hughieslastminutegoal

Not a good example. Crouch had been languishing at Villa and O'Leary thought he was crap, so it wasn't the big signing by an little-known manager you are making it out to be.

That's right, show off that you are ITK.

He was asked and he said no more than what most managers feel - owner/chairman expectations can be tough for managers. And he calls the financial security that has been brought by the new regime as terrific. I think you're reading much more into what he said than is actually there.

That's what he meant; Bognor Regis was the perfect end to his career.

So we aren't so lucky to have Adkins? If he left there would be lots who coud do as well? Billy Davies for one maybe.... oh.

There's no perhaps about it. When he went to Chelsea anyone with half a brain knew he'd spend most of the time on the bench, and then not even on the bench. He was embarrasingly bad when he played for England, his pass completions were below 30% I read when he had a go in midfield. Mind you, that was under that total phoney, Sven G E. He's an ordinary player who had a good season and a half, who has been very, very lucky to earn what he has. And that he has continued to earn so well says volumes about the idiots who run a lot of football clubs in this country. Mind you it's nothing new. Tony Hately in the 60s/70s went from club to club at (then) huge transfer fees doing very little at any of them. Some people just continue to get signed on their name.

How is this "Whilst I appreciate it's still early days in the transfer market, I just wonder how many quality squad additions Saints are likely to put bids in for " an example of "everyone is so worried about the lack of signings". Just wondering isn't worrying, is it?

I know, just thinking about it is enough to keep one hard all day.

How about celebrating the italian and swiss connection by dressing as pizza topped with gruyere (the nearest swiss cheese to Markus Liebher's home). Or carry ticking violin cases.

?? He's just 17... and of course Wenger knows nothing about bringing on young players. You on the other hand know it's best to keep a young player playing most weeks in the Championship. I thought people appreciated sports science on here, but clearly not.

In other words they will allow the club to operate as if not needing to repay the loan notes. I suppose the loan could be converted to equity as a capital injection if and when our on-field success makes it worth doing (i.e. when a prospective buyer might be prepared to pay a premium for the (extra) shares rather than just pay off the loan). I doubt very much that the loan notes will be wiped out.

Were the debts written off, or were they paid either in full or in part as final settlement? A director's loan to the club to pay off those debts would not make the club debt free, would it. It might be more true to say that the owners wish the club to operate as if it was debt free. Who really knows?

I don't see what you were earning as a 17 year old has got to to with him making a decision about his future. When you were 17 it probably wasn't possible to take a decision that might mean for a few years easy work you'd never really have to work again, and could even virtually guarantee that should you get badly injured. To me its a no brainer. He's a pro footballer, not a died-in-the-wool fan. And it is a lot easier to save when you are on 10x the money.

It's not only naive but probably untrue, though very easy to say. NO ONE can really say how they'd react if someone offered them 30k a week and a massive signing on fee (especially after the wake up call of a fairly troublesome injury alerts them to the precariousness of a pro football career).

Apparently they've asked NC for COD.

And if they say something, it's probably true, as they are no pair of wallies.

A bath satellite? This is beginning to sound like an episode of The Clangers.

I'm sure no one argued with the Pablo Escobar Columbian Jungle 11 when they started with 25. The pitch's white lines were also something else.

Who is your new school teacher?

There's been quite a few on here who haven't been impressed with Adkins signings/loans, so the opinion that we'd sign better is far from universal. I'm also yet to be convinced that the purse strings would be quite loose enough to do it; I still think we could have blown promotion this year when injuries mounted up and got in inadequate cover. Maybe we deserved a bit of luck at the end of the season, but we certainly got some. (Cue those who repeat the ludicrous mantra "you make your own luck" - luck is still, well, luck.) Nevertheless I am very glad to see NA's focus at this point is midfield, I don't think it's strong enough for the coming season yet.

We made a thing of signing experienced midfield players, Alan ball and Jimmy Case to mention two who did well for us. You sign what your team needs at the time - sometimes that can be experience. Lots of people turned their noses up at Jim McCalliog but his pass won us the 1976 FA cup. Sometimes managers see things we don't.

It all sounds a little bit Walter Mitty to me. We were supposed to improve Staplewood and it failed to happen. Now those plans have been revised, but I don't know if work has started yet, perhaps someone can advise. The "we've got shed loads of money, we just have chosen not to spend it yet" may be good psychology at this point, but at some stage you have to show there's truth behind it. When injuries started to mount when we really needed to push on to get promoted, we hardly pushed the boat out on signings did we? - OK we got promoted, but could so easily done a Reading. I know every promotion winning side has its pieces of luck in a season, but Jon Forte's double strike with his first two kicks of the game was several season's worth all rolled into one. Without that, at that critical time, things could have been very different. I'm not saying we should have done differently, but it puts a question mark in my mind about whether there is a whiff of BS in hypo's info.

Once upon a time you invested to make stuff people wanted to buy. You made a profit and re-invested some of it to make more stuff for people to buy : growth and consumption. Now they have spare cash and dream up financial assets for investors to buy. These assets get used as security to borrow money off more investors to lend to other people creating a new asset. You use the new asset as security to borrow yet more money to lend to more investors, creating yet more assets that can be used to borrow... and keep on going. That's why "private", not public, borrowing is so out of control, and why we have to bail out banks. Every investor wants growth in the value of these assets. Its a pyramid built on foundations in sand, and we wonder why it came crashing down. As long as paper assets increase in value quicker that inflation erodes the value of money, the rich are ok. And if they don't you get the tax payer to foot the bill, and carry on buying your hospitality box at a PL club (just to bring the topic back to football).

That's an equation that would even baffle my alter ego Albert E. Rainy L1 away match in Carlisle = 2x used days + £195 + £80 ?

Deliberate my friend.... if Pulis can make 0 proper appearances for us, surely a P need make only 1?