stevegrant

Agreed, but I think there's merit in ensuring that there is a minimum "in-play" time. That would ensure the absolutely ludicrous time-wasting we see from so many teams these days only has the effect of stopping the flow of the game rather than actually taking time out. While you're never going to get 90 minutes of actual play, there's no reason why they couldn't take the average "ball in play" time from games over the last, say, 5 years, which I'd guess is around the 60 minute mark and ensure that at least that amount is played. The fourth official would have easy access to the actual amount of time played in that half, and if West Brom had managed to take 2 minutes for every throw-in again, and as a result the ball had only been in play for 21 minutes in that half, the fourth official would automatically add on 9 minutes.

Every cloud...

Apologies everybody, the database crashed overnight, and I've not been able to repair it sufficiently to make it useable from that point onwards, so we've had to roll the database back to yesterday afternoon, when the last backup was taken.

I think West Ham have to pay what's (in context) a peppercorn rent of £2m a year as well, but yeah, it's all a bit of a farce really. The Etihad is still owned by Manchester City Council, I believe. Their deal there certainly used to be that rent payable on the stadium is basically a percentage of ticket sales from attendances above the old capacity of Maine Road. No idea whether that's since been renegotiated as they've pumped silly amounts of money into the local area with the new Etihad Campus, but certainly the club had to pay for the conversion from the Commonwealth Games athletics arena to what it is now, which was about £40m IIRC.

Yep. A pretty impressive diversion, it must be said.

Spurs' owners have no intention of putting any of their own money into the stadium project. It's all on a combination of external finance and internal cash in the bank. Quite impressively, despite turning a pre-tax profit of £80m in 2013/14, they successfully managed to plead poverty to Haringey council so they didn't have to contribute £16m towards improving the local transport infrastructure, which is usually a prerequisite on such a large project.

A number of immediate problems there: Firstly, assuming any new keeper signing is Davis' replacement, that means whoever we sign has to be good enough to play in August for at least 5 months, maybe longer. Foderingham has been at Swindon for 3 years, a year in League Two and two in League One, and hasn't been remotely exceptional in that time. He was even subbed off in a League Cup game after 21 minutes because he'd been so ****. I think I saw him throw one in his own net last week as well. Gazzaniga wasn't good enough (or, more accurately, confident enough) when he was thrown in at the deep end a couple of years ago. Since then, nobody really knows how well he's progressed other than the occasional U21 appearance (where he was very impressive in the televised game against Blackburn recently), but to write him off based on a handful of appearances as a 21-year old with only 20 previous senior games seems ludicrously short-sighted.

Considering their bargaining position could change fairly significantly in the next four weeks, that seems somewhat unlikely.

Rain I'd agree about our bowling, I think we've already bowled better (in terms of figures, I've not actually seen any of it so far) than I was expecting us to this season. I thought it would be a real struggle, but we seem at least competent. Current bowling figures: Smith 1 @ 16.00 Dawson 6 @ 28.50 Berg 10 @ 30.30 Briggs 10 @ 31.40 Tomlinson 11 @ 31.91 Adams 6 @ 42.83 Wood 2 @ 50.50 Ervine 3 @ 65.00 Not completely shabby, considering we probably all felt our bowling was our weaker suit LAST season, let alone this season against better opposition.

I thought this discussion was about realistic options? Bridges long since burned, he won't be back.

I remember reading this article at the start of last season, bemoaning the fact that so many of the struggling teams lump all their money in on attacking players in the mistaken belief that it's goals scored that keeps a team in the league. In every top-flight season since the Premier League was formed in 1992, the team with the worst defensive record was relegated. However, on 8 occasions, the team with the worst scoring record has stayed up. Clearly there needs to be a balance there, but if Eddie Howe doesn't spend the majority of his budget on his back 4, he needs his head examining.

I'd hope so, Austin would be perfect for us. Less convinced by Ings.

If Stoke don't sell Begovic, Jack Butland might be available on loan.

Didn't he go for a swim in the sea in a Saints shirt over Christmas? I remember a Bournemouth-supporting mate of mine being particularly annoyed by that

Well that was an unexpected bonus.

In theory, yes, but in practice home clubs are allowed to reduce the away capacity to cover any segregation requirements. We're one of the few clubs who don't stitch the away club out of a few hundred tickets in this way.

Saints will be subsidising tickets for the Man City away game down to £20 for adults and £10 for concessions. Huge reduction, as the face value was up to £49

Unlikely. All the games will kick off at the same time, so whether Sky pick our game or not doesn't really matter, other than perhaps persuading a few people not to bother going, but if it's picked for TV, that would surely be because there's something riding on the game. I assume the ticket office are working out how to spend the remainder of the Away Fan Fund, but they might not know exactly how much is left until Friday when the last of the travel club seats are sold for the Sunderland trip.

Yes, damn those opponents doing things to stop key players doing what they're good at

It's entirely up to the home team how the pitch is treated before and during the game. As long as the length of the grass is below a certain level, it's fine, which is actually a relatively new rule in the Premier League. Back in 2003 (I think) when we beat Man United 1-0, we basically stopped them playing by leaving the grass to grow really long, which meant they struggled to pass the ball. We knew what the pitch would be like, so played more direct, they failed to adapt and we won the game. Wouldn't get away with that these days though.

The referee!

A win

You have an email

No, the whistle already implies blindness If you could help out, that would be great. Should be a pretty easy game to referee, it's a glorified friendly. Not 100% sure Kidderminster have managed to get a full team yet, so we might even do 9 or 10-a-side.