The Kraken

Hats off Danny Boyle, that was absolutely epic. Didn't make the mistake of trying to out-Beijing Beijing, just stayed to being British and IMO it was better. Really thought it was going to be absolutely naff, akin to the dreadful London bus debacle from Beijing's closing ceremony, but i was wrong. My only "criticism" was the lighting of the flame, which I thought lacked a real wow factor like Barcelona and others. But I liked the concept so no real complaints. Overall excellent.

It goes to olden style formations, basically 2-3-5. 2 and 3 were full backs, 4 was the half back, 5 and 6 the wing backs. As the game became more defensive minded 2 and 3 stayed as full backs while 5 and 6 reverted to the centre backs, with 4 traditionally the more defensive minded centre midfielder. There are of course various examples where this wasn't the case in more modern football (before squad numbers came in and made it all redundant). Steve Bruce wore 4 as a centre back, Neil Webb and Ray Wilkins wore 5 in central midfield, Roy Keane wore 6 at Nottingham Forest, amongst many others.

We've had regulations for smaller sized pitches and smaller sized teams for younger players for years. And there has been a recent move to make sure kids don't play on full size pitches until they hit 13 or 14.

I wasn't the one who mentioned Harding in relation to Fox. I don't rate him at upper Championship level, but he was exceptional at League 1 level for us. Good luck to him if he ends up at Forest, he was a good servant for us as one of Pardew's first signings.

You won't get shot down at all. Fox is poor at defending, his crossing is excellent but he rarely beats a man or raids down the byline to do it, he predominantly crosses from deep in his half to Lambert at the back post. Not surprised at all that we're trying to replace him, there are plenty of others that I know who also think this.

Are you joking? Or a bit thick? You cant even think of one?

The thing that will bring through quality is a huge amount of qualified coaches. Which we don't have. Who are the best technical side in the world right now? Spain. Is it a coincidence that they have nearly ten times as many FIFA-qualified football coaches as we do? You choose if that's relevant or not. This new direction will only regress us further in that respect, I fear. We have the most successful league in the world. Our second league, the Championship, is something like the 4th of 5th most attended league in the world. Why is it we are so backwards when it comes to having a coaching structure that does the same? 10% of the amount of qualified coaches that Spain have. Why? This whole change to our coaching structure is a further step backwards IMO, as it removes any sort of ambition from lower clubs to actually contribute. The top clubs will do OK, the nation will suffer.

The feature of his game IMO was how much energy he had, he was a properly overlapping full back who got to the byline, yet quick to recover and get back in position. I reckon ProZone must have showed that he was up there with most distance covered every game. A bit limited in his actual delivery and end product but in league 1 he was a great attacking asset and a real good foil for Lallana cutting inside.

Yes, seemingly all of his fellow pros thought so too when they voted him into the League 1 team of the year for 2010-11. Moron.

Wow. Well done, good predicting.

The ball boys will be quivering with fear.

I would have liked for lower league clubs to have had much more of an opportunity to obtain Cat A status, without the requirement for a £2.5M annual budget. Its nonsense to suggest that all top players have come through from the top clubs, they haven't. All this new system does is ensure the top clubs can cherry pick youngsters on the cheap across the whole country with complete impunity. Yeah, it favours us, but its still inherently wrong.

As said, you should be allowed a 15 minute grace period. That must have been a monster dump you had DD.

From the teamtalk article that the quotes from Palace's chairman was lifted from: Palace blast Saints' Clyne offer "I don't know what the "reported" compensation offer was for Clyney but I know what the real offer is and yes, Southampton are taking the mick,". "It's a no-brainer for us because what they have offered is so low. "It's annoying that it can't be sorted out sensibly. Nevertheless the compensation should be far more than they have offered."

Yes, I've seen those. I think that'll be the tip of the iceberg, some clubs will think that they simply have to try having an academy but I can easily see two or three academy-player poaches down the line in the next year or two will ask serious questions of whether its actually worth their while. A shame really, it could easily have ticked all of the boxes by having a fair and equitable pricing system. Lower category clubs could have a superstar on the books and lose him for less than £100K. That doesn't sit well with me.

Les Reed was in charge of negotiations.

I first thought the same; but I have 4 mates who are Eagles and all have said they're happy with the price.

I know that, as a Cat A club, we benefit from this. But however you dress it up, its a bloody disgrace really, and completely shafts the lower league clubs who can't afford the £2.5M annual operating budget. I wouldn't be surprised to see a few lower league academies fold in the next few years as it becomes increasingly easy for any Cat A club to come in and poach their best prospects for a relative pittance.

Decent deal for us. And my Palace supporting mates say they're happy with that too.

Junior Hoilett has signed for QPR, £4M apparently. Good signing.

Nonetheless, its incredibly difficult / nigh on impossible to audit something that isn't already in place, whether planned or half built. Facilities only being one of ten criteria (however its weighted) suggest we've done very well in the other categories, although our current facilities aren't exactly third world.

Makes a nice change from the Harry Redknapp "it's only about having good players" cobblers.

what weighting are they given?

Interesting that "facilities" is only one of ten factors they look at, which is good. It shows there's a much greater analysis of how clubs go about coaching/schooling rather than just who has got the most impressive training facilities (reinforced by us not having our extended facilities in place yet but still scoring so highly).

That being the case, will we get re-audited once our new buildings and everything are in place?