Barry the Badger

But the fact is he still turned down a higher level of football. Makes no difference which way he's going. He is an example of a player turning down top flight football to play in a lower division. So a perfectly valid example thank you. Ok, so if he is their second or third best player and would easily be in the Cesena team, why did they accept a five month loan deal? They're clearly keen to shift him. Sorry, but what you are saying just doesn't add up, Cesena clearly do not feel he is up to Serie A standards. Not that I am not excited about the signing, he looks good but I don't think there's anything odd going on here, just a player who is no longer wanted by his club, moving to another club.

Happens quite often. Pitman turned down Blackpool. Probably didn't fancy a year of sitting on the bench for a team getting stuffed week in week out. Perhaps some footballers are intelligent enough to know their own limits.

The only thing that matters to me when assesing the health of the club, is the league table. Rupert Lowe got absolutely slated (and rightly so) for trying to suggest that despite relegation, the clubs off the field infrastructure was more of an indication of where the club was. I do not give a damn about sponsors boards, corporate boxes, how the newspapers refer to us and so on. All that matters is the score at 5PM on a saturday, and the league table. I really feel that anybody getting so caught up in the overall corporate health of the club has lost their way a little as a football supporter.

Arteta is eligible for England, he doesn't need an English grandparent or to have "engaged in a minimum of five years' education under the age of 18 within the territory of the relevant association". Hopkins proving once again he knows very little about a subject and has decided to get all excited before stopping and looking at the rules. ;-)

Just one, walked along the bottom of the Northam. Personally, I joined in a few of the chants but more in a 'banter' sort of way rather than being particularly angry. I didn't realise anybody was genuinely angry about it, just seemed like an excuse to sing a few songs at a policemen.

What sort of player do you envision doing the job we need? In which ways does Guly not meet up to this?

http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10280~2131709,00.html Is it just my eyes, or do those images look slightly photoshopped? wierd. Edit: On second thoughts, maybe it's just where they have artificial lighting on them.

Well the article on the OS says "he will add a controlling and inventive presence to the centre of the park", which seems to suggest they see him as a centre mid. However, the fact he has been given 11 rather than 8, seems to suggest otherwise.

Just remember to ask if they want a drink with their burger and you'll be fine.

Well done.

Dickson was pretty much common knowledge

Great work MLG, that's a terrific tribute. Poignant and really well put together. May I ask what software you used to create it?

This is the first time I've ever done a double take at a post :-)

I suppose at the end of the day this is all academic as we just don't know yet what the Liebherrs have planned. All I will say, and to an extent you've alluded to it anyway, is that for every club you can mention that's had a positive takeover, I could come back and name another who've had either an asset stripping shark (York City), a financial numpty (Leeds/Cardiff/Southampton), or just an away with the fairies type (Darlington) take over. If the Liebherrs want to run Saints as a business, on sound financial principles, that's fine by me and I don't want to be thinking about Saints getting sold. To be honest I would rather be a sustainable club built on strong foundations playing in the Championship, than be the play thing of some egotistical billionaire in the Prem. (Clearly Markus appeared to be the best of both worlds being both wealthy but also down to earth and building the club professionally, but he was something of a one off in my opinion).

The grass is always greener. Except, it usually isn't.

I think everybody accepts that we will always be weaker without Lambert. What people are hoping for is a backup player which minimises that weakness.

So would spelling his name right ;-)

In which case what better time to get this backlash out of the way now, whilst nobody cares, so that by the time we're in the premiership it's all blown over and papers are buying our photos.

Well that really would make things interesting if Doctors joined the fight to see who is most deserving. I mean, would they team up with the nurses against the soldiers? Or go it alone making it a 3 way fight? They could certainly do a fair amount of damage to an opponent using a stethoscope or a syringe, but still not as much damage as a soldier with, say, a gun or a tank.

Andy, how is your idea of everybody receiving the same education even workable? Even within the State sector there are massive fluctuations in the quality of resources, teachers etc from school to school. How on earth would you go about making sure everybody received the same education? If you closed the private schools, people would just get private tutoring for their kids if they could afford it.

Come on everybody, it really is very important that we sort out once and for all who is better and more deserving of free tickets out of nurses and soldiers. Perhaps a big fight would sort it out? The soldiers would definitely have the advantage in hand to hand combat, but the nurses would be better at fixing themselves up and getting back out into the battlefield quicker. I just don't know.

A reasonable thought, but I very much doubt that Markus would've been saying "go and negotiate with a player, get it all sorted, and I will transfer the money at the last minute". Even if he was bankrolling the transfers I can't see him just transferring millions of pounds on an ad-hoc basis.

Oh come on. Regardless of your personal feelings towards the army, you cannot possible compare the job of a nurse with that of a soldier. I don't think anybody is trying to claim that soldiers could be given free tickets as they can't afford them, more as a gesture of thanks for the job they do.

I think the troube with using the phrase must win is there's no context, why do you think we must win? Is it.... We must win because 6 points will be too far behind to catch up? or... We must win because if not the players confidence will suffer and it could lead to more defeats? The first is a bit over the top, but the second is a pretty reasonable statement IMO.