stevegrant

I've just deleted a dozen posts which contribute precisely nothing to the debate. I have better things to be doing today than cleaning up after the pair of you so if you want to carry on the *****fest, please do so via PM so the rest of us don't have to read it.

Absolutely, no team has ever overturned a MASSIVE two point gap with only thirty-four games to play...

The long and short of it is that while we were set up almost perfectly, especially in midfield, it was little lapses that cost us each time. For example, for the first goal, Clyne's body position was in the wrong direction which meant he couldn't keep an eye on Gibbs outside him, and the third was because Fonte and Clyne hadn't moved across with the other half of the back 4, leaving a massive gap for Gervinho to run into. On the flipside, Reading were in trouble right from the start because their midfield were lazy in their positioning and tracking, and then every time Spurs got the ball in wide areas, each of the back 4 were facing their goal and nobody patrolling the massive gap in the centre of the penalty area, which is where both of the first two goals came from.

For me, the number of points won at this stage is irrelevant, everyone knew that in all likelihood we'd have 0-3 points from the first 4 games. What is relevant, however, is the performances in those games. We've only played well in one of the three games, and still managed to toss that game away in the last 5 minutes because of our woeful defence. Man City could have had 5 or 6 without breaking sweat, a feat Arsenal - a team supposedly struggling up front - managed quite comfortably. While there's absolutely no problem in reinforcing a strong attack, to do so without serious addressing a defence that got away with a hell of a lot last season is almost negligent. We had a deal for Buttner which fell through for whatever reason, but we were clearly chasing a new left-back, and after that deal hit a dead end it appears as though we had no Plan B for that position. We were willing to chuck £6m Birmingham's way for Jack Butland but then when they rejected the offer we gave up signing another first-team keeper. For all of Davis' many faults, would any of us chuck Gazzaniga or Cropper into a Premier League game ahead of him? Yoshida seems a decent signing at centre-back, but having let Aaron Martin go on loan for the season (the right decision, IMO), that signing merely takes us back to where we were at the end of last season, with 3 first-team centre-backs - I'm not convinced Dan Seaborne would be in contention at any stage if everyone was fit, and Hooiveld's injury he picked up yesterday leaves us with no backup. Meanwhile we have as many strikers and attacking midfielders to fill 5 teams. In terms of who's responsible for our lop-sided squad, there is a committee of sorts, comprising of Adkins, Cortese and Reed, with input from our scouting network. Some of our signings are fairly clear as to their origin - Ramirez, for example, is clearly a Cortese signing, his two-week "holiday" coincided with the negotiations for that deal and all the comments from both the player and Adkins have said as much - but I would certainly hope that Adkins, as the man who's going to be working with these players every day in training, has a significant input, whether that's a casting vote, power of veto or whatever. I can't say I'm overly keen on someone with only three years' involvement in football (and none at the highest level) unilaterally making signings. It was deemed unacceptable when a certain ex-chairman was alleged to have done so, I see no reason why it's OK now all of a sudden.

Why pick the player with 38 Premier League appearances, a third of which for the club who have won 4 of the last 6 league titles, over the player with 3 Premier League appearances for a newly-promoted team? No idea.

What happened?

It's unfortunate that Dawson was bowling because he's the only player in the current side I'd rely on to actually hold onto anything.

Interesting seeing the numbers in that report... it turns out that Pompey made more money from the sale of matchday programmes in that 6-month period than they did from the sale of season tickets

No amount of complaining to SFC will achieve anything here, the club are tied into a contract with Football League Interactive which I'm led to believe is prohibitively expensive to get out of. It is they - and in particular, SapientNitro, who won the website contract last year - who your complaints should be directed to.

About a week after the fixtures came out, it's on TV.

Maritimo at home The Spurs game - also moved - follows an away trip to Maribor of Slovenia, so that's a bit more beneficial to us, although it remains to be seen how serious Spurs take the Europa League this season having not even qualified from the group stage last time.

Yep

There was one bloke sat right by one of the crowd microphones who was giving the ref and Pompey bench absolute dog's abuse all afternoon Apparently Sky recorded 50 instances of audible swearing

I suggest the mobile companies sort out getting a 1g signal on the mainline route to Waterloo before arsing around with 4g, to be honest.

I'd heard a rumour leading up to the game that the club had accidentally sold a number of seats that are season ticket seats as matchday tickets, effectively selling the same seat twice. This could be evidence of that.

After the fantastic success of their previous Middle Eastern owners, what could possibly go wrong this time?

He was at Man City a few weeks ago

So whose actual seats are they? Random staff members to use as and when they feel like it? And nobody felt like going to the Man United game? Surely if they are "available" every game and can be released, they should - at the very least - automatically do so as soon as the "sold out" signs are about to go up, if not be available to the public right from the start and if they're still available nearer matchday then staff can fill them. There's a hilarious/terrifying (delete as applicable) lack of common sense being applied in the ticket office. Also, don't club freebies go against Cortese's policy of everyone having to pay their own way?

Worth noting that the majority of those empty seats from block 5 are also already sold for the Villa game...

They wish it was that modern...

Only short-arse and fat ****er left

It's also fairly redundant when we're not selling out every week. It'll only become a realistic possibility when we're doing so.

FAO Bill, as I know you're reading, despite your claims to the contrary. *waves* Feel free to contact SaintsWeb's hosts, your email will go straight into my inbox... Good luck with the information commissioner as well, GM (and others) showed me where they got the information from, and it was all public sources. As a web developer, I'd have thought you'd know that Twitter and Facebook (and indeed your own forum back in the day before you decided you didn't want any "banter" with your local rivals and banned them all) are pretty open platforms. Oh, and a list of anonymous usernames? Really?

Some clubs operate ticket exchanges for ST holders to sell their seat for games where they can't make it. The club takes a cut of the ticket price which is resold at face value. e.g. ST holder in the Northam can't make the Villa home game (category B), the pro-rata price for a cat B game from a Northam renewal season ticket (£575) is £31.20, and face value for a match ticket is £35. The club buys at a discount from the pro-rata price, say £25, so the customer is discouraged from selling their ticket unless they really need to, but at least they're getting *something* back - they might insist that the money is not refunded in cash, but is exchanged for club vouchers valid either in the megastore or at the ticket office for future games. The club then sells it as a matchday ticket at face value, £35, so the club makes £10 on that ticket.

"Arsenal tickets are in the process of being allocated to fans and will be dispatched by the end of the week." Surely they were allocated to fans at the point of purchase?!