The Kraken

I spoke to some Palace fans who went there for the game; they said the stadium is good (as you'd expect for that price) but the location is not good and the public transport links are abysmal. Also, there's very little segregation after the game to get on the trains, given it was two rivals they were just all lumped into a massive queue together and then got pelted with stones thrown at them. I think the inside of the ground looks utterly sh*t, the huge spaces in the corners are completely ridiculous.

If Martin O'Neill gets the Leicester job I'd suggest that would make them genuine promotion candidates; it was a bit of a scattergun approach from Sven but he still signed some very good players for this level; even on 19 points they're not miles away, and as they've probably under-achieved so far if they get their act together with a new manager they could be a proper force yet. I still maintain playoffs will be a fantastic achievement this year; West Ham will be up there of course, Leicester could kick into gear, even Birmingham look like they're now putting results together (4 wins and a draw since we humbled them) and could go second if they win their games in hand. Middlesbrough also look strong, which makes this Saturday's game very important to set a marker, and we're relying massively on our incredible home form at the moment.

Chapel.

Well, there is already power there supplying the tills that are there. No idea if they're networked, and yes I agree, there probably is a reason that I haven't considered as to why it hasn't been done. I just find it disappointing that Cortese himself identified beer queues very early on as a singificant problem, and vowed to fix it as soon as possible. Yet here we are a year or two down the line and seemingly absolutely nothing has been done to improve the situation. As we've seen, Reading had the beer-backpack lads, we previously used to have bottle bars, just 2 measures that would go a good way to making the situation better.

I don't know how much the purchase and installation of a new till is, but I can't believe it's all that restrictive. And if clubs like Reading have them installed already we're only bringing our systems in line with our competitors rather than pursuing some form of innovative sales technique. In any case, it's not just about the money, its all about enhancing the customer experience (as Cortese himself has claimed). He personally said that it was thoroughly unacceptable how long it took for the customer to get served, and that the club would be looking to rectify that as soon as possible. Given the significant sums being invested in the club, surely an upgrade of sales kiosks is very much small potatoes?

I think the immediate thing that strikes me is that we just don't have enough pay kiosks behind the bars. I don't think there's a problem in pouring drinks fast enough, just that there's often only two kiosks to pay for a drink (at least it's been that way the last few times I've been there, admittedly in the Chapel so might be different in other parts of the ground). A very simple way to halve the sze of the queues would be, instead of having just 2 tills behind the counter, have 4. The system of having people pouring is already there, just there's a massive bottleneck in not having enough pay points available.

Fosters. So no, not really.

Fair enough, not heard that myself. But I also heard we enquired about Gorkss extremely early in the window too, before the idea of a Puncheon swap found media attention. Also, Adkins comment on the OS when signing Hooiveld was this: So who knows; and it matters not, really.

I don't. Which is why I also said this part. "It's conceivable of course that discussions with Celtic were going on throughout the summer"

The logical thinking would be that Gorkss was ahead of Hooiveld. If he wasn't, why didn't we just go for Jos first of all rather than wait until the last day of the window? We got to an advanced stage of discussions with Gorkss before pulling the plug, and then moved on to Fontaine and finally Hooiveld on a last minute loan. It's conceivable of course that discussions with Celtic were going on throughout the summer, though I consider it unlikely given the advanced stage of negotiations we got to with 3 different players that Hooiveld was anything other than the final choice.

I think that's about right, at least as far as I'm concerned. Yet he has started every single league game this season. I do wonder if, away from home, we're not maximising our results by ignoring de Ridder from the start. At home we're likely to have more posession, which obviously suits Guly's game much better. Away from home we need to play on the counter a little more, but yesterday's team had no pacy outlet, someone who looked like they were going to sprint beyond the last man. I've thought this season that, with Lallana and Guly on both wings, while both are clearly good players they are a little similar in style. De Ridder gives something much more different, he's fast, direct and will look to attack players on his own or can get in behind with a ball over the top. With Lallana/Chaplow and Guly, I just don't see that we have that option. As a consequence yesterday Reading were able to play a very high line with us and squeeze play into our own half.

