stevegrant

Palace is the only other one, I think.

Sunday late afternoon on TV, £46 tickets, shortly after a busy Christmas schedule which will have stretched wallets, there are a whole host of reasons.

Most teams wouldn't sell 7600 at Old Trafford anyway so I'm not sure that rule is actually much of a problem.

There wasn't really a consultation as such, fans were simply told that the police had said the Northam/Itchen corner was most convenient for away access, so the away section would be in blocks 43-48. Everyone basically went where they thought it would be best, but even in the relatively short time we've been at St Mary's, the demographic in different parts of the ground has changed so much, people move around quite a lot. I've been back and forth between the Northam and Itchen corner loads of times. That freedom of movement, for want of a better phrase, means that if there was a concerted effort to organise something and have a whole stand that stood and sung all game in the Chapel, it would be pretty easy to achieve, I reckon. It just requires the will of the people, which is probably where it'll come unstuck as most people just can't be arsed.

Because Arsenal have a massive fanbase who will watch the game, giving the BBC a big audience share and therefore justifying the use of part of the licence fee to acquire the FA Cup broadcasting rights at great expense. You could easily make a case for any of the three games being televised that night, even Bradford v Millwall on the basis that the winners get to go to Stamford Bridge. They'd probably get Chelsea fans watching it for that reason.

The rule is the home team has to offer 10% of the saleable capacity or 3,000 tickets, whichever is the lower. Hence, at grounds with capacities larger than 30,000, we get a maximum of 3,000 tickets, give or take a few hundred either way for segregation and ease of access. We give up to 3,150 for away teams in the league, which is technically more than we need to (3,000, obviously), especially considering the club is allowed to reduce the away allocation for any segregation that needs to be put in place - in practice, this means that we could offer a maximum league allocation of around 2,600, with around 400 seats blocked off for segregation from the actual allocation of 3,000. The problem with doing this is logistics and safety legislation. The reason we give slightly more than we need to is that, with the current full away allocation, the segregation netting is placed pretty much right down the middle of block 43 - safety legislation dictates that no seat should be further than [X] seats from an aisle to enable a quick evacuation if necessary. I don't know what the [X] is, but basically if the netting was to be placed at the far side of block 43, reducing the away allocation to 2600, the club would still only be able to sell around half of the block to home fans, not the three-quarters that would in theory be available.

You might catch the playoff finals for the Conference North and possibly the Northern Premier. The regular season ends on 25th April in the Conference North, and the playoff semi-finals will be the following weekend and then the midweek after that. The final is at the ground of the team who finished higher in the league.

It would be great if someone could buy him a ticket for the game.

Fair to say that the draw's not opening up for a mid-table side this season like it did last year... if every tie went with the highest-placed team going through, there would be 13 PL teams left in out of 16, with two from the Championship and one from League One. Looking much tougher than last season already.

I think Inter are picking up all of Osvaldo's salary, same as Juventus did last season, in exchange for no loan fee being payable. Not sure with Ramirez, but I think Hull paid a fee for the season, so that'll offset anything we're still paying there. The bonuses situation will be interesting to monitor, especially if we qualify for Europe. Apparently those whose contracts were signed during Cortese's reign have VERY lucrative bonuses built in for high league positions (but not much for domestic cup success).

Alex Crook seemed to think Jose Fonte is our highest earner (current players - Osvaldo and Ramirez are both at least £20k more) on £45k basic. Not entirely sure I believe Fonte's our highest earner, but the figure's probably about right.

Yeah, the idea that Atletico are "holding out" for £6.2m is a complete red herring, we'd wire the money today if that was the case. The commonly-held belief is that that fee is already agreed, but Atletico have a £1.5m get-out clause in the deal. It could be that they've seen how well he's done and think they can get a bit more for him (obviously not worthwhile if it's not more than £7.7m), which unfortunately is probably true. As ridiculous as it sounds, £75k a week shouldn't be that big a deal for us, especially for a player as good as him. The likelihood of him staying for the full duration of that contract would surely be pretty slim, as a club able to offer him regular Champions League football and £100k a week would probably come knocking eventually, so paying that sort of salary for a year or two could be seen as good business.

The only ones in terms of current league position were Brighton (15 places below), Cambridge (10), Leicester (10), Preston (19) and Rochdale (21).

Today's results: Barnsley 0-2 Middlesbrough Blyth Spartans 2-3 Birmingham City Bolton Wanderers 1-0 Wigan Athletic Brentford 0-2 Brighton & Hove Albion Cambridge United 2-1 Luton Town Charlton Athletic 1-2 Blackburn Rovers Derby County 1-0 Southport Doncaster Rovers 1-1 Bristol City Fulham 0-0 Wolverhampton Wanderers Huddersfield Town 0-1 Reading Leicester City 1-0 Newcastle United Millwall 3-3 Bradford City Preston North End 2-0 Norwich City Rochdale 1-0 Nottingham Forest Rotherham United 1-5 Bournemouth Tranmere Rovers 2-6 Swansea City West Bromwich Albion 7-0 Gateshead

Half-Times: Barnsley 0-0 Middlesbrough (delayed 15 minutes due to suspected gas leak) Blyth Spartans 2-0 Birmingham City Bolton Wanderers 0-0 Wigan Athletic Brentford 0-0 Brighton & Hove Albion Cambridge United 1-0 Luton Town Charlton Athletic 0-1 Blackburn Rovers (delayed 15 minutes due to floodlight failure) Derby County 0-0 Southport Doncaster Rovers 0-0 Bristol City Fulham 0-0 Wolverhampton Wanderers Huddersfield Town 0-0 Reading Leicester City 1-0 Newcastle United Millwall 1-1 Bradford City Preston North End 0-0 Norwich City Rochdale 1-0 Nottingham Forest Rotherham United 1-1 Bournemouth Tranmere 0-1 Swansea City West Bromwich Albion 2-0 Gateshead

West Brom with an absolute robbery just before half-time, 2-0 up. Blyth also 2-0 up against Birmingham. Just as well we get to watch Arsenal v Hull and Everton v West Ham on TV...

