The Kraken

Our brilliant wins over the last few weeks seem to have been soured ever so slightly by some results below us. Unless Wigan lose out to 10 men, we'll still "only" be 6 points off the relegation spots. Having beaten Man City, Liverpool and Chelsea in recent weeks, plus having had 3 wins on the spin, you'd kind of hope for a little bit more than that!

I was being flippant.

So QPR lose their top scoring striker for an extended spell. Bobby Zamora has scored 4 league goals all season. I'm not sure how much of a punishment it is.

What the f*ck is he thinking?! :lol: "When you're kicked in the head and you're lying there dead, that's Zamora....."

They may have said that; and there's no denying that the lad has the talent for it, a couple of his through balls yesterday were excellent (including the one that JRod rattled the bar with). That said, I think there was little wrong with the wavelength between Lambert and JRod, and the wavelength between JRod and Lallana for the second goal. So I don't buy the idea that our lot are a bit basic and need to step up in quality to make Ramirez look better. Lallana showed in his limited time on the pitch what we should expecting in terms of flair and productivity, he was superb and has surely made a claim for the starting spot in front of Ramirez for our next game.

As for the undersoil heating, again this has always been the case. The stadium was originally built with heating but it has never been switched on; our climate here means it is largely unncecessary, and there's no cost-benefit justification to spend the amount of money that would be required to have the under-soil heating running compared to the actual risk of games being called off because of a frozen pitch.

The stadium was originally designed/built so that the current footprint could relatively easily be increased in size up to around 48,000. Up to 4,000 extra seats in the Northam, up to 8,000 in the Kingsland, and up to 4,000 in the Chapel. This goes all the way back to Lowe's days and as stevegrant pointed out earlier, the cost of £3,000 per addtional seat was often mooted by Andrew Cowen at the time. So, there is still a potential to increase to that size. Whether there is a desire is another matter altogether. The concept images released to date don't give too much away in that regard, but what litttle detail they do have suggests to me that the concept is not a 50K stadium, more 40K - 45K at the absolute most.

Another horrendous goal to concede. :lol:

That was a horrendous goal to concede.

If we hadn't had Boruc then we'd have surely bought a new keeper in the window as a priority. So maybe not that much lower at all. Davis/Gazzaniga were never a viable first choice option and the transfer committee clearly recognised this. By Boruc's own comments it seems pressure was brought to bear on the previous manager to play him.

I'm actually keeping my fingers crossed for a PDT win. Firstly, I really don't want to see them go out of business. Struggle, yes. Lose their club, no. Secondly, I think a PDT-run Pompey would be hilarious on so many levels. Not least for the moral high ground their pitiful fans will take over having a "community club" that is really just a front for some rich people to get involved in a property deal. Also, with continued mediocrity, it won't bee too long before the novelty wears off and they get fed up with not being able "to be competitive" (win every game) against the lower league's also-rans, which will undoubtedly lead to a massively dwindled support. They're going to be off our radar for many, many years to come. Good riddance.

All good points, Phil. I was just looking at last season's final table, and it shows just how much you have to keep improving to venture further up the league once you're around the top ten. Last season Wigan finished 15th on 43 points. To finish 5 places higher, in 10th, they'd have only needed another 5 points. However, to finish 10 places higher (in 5th) they'd have needed an extra 23 points; 19 more points than 10th place. And 28 more to finish 4th. The degrees of improvement suddenly become much more exaggerated the higher you go, and going from even 7th to 5th can be a massive undertaking. And of course, the higher you go the better the standard the squad needs to be, and the better the youngsters coming through have to be. Its a bit much to expect a Luke Shaw to come through every season or two. To have Theo, Bale, Oxo and Shaw all within 10 years is phenoemenal. There's a reason that clubs such as Arsenal, who have a decent history of bringing their own talent through, look to buy elsewhere; because the gulf at the top is sso vast that they need the very best.