They're in second place.

Weston seems to have a better-than-most scoop on all things Lallana; here's his quote on the injury.

Agreed; he decided on a glancing header when a powerful attempt back across goal would maybe have been a better option.

Nigel Adkins' interview with the BBC explains it all. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/15319677.stm Fonte was feeling his hamstring, hee didn't feel he could sprint and so was dropping too deep, only felt like he was at 70%, no point in him pulling a hamstring and being out for 6 weeks.

Fonte went off as a precaution. Pretty sure we'll see Martin play in midweek but if Fonte is fit I imagine he'll start again on Saturday.

I remember back in the PL days there used to be separate small bottle bars in the concourse; just half litre plastic bottles of lager, and it worked really well to both get served very quickly and also reduce the strain on the normal queues. A good idea, yet we seem completely intent on ignoring sensible ideas like this and the beer-backpacks in favour of having not enough pay-kiosks and stupidly long queues unless you leave your seat 5 minutes early. And this was an area that Cortese himself said the club needed to look at as it was an unaceeptably poor service they were providing.

That's how it should be at footy. Plenty of tills, relatively quick service, and loads of people getting served with plenty of time to drink their pint before the second half. Added to which they had the beer-backpack lads wandering around, further reducing the queues. Given the limited space of the Reading concourse, imagine the mayhem there would be if they the same ridiculous beer queues we get at St. Mary's. So you have to ask; why on earth can't we sort this out? It can't be that difficult, surely?

I don't necessarily disagree; great result, worst performance of the season. I was more responding to the accusation that questioned how "up for it" the players are for away games, which is nonsense IMO.

Yep, I wouldn't doubt many people were "underwhelmed" by the signing. I know I was, I really wanted Gorkss to sign. But you say people had "made their mind he was crap". That's what I disagree with, although I can only speak for myself, of course. What was heard about him of his time at Celtic certainly wasn't great, that's for sure. I personally also asked a couple of mates about him, celtic supporters one of whom is a ST holder; again, the reports were unfavourable. So yes, a certain opinion was starting to be formed. But that doesn't mean he was written off and that people weren't going to wait until he played a few games before making an actual informed decision. Again I use the de Ridder analogy; no-one had seem him play, but the available evidence from former clubs' fans opinion led to many speculating that he could be brilliant, and that people couldn't wait to see him play to see how good he actually was. Why is that considered different to the Hooiveld situation? No-one got uppity about anyone forming an opinion about de Ridder before they had seen him play, did they?

Dear me. The one thing you couldn't criticise yesterday was the effort the players put in. Hammond was so "up for it" that he got himself sent off. The effort and fitness of our players compared to their's when we were down to ten men and in the final 15-20 minutes was phenomenal. Two away draws against two form teams in the division; what a disaster.

Well that's nonsense IMO, but if that's his opinion he's welcome to it. Don't see anything in writing off Hooiveld before he played though.

I'm not normall one to defend Hypo, but it's strange you left out his very first post in the thread on the subject which I would guess sums up his view on Hooiveld quite well. Here it is, in case you missed it. How terribly unreasonable.

Reaction. Show me one person that actually wrote him off before he played, and wasn't prepared to wait until he actually played before making a decision, and I'll agree with you. Edit: And what difference was it to the de Ridder signing; no-one had seen him play, there was only limited youtube videos and fans' views of his previous clubs to go by how good he was. Yet, because the news was favourable (i.e. his previous clubs rated him) it was perfectly acceptable to form an opinion on him based on that? double standards, no?

Yep, this. You don't have to have an agenda against the guy to recognise that this perhaps wasn't the game for him, he was very much a passenger for a lot of it and we may have been better served going with someone else. Although he was definitely not the only one to have a bit of a mare; Chaplow was the only one of our midfield to come out with any credit and Connolly was well below par also.