stevegrant

An interesting idea, but in true "turkeys voting for Christmas" fashion, I really can't imagine Premier League clubs voting in favour of a potential 4th team being relegated. I do agree that the Johnstones Paint Trophy should be scrapped, although alongside the playoffs, it's the only realistic route for League One and League Two teams to get to Wembley. However, the attendances in that competition are pathetic. Bournemouth will probably get about 1500 (if they're lucky) against Bristol Rovers next week - the corresponding league fixture last season drew in 6867.

How many Football League teams realistically have a chance of winning it though? In general, you'd say the three who were relegated from the Premier League the previous season might have a chance if they get a very favourable draw, but that's about it. More to the point regarding the UEFA Cup place is that the runners-up DON'T get the place if the winner has already qualified for either the Champions League or the UEFA Cup through the league or the FA Cup. That's why the FA Cup is still attractive to most of the Premier League teams, because even if they don't win it, just getting to Wembley will more than likely get them into Europe. The likes of Everton, Newcastle, Man City, etc, should really be using the Carling Cup as their best chance of getting into Europe. Realistically, it's going to be a lot harder for them to qualify through the league, so I don't understand their attitude towards the Carling Cup. The only time you get a decent attendance in the early rounds are when there's either a local derby or a lower-league team at home to one of the bigger Championship teams. Exeter don't normally get much above 4500 for league games, but drawing us brought in an extra 2000. If Sheffield Wednesday had been drawn at home against a non-Yorkshire team, there's no way they'd have got 16k.

For what it's worth, here are the attendances from Round 1: Coventry 3-1 Aldershot - 9293 Forest 4-0 Morecambe - 4030 Sheff United 3-1 Port Vale - 7694 Wycombe 0-4 Birmingham - 2735 Bournemouth 1-2 Cardiff - 3399 Brighton 4-0 Barnet - 2571 Bristol City 2-1 Peterborough - 5684 Bury 0-2 Burnley - 4276 Crystal Palace 2-1 Hereford - 3094 Charlton 0-1 Yeovil - 6239 Chester 2-5 Leeds - 3644 Crewe 2-0 Barnsley - 2492 Dagenham 1-2 Reading - 2360 Derby 3-1 Lincoln - 10091 Exeter 1-3 Saints - 6471 Gillingham 0-1 Colchester - 2566 Grimsby 2-0 Tranmere - 1858 Hartlepool 3-0 Scunny - 2076 Huddersfield 4-0 Bradford - 8932 Ipswich 4-1 Leyton Orient - 1477 :shock: Leicester 1-0 Stockport - 7386 Luton 2-0 Plymouth - 2682 MK Dons 1-0 Norwich - 6261 Macclesfield 2-0 Blackpool - 1631 Millwall 0-1 Northampton - 3525 Notts County 1-0 Doncaster - 3272 Preston 2-0 Chesterfield - 5150 Rochdale 0-0 Oldham - 5786 Sheff Weds 2-2 Rotherham - 16298 Shrewsbury 0-1 Carlisle - 3337 Southend 0-1 Cheltenham - 2998 Swansea 2-0 Brentford - 5366 Swindon 2-3 QPR - 7230 Walsall 1-2 Darlington - 2702 Watford 1-0 Bristol Rovers - 5574 Wolves 3-2 Accrington - 9424 Even some games, which you would consider a "big" game for the home team and at least one of the two teams has a reasonably big following (e.g. Wycombe v Birmingham) have attracted very low attendances.

There are two factors in play regarding the poor attendances in the Carling Cup this season. Firstly, there are a number of Championship teams who are using the competition to either experiment or give match practice to a number of fringe players. Fans (quite rightly, in my opinion) regard that as not taking the competition seriously enough, and therefore think it's not really worth shelling out for tickets when it's effectively going to be a reserve team game. Secondly, given the current economic climate, the vast majority of people are having to cut back on their non-essential spending. Given the choice of a league game where you can pretty much guarantee both teams will field their best available line-up or a cup game where one or both sides might change all 11 players to give people a game, it's not hard to see which one they'd choose, even though the price is higher for the league game. If I was in the position where I had to choose one or the other but not both, I'd go to the league game. If the Premier League teams were to start taking the competition more seriously, that would filter down to the better teams in the Championship. That would probably resurrect the attendances to a certain extent, but the overall cost of going to games on a regular basis is, in my opinion, the main problem.

I think there's probably more chance of Lowe hiring Keith Harris from Seymour Pierce than Redknapp, and given his hatred of Harris, that's saying something.

I'm not forgetting it. It started in 1996/7, quite some time before we achieved any sort of "success", so there's been plenty of time for people to decide "I don't like this whole 'customer experience' crap" and abide by their "principles" to not go to games. Apparently it didn't bother them much back then though. Agreed, he knows he's in something of a poisoned chalice position anyway, particularly given that he wasn't overly popular the first time he was here. That said, I think the knowledge of being up against it from the start is probably an advantage. For his many faults, one thing Lowe is is fearless, in my opinion, which would stand anyone in good stead for the job that needs doing right now.

Difficult one. On one hand, the lads who are playing well should keep their places to ensure they maintain their momentum, but on the other hand I'm sure we'd all rather they were fresh for the league games which are (in my opinion) far more important. Obviously Svensson will be rested, and I guess it's a straight choice between Wotton, Thomas and Cork to replace him, but I'd probably consider resting any player who's got any sort of knock or slight niggle.

And like every other football fan in the country, those principles will go flying out of the window as soon as it looks like we might have a team worthy of decent support again, regardless of who's in the boardroom. After all, I didn't see loads of people boycotting the 2003 FA Cup Final, when Lowe was chairman...