All good points, Phil. I was just looking at last season's final table, and it shows just how much you have to keep improving to venture further up the league once you're around the top ten. Last season Wigan finished 15th on 43 points. To finish 5 places higher, in 10th, they'd have only needed another 5 points. However, to finish another 10 places higher in 5th, they'd have needed an extra 23 points; 19 more points than 10th place. And 28 more to finish 4th. The degrees of improvement suddenly become much more exaggerated the higher you go, and going from even 7th to 5th can be a massive undertaking. And of course, the higher you go the better the standard the squad needs to be, and the better the youngsters coming through have to be. Its a bit much to expect a Luke Shaw to come through every season or two. To have Theo, Bale, Oxo and Shaw all within 10 years is phenoemenal. There's a reason that clubs such as Arsenal, who have a decent history of bringing their own talent through, look to buy elsewhere; because the gulf at the top is sso vast that they need the very best.

For once I agree with MLG. Top 4 will be fantastically difficult to achieve. Top 6 is a reasonable target to aim for, especially so to have it as a medium to longer term target.

We're now at the point where its going to take a lot of money to bring in someone to replace our first team players (except for still at CB). The only areas of the squad we're light at are the reserve full backs, a really top first choice CB or two, and perhaps we're missing some genuine pace out wide (for all the creativity that Lallana, Ramirez and Puncheon have, none of them are blessed with a great deal of pace). The mistakes we made of the the cup final season need to be borne in mind; we have a decent squad for the most part, and rather than adding to it with another 7 or players over the summer we should perahps look to only bring in half that amount, but spending higher if we have to (although if can still bring in Clyne-type bargains that's quite obviously to be enccouraged).

We're now at the point where its going to take a lot of money to replace our first team players (except for still at CB). The only areas of the squad we're light at are the reserve full backs, a really top first choice CB or two, and perhaps we're missing some genuine pace out wide (for all the creativity that Lallana, Ramirez and Puncheon have, none of them are blessed with a great deal of pace). The mistakes we made of the the cup final season need to be borne in mind; we have a decent squad for the most part, and rather than adding to it with another 7 or players over the summer we should perahps look to only bring in half that amount, but spending higher if we have to (although if can still bring in Clyne-type bargains that's quite obviously to be enccouraged).

Why 3 years? Reading had 5 years for their expansion plans, which recently ran out. There's no reason plans can't be drawn up and submitted now, while holding on for another year, two years, whatever until the decision is made to actually go ahead with it.

That's what the previous concept drawings have suggested could be in the pipeline; a big extension of the Kingland, minor extensions of Northam and Chapel, and a new "skin" for the stadium exterior. I know our "Ikea flatpack" design gets a bit of stick for not being unique and a bit bland. Personally I haven't got a problem with it; and you'd be hard pushed to argue that any seat of the 32,689 is anything but a great view for a football ground. And if we do press on with plans to increase, that in turn will being an element of uniqueness to the design. Now, if Cortese could just live up to his promise to get drinks sold much quicker on matchday, that is one stadium improvement I'd really like to see! Drinks queues, particularly in the Chapel, are absolutely awful. Build that into the design please, NC; lots and lots of new kiosks.

Solid 2-0 win. We didn't really get out of third gear but then we never really needed to. Still a bit sloppy at times in defence but Reading were too incapable to make anything from it.

MLT made a good keeper, so its not out of the question.

My bad.

Hmmm. He did well with what he usually does well at; shot stopping. Boruc was brilliant at throwing the ball out to our defenders to play, Davis did barely none of that. And his kicking was really poor on a few occasions. He did ok against Chelsea, but I hope we have Boruc back.

Good old Lawro. Winding up some delicate flowers yet again.

Registered user??

Not even sure it was that much, even in the good old days. I had half a million in mind which included bonuses for turning a profit. It all seemed quite unpopular at the time. Like you say, I couldn't really care less, I thought it was a fair enough wage for a PL chairman. It was pretty unpopular at the time though.