The Kraken

That's totally theoretical though, isn't it? Norwich have just as much chance of doing that as they do of using the Sky money to further reinforce their squad and infrastructure to solidify their position in the league for years to come. Saying that our way is the right way, when we haven't even achieved it yet, is a bit naive.

The team ethic (especially on the Adkins bus) is obviously mostly important. I just have a notion that we needed to improve with 4 or 5 players if we were to have a realistic go at the top end of the table. Of course I have nothing else to base this on than my opinion of what I have seen of our team and the Championship in general, but it's also why the Norwich comparison concerns me.

I'm not saying that at all. Norwich signed first team players. Ruddy played 45 times in the league last season. Elliott Ward played 39 times. Andrew Crofts 44 times. David Fox 32 times. Simeon Jackson 39 times. And Andrew Surman 22 times, in a season significantly curtailed by injury. That's not buying lower squad players at all. Norwich also showed that you don't necessarily NEED to do a Leicester and spend huge amounts on high profile players. That's not what I'm advocating at all. They have a good manager and he outlined some very shrewd signings.

Where have you got the notion from that I'm comparing us to Leicester? I've never said that. I'm comparing us to Norwich, and how similar we are to them. Leicester have got nothing to do with, so you've confused me. I'll outline my point to you again, as I'm sure you must have missed it. There are an awful lot of parallels between how Norwich & Saints have fared in the past few years. Relegation from the Premier League. Subsequent relegation to League 1. A lot of player transfers out and in. And, one year apart, a massive improvement with a newly hired manager early in the season which resulted in some great form and promotion. In League 1, Norwich's form under Paul Lambert and our form under Nigel Adkins are staggeringly similar (I know you love a points per game stat, I think it is 2.11 pts per game for Lambert and 2.14 pts per game for Adkins). So its reasonably fair to say that, at the point of promotion, the two teams were relatively of the same strength, give or take. What happened after promotion from League 1 is that Norwich further strengthened; they bought 7 new players. 6 of those players went on to become first team players; 5 of them played well in excess of 30 games in a season, Surman surely would have but for injury. Where these players came from is irrelevant; they came in and improved the team. So the point I'm making is this: We and Norwich were fairly similar in strength when promoted. Norwich deemed that more than half their team wasn't good enough for a crack at the Championship title, so they bought new players. We, on the other hand, have so far signed 1 player. Leaving aside losing Puncheon, Mills, Gobern (and the possibility of losing Chamberlain), we haven't strengthened to anywhere near the same degree. Even Adkins is talking about only signing 1, maybe 2 more players. Now obviously that doesn't tell the whole tale, some of our players may indeed be capable of stepping up and emulating their Norwich counterparts. But I don't think it's unfair to outline a personal belief that this current squad are not good enough to emulate what Norwich did, which is really the ultimate aim.

Exactly right. To try to claim that a successful penalty from 12 yards is less valid as a goal than one that goes in unwittingly off your arse from 1 yard out is a bit of a nonsensical statement.

"Names" don't mean anything, and don't guarantee success. In any case, they weren't predominantly from the lower leagues. 2 from the Premier League (Surman, Ruddy), 1 from the Championship (Ward), 1 from Glasgow Rangers (Smith). The 3 other players were signed from League 1 (Simeon Jackson, Andrew Crofts, David Fox), they had all had successful seasons with their respective clubs and all went on to become 1st team regulars. As did all the other signings except for Smith.

I agree with a lot of that, but I think the comparisons with Norwich are very relevant. You could argue that we're clubs of a similar size, and have had similar recent successes (and failures). Relegated to League 1, make a whole load of signings, new manager early into the season, much increased fortunes, and promotion to the Championship (albeit ours was one year later). Norwich then made at least 7 early new signings on their arrival in the Championship. So far, we've made one. Of course it's yet to be seen whether we'll make more (I believe 1 or 2 signings will be made but no more), but it also looks like we'll be losing Puncheon (who played in the Prem), Mills (who played in the Championship), we've also lost Gobern and there still remain doubts whether AOC will still be here come kick off. Of course, it's not all about a numbers game, and you could perhaps argue that our overall squad strength was maybe stronger than Norwich's when they went up. But Norwich have set the benchmark, and their way of doing it was to sign a number of Championship and above quality players. We may well yet do that, or indeed our squad may surprise peopl and actually out-perform the majority of expectations. But until it happens it's fair for some (including myself, by the way) to register an opinion that the current squad isn't going to be strong enough for a play-off push.

