stevegrant

It's Gillingham, what do you expect?!

You're probably right, although the principle still applies, IMO

All of which says more about the state of our society than anything else, really... There needs to be an incentive for those on JSA to take jobs like that rather than remain on handouts from the state, rather than just sweeping the acts of a load of criminals (which is essentially what they are) under the carpet. As MC said above, it sets a rather dangerous precedent - as long as they're doing a job that nobody else seems to want, we'll let them do what they like.

On what grounds? Surely an illegal immigrant is still in this country illegally, regardless of whether they've been here 10 minutes or 10 years?

All bar two (I think) of the teams in the Welsh Premier League are part-time. Also, the ability level is on par with Blue Square South, at best.

They're associate members of the FA now, and the situation with the Welsh teams is a hell of a lot different to that in Scotland in that Wales doesn't have its own professional league, whereas Scotland does.

I don't see any reason why we need to include Scottish teams in English competitions, really.

I wouldn't, simply because the FA Cup is a big enough competition already without adding another 42 teams into the mix. If anything, I would expect the early rounds of the competition proper to become regionalised to cut down on travelling costs for smaller clubs.

I'd say that Arsenal have a multitude of problems. One is certainly that van Persie is their only genuinely world-class striker and is often injured. Another is that they appear to have really **** medical staff who are incapable of diagnosing injuries properly. If they'd realised RVP needed an operation as soon as he returned from international duty, he'd have been fit to play in the two games against Barcelona. Perhaps not enough for them to have beaten them, but he'd have then been match fit for last night - his impact when he came on showed what he's capable of, even when half-fit. They also have a goalkeeper who can't command his penalty area, have had to rely on Mikael Silvestre far too often this season in defence and the style of football that they play invites more tackles from the opposition which therefore induces more injuries.

This is getting tedious. Mostly because of the ****ing ridiculous number of email reports *someone* is sending, clogging up my inbox.

Strange, I don't remember you complaining when Gaydamak bought the club with blood money and bankrolled a rise up the table and to winning silverware. At the end of the day, Pompey fans only now give a **** that their club's owned and run by a bunch of crooks because they've been relegated and the money's run out. It's too late now. If they were that bothered about the "fairness" of it all, they'd have listened to all those (not just Saints fans) who pointed out the obvious problems in 2006 and tried to stop it happening in the first place. After all, Milan Mandaric would never have sold the club to someone the fans didn't want, would he...?

Yeah, sorry about that. Absolutely no idea what happened, other than knowing that the host's main website was also down so I'm presuming it was a datacentre-wide problem.

According to YouGov, they've got a fifth of the electorate at the moment, only 11 percentage points behind Labour.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8619630.stm

They've been given another 7 days to pay, the club say the cheque is in the post

Well we've had a thread on the other two main parties, and the Lib Dems launched their manifesto this morning. Seems to have been well-received in the media, but what does everyone else reckon?

£6.5m, I believe.

Yes, you need decent players to stay there, but as Nick says, you went beyond that by buying half the England team and paying them more money than they knew what to do with. Jermaine Defoe and Peter Crouch both took pay cuts when they joined Spurs last year The money you spent when you bought Mendes, Davis and Pamarot (I think) when Gaydamak first took over was money well spent as those three played a significant part in you staying up, and signings along those lines were the ones the club should really have been looking at to keep things realistic, while making heavy progress on the stadium plans. Unfortunately for you, with a serial fantastist as CEO and a serial transfer enthusiast as manager, that was never likely to happen.

Long-term investment with long-term returns. If Pompey had spunked all that money on a new stadium rather than on player wages, they wouldn't be in this mess now. I say that with at least 99% certainty.

I'm pretty sure there would be, to be fair. The benefits system was - to my knowledge - put in place to support those in our society who are UNABLE to work to provide for themselves and their family. It was not put in place to support those in our society who are UNWILLING to work to provide for themselves and their family.

Why do people listen to TalkSport? Lowest common denominator broadcasting, let's shout into the mic and have a controversial opinion just so we get Angry Pete in his white van phone a premium rate number to rant at us for 30 seconds before we cut him off and then laugh at him once he's gone.

Cameron's been grilled by Paxman before - I remember seeing a clip of it on Have I Got News For You when he actually retaliated to Paxman's pestering by having a go at him for not letting him answer any question properly.

Vince was 12th man, wasn't he? Very surprised we went with Dawson at number 3 ahead of him, particularly if Dawson's not going to bowl.

I make it that we had 1 ball to survive... Epic fail.

We were starting to go along at a good pace until that wicket, looks like they'll settle for the draw now.