stevegrant

I'm sure SISU would have been expecting to be able to sell at a profit by now...

I've not really got an issue using Duckworth/Lewis to set a total, but to allow the chasing team their full quota of wickets is absolute nonsense as it allows them to just go out there and slog from ball one without the worry of how many wickets they've got left. Take yesterday's game as an example, 60 from 6 overs wasn't a particularly unreasonable target, but if the number of wickets allowed were to be reduced proportionally in line with the number of overs to be bowled (i.e. 20 divided by 6 = 3.33, round it up to 4), it would have made it a more realistic game. With only 4 wickets to play with, it would be much riskier to slog from ball one. Sidearse's 15-run over was the key, though, ultimately.

Surprise surprise, the journalist responsible didn't put his name to the article...

Unless of course Fayed turns that debt into equity... The chances of him getting that money back are slim to none until he sells the club, and even then he'd only get a small fraction of it back. Fulham obviously got themselves into the Premier League by spending his money, and then had a funny couple of seasons where they spent a fortune on absolute turd (Steve Marlet for £11m, anyone? ), but they run a very tight ship these days. Ironic that they're now reaping the rewards.

They average 24,000 this season, and given this sort of occasion is highly unlikely to happen ever again, I'm not surprised they're complaining. The ground holds 47,000 as an all-seater venue (increases to 57,000 for league games with the safe standing conversion), which means that nearly 50% of the tickets don't go to fans of the two clubs.

In honour of our friends down the road, are you planning on running that open top bus even if I lock the thread at 24,999 posts?

Not much chance of that, the way it works is that the player's existing sponsor gets first refusal to renew. I'd be amazed if his current sponsor doesn't take up that option. We'll evaluate all the options at the end of the season.

Given that a £50k annual household income goes much further in some areas of the country compared to others, would it be worth making the cut-off level different depending on where you live? For example, in somewhere like South Wales, where it's relatively cheap to live, £50k goes a hell of a long way. Contrast that to London, where it doesn't really get you very far at all...

I'm delighted to say that I was championing his cause at the time, tbf. Nobody looked beyond his time at Blackburn where things didn't go well, ignoring the fact that he'd done well at Inter Milan in the past - you don't get that job without being a pretty decent manager.

If they hold onto this, Woy is an absolute genius.

New parachute payment proposal REJECTED by the Football League.

Firebug is also a must-have, although I'm not using Firefox again until they sort out the hideous memory leaks. Google Chrome FTW!

Rain stopped play

Who'd have thought it, as soon as the fans finally start asking the right questions, he goes on the defensive and (probably) won't talk to them again.

Microsoft have, I believed, stopped making and supporting Front Page. It will also pile in reams of code that you don't need, which will only serve to confuse you if you want to learn the "proper" way of developing websites (i.e. by writing the code yourself rather than using a What You See Is What You Get editor). Dreamweaver is a slightly better option, but I learnt most of what I know from books and doing "View Source" on websites which had items of interest and playing around with the code to see what I could make it do. W3 Schools is a decent starting point in terms of online tutorials, but if you do a quick Google search you'll find thousands of options.

Well some of them do, anyway.

He does have a point there, to be fair. Man City have SEVEN goalkeepers on professional contracts, six of whom are still at the club (Hart out on loan). Three are injured, which leaves three available. One is 23 years old, the other two are youngsters. I see no reason why they shouldn't be forced to play the 23-year-old - they presumably signed him because they felt he had enough ability, after all.

If there is a genuine interest there, we should be looking to take advantage of Pompey's financial situation. They still owe us money, so we should go in with a tiny offer, say £65,000 with the agreement to write off the £35,000 they owe us, making the total value of the deal £100,000. I'd be amazed if they didn't seriously consider it, more important than the short-term cashflow, they'd be shedding a £1m salary from their books. We obviously wouldn't pay him anywhere near that amount, but I'm sure he's well aware he's not likely to find any club stupid enough to pay him that sort of money anymore.

Ibrahimovic is the reason Barca haven't looked as invincible as last season, IMO. When they had Eto'o playing through the middle, they were able to press the opposition much higher up the pitch, forcing them into giving the ball away. Ibrahimovic doesn't have anywhere near the same level of workrate, so the opposition can bypass the Barca frontline pretty easily. Don't get me wrong, Ibrahimovic is a quality player, but Barca have had to adapt their playing style to accommodate him, and it's made them much more vulnerable defensively.

Ian Darke is a Sky Sports commentator. TalkSport is owned by Sky. Interesting that he's slagging off someone on the same payroll...

What a hideous pile of crap that is. Looks a bit like Bertha!

Christ...

They also told the Premier League that Daniel Azougy, a convicted fraudster who wouldn't stand a hope in hell of passing the Premier League's "Fit and Proper Persons" test, wasn't appointed to make executive decisions. The administrator's report published last week states: "Mr Al Faraj appointed Mr Mark Jacobs of Fuglers solicitors and Mr Daniel Azougy to assist with the general running of the club and the making of executive decisions".

It would all depend on the timing of any extinction (which obviously I hope doesn't happen). Once the fixtures are done, they would just go with a 23-team division for a year and use the promotion/relegation at the end of the following season to even the numbers out again (only two teams relegated from the Championship, only three from League One, only one from League Two, etc). If it's before the fixtures are released, that reorganisation would occur immediately, i.e. whoever finishes 21st in League One and 23rd in League Two would not be relegated.