stevegrant

£42

This seems to be a recurring problem for our defenders, Clyne's continually falling on his arse.

Which was particularly strange considering the number of free kicks the ref was giving them. It was as if we just had to breathe on them for Mason to blow his ****ing whistle

I thought that, for once, they were fairly reasonable. Both goals were preventable, so they should be analysed as such, and we put Spurs under a lot of pressure in the last half an hour or so, and they highlighted that as well.

I won £140 on that game, Rochdale were a frankly mental 7/1 to beat us

IMO, know-how is often as valuable (if not more so) than technical ability in defenders. If we had James Collins and, say, Abdoulaye Faye (not a great example as West Ham released him in the summer, but that sort of player) at the heart of our defence, I reckon we wouldn't have conceded half as many goals as we have. Of course it's all conjecture, but with more experienced defenders I don't think we'd have seen anywhere near as many naive errors at the back this season.

It's worth remembering that West Ham as a team MASSIVELY underperformed last season and should have won the Championship with a record points total (if only to shut those ****ing Reading ****s up ) with the squad they had at their disposal. It was already packed with Premier League and international experience, and they've since strengthened the spine of the team pretty well with Collins, Diame and Carroll. While we were better than them last season, that was, IMO, due to us playing a bit above our players' natural level and them playing a long way below theirs. We've had to start from a lower base this summer, and it will take another one or two transfer windows of clever investment and dealings to change that.

This. We (rightly) have a pop at the club when the impression is that it's all "take, take, take" from them, so credit where it's due for at least trying to give something back, even if there's obviously the ulterior motive of getting people to spend money in the ground rather than in the local pubs. It's clearly not going to be for everyone, but then most special offers are likely to cater for a relatively small section of the fanbase.

In which case, how would you know?

Spending a load of money to improve what was already a very strong squad is a rather different proposition to spending a load of money to improve a squad that was, in all reality, nowhere near the level required to survive at this level.

Christ, and I thought I had too much time on my hands

Yeah, definitely an insurmountable gap between us and those above the dotted line there

We effectively already have a director of football.

As it happens, I don't believe that to be the case.

Appointing Redknapp would be an almighty U-turn by Cortese as it would go against all of the club's so-called "principles" of promoting youth players, signing players with technical ability and many years in the game ahead of them, and of course conducting its business in private. I can't see it happening. Of course there would also be the issue of the manager's remit and control - Redknapp is an old-fashioned manager who likes to retain complete control of player recruitment and team selections, given what's happened here in the last couple of years, would he get that control? Personally, I doubt it. Oh, and he's a Judas twitchy-faced lying c**t.

It'll never catch on

The fixture list, I expect

Player ratings in newspapers are hilarious. I know of sports reporters who have admitted they just made up a load of random numbers because they had to file their copy right on the final whistle, so had them all done about 15 minutes into the game.

Also, let's face it, it's not as if nobody was aware of our defensive shortcomings. We had exactly the same problem at the start of last season, albeit against vastly inferior opposition, in that we were woefully short of depth at the back throughout the summer. As good as Jaidi was at the back end of our League One promotion season, there was no way he was going to be suitable a level higher, which left us with Fonte to play alongside either Dan Seaborne or Aaron Martin, both inexperienced and absolutely no idea if either of them would be up to the job. We were lucky that we had access to the loan window in which to sign Hooiveld. That's not an option in the top flight, and we're paying the price for our utterly lopsided transfer business.

I see Jay Rodriguez's transfer fee has gone up another 14% since the last time anyone mentioned it

Someone's got to stick their head above the parapet, fair play to him for doing so in what could potentially be very dangerous circumstances. However, for the News to have ignored it was a dereliction of duty as journalists responsible for reporting the facts about the local football club.

If it was true, which we all seem in agreement that it was, and they had the relevant proof, the fear of legal action (which they would win) is not a legitimate argument. More likely, they dismissed Hall as a conspiracy theory fantasist and preferred the situation where News journalists were invited for a tour around CSI's "plush London headquarters" to blow smoke up Antonov's arse.

As you say, a lot of the questions are rather redundant as they try to compare our PL experience this season to last season, when no such comparison can be made. I decided that I'd answer them in relation to the Championship last season, but I expect some will have answered based on "nothing" for last season, which would be equally as valid. I only want a free copy of FIFA 13, to be honest

That tackle by the Bolton player would be a red card these days