are trying to achieve. I have a lot of sympathy and support for the Justice campaign but they're plain wrong on this one. However, that seems to me to be the biggest obstacle to overcome.

Just your usual penchant for entirely missing the point, young Matthew. In any case I have no wish to converse furthery tonight, your post just made me chuckle. You knock 'em out, champ.

Is it for a monkey chicken petting zoo?

It really is quite incredible to behold just how much of an ignorant arse he is at times!

This exactly. The applause when he came on and when he went off was first class; singing his name, not for me.

You'd certainly be hard pushed to argue that 4 points against West Ham, Swansea, WBA, Tottenham, Sunderland & Stoke is a decent progression and transformation from 3 points against Manchester City, Wigan, Manchester United, Arsenal, Aston Villa and Everton.

They have the Euro Championships to compete in. This end of season tour is a waste of time anyway; much rather our players got a full summer off and return to pre-season bright and fresh.

Spot on Ash. On our day we're clearly a match for any side in the division. Off form, we're capable of getting turned over at home by the worst club in the league. The differences between the top sides and the mid-table sides lies largely in consistency of decent team performances, and having a decent back-up to the first team. We don't yet have either (but we're not a million miles away from it either).

Its a daft call-up at this stage, but Rodwell is the epitome of the way the England youth system should work. He played for every England setup from under 16s, over 20 caps at U21 level, and when not injured is a decent performer on the Premier League stage. To be called up now though makes all that seem immaterial and lets face it, he is only in there right now because he cost £12M and went to Man City, there's no way he's been picked on form.

I did it last season with a bunch of friends, its a really good format (free, too).

What a silly arrogant statement. In terms of points we're closer to the relegation spots than we are top 8. If we were zero players away from having an 8th place side, we'd be 8th. We're not, which means we fell a little short and need to close that gap, however large or small it. Fom what Crabby says, NC also recognises that it will take significant investment (perhaps over two years) to achieve that and a little more.

MP has already said we'll turn it down on the off chance we did actually make it; he only wants to qualify for European football by earning it. A fair sentiment (although I personally wouldn't have minded a back door entry into European competition, take whatever riches you can IMO).