I thought it was a 50/50 split, but yes that is the way it was set up at the time, hence why there were loads of rumours going round about Campbell being flogged to Newcastle after the first year of those two years so he'd actually have a re-sale value. The way he's lost his pace in the last 6 months to a year is quite impressive, and let's be honest, how many teams are going to want to sign an ageing defender with no pace who's earning £90k+ a week?

Many games don't have the level of support from its users pointing out problems at an early stage. SI would do well to remember that it shouldn't be down to its customers to report bugs - that's what testing is for. Products at release should be bug-free or as close as possible to bug-free. FM08 wasn't anywhere near it, and in all honesty it's been a gradual slope downwards in terms of the release quality in the last few years. Complacency of being the number one in its field setting in, perhaps? Also, there are a hell of a lot of users who don't download the patches. Quite rightly, they expect the game to be working correctly at the point of purchase.

Doesn't matter. 1-0

That wasn't the inference. You stated that Redknapp wasn't given money to spend. I pointed out that that was clearly untrue, unless of course we put that bid in without any intention of actually buying the player, which would be a bit odd, I'm sure you'd agree... Didn't say he's not a good player (far too good for this division), but he is a bit on the large side. Burley identified the players, no question with that, and it's also up to him to get them playing, which he managed to do on an intermittent basis at best. However, many people said at the time that the prices we were paying for players appeared to be much more than they were perceived to be worth, and it seems to have been a case of "no questions asked" by the board when they were sanctioning those transfers. I'm pretty sure nobody held a gun to Hone's head when he was signing the cheques, that's for sure.

Rather than just make a snide comment, how about you actually tell me which bit(s) you think are from behind tinted glasses?

Redknapp CHOSE to only spend £90k on Fuller, plus plenty more in wages and signing-on fees for free transfers like Dennis Wise and Darren Powell (who we've only just managed to get shot of). In January of the relegation season we had a £4m bid for Forest's Andy Reid accepted, but he chose to not even speak to us because of the style of play Redknapp was employing at the time. Redknapp was given plenty of money to spend (see above), he chose to bring in loans as well as an attempt to get pie-man Reid. Oh, and of course if he hadn't made out that he was doing us such a favour by staying after we were relegated and instead made it look as if he was remotely interested in getting us promoted, he might have been given more to play with. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, the vast majority of Burley's signings did contribute at one stage or another (admittedly not on a consistent enough basis or all at the same time). Unfortunately we over-paid for a lot of them (Burley wouldn't have been the one to blame there, Jim Hone and Lee Hoos would have done the negotiations on transfer fees and wages) and are now paying the price for that.

You can specify post or collection when you buy online. I'd guess that "post" probably isn't available if you're buying for tomorrow's game though at this stage

0-0

Only by those with absolutely zero perspective. Branfoot, Gray, Wigley and Redknapp would feature before Burley even registered on the scale.

The season is played out over 46 games. We had a similar run to Preston in March that season, Sunderland had it at the start of the season, Birmingham had a terrible run at one point as well. Burley's target was to get in the play-offs (whether that target was too low is another debate, but it's clear that that was the target) which he achieved. How he did it is fairly irrelevant, IMO. That's like saying "I passed my driving test but I'm ****ed off that I got 6 minors on the marking". The end goal is the important factor. Given a bit more luck (Leon Best could attempt that clearance from the corner 10,000 times and he wouldn't find the far top corner again once, for example) and a bit more bottle from 12 yards, we'd have been at Wembley and then who knows what might have happened.

Especially given that there's a European Championships that summer as well, and the 2012 Olympics will probably be slightly earlier in the year to coincide with the warmest part of the British summer, so it'll mean that players who are called up to both the Euros and the Olympics won't have either a summer break or a pre-season!

From those: Blackpool: must win - they look poor this season, and have sold Kaspars Gorkss and Wes Hoolahan, who were two of their best players last year QPR: draw - they look a bit inconsistent, but have been well-backed to be there or thereabouts Ipswich: draw - Ipswich have gone full circle over the summer, last season they were unbeatable at home, this season they've lost all their home games and won their away games. They've got a decent-looking side, particularly with Richard Wright in goal. Barnsley: win - the fact they're relying on Darren Moore to marshall their defence shows where Barnsley are likely to be come the end of the season. Brian Howard's obviously one to watch, but apart from that they don't seem to offer much. Doncaster: draw - they've had a decent start, which isn't unexpected given the momentum they had from last season Norwich: win - sounded like they were utter ****e away at Coventry on the opening day, but then recovered from 2-0 down at Cardiff yesterday. We owe them for last season's robbery... So basically, yes, I agree, 12 points from 18 would be fine. I'd accept 9 or 10 as a minimum, injuries and dodgy decisions dependent.

A quick flurry of wickets has reigned Middlesex in from 132/3 to 136/6, Dawson with two of them and Tahir the other. Udal's at the crease now...

A good knock by Dawson (again) as well, 45 in a partnership of 100 with Ervine. To recover from 61/4 to 228/6 is a decent effort.

Sorry, my bad. Fixed now.

I should be there.

Odds (from Ladbrokes): Derby 10/11 Saints 3/1 Draw 12/5 0-0 8/1 0-1 8/1 0-2 16/1 0-3 40/1 1-0 6/1 1-1 11/2 1-2 12/1 2-0 7/1 2-1 7/1 2-2 14/1 2-3 40/1 3-0 14/1 3-1 12/1 3-2 25/1 3-3 50/1