S-Clarke

well done stoke. useless side.

Happy for Villa to lose.

Wigan get one back

On a side note, Emmerson Boyce - who I think is one of their better players, was subbed after he pulled his hamstring. I'd say he's out for Saturday in that case..

Stoke 2-0

Now you've done it

Could make a bit of sense re: the Riquelme rumours we had on here last week. Press get wires crossed, get confused, put 2+2 together....and completely miss the point. Watch us pull this one out of left field.

The 20-year-old, who carries a Spanish passport,

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh

I honestly think the best thing for them in the long-run is for them to admit defeat. Wind up, and start again in some obscure lower league. If they carry on flogging this dead fish, it's going to be the same every year. It's fun for us watching it, but the club is so damaged that the only way I can see is for them to start from scratch.

Very nice, kind of my dream job...! I guess it's demanding, but a fun demanding. Good luck on deadline day...that looks manic when you watch in from home!

Anyway, sod getting into an attendance debate in a player thread. That'll be boring. Personally, I think we'll see Forren on the bench on Wednesday night...

What is it you actually do out of interest? Are you a reporter or an editor for the site?

Well, we're not at the moment and we will need to go some way to be that big team and overtake the likes of Man Utd/Arsenal, if that's what you're implying! That will take decades....

I want your job mate. Listening to all the breaking sports news during the day, and seeing the female newsreaders in real life...! How can I apply?

To be honest, I think we need to be selling out every week to even be considering a 50k stadium. Sod the average attendance. I wouldn't even entertain the idea until I saw 32k sell outs most weeks.

If I'm honest, our attendances this year haven't really strengthened the argument for us needing a mega stadium. Against the top sides we'll always sell out, as quite often neutrals come along to see the ''big players''. It's how it works in the top league. Our attendances against the likes of Wigan , our first game back in the PL in 7 years, wasn't a sell out. At this moment in time a 50k stadium would be embarrassing for us. Would look like MK Don's ground with all the top tiers empty!

What's he said wrong in that? I'm reading it but can't see anything I disagree with! He's been pretty reasonable...? I think it's fair to say that if Man Utd click, they will score a fair few against us.

And then we've got to keep hold of our star players. Which on it's own is impossible when the big players come in. Clubs who have been in the top 4 recentley - Everton and Spurs for e.g. , can't even keep their top players - which is why even they are finding it hard to sustain a top 4 position. They sort of fliter in and out.

I think we'd need to improve every area of the team. There are even plenty of players in our 11 at the moment who would need to be replaced in order for us to achieve it. People will say that Everton got there etc, but that was before Man City decided to get rich. Football has changed a hell of a lot in 7 years. In the current day and age we'd need to spend 100m+ to get close. So, 30m in every summer for the next 5 years - whilst keeping hold of the stars - might mean it's possibly, but it's still such a long shot. We're still Southampton at the end of the day, and no matter what people say we will never be able to stop our star players leaving for Man City, Liverpool, Man Utd, Real Madrid etc...so that in it's own will stop us IMO. Great ambition, but I'm still of the opinion that he's incredibly far fetched. We can wait for the academy to produce the standard, and it may well get us there, but in a decade..maybe. Not 5 years. We'd need enormous investment.

Probably because it's not owned by the club as such, it's owned by Sky and they have the rights to do what they want with it. From their point of view, staggering it out a bit makes more sense from a viewer point of view. If they put it all out online then they'd get less people watching the TV! It gives them a little more content as well, which could run for a few weeks - rather than playing it all at once, in the same day.

tbf they've probably just got another installment on the Rodwell deal, that will be worth up to £20m when all is paid up. They didn't spend much of that in the summer.

Peter Madsen

Newcastle have strengthened, for sure. But what have reading done? They've been linked with Ince...that's it. I think Harry thought he could go all out and buy lots of ''big players'' for ''big money'' - but it's not as easy as he thought, as the club is very unattractive if we're honest. They've only signed 1 player of note as yet.

At the end of the day I want my football club to do well. I don't want to see us losing and falling through the leagues. I think I'm in the same boat as most fans there. I trust Cortese on the football side of things. It'll be interesting to see if his latest brave gamble plays off, but by going by his recent decisions - it probably will.