S-Clarke

Ah, good old distraction for Wigan. They're always capable of producing a result like this every few months, luckily this means nothing in terms of the league though. Wouldn't read much into it in terms of their survival chances. Still pretty slim.

That's exactly what I initially thought all those months back. Work was stopped on the training ground due to a few disagreements/changes, but it actually turned out to be the dome that was the crux of the issue. That structure could not remain, and if the training ground work was to continue the dome would need to be built from the ground up in order to integrate with the new buildings. Now, my assumption is that the club put a halt on proceedings almost immediately and got several independent views on it - the outcome of all of this was the confirmation that this extra bit of work needed to be done in order for the construction to continue. Obviously this would come at an additional cost, and I imagine the club wanted to keep the training ground build going as soon as possible - so a short-term fix was a low-interest loan to cover the extra work required, which would be paid back without much problem. I was kind of ignored when I made that point, as the popular tone back then was that the loan was to clear our ''Massive'' financial shortfsall and to help us buy Gaston Ramirez. But I don't think that was ever the case. Now, Cortese is a lot of things - but he's not someone who ****es around with money.

Is that confirmed?

It is nice reading to be honest, but does also show that we need to stay up. If we go down there will be alot of departures to make up the shortfall and we'd have to start all over again, with arguably less resources than the last time round thus making promotion very hard. Staying up this year is so important for the future of this club. Cannot be stated enough.

He was rubbish for them, as expected really.

Could explain why Forren was ''rushed'' into the U21 game at the request of the senior management team.

Look beyond ''playing'', and look more into his role as club captain and potential coach. That's when you see that this deal is a good one for the club.

You're kind of seeing the same player as me. I think he's got better and has grown into the side, but his game I feel will always have some pretty big flaws - i.e physicality and distribution. In terms of Reading the game he's probably the best we've got, but IMO he's someone we need to upgrade on in the summer if we want to really push on. (obviously, dependent if we stay up)

Before I clicked on this thread I thought your post would be dramatic and quite mentalist, and I wasn't wrong.

He does speak a bit of English, but doesn't flow enough with it to be able to conduct pre/post match interviewers. I'm sure he's able to give all the basic instructions a footballer needs. He also has his assistant, who does speak fluent English.

The last thing we want is a limited, out of position midfielder, diving into tackles, getting caught out of position and for pace the majority of the game. Other than that, great idea.

Nothing odd about this. Need to keep him at the club for as long as possible and let him grow into the coaching setup, where he is clearly going to end up.

QPR chairman Tony Fernandes admitted that spending needed to be "closely monitored and controlled". Fair point. So therefore, I will spend £12m on Samba and 80k p/w. Completely in control.

A few moaned about QPR signing, but not too many. From what I remember, the common view was that they were spending way too much on washed up players. Which has proven to be the case generally.

someone put this thread out of it's misery, please.

It's hard to wade through serious and windup threads these days. Although the windup threads are starting to dominate the place. Pretty boring to be honest.

Nope. Has got better, but still think we can do a hell of a lot better back there.

Is that you Roger? To be fair, based on his last display, there is slight merit. Although I'd still keep him there.

Seaborne and De Ridder as well.

I think both players have generally flattered to decisive so far, although I would say Lallana has been the better of the 2. Frustratingly, both players seasons have been dictated somewhat by injury which makes it hard for anyone to make a consistent impact on the team. Lallana for me has contributed more than Ramirez this season in terms of overall play - that's not say Ramirez is a bad player, far from it, but I kind of feel that he's playing inside of his ability most weeks. Whether that's down to adapting to the new country and culture, or more to do with the style of play in this league and his struggle to adapt to the physical side. If I'm honest, I feel it's the latter. There is undoubted quality in there, no doubts about that, but he's all too often brushed off the ball, knocked off the ball - or injured during or prior to games. You'd hope that a decent pre-season of strength building would give him a better platform for next year. (same could be said for a couple more of our players to be honest). For 12m though, I did expect a little more by now. He's contributed, but is far too often ''invisible'' in away games and we kind of need a player like him to step up and win us a tight match. I'm not writing him off at all, it would be silly to write someone off with so much talent which was clearly evident in the Newcastle and Villa home games. We just haven't seen enough of it on a consistent basis.

Their season actually finished in December, so we're probably having to put him through some sort of mini-preseason. Although I'd have expected to see a bit more of him so far. £4m is a hell of a lot to shell out on a single player, then not play him, when we're just above the relegation zone. We also could say the same about Mayuka! Now that signing goes deep into the realms of bizarre.

Barry Bannan will come in to replace him, so this makes the ban quite a blow for them! No disrespect to Bannan personally, but he's one of the reasons they're down there. Young players who are championship level at best, trying to make a grade for themselves in a league where they're out of their depth.

Finished 1-0 to City, who were complete dross it has to be said. Villa played well, but didn't create any meaningful chances over the entire 90 mins. Very fortunate with all the results this weekend, if only we'd have picked something up in our game and things would look so much different. As the games go on, and the teams down there are remaining on 20-24 points, you do start to wonder if we'll get an all time low points total required to stay up this year.

They look equally as bad to be honest, just a little sharper in the back 4. Nasri looks complete turd though

Tevez did score, 1-0 to city at the moment