stevegrant

Novatech are a decent bet for that sort of budget, although with any laptop of that price, battery life is going to be pretty poor. http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/range.html?t=nb&c=home&r=E15

Well it went in that general direction (i.e. to the left), and I'm not sure it's not too much of a risk to actually "aim" the ball at the top corner with that sort of power (Jaap Stam anyone? ).

Wotton's always taken his penalties like that. I remember him scoring against us in a 2-1 defeat at Home Park a couple of seasons ago, he wellied it into the top corner.

Quite worrying that he only knew which way he was going to put it from that, or at least it would be if I was a Watford fan. I'd have thought that a professional goalkeeper would have done a bit more research on his forthcoming opponents than just reading the programme on the day of the game. What if that photo hadn't been in there? He'd have possibly guessed the wrong way, whereas if he'd got a video of our games this season he'd have seen that both Surman and McGoldrick place their penalties in the bottom-right corner.

I've been confused about this for ages. Bringing 11 men back to defend a set-piece just seems complete nonsense. Even if you clear the ball, as you've got no outlet up front, the ball's just going to come straight back at you, so in effect they've got two chances to put a decent cross into the box. It's not just this season we've been doing it though, I've noticed us do this for years... even in the Premier League we were defending set-pieces with all 11 players back helping out. To be fair, I've also noticed that a lot of opposition teams do it as well, so there's obviously *something* that makes teams do it, but on the face of it, it does seem a very strange tactic to employ.

Record in matches in which Schneiderlin has played: Played 9 Won 4 (Exeter, Derby, Birmingham, Doncaster) Drawn 1 (Ipswich) Lost 4 (Cardiff, Birmingham, Blackpool, QPR) Record in matches in which Schneiderlin hasn't played: Played 5 Won 1 (Norwich) Drawn 1 (Barnsley) Lost 3 (Rotherham, Coventry, Watford)

Just checked Soccerbase, you are indeed correct. 15 league games and no wins!

I have, on both occasions that I've rented.

I would imagine that you may be able to give them a month's notice of termination (check the contract very carefully to see if there are any clauses regarding breach of contract). However, don't expect the house to be in any sort of fit state to live in once they've gone...

I don't think that, even if Lowe wanted to, the club is in a position financially to be going through a managerial change at the moment.

He also has a house in the New Forest, I believe.

SCW was appointed after we were relegated...

I wasn't offering any analysis of the figures, to be honest, but yes, that's certainly a view I would agree with. The idea at the time of removing the different pricing categories following the first season of Championship football was based on a bizarre situation where games against Crystal Palace and Norwich were both actually more expensive in the Championship than they had been in the Premier League due to them being moved from a "Bronze" rated game in the PL but a "Gold" rated game in the CCC. If we'd been flying high in the league for the whole season in 06/07, the standard price wouldn't have bothered people too much as they were watching a winning team, but to have the same price for games against Birmingham and Blackpool doesn't really make an awful lot of sense. I'm not sure they'd be able to do anything this season as it could just confuse matters. Also, I don't think we'd really want to be putting the prices UP for any games at the moment, but the club have made it clear they're not in a position to reduce the prices for any games either.

In order of MOST EXPENSIVE ticket (this doesn't include tickets which appear to be "cheap" corporate tickets - Ipswich in particular offer matchday prices of up to about £50, but I wouldn't say they were "normal" tickets, personally): Crystal Palace £25-35 (depending on opposition) QPR £20-35 (this is only Category C, which are the only prices visible on their website, but currently every upcoming game, which includes "big" games against the likes of Birmingham and Cardiff, is a Cat C game) Ipswich Town £24-33.50 (+£2.50 for buying on the day) Derby County £22-33 (+£3 for buying on the day) Wolves £24-30 Watford £23-30 (+£2-5 for buying on the day) Nottingham Forest £20-30 Cardiff City £18-30 (+£0-3 for buying on the day) Charlton Athletic £15-30 Norwich City £14-30 (Cat A* to B and "Saver" Category) Sheffield United £10-30 (Cat A* to C) Blackpool £23-29 (+£1 for non-members buying on the day) Bristol City £26-28 (+£2 for non-members) Sheffield Wednesday £23-28 (+£1 for buying on the day) Preston North End £20-27 Birmingham City £18-27 (although they do have a deal for the upcoming Palace game - midweek - for £15, but this is out of their normal price scheme) SAINTS £24-26 Reading £23-26 (+£4 for buying on the day) Coventry City £22-25 Plymouth Argyle £20-24 (+£2 for buying on the day) Swansea City £20-23 Burnley £19-23 Doncaster Rovers £15-23 Barnsley £20-22 which actually puts us among the cheapest. However, many of the other clubs have different categories for different quality/attraction of opposition, which could make at least parts of their grounds cheaper than us.

