stevegrant

If we take the league position as a pretty good guide of hierarchy over the years, it turns out that we are 3 places better than them. Both clubs were admitted to the Football League in 1920, so we have the same number of years in the FL (although the Southern League was reportedly on a par with the FL at the time) and since then Pompey have finished in an average position (out of 92) of 29.8, while we have finished in an average position of 26.3.

Looks a bit like Wolfsburg but not convinced it's big enough.

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Ja!

Harrogate Railway.

The petting zoo was part of Marc Jackson's blueprint for AFC Bournemouth, shortly before he was doorstepped by Meridian Tonight and tried to claim he wasn't just a glorified photocopier salesman.

Suspect that as it's a game they know they'll sell out pretty quickly, they'll wait as long as they can to shift a few more Burnley and West Brom tickets first.

I believe it all has to be diverted into the pot to repay the club legends like Dave Kitson and Tal Ben Haim.

Referees are prevented from taking charge of games involving certain teams - for example, teams they support (and their rivals), teams in their town/city of birth, etc. Could/should there be a case for referees who have instigated disciplinary proceedings against teams being kept off games involving those teams? Cast your minds back to March this year, Mark Clattenburg gives Norwich a ridiculous last-minute penalty which then leads to a disciplinary charge against the club for failing to control our players (Pochettino also stormed onto the pitch after the game to confront Clattenburg). Since then, Clattenburg has refereed our games at Spurs (uneventful 1-0 defeat), Arsenal (where he gave them a penalty that no other referee would ordinarily give) and Everton yesterday (where he failed to give us a penalty for a clear handball, which he has admitted he saw). Even if he doesn't do it intentionally, could it be argued that Clattenburg is subconsciously giving decisions against us as his own far-fetched sense of punishment for causing him a load of grief at Carrow Road? I appreciate this is rather heading down the Liverpool-esque conspiracy theory route, but I wonder if the club could put in a request to the Premier League to not have Clattenburg referee us again - I'm pretty sure some teams have put in similar requests with other referees and been granted their wish...

Fulham won at Norwich last week and had put in decent performances in their other games under Muelensteen, and he made 6 changes from Thursday - the simple fact is that a club of Fulham's size can't afford to make that many changes for a league game. I fully expect them to beat West Ham, who have no fit centre-backs available.

Some massive 6-pointers at the bottom on Wednesday... Sunderland v Villa, Fulham v West Ham, Palace v Norwich. Home wins all round, I reckon.

We're in a position (thanks in part to the insanely lucrative broadcasting deal now in place and also the investment made in the club's infrastructure) to properly reward players for their performances these days, while retaining a very competitive team. This is also true.

The Sherwood appointment is clearly a short-term one because nobody they actually want is available at the moment, but they had to give Sherwood a long enough contract to get him to accept it. He'll be booted in the summer (unless he can do what only Jamie Redknapp believes he'll do and get Spurs into the top 4) and they'll get Louis Van Gaal or Frank De Boer.

Financial Fair Play is definitely working

He's been linked with West Brom, and I suspect both Sam Allardyce and Chris Hughton will be twitching nervously right now. West Ham and Norwich are both clubs Mackay played for, so would be obvious links.

Depends how quickly Mackay gets another job - ultimately, the support staff will be most loyal to their families and bank accounts, if they haven't got a job elsewhere to walk into, they'll probably be quite determined to stick with what they've got.

While all the off-pitch nonsense has been an absolute shambles, he's not been helped by his players. They were absolute dog**** for the vast majority of yesterday's game. No fight in any of them.

Yep. There's no segregation.

In the Putney End, it's all the same turnstiles for "neutral" and away fans, so if they said that, they're lying.

I remember when England played South Africa in a Champions Trophy game a number of years ago, Graeme Smith was going to pretty much beat us single-handedly before he came down with cramp. Back then, runners were still allowed, but it's always been at the discretion of the opposing captain, and Andrew Strauss rightly refused to let him have one on the grounds that you shouldn't be allowed help for not having the stamina to cope. Similar situation in football, IMO - if you've got cramp, tough ****. Get fitter.

Randomly throwing your arms around

Fox played in our win against Man City last season, while Hooiveld played well in our defeat at Arsenal this season, but both of those were with Boruc behind them, not a rookie with lead boots keeping him stuck on his line.

Realistically, there's no big name who's actually available at the moment, which makes the whole AVB sacking even more knee-jerk and badly thought out. The rumour is that AVB was unhappy with his lot at Spurs in the summer and wanted to leave then - if that's true, Levy would have been better off doing a deal then when there were LOADS of big name managers available. By the sound of it, they've approached a number of people with a view to taking over at the end of this season, Louis Van Gaal and Frank De Boer being the main ones, but neither are prepared to jump ship until the summer (De Boer is chasing a 4th straight title with Ajax and Van Gaal has the small matter of the World Cup with the Dutch national team). Giving Sherwood 18 months just about demonstrates a bit of commitment on the club's part while also not making it too expensive to ditch him when someone better is available in the summer.

That was a private conversation that will remain so.