egg

Should have been 2. Our tactic of not bothering to mark people ain't the wisest.

As has been said, that was coming. Poor from us in midfield, but a great cross field ball in the build up. Decent finish too.

Yep. Awful tackle. This is the first game I've watched. Better quality and much more aggressive than I was expecting. They play better football than us, and have more pace in their team. Good game though.

Attacking CM. Ryan Finnigan is more of a conventional CM/ ditto Cameron Bragg. Finnigan apparently did well on loan at Crewe in the second half of last season. He came off early for the B team on Friday (as did Ballard) so I half expected him to be on the bench with Ballard yesterday.

Home

I may have misunderstood but I thought the discussion was about paying a few players a bit more than others/structure to keep them. I'm not sure where mention if us having done that with Alcaraz fits in....

There's other ways of cutting it. A signing/loyalty bonus of £1m essentially gives him an extra £20k pw. Thereafter wages in line with structure.

I hadn't realised we'd given Alcaraz a new contract since relegation. You sure about that?

I think many fans would swap our position and squad for theirs.

How do think that will go down in the dressing room? I'd imagine badly. At the end of the day, like it or not, we're a championship club and everyone needs to accept that - fans and players.

No, but he may want the sales that you don't want. Dig Dig makes the valid point that the important thing is to give RM the squad that he wants. I'd like to think that includes Tella, KWP, Adams and AA, but who knows.

It depends whether RM would prefer these players or to replace some of them. If he would prefer some other players, the we need to sell to give him what he wants.

Yes, but we can't make the air cleaner in a short time scale, and we won't do so by charging van drivers to go about their business. Better education and training can, and should be, be delivered quickly.

Absolute bollox have I distorted anything! I've referred to actual facts. It's you who has misrepresented what was actually been said by the coroner in a bid to be seen as correct on a forum. I have no agenda. I'm asthmatic and have been hospitalised as a consequence. It's taken me to high dependency CCU - not a fun place to be. I'd love cleaner air, but ultimately it's my responsibility to look after my health, and I do. What I take from the coroner's verdict (over the need to improve air quality) is that Ella's death "might have (been) prevented" had her mother been given certain information from medical professionals. It seems to me that an easy fix is to give better training to medics to give the correct info and medication. That would be more effective than charging someone £12.50 to drive a van into London. Anyways, I've made my point and CBA to carry on an exchange with you.

5 experienced players, a keeper, and 3 kids. Could be worse.

Puts a hell of a lot of responsibility on young Charles. I think Manning will probably step in there a lot in open to create a 3, and be the one to move into the middle when Stu tires with Perraud coming in at LB.

We're equally hilarious Del. Like a modern day Morecambe and Wise.

Off the coast from San Francisco. Or possibly in Newcastle...

Yep! No Hurlock or Case in that midfield though. I'm predicting a 4-2 win.

According to the coroners report she wasn't given the information. Either way, her death could have been avoided.

Yep, but you can avoid the vast majority of those deaths even with the air as it is. Regardless, charging diesel vans to drive around London won't in itself do anything to improve air quality. I'd like to see some of the ULEZ revenues invested in educating people to seek medical help if they think their breathing is effected by the air or anything, and then to use any medication issued correctly. Self help is everyone's responsibility. We also need to train medics to better identify the need for preventative treatment, and to follow it up. As I've said, these deaths are mostly avoidable.

Thanks. The lack of medical information given to her mother is unforgivable though, and it seems that medical negligence was a huge factor in the child's sad death. However you cut it though, even with the air being as it was, her death was avoidable.

Their only danger I reckon is poor recruitment - they'll end up with some duds for sure. MacCallister and Caceido will be big misses, and I suspect Estupinan will get picked off soon as well. Credit to them though, they're definitely not content with making up the numbers.

Cell

I'm with you to an extent. The difference, I think, is that they have brought in so much money from player sales (almost £250m from Chelsea alone, including the Potter/staff compensation) and reinvested it really well. Had we spent the money from Van Dijk properly, I think we'd be in a much better place right now. What they've done is admirable, and I reckon they've established themselves in the top 10 comfortably, and can push beyond that and become a consistent top 8 club.