As you say, not a great deal of difference in terms of VAT: £24 tickets - non-VAT revenue of £20.43 £20 tickets - non-VAT revenue of £17.02 The bank may not have been mentioned in Nick's interview with David Luker, but I would have thought it's fairly obvious that the bank would look negatively on any move that would be perceived as gambling what is effectively their money.

There is no guarantee that lowering prices will automatically equal higher gates and more revenue for the club. For ease of demonstration, let's say the £24 adult ticket price applicable in most areas of the ground is the average ticket price throughout the whole stadium. At the moment, we're getting gates of around 15,000, which basically equates to about 6,000 matchday tickets sold. At the average price of £24, that means matchday ticket revenue of £144,000. If the ticket prices were reduced so the average price was then £20, great, particularly for those who would have gone to the game anyway. But it's not those the club are looking to appeal to, it's those that wouldn't have gone at £24. The club simply do not know how many of the stayaway fans are doing so purely because of the ticket price. There are so many different reasons why people might be staying away right now. It's entirely possible that they don't manage to entice any extra supporters back, and that then means that the club has lost £4 for every matchday sale, which would be £24k per match, nearly half a million quid over the course of the rest of the season. Even if they do entice more people in with the lower ticket price, they a) might not get enough to cover the shortfall created with the reduced price (they would need an extra 1200 fans per match to ensure they bring in the same revenue as with £24 tickets), and b) might **** off a number of existing season ticket holders as one of the main benefits of the season ticket is the financial saving you make over the course of the season, and reducing prices also reduces the saving STH's make. Without some sort of guarantee that reducing prices would bring in enough people to increase overall matchday revenue, there's not a cat in hell's chance the bank (who are basically running the club these days) would sanction any price reduction.

It's at Fleming Park, as usual. Latest squad list: Steve Grant Scott Griffin Rob Healey Chris Summers Jouls Ganley Andy Mintram Ben Rankin Luke Yeates Opkar Neil Cant Dan Kerins

I think each team plays each other home and away now

7/10 for me

There are loads of factors, each of which is a "main" reason for a group of people. Add those groups together and you get a much larger group of people each doing the same thing but for a different reason. The club have got a hell of a lot of work on their hands if they're to get most, if not all, of those people back.

Yep.

As much as I dislike Lampard and think he's generally been awful for England over the past 4 years, he did have a decent game against Croatia when Gerrard was absent, so I think Capello will have some justification in choosing the fat one ahead of the Scouser tonight.

I'm not convinced that too many season ticket holders would be ****ed off at a reduction in matchday prices. After all, even if they went down from £24 to £20, the season ticket holder is still only paying £16 per game, so they're still saving 20%. I'm also far from convinced that enough people would return in the short-term to make such a reduction worthwhile, and it is short-term cashflow that is the immediate problem. As an example, say the club needs to generate £200k in non season ticket holder sales per match to hit an arbitrary budget agreed with the bank. At £24 (and I appreciate there are many cheaper tickets but I'm trying to keep the calculations simple), that's 8,333 matchday sales required. If the prices dropped to £20, they'd then need to generate 10,000 matchday sales (1,667 more) to hit budget. If that price still fails to attract more people to games, all the club has then succeeded in doing is making it cheaper for the matchday buyers they've already got, and the club has then ****ed £33k per match down the drain, which works out at more than £500k over the course of the remaining 18 home league games this season. Having seen the club gamble on reducing prices at the start of last season (sales volume was up, but revenue actually decreased as a result), I'd say the bank are incredibly unlikely to sanction such a move again, unless of course somebody was willing to underwrite any potential loss from it.

Gerrard will probably be dropped. I'd expect England to line up as follows: James Brown - Ferdinand - Upson - Bridge Walcott - Lampard - Barry - Wright-Phillips Rooney Heskey

Seems they've done away with the regional draw for next year and it's completely random, which is good for us given the presence of the likes of Sussex, Kent and Essex in relatively close proximity. We're in group A, along with Ireland, Nottinghamshire, Worcestershire and Leicestershire. Top 2 qualify for the quarter-finals, and with that opposition I'd expect us to get through. Full draw: Group A: Ireland, Hampshire, Nottinghamshire, Worcestershire, Leicestershire Group B: Scotland, Warwickshire, Kent, Somerset, Middlesex Group C: Surrey, Durham, Gloucestershire, Yorkshire, Sussex Group D: Essex, Glamorgan, Lancashire, Derbyshire, Northamptonshire