The Kraken

Perhaps not, but photoshops CAN also be pretty much spot on. From here: http://www.epltalk.com/are-these-liverpools-home-away-and-third-shirts-for-the-2012-13-season-photo-41371 (Albeit they didn't get it for 2nd kit)

for tony lovecock

Eh?

My mate works for Umbro and sent me this little teaser of the home kit earlier; I think it looks pretty nice...

I'd suggest your son needs to give his "mate" a good slap and a talking to.

Lets also not forget that Boro finished 14th in the PL in the year they got to the UEFA cup final.

They are iImpressive achievements, but you really can't just judge on cup success. In 1996/97 Boro got to two cup finals and were relegated. Much more recently Birmingham won the League Cup and got relegated. Both of those seasons were considered a failure for their teams.

Boro's highest ever finish in the PL was 7th, which they achieved once. Their next best was 9th. Cups aside, their league record is hardly any better than ours. Fulham's highest ever is also 7th. The thing that distuingishes us are their Europa cup records; certainly not league form.

Not absolute c..p at all. 2001/02: We had 8 games under 31K, 5 under 30K. 2002/03: We had 6 games under 31K, 4 under 30k. 2003/04: Our most successful season, 1 game under 31K. 2004/05: We had 8 games under 31K, 5 under 30K. Considering the away end divider moved in comparison with how many fans the away team brought, those lower figures can be significantly explained by the home end consistently not selling out.

Yep. On moving to St Mary's we finished 12th, 8th and 11th in the first three seasons. If NA achieves that in his first 3 season I suspect he'll get a bit more praise than "I don't think it was that great".

I don't disagree with the notion of what you're saying; but I don't think increasing our crowds significantly is going to be as easy as some people think. Consider: at St. Mary's we finished as high as 8th in the PL, plus 11th and 12th prior to the relegation season. So we quickly established ourselves as a mid-upper level Premier League team before our sudden capitulation. And yet in our time in the top league, with those decent finishes, we still had quite a significant number of games which didn't sell out. At our peak 23,000 season ticket holders + away fans (probably an average of 2,000 per game?) and there were still a fair few games where we couldn't shift all the home tickets. I admire the optimism from Cortese, and its a great goal to have. But I think proving the need is going to be very difficult, and as much as I'd like it to happen the realist in me still suggests that while its eminently possible I still consider it more unlikely than not it will actually happen.

It's amazing how far we still are behind the rest of Europe. This report tells it all, its a year out of date but anyway: http://www.soccerbythenumbers.com/2011/02/why-england-loses-not-enough-qualified.html The ratio of FIFA qualified coaches to active players: Spain - 1:17 Italy - 1:48 France - 1:96 Germany - 1:150 Greece - 1:135 England - 1:812

I'm not sure. His parents mentioned that he's be going to Bath 3 times a week for training; you'd have to imagine that the coaching there will be better than he'd get with his mates (which, lets be honest, more than likely will just consist of a kickabout and not much formal coaching). He'll be surrounded by the best kids in his age group and coached by properly qualified coaches. As for matches, I agree about the whole 11 a side thing, its utterly ridiulous. But that all changed quite a while ago, and the FA have just passed regulations which means that small sided games will be used further along in the age ranges. http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/may/28/fa

Good work Bob; got there in the end!

And my response would naturally be "well if we can't prove it yet, lets not do it yet"!!

Yes but he would have been registered for his 3rd season before hitting 21, which I believe is the vital point. I'm pretty sure this has been discussed before and confirmed on here.

Schneiderlin qualifies as home grown. He would have been registered with us for seasons 2008-09, 2009-10 and 2010-11 before hitting 21 years of age.

Ha ha, you really can't get it out of your head can you. That was an isolated incident where 2 wrongs made a right. It hardly ever happens like that. In that case the lino would be right by the corner flag so 99% of the time would flag for it. Try seeing it without those blinkers on.

Forecast, Dickson, Puncheon, Barnard and Forte out from that list, maybe Seaborne too depending on where he's at. Butterfield could be at risk depending who we bring in. Need at least a new keeper (probably one other but lets get an U21 for that), at least one CB (two if Seaborne goes), a CM and a winger. Maybe a right back also, and if Harding isn't deemed up to it another left back.

And what is the result of technology in cricket? Has it made it worse? Has it detracted from the game? Is there a semblance of "oh my God, we've open a can of worms here with all this technology and its ruined the game"? As far as I can see with cricket, the overwhelming opinion is that technology has been a thoroughly welcome addition. The same with Tennis and Hawkeye.

Do you understand that GLT doesn't require a decision to be reviewed? An electronic signal is sent to the referee within a second of the ball crossing the line. It all happens in real time and will therefore be transparent to players and managers. As far as they can see during the game, nothing at all will change. The referee will still rule on whether the ball crossed the line or not. And I simply don't believe it will lead to excessive technology. I believe that's a very backwards way to look at it. FIFA have consistently said they won't have technology that disrupts the flow of the game. The benchmarks of GLT ensure that it has to fit in with those requirements (and be 100% accurate) before it can be introduced. Review of all decisions does not fit that criteria, and therefore won't (and IMO shouldn't ever) be introduced. You seem to be using isolated incident of 2 wrongs making a right to construct a whole argument against GLT. Football will always have an element of human error, because it will always need a referee (and presumably linesmen too). Why not just make the things we can control a little bit more accurate? It also makes the linesmen's jobs a little easier too, so I'm sure they'd welcome it.

Personally I think this is the only way we'll see a bigger stadium. Not exactly rocket science, of course... I wouldn't be surprised if in time, for games against the bigger sides, we see some form of ballot system for matchday tickets. Of course there will also be the twinning of games, but in the Premier League there aren't too many games that are unattractive so that will only have a limited effect. Also, it would seem we have no membership scheme (which I'm actually quite surprised about, it's fair and a decent money spinner). The ballot system would give the club a very good idea on the number of match tickets we could potentially sell above our capacity. And so would be a great indicator of what a maximum stadium capacity could/should be.

Your last line doesn't seem to bear any resemblance to anything I've posted. I've never said we can't fill a larger stadium under any circumstance; I've not even inferred it, probably because I don't believe it. So I'll thank not to put words in my mouth which contradict things I've even said in this thread. And IMO this thread is about the potential for a larger stadium in the future; not whether we should build one and then see if we can generate extra demand to fill it. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I think we will get a bigger stadium if the numbers show that we have the demand to consistently fill one. I don't think we'll build one just to resort to a whole new wave of discounting techniques.

Why does it have to be "well if we can't have technology for absolutely everything, we shouldn't have it for anything"? In this one case, yes 2 wrongs actually made a right in the end. For the vast majority of goals over the line not given this hasn't been the case, so its no good using one isolated example as a benchmark. Nigel Adkins was very fond of a phrase: "control your controllables". GLT is controllable with technology; without video replays (which I neither want nor think we'll ever get) offside decisions are not controllable with technology. Lets fix the problems we can fix, and not get wrapped up in the ones we can't.