For the broadcasters, it's all about the ratings. Sadly more people will watch Arsenal v Hull than will watch Blyth Spartans v Birmingham, which is why the BBC picked it. They have to justify the cost of the rights by pulling in the viewers.

Full list of games: Friday Cardiff City 3-1 Colchester United MK Dons 0-1 Chesterfield (2nd round, match replayed after Chesterfield fielded an ineligible player in the original tie, which they also won 1-0) Saturday 3pm: Barnsley v Middlesbrough Blyth Spartans v Birmingham City Bolton Wanderers v Wigan Athletic Brentford v Brighton & Hove Albion Cambridge United v Luton Town Charlton Athletic v Blackburn Rovers Derby County v Southport Doncaster Rovers v Bristol City Fulham v Wolverhampton Wanderers Huddersfield Town v Reading Leicester City v Newcastle United Millwall v Bradford City Preston North End v Norwich City Rochdale v Nottingham Forest Rotherham United v Bournemouth Tranmere Rovers v Swansea City West Bromwich Albion v Gateshead Sunday 1pm: Dover Athletic v Crystal Palace (BT Sport) Queens Park Rangers v Sheffield United Sunderland v Leeds United 3pm: Aston Villa v Blackpool Manchester City v Sheffield Wednesday Southampton v Ipswich Town Stoke City v Wrexham 3:30pm: Yeovil Town v Manchester United (BT Sport) 4pm: Chelsea v Watford 5:30pm: Arsenal v Hull City (BBC) Monday 7:45pm: Burnley v Tottenham Hotspur 7:55pm: AFC Wimbledon v Liverpool Tuesday 7:45pm: Everton v West Ham United S****horpe United v Chesterfield

Agree with the retrospective action part, and on the flipside of that players should be able to have incorrect yellow cards rescinded as well. Fast-tracking ex-players can only work if they achieve suitable qualifications and assessment ratings - similar to coaching and management, there have been too many ex-players given jobs way above their qualifications simply because of who they are, which prevents most people from grassroots football progressing to the top levels of the game. If an ex-pro wants to become a referee, that's great, but they shouldn't be able to do the same course that I did 17 years ago and then get on the Elite List. Also, I can't actually imagine many ex-pros being willing to do the job for the amount the top referees get paid. I think the likes of Howard Webb would have "only" earned just into six figures in years when he had lots of European and international commitments as well as domestic appointments. Can you imagine a current Premier League player - average annual salary approx £1.5m - being prepared to put up with all the **** that goes with the job for such a relative pittance when they could just sit in a studio at Sky, spout their inane platitudes and get paid much more?

Officials simply need to improve. While it is true that decisions are scrutinised at such intense levels these days, that's no excuse for what is pure incompetence. The Rob Green handball yesterday was incredible. While the referee might not have the best view in terms of knowing Green's position, his assistant was barely 20 yards away with a perfect unobstructed view of the incident, and should have flagged for the handball - the referee would then have made the pretty easy decision to send Green off. One thing that must be a bit frustrating if you're an assistant referee at the top level is that you're pretty much stuck with being an assistant for the rest of your career, despite having got to that position in the first place because of their performances as a referee at lower levels (I believe it's generally the case that you can run the line at a level one level higher than you referee). That to me seems like a bit of a waste, when let's face it, they couldn't possibly do a worse job than the current lot. Having professional full-time officials was supposed to allow them more training time which would ensure that performances improved. If anything, it has bred a culture of complacency and arrogance among the elite list of officials, knowing that they're largely undroppable. The worst that happens is they get assigned to a Championship game for a week. Hardly a massive loss for them, really.

While he's largely right, it's rather hypocritical of him to have a pop at referees making mistakes when he was one of the worst for doing so when he was still active.

Ipswich will make changes, Mick McCarthy's already said that Bartosz Bialkowski won't play as he wants Dean Gerken to be match sharp in case BB was to get injured. According to McCarthy, they have a first-team squad of 20 senior players, and that many of them who haven't played recently will get a game this weekend. Suggests the likes of McGoldrick and Murphy, their main two strikers, might not feature either. Connor Sammon is fit again, so he'll probably play instead.

This amused me

They would have to stop at least once on each leg of the journey for a trip of that duration, by law coach drivers can only drive for a maximum of 4 hours at a time.

Everton's fanbase is certainly bigger than ours, but looking at their most recent financials, they don't seem to be any better off than us. Their 2013/14 revenue increased to £120m, but best guesses would place ours not too far behind. In terms of long-term, they are a club that we should be aiming to overtake with sustainable growth, academy production, etc. Liverpool are a huge worldwide brand and we've next to no chance of consistently outperforming them. We may have occasional seasons like this one where we do well and they struggle (relatively - I'd still expect them to finish above us in May), but they have resources way beyond our means, especially with the Financial Fair Play regulations now in force.