hughieslastminutegoal

The interesting thing is that according to the TV comments after the game, the German players at their clubs are paid on average 50% of the wage the England PL players are getting, so I'm not convinced we would suffer that much, but I think wages is a bit of a side issue. The argument that the presence of great foreign players has improved the standard of our own players doesn't at the moment look to be standing up to examination at a major competition, does it? I'm not for banning foreign players but having a ceiling on how many can play in a club side in a match, so our own players stand a chance of being developed and can play against the better (foreign) players more regularly. And I'm very much in favour of Cortese's idea of playing our reserves against better (foreign maybe) opposition, for example. And despite Capello's failure at this WC I'm actually in favour of more foreign coaches in Britain, and/or have British coaches gain experience abroad. It didn't do Roy Hodgson any harm, and he's managed to make Zamora look like a footballer.

I know you’re not interested in international football, but in the 1950s the Hungarians taught us a football lesson that made many in the game in England realise our style and technique was falling behind the best in the world. We are again in the same place. If this WC has shown us anything it is the paucity of English players with sufficient technique, tactical appreciation and versatility to play international football. We have a few (who admittedly played badly in this World Cup) but one injury to Ferdinand and we were thrown back on a perpetually injured King, and a woefully inadequate Upson. Many people rued the omission of Walcott, but that proves the point doesn’t it, someone who cannot yet play to his team mates was on the verge of selection. The real worry, if one is interested in the international side, is that we have a tiny, tiny handful of decent players, with no one, absolutely no one else of any quality to put in. Our right back Johnson is the best we can find? Jeepers! I’ve read in one broadsheet that Hargreaves is the only decent holding midfielder we have (had probably is more accurate) – and he learned to play … in Germany. Someone on here even says Marcus Bent should have been there. How long have Gerrard and Lampard been trying to play together, and are still failing to co-ordinate? Scotland are just about keeping ahead the Faroe islands in international ability. Wales are nowhere, and hardly match Azerbaijan and the rest. Ok so you’re not interested in international football. Then I suppose you will be happy to watch 3rd rate domestic players or an ever-increasing contingent of foreign players at club level? If Saints were all-foreign in 3 years time would it matter to you? If not, then let’s dump the Academy now. There is a real problem in that we are failing to produce good-enough players. I don’t know why, and I don’t know what the solution is. Maybe it doesn’t matter as long as locally we can watch decent football played by foreign imports. Maybe we just prefer the excitement of kick and rush (or lumping it up to a holding forward) to good technique, but as yet can’t reconcile ourselves to the fact that the style won’t work in big international competitions, though it seems you have!

I just love this bit. I know that's not what you meant to say but it did make me larf.

How about saying what EXACTLY you would like changed? As far as I can tell, all you don't like is what it looks like. To the average punter it's basically the same as it was, just "whiter". You wanna work in the IT field mate, when change is forced upon you every few days whether you like it or not. I reckon you must still be driving around in a Triumph Herald.

It might be "open", but if you reserve a coffee-maker from John Lewis, do they charge you a reservation fee? So when the product is a football match instead of a coffee-maker why should they charge you extra? Its selling costs should be included in the price. It's like shops who want to charge you extra for using a credit card because they pay a charge to the CC company. But if I pay by cash they have to cash up, bag up, take it to the bank blah blah. If I pay by cheque they usually have to pay bank charges for handling the cheque, but the shop doesn't charge me for that either, it's all in the price. We have meekly accepted all these add-ons, and just because others charge them it doesn't mean that the club has to adopt these distasteful practices.

So our local community-minded club can't be arsed to employ local people, and charge local people extra for the privilege?

How about because the clubs expect fan loyalty? Do you consider yourself to be a supporter of The Odeon? I doubt it.

Walk being the operative word? Pace ain't his hallmark, is it. I would put money on him being a bit part player at Norwich.

Last time I went to Vuvuzela, everyone was playing their Caracas.

