The Kraken

Not out of the question, but bloody difficult. Just bringing one player through per season capable of playing in the first team would be a remarkable achievement. Then getting them to stay for an average of 5 years would be, frankly, astonishing. I don't think you could point to any Premier League club in the past 10 years who has been capable of getting anywhere near that on a year-on-year basis.

A travesty? What I think would be a travesty would be to assume that Kelvin can comfortably make the step up, and not sign another keeper because of that. KD has done brilliantly in the last 2 years, but sentimentality can play no part in professional football. If there is a better option available we'd be utter mugs not to pursue it. And claiming that Joe Hoart doesn't take crosses is daft, he commands his box brilliantly. Which is part of the reason why he is comfortably the nation's top keeper.

No, of course they haven't. I put that team down just to highlight how much the team will need to be backed up by transfers. In reality if we get one graduate per year who can make the first team squad, that will be a fantastic achievement.

Indeed. As I said "academy graduates playing today", so in theory if we kept hold of all our academy players, the best team we could put out for the Premier League.

Everyone raves about our youth system; and it has produced a lot of talent. If we try to rely just on that though we'll have enormous problems. You just need to look at what our best team would be of academy graduates playing today to see that, while we've produced some great players, its not going to provide us with an all-conquering team. Arguably our best lineup could look like this: Michael Poke Chris Baird - Mike Williamson - Martin Cranie - Wayne Bridge Adam Lallana - Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain - Andrew Surman - Gareth Bale Leon Best - Theo Walcott Without wishing to enter into a debate about our best ex-academy XI, that team wouldn't hold up to much in the Premier League (even though it has provided us with a huge amount of revenue). Its great to have a youth system to rely upon, but it very much needs to be backed up with a strong transfer policy to achieve any form of success.

Good work Dune. Keep your ear close to the ground for any more snippets of inside information.

If it follows last year's format it will be two 45 minute games, against two different teams.

That's very naive. A manager will know what budget they are working to in terms of transfer fees available and wages to be paid. They will know from agents exactly what they will need to pay in wages, and what their club will have to pay as a transfer fee. And they will need to know all of this so that they can plan for which players they need to bring in, and how many they can afford. The manager will know the details of what the player wants before even meeting him, and therefore will be able to put together a fairly accurate list of how many players he needs, and which ones he'd prefer.

And Kenny had no choice over the players he signed? Or over what he/the club would pay? And his name was Damien Comolli.

By the same token: why are you so bothered that others are seemingly so bothered?

You really are busting your nuts to be pedantic to the MLG degree about the whole "Premiership" thing, aren't you?

The good majority of them? Did you conduct a poll? That must have taken some time.

Quit simply, NC wouldn't give permission. NA would have to try to walk out of SFC to get the job, I'm sure. Dave Whelan accepts Wigan's situation, and has consistently said he would willingly let his manager talk to top clubs if they came calling. NC, not so much.

To be fair, we have a massive dearth of striking talent available right now. especially so when you take Rooney out of the equation. Carroll wasn't worth £35M, not even close, but its difficult to nominate many other available strikers who should justifiably be going in his place.

Totally agree. Some Liverpool fans claim "we signed Carroll for minus £15M". Idiocy in the extreme. We've definitely yet to see the best of Carroll, but he simply isn't worth £35M or anywhere near it. The price tag was like a lead weight around his neck and probably will be for some time yet, and it was an enormously porr decision to make by Dalglish. One which was probably at the top of the list for justifcation at removing him from his job.

The worst thing Liverpool did was to pander to the demand of the fans and go for King Kenny. They have a huge amount of fans who need a reality check of the total reform of their management team that they need, so a completely new, up and coming face wouldn't be the worst thing by any stretch. And their owners have the benefit of "distance" on their side, so can have a bit more of a free hand without bowing to fans pressure this time round. I think they'll go with a safer option of someone like Martinez or Rogers; whether its the right choice or not, time will tell.

Its very difficult to label it, as we don't know what resouces the new manager (if Martinez) will be given. What we do know is that spending that amount of money and finishing 8th place, 17 points off of Champions League qualification, was unacceptably poor. And spending huge sums on failures such as Downing and Henderson, plus the very questionable £35M on Carroll did him no favours at all. Liverpool get mocked a lot, but they are a huge club and will always be able to compete in terms of finance with the top 4, despite missing out on Champions League revenues. Their kit sales alone are worth £25M a year to them, and their kit is the 4th best selling kit in terms of world sales (behind only Man U, Barca and Real). That, and their worldwide brand, gives them the resource to challenge year on year, if not to compete with Man City then certainly to have a go at Arsenal, Tottenham, Chelsea and even in time Man United. I think a new manager will get given some decent money to spend, and he will be under instant pressure to perform. 4th place may not be the be all and end all in season 1, but there will certainly have to be a massive improvement from the shambles they've been this year, and I'd say a Newcastle-eque season will be the minimum requirement from any incoming manager.

If you're 'Appy and you know it....

Dalglish was allowed to spend £120M on players, I'd suggest that raises expectation levels to the point where 4th place is a very realistic and achievable aim.

You're probably right, his 3 years PL experience will place him towards the top of the wanted list. However, even as small as Wigan are, I wouldn't say finishing 16th, 16th and 15th in the Premier League is an enormous thing for anyone to rely on. He's done a good job, of course he has, whilst always losing top players. But I wouldn't say that record places him in an entirely different bracket, just further up the list.

The RAWK (Red & White Kop) Meltdown twitter is better; choice cuts from their main fans forum. So deluded and nuts that I'm still not convinced its not made up.

It wasn't much of a challenge, was it? Yet you said "I doubt you can". I think the general consensus is that there's no doubt Man Utd, Man City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham, Newcastle are all a much bigger attraction than Saints and he'd leave in a heatbeat to go there. So there's 7 straight off the bat. An argument could be made that Sunderland could be added to that list; as for your references to Everton and Aston Villa, that is just based on speculation (especially claiming that we might be as big as them one day). We might be one day, who knows, but at the moment we simply aren't, despite the fact that their attendances have dropped significantly in the past year. To answer your claims above: firstly that Everton have gone as far as they can. They currently are in financial bother, yet they still finished 7th. They spend relatively little on transfer fees but have a very high wage bill, which allows them to regularly compete for the European spots. And they have been and are continuing to look at ways of moving from their antiquated ground into something bigger and better. They are a global brand, having won a European trophy some time ago, and are commercially well ahead of us in terms of actual and potential attraction. As for Villa, they are comparitively in the doldrums for where they should be. A poor managerial choice has seen them slump to their worst position in the Premier League since it began. They still have a relatively decent squad that could quite easily be turned around to a mid-table outfit, and they have the revenues from a bigger ground and the worldwide brand recognition they have. They do have a lot of debt right now, but who knows what their rich owner will choose to do about that. You can try and denigrate my views if you wish, and put them down by saying they "lack sense", but if you're going to put out "challenges" such as I bet you can't name 5 clubs who are bigger than us, then don't be surprised if a lot of people are going to counter that for being arrogant and ill-judged.

That's rarely been a problem for you before.

Edit: I really can't be arsed.