The Kraken

I get the feeling Rodriguez is just using us as a bargaining chip to flush out offers from other clubs up north. I can see us being a last resort option, he'll come here if no-one else comes in for him. Which is why I think this has still got a long way to run.

I have never, not once, heard a criticsm of Guly (either in the ground or outside it) that has made mention of his skin colour. I'm of course not saying it doesn't exist; unfortunately it does. But I have not seen any evidence to suggest its more than just a few knuckle-draggers who simply don't like Guly because he's black. It certainly wasn't a problem for Radhi Jaidi. Papa Waigo was routinely mocked for being consistently offside, but not because he's African. I simply don't buy the race card, lots of people don't rate Guly simply because he is a frustrating player.

Yes. I'm Turkish's paperboy. Good one, Tim. I'm just wondering what the proportion is of fans who think Guly is rubbish because of the colour of his skin. As far as I can tell, its just a spattering of morons that think that way, but reading on here it seems its much more prevalent than that.

How big is this section of fans? Just wondering, like.

Indeed. I think we should sign that Oxlade Chamberlain chap. Or that Theo Walcott looks pretty good. Maybe that Welsh lad, Bale, at Tottenham. He'd be good for us. Those are the types of players we should be targetting.

He's now 4th, behind Fabrice Muamba, Michael Mancienne and Steven Taylor.

Where is this groundswell of opinion on here from those who have said that Europa Cup qualification and success is not an achievable ambition?

Well, Lee Holmes certainly hints at it when he says:

I don't think you're a WUM; I was just surprised that you see it as an area of black and white. As I say, I don't think you'll find too many people that will say "we should never think about expanding the stadium, we'll never need a bigger one". Most people accept that, if we see evidence of sell outs every week, and if we see a football team that are comfortably mid-table and upwards, then the owners will ave monitored that and will make a decision on how much bigger any stadium expansion should be. Any debate on here about how big we could potentially grow has typically been hijacked by the loony brigade who think the stadium should be being expanded right now and that we already have all the evidence we need to support this. I've seen a few people suggest we could eventually need a 50K stadium and upwards. I've seen others say 35K or 36K would be enough. My personal opinion, I don't think it unreasonable to suggest we could/should be looking at expanding to 40K stadium within a few years, if we hit all the necessary benchmarks and that sort of capacity can be justified. But there simply has to be a limit on how far the club can reasonably grow. At least in the next 10 or 20 years. I think its a great aim to view Everton and Aston Villa as the sort of size club we should aspire to be. Everton, consistently in the top ten despite dire financial problems. Villa, experiencing their lowest ever finish in the PL last season and considering themselves at their lowest ebb in a generation. You'll get some suggesting "you never know what's around the corner" to justify the possibility we may get taken over by rich Arabs who want to do a Man City with us. As I said before, not impossible but pretty unlikely. I'm perfectly happy, knowing what we know now, to aim for being a club who comfortably finish top 10-12, often have dalliances with higher finishes in the table, and perhaps on the off chance maybe maybe maybe finish in 4th or 5th (that bit is a few years down the line IMO). Any more than that, I simply don't expect in any way, shape of form and i think it is a very unrealistic expectation to hope for it.

Why are you trying to polarise opinion? I have hardly seen anyone say on here that we can't grow further. I've hardly seen anyone say that a bigger stadium is an unrealistic short to medium term ambition. And hardly anyone say that it is completely unreasonable to hope for us to be challenging the Europa Cup spots, or a cup victory, that would see us into Europe. Those are all fair and realistic hopes for the club, some perhaps even within the next 5 years. Asking or expecting for much more than that, to dominate at the top both domestically and on a European level would require a completely unprecendented level of funding. And at least twice the level of support that we've ever seen in our lifetime, if (as our CEO has continually stated) we are to be run sustainably. Not impossible, but pretty close to it.

F*cking hell, here we go again.

From the headline: "Young keeper is a target for Saints but Birmingham are planning to hang onto him and sell Ben Foster instead". Tick. Yes please.

Ah, of course. Damn you Football League :x

Those sorts of decisions are exactly why they have the AGM in the first place.

I really hope not.

When it comes to playing kits, you're really quite some nerd aren't you?

I haven't got a problem with that; just as long as they don't put f*cking white socks with it again, that looked bloody awful.

And Corp Ho was utterly incredulous at the suggestion his wage level was anywhere near that; he just wouldn't have it and ridiculed anyone for suggesting it. :lol:

"He has had some talks with Villa but he's not going to go there. Villa are a fantastic club with great fans, but I never thought they were big enough for him. If Roberto is to go anywhere, it will be to one of the top clubs in Europe.''

Or alternatively, look at what Dave Whelan actually said.

It becomes an auction with the clubs upping the ante on what they offer the player in terms of wages, signing on bonus etc etc. Not by continually upping the purchase price.

"Premiership. We're having a laugh." Need to get the Northam singing that one.

That implies that Deppo was funny in the first place, which is clearly not the case.

The boring nerd is correct, for a change. Assuming the bid acceptance is also correct, of course.

That seems, to me at least, a wonderfully simplistic view of the way we play. I don't mind admitting we're a bit basic in our way of playing from time to time. But its not as if we haven't scored against PL teams before, even when in L1. It's not as if our tactics haven't worked before against PL sides, again in L1. And its not as if we play a brand of football that clearly won't fit in the PL. I know for a fact from a mate who works in management for a top half Championship side that in pretty much all scouting reports and discussions about us, all teams knew they needed to stop Rickie Lambert but they all said that actually doing it was a whole different matter. Championship or Premiership (just for you there :-)) he will be our mainstay this season, rightly so, and I damn well hope so for a long time because I want to and believe he will do well at the highest level.