SaintBobby

Don't have a strong opinion myself. But interesting that MP implied a couple of weeks back that he wasn't too keen on Europa League (although really just saying he'd prefer the CL, I guess). Additionally, didn't we say last season that we wouldn't take the fair play slot even if we'd won it?

I thought pitch sizes were all identical in the PL these days...or does that come in next season?

QPR at home last season was absolutely nowhere near our worst performance.

Thoughts on this (double) question? I can see that it might impede our forward progress in the league next year if we were to, say, come 6th and qualify and participate. On the other hand, could/should we basically just play our second string in Europe (Kelvin, Yoshida, Cork, Lee, Hoovield, Chambers, Fox, Guly, Ramirez (?!), Isgrove etc etc)? (Also, anyone know what the rules are? Would we be forced to take part? Would we be under any obligation to play our "strongest XI"?)

Can see the argument for Lovren and Boruc, but I might argue Lambert is the one player we don't want to see injured. I know some argue he doesn't quite fit into the new style of playing, but we have no other player quite like him and, given we haven't been scoring for fun, I think our attack would look quite toothless without him just at the moment.

Interesting to see comparisons with equivalent fixtures from last year. The projection for end-of-season points tally is absurd though. I think even if we won 15 games in a row, we'd still be projected to finish only 6th or 7th. If Man Utd lost their first 23 games, they'd still be projected to stay up comfortably.

Don't know the stats, but I'm always sceptical of these assertions about "starts", as the length of a "start" seems to be a movable feast. If you win your first game 5-0, it's your best "start" for 100 years. You then lose your next five games and it becomes your worst "start" for 25 years.

Corrected for you :-)

Good shout. I'm sure "we" agreed on just that point. Unanimous.

I'm going less this season. I live in London and a lot of games are on TV. This is (a) disruptive and (b) okayish even if I stay at home cos I can still watch the game. So, I skipped West Ham and will also skip Fulham.

Attendances have been very poor this season. Genuinely not sure why. Failure to sell out - even at pretty high prices - is concerning. Agree this puts any idea for stadium expansion on hold for a while at least.

He's rubbish. I'd rather have Paul Wotton up front. Sigh.

Right now, I'd be happy just to keep what we have. I still haven't given up on Ramirez, but if the club has then finding a suitable replacement should be the main piece of action.

Everton. I didn't expect Martinez to settle so quickly and thought the loss of Fellani would hurt them. Kind of expected them to end up mid table ish, but I think now they will be top 6 again and possibly Champs League. Sunderland. Didn't expect them to be so dire. Still furious we dropped two points to them. Arsenal. Potential champions.

No, it isn't. It's irreleavnt whether it's public or private. It is now illegal for a citizen to film the police for the purpose of filming the police. Can't remember the act of Parliament - c2008/9

If United are looking to loan him out in Jan for rest of the season and they are willing to pay 50%+ of his wages, then I'd be inclined to show some serious interest.

Saints for me all day long. England leave me pretty cold. I'd take a draw at Old Trafford and a Poland win if offered it right now.

I'm a Gaston fan....but if we can get £10m for him in January, I'd offload him. That said, if MP thinks he can mould him nin training, maybe it works out in the long-run...

It's just clear proof that policing is over-heavy at football. Obviously, police officers on over-time will disagree. To a man who only has a hammer, every problem is a nail. The ludicrous filming by the police should stop. They are like children playing video games. It's mental

I think that means 0.006% of people at football matches get arrested. (1762 out of 29m+) Practically a crime free zone.

yeah, ur right, was looking at the draw 11/2 on Saints to win is not bad.

I think we're only about 3/1 to win at Old Trafford, when were we ever such short odds at Old Trafford? Still, head says home win.

It will either be MIT or Wonga. I'm happy with either!

Well, I'd be surprised if that's down to MIT making a profit of £31,000 a student. In any event, even if you want to cap English univeristy fees at £9k pa, I'm assuming you wouldn't object to someone setting up their own university and charging £9k per student but only spending, say, £6K per student - i.e. making a £3K profit per student? People would only go if they thought it was worth it - otherwise they could go to a not-for-profit university where all £9K is spent on them. But maybe the profit-making uni has such brilliant dynamism, efficiency, imagination and creativity that their offering is still very attractive. If it is and they make a huge profit, good luck to them. I wouldn't say they were exploiting human misery or desperation ("young people being desperate for an education given the poor state of the job market" etc etc), I'd say they were providing a great service that people wanted to buy.

That seems like a specific complaint against some pharma companies. You wouldn't object to, say, Rocco Forte running a chain of brilliant schools and getting rich from it? It's not "profits before humanity", it's a profit for helping humanity. At the moment, if Rocco Forte's main aim is to get rich, but (say) his main ability would be running a chain of schools, he is going to decide to do something he is less good at (say, running hotels). So, people who enjoy nice hotels benefit from his decision. Rocco Forte also gets rich. And kids suffer because there's less talented people helping them to become numerate and literate. I think it's actually immoral NOT to allow people to make decent profits in services like health and education for just this reason. That's not to say I approve of the behaviour of all companies (we need to make sure they aren't incentivisied to e.g. make people sick only to then financially benefit from curing them for example!) but then the state isn't exactly a paragon of virtue either (see Mid Staffs causing 1,200+ needless deaths, terrible abuse in many state-run children's homes etc etc)