stevegrant

The problem with all of them is that their wages are massive compared to the standard of football they're probably best suited to. All of those in your "certainties" list were with us in League One, so they'll have had bonuses and automatic salary increases for both promotions. Lee Barnard, for example, is on £13k a week. No side with any sense (I don't count Bournemouth in that, they actually agreed to cover 100% of his wages during his loan spell there) at his sort of level is going to pay him that. I suspect Danny Butterfield is being lined up for a coaching role, by all accounts he's a good influence around the training ground. Those who are out of contract might as well wait until the summer and collect the last few months of bumper pay packets, really.

Game confirmed as Sunday at 1.30pm

Start again from the beginning of the thread

This is why it's absolute nonsense that the transfer window closes three weeks into the season. IMO, the window should close at the end of July rather than August, which would then mean that teams need to actually plan properly. In that scenario, there's no way we'd have been so tardy in getting defensive reinforcements in, and we might have been a bit tighter at the back right from the start. As I said above, we wouldn't necessarily have collected any more points in those opening games (we caught Wigan at the wrong time, I reckon we'd beat them at home now), but there wouldn't have been such a confidence crisis.

There has been a clear improvement - let's face it, defensively we couldn't get any worse - but it also needs to be put in context as that dismal early part of the season coincided with playing three of last season's top 4 in the first month. That said, strangely, I reckon if we played Man City (A), Man United (H) and Arsenal (A) again, we'd get beaten more comfortably at City, perhaps likewise by United, but the margin at Arsenal would be smaller, so I don't think overall we'd necessarily be any better off.

Oh, and my ticket arrived yesterday. 11 days after purchase. Shambles

If it's a Cross Country service (which I think all Basingstoke to Banbury trains are), Group Save tickets aren't accepted on them. You'd only be able to get Group Save tickets on a SWT service to Basingstoke and then change to the Cross Country, which would have come from Southampton anyway.

Not necessarily. I suspect they were working on the assumption that they would know one way or the other whether they were going to be running the club just before Christmas, so were happy to cover costs up until that point, but then the case got adjourned and the hearing itself might not get put in front of a judge again until next month at the earliest, so that's an additional two months' losses they would have to cover. Either their NW isn't that H or they're simply not stupid enough to keep throwing good money after bad.

I think most lack the stamina to last to the end, usually

Not quite such a safe haven these days... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20907359 Let's face it, this expenditure is clearly a pretty substantial gamble for a club of our size and stature, and there's no public evidence to show how much we borrowed from Vibrac Corporation in the BVI in August to finance transfer spending back then, so for all we know the club could have borrowed anything up to £50m. The gamble pays off if we stay up. At this stage we're still well placed to do so, but clearly there's still no guarantee of anything. However, then what happens in the summer? Presumably the Vibrac loan gets repaid, but then do we start the cycle all over again, or do we work more in line with what we've got considering the massive leap in Premier League TV rights money? Ultimately we've got bugger all say in what happens, Cortese (or anyone else who may have an input in how tight the purse strings are) is not accountable to any of us whether we like it or not. For me, nothing has changed in terms of the way I view the club, "proceed with caution" is my approach. I do think it is a massive credit to the many people who do continue to ask (but rarely get an answer, naturally) questions regarding this sort of thing, though - just think, if those idiots down the road had done so a few years ago, perhaps they wouldn't be standing on the precipice right now...

486 of the bestest there. Top, top turnout

Oh look, they're re-writing history again

That defending :lol: :lol:

Worth pointing out that last season, Fabien Brandy was playing Sunday League football in Manchester. Conceding goals to pub team players

Goal

Not true. This isn't the "10 points for going into administration" penalty, which is the only one where the Football League has a cut-off date. This is an abitrary penalty which can be applied at any time.

Neither QPR nor Redknapp have ever had any dealings with Mr Joorabchian. Definitely not Edit: Or is it Zahavi? I keep getting those two ****s mixed up

It's a third-party plugin, so if the developers who made it can fix it (and prove that it's been fixed) then I'll certainly look at re-installing it, but they've not released an updated version for a couple of years now so I wouldn't hold your breath.

That's never going to happen

Less than two weeks' notice And it'll be £50-odd as well.

I've booked the Saturday night with return trains. Lastminute.com were doing a relatively decent deal on the Jurys Inn a week or so ago.

Puncheon for me. Fair to say a year ago I'd have laughed at the idea If Cork had started the season then he'd be very close, but he's missed half the season so far. If he keeps his performances up for the rest of the season then he'll probably get my vote.

Absolutely terrifying.

Absolutely nailed it.

Mopping toilets again, I expect.