Apparently the music for them is written in binary - you either play it.. or you don't. Now the ambitious players might want to open with Yves Klein's 1949 Monotone Symphony (formally The Monotone-Silence Symphony) an orchestral 40-minute piece whose first movement is an unvarying 20-minute drone and the second and last movement a 20-minute silence. But purists like me would certainly favour John Cage's 4′33″ , a three-movement composition composed in 1952, and the score instructs the performer not to play the instrument during the entire duration of the piece throughout the three movements. OK so it's a solo piece, but I think it could be adapted for an orchestra of these ingenious plastic trumpets, almost as versatile as the alpine horn. As to whether it's a suitable "instrument" for football supporters, Wikepedia says that in such minimalistic music "there is little sense of goal-directed motion". Well on second thoughts, maybe that does fairly relect much of the round one games so far.

I thought Threshers went bankrupt, though not sure how if GB was a customer.

Speak for yourself

What a stupid thread you say? And then you voted? Are you sure it's the thread that's stupid?

But right back is the priority, so it is still rather odd. Harding is no right back - he played well there once. If I remember rightly he had another go and it wasn't as successful. So I wouldn't be quite so quick to assume that just because he played left back for the rest of the season, all was rosy. After all, who else would you have played, given that we were trying for the playoffs? It could be as simple as AP wants competition in that position, but I just have a feeling there is something else going on.

Wasn't there a game where Harding was surprisingly left out, and Pardew wouldn't say why? A couple of games before he was first put in at right back, I think it was. Perhaps there has been an ongoing issue in Pardew's mind about Harding since then, which may or may not be a football one. Anyone actually hear anything about what the problem was?

Good location? Have you seen the traffic chaos that results from something as pathetic as 20:20 cricket at the rose Bowl?

If he was that good, why did he only get 20 caps for Norway in his 10 odd years here? Wouldn't have taken a lot to have been a regular in Norway's team, would it? When he played alongside a leader he was ok. As soon as he had to offer that leadership himself he went missing. He's always seemed a bit thick to me.

An average player lucky enough to have been partnered by centre backs who were experiencing their own purple patches.

There's no excuse for having nothing to do when you have cash in the bank, other than stupidity and/or laziness. In his case I have a good idea which one of those is nearer the mark.

Try this link, and maybe you'll review your opinion of negative (grumpy) people! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8339647.stm

It seems it was first brought in to cover the cost to the theatre of credit card fees. When they realised people put up with it, it got extended to become a booking fee. When everyone got used to that they added an admin charge to cover ticket agency fees, but if you book direct with the theatre they still charge it. Cortese is just applying what he knows people will put up with, and I expect we'll find that the next step will be to reduce ticket office hours, or staff it with fewer people so we find it "more convenient" to book on-line. We are just punters. He ain't here for fans or to restore its "family" atmosphere. He's selling a product, no more no less. "Supporting" a club is getting more and more anachronistic. When you go to watch a musical you don't march to the theatre singing "Come on you Welsh National Opera", clutching your adminfee-d-up-to-the-hilt ticket.

Vanity can result in nastiness. "Snow White" (every football fan's favourite bedtime story) kind of illustrates the point quite well "mirror mirror on the wall who's the best goal scoring midfielder of them all?" "MLT" the queen heard, and so she sent MLT off to the B field to have his heart cut out. Ok a bit melodramatic, but you get my drift.

Then I ask again, why play him in the B international if he'd made up his mind not to pick him? Maybe to put two fingers up to those urging Le Tiss to be picked? Seems to me it was a simple case of two-faced nastiness: "Go out and show what you can do" followed by "I don't care what you did, you aren't coming anyway".

I think he's been childish and arrogant over his relations with the Echo and dissing of other people expressing their views. However I don't then try to interpret everything else he does in the same way. So I'll give him credit if he does something good, and the appointment of a talent identification head honcho, and the reserve team games ideas are IMO both very good moves.

I haven't been a huge fan of Cortese lately, but I have to say, if true, this is a top draw decision IMO. Players and fans might more enthused, and certainly more should be learned. The organisation of reserve team football in our professional leages is downright pathetic. Chelsea "reserves" for example are multi-million pound players who play pointless lacklustre games at places like Aldershot Rec.