stevegrant

I believe Opta's definition of a "long ball" is any pass that is greater than 25m in distance, regardless of direction and elevation. Therefore a backpass from the centre circle along the ground back to Boruc is classed as a "long ball", as is a sideways pass between Lovren and Fonte who have taken up positions either side of the penalty area, as is a cross from 10-20 yards short of the penalty area. As a result, it's a highly unreliable statistic to use to demonstrate how "direct" a team plays.

The more the merrier

It will have nothing to do with the £200k, which has to be used specifically for the club's away fans.

Apparently each club was supposed to have announced what they were doing with the £200k by the end of September. I don't think we're alone in not having done so yet, and given the absolute cluster**** that is the SFC ticket office these days, it's hardly a massive surprise either.

He sat on the bench for what was basically the reserves, and didn't even warrant a five-minute run around against a Bristol City side without a win in a proper game all season. He's at best third choice left-back (arguably 5th or 6th behind Clyne, Yoshida and even Hooiveld), which is, er, absolutely no different from last season. Edit: and nobody gives a **** who you've got on ignore

Judging by the seating plan on the Man United website, we could have had block S229 as well as E230-233. That block's pretty small, though, so we're probably only around 400 seats below the full allocation.

Also suspect MLG's assertion that Matt Targett is in any way close to the first team picture is rather wide of the mark. Firstly, I've yet to see anything from him in the handful of U21 games that have been available on the various club TV channels that suggests he's anywhere near ready for that step up, and secondly he's just tweeted that he's having an X-ray on his foot this afternoon. I guess that could rule him out of any level of football for a while, depending on what it shows.

The definition of "start" is subjective at best as well. After Man United beat Liverpool in the League Cup last week, apparently it was the best start in all competitions made by a newly-appointed Man United manager since Sir Matt Busby. Given how long Ferguson was in the job, I can't imagine there were actually that many managers to beat in that period. Then after they lost to West Brom on Saturday, it suddenly changed to being their worst start to the season since 1989. It's all about what suits the narrative at the time. Right now, we're defending very well but struggling a little bit at the other end. It's possible that we might be on the verge of experiencing the worst start for 20 years in terms of goals scored in the first 7 games (I've not looked), but because we're getting positive results, the press concentrate on the good side of things (and rightly so).

The only time I can actually remember us breaking a club record was the 10 wins in a row over the end of the 2010/11 season and the beginning of the 2011/12 one. Every other time the papers have mentioned that we're on the verge of doing so, no matter how tenuous the record may be, we've then gone and ballsed it up in the next game.

I was surprised as well, but on the online ticket system there are only 22 home tickets available in block 43, which is the same number as was available for the Palace game.

Just over 2500 left. Looks like Swansea have taken the full allocation, which is mildly impressive considering it's a Sunday lunchtime.

230-232 now sold out, 233 on sale.

Aesthetically, and in terms of a gut feel of how we're playing, I'd be inclined to agree. I missed the Palace game, unfortunately, but I've seen all the others and Liverpool away is probably the only one where we've genuinely looked good. There have been spells in the other games (except Norwich where we were absolute turd from first whistle to last) but nothing yet - apart, oddly, from the results - to suggest our plan of world domination is likely to bear fruit in the near future. That's clearly not what he said.

Indeed. It's also quite interesting that Arsenal are actually three points worse off than they were last season in the corresponding fixtures. You'll probably be unsurprised to know that we're the most-improved team compared to last season's results, having collected 11 points instead of 2 against the same opponents.

Rouse seemed to be rated very highly at one point, but I guess the signing of Adam Wheater had a knock-on effect for him as well as Michael Bates.

Depends which way you look at it, I guess. Aim for 4th and finish 10th? Is that a failure or is the fact that we improved by 4 places seen as a success?

And they'll end up looking ridiculous as a result.

Christ, Factless Allen's been shortlisted for "Digital Journalist of the Year" at the forthcoming London and South of England Media Awards.

I thought we were skint!

Not an awful lot to rant about at the moment, which can only be a good thing.

Am I right in thinking we've already got a deal to sign Coles for next season after his loan spell?

Ultimately if Phillips has said that, what is Adam Leitch supposed to do? Make up a different quote that says "they've been ****s to me ever since I left so I'd love to shove it down their throats one last time"?

Finally a done deal

The "one sentence per paragraph" thing does seem to be the norm these days.

Difficult to co-ordinate, unfortunately, since I moved to London. Baj has a recording studio set up in a room in his house, which is where we used to record them, but it's difficult (not to mention expensive) to carry on with that if I have to travel down on a weeknight to record it. We could look at some sort of Skype-based recording, but the sound quality on that is notoriously unreliable.