I can't really fault the club for the pricing of the tickets, £16 for adults and in particular £6 for kids is pretty fair IMO. Especially when you consider it's a whole day out, and you can leave and re-enter the stadium at will, so it's not as if there's no other choices for food etc.

Well this one is a strange comment. I can fully understand the club being criticised for not marketing tickets/season tickets enough, and therefore failing to maximise sales. But this seems to be a criticism that the club are actually over-marketing an event they're hosting!

I don't think one or two men's embellished tales of the influence SAF has can be judged as evidence of anything, to be fair. Especially so when they're effectively trading on his name to make money quickly.

Are you deliberately missing the point? This is a comparison to how Norwich won the league and then significantly strengthened their squad. It's not a direct comparison of results in League 1 (which are extrordinarily close in any case).

It wasn't just Bates though; they constantly evaded disclosure by claiming that Ken Bates fronted a consortium of various individuals/groups who all owned a stake under 10% each, and therefore they were not legally obliged to disclose. They eventually disclosed as they claimed they had been bought out by Ken Bates alone. So who the previous owers were remains a complete mystery. Edit: see here for the actual ownership statement http://www.leedsunited.com/page/Ownership

His point is based in complete fact about how Norwich performed in League 1 and how they approached their season in the championship. How does it fail in that respect?

It's actually a very valid point to make in general; it was just a very poor way of making it, and holding Saints up as an example. The potential for corruption and bypassing of the fit and proper owners regulations and such like is enormous. Leeds went years without disclosing who they were actually owned by; still no-one actually knows who it was.

Agree with this, right up to the part about 19th. I think we have plenty for a mid-table finish, potentially scraping inside the top ten. Still think we're at least 3 players from a tilt at the top though.

Being as it was the first game Cork played, I would imagine it means a little more than nothing. I doubt Adkins will write them off as a combination after 45 minutes as you seem to have! The reports I've seen of the game (online, Echo) seem to suggest that the first half partnership of Cork and Schneiderlin was a lot mroe effective than the second half partnership of Hammond and Chaplow. Of course there will be more experimentation before the season starts, we'll likely see all 4 midfielders play alongside each other at some point. But come the Leeds game I'll be very surprised if it isn't Cork alongside one of Morgan or Hammond, and my money is on Hammond being the one who dips out.

They did in our last game.

Ha ha ha, classic. Imagine those poor fools who've pre-bought a kit they haven't actually seen, only to have it not turn up in the post! A marketing dream by Saints!

Jackanory, i think you've just described what any top level manager has been guilty of regarding talking about other team's players. Redknapp is absolutely the worst at it, forever talking about players from other teams and how "e's a triffic player" while denouncing any other manager who does the same with his players. It's got nothing to do with nationality, so I'm not sure how valid your Big Sam et al comparisons are.

From today's Football365 Mediawatch:

The problem with that has been that, at least with Hammond, both of them seem to want to play that role. Chaplow seemed to be a bit of fresh air when he first came in, in that he seemed more inclined to bomb on and support the front line. It'll be interesting to see how it works out with Cork, and whether Morgan sitting will encourage Cork to play a slightly more advanced role.

Does it though? Umbro (in particular for their "Tailored by" range) issue a pre-release teaser of the kit, and design inspiration. I don't think this has the effect of diluting the impact of the release, in fact it probably has the opposite effect.

If we're going to play one up front and 3 in midfield then Guly is the only proper solution for the "number 10"; that's by far his best position IMO.

That is true. In his first season with us he was so sharp; and he won pretty much everything that was played up to him. At the time I remember saying that he was the closest thing to an on-form Beattie than we'd had since. Which was why it was a bit mystifying to see that last season he so often looked off the pace, and was nowhere near as dominant (or determined) in the air. Perhaps a proper pre-season can do the trick, I certainly hope so because when he's really on his game he's almost unplayable. But the thing with Lambert is that he provides so much more than just goals. In a way he determines the way we play, in that he acts as the fulcrum of the team. Take him out and as team we would have to adapt massively to his absence; and I believe that overall we would lose a lot more than just the goals he scores. His season won't purely be determined by his goal tally, it's a bit more difficult to measure his overall impact than that. But, especially at this level, it's absolutely vital that we see the Ricky from his first season, and not last season.

It's the long sleeved version that is £47; the short sleeved shirt is £42.