norwaysaint

Well, I guess it's down to interpretation, but one player every two years is still pretty much business as usual.

Matt Targett became a regular member of the first team this year.

Has it though? This season we have brought through a player, have we ever brought through so many more than one per season? I don't remember it. The best I remember is Shaw and Chambers coming through about the same time. JWP was a different year. Why are people acting like in the past we used to have lots of kids ready for first team football? This has never been the case. Even at our best it's always been one a year on average, it's been none many years before now. The words "conveyor belt" seem to have been over-used and given people a false idea of the way it's ever been. That belt turned out players like Bridge, Bale, Ox, Walcott and so on, but usually a couple of years apart for each one. So if in two years, another kid becomes a regular, that's still in line with how it's been.

I agree. Yet that's what the article is about.

I thought the quote actually said that nobody was near ready for the first team. This article isn't about buying players ready for the first team, it's about getting players for their academy. I don't think anybody said he was "no good". Are you misquoting by accident, having misunderstood, or is it your way of pointing out that you think people were wrong and that he is ready for the first team?

They could do worse, he's a very good manager, maybe not a great one, but I miss having a manager with a particular style of play.

No surprises there. He hasn't picked them, so we know he doesn't think they're good enough. I think most people can see that and are complaining more that Martina is a new signing who doesn't seem any better than an academy player, so why bring him in and not just play one of our sub-standard academy players? I suppose he disagrees about Martina. For most of our history, most academy players haven't been good enough, so it's not really news.We get about one decent player every three years or so on average I'd guess and we just had Shaw and Chambers come through quite recently, plus JWP. We've already produced more players recently than I would've expected.

Why do a few people imagine that losing this will have a positive effect on our league performances? That's just ridiculous logic. Winning this will lift the team, losing this will just cause more discontent. Do some really think it's a distraction? That the players just can't pass accurately, stay in position or put in a tackle, because they were just too busy thinking about an FA Cup match in a few weeks? What we need is the players playing better, I think playing well enough to beat Palace would be a good step in that direction wouldn't it?

Teslas are beautiful cars inside and out. A couple of my friends have them and love them. Very expensive though. They're the second highest selling car over here now, so there are enough places around that can repair them, the roads here are full of them. Most dealers have a battery guarantee too, our cars have eight years on the guarantee. The saving on fuel, tax, parking and tolls builds up pretty quickly though, so at the end of that time, you should be able to pay for a battery. The range of a Tesla is double what ours can do, but they cost far more than both cars put together.

Ended up getting an E-Golf and an E-Up. Haven't really driven the Up yet, but the wife seems to like it. We're selling one of our petrol cars and keeping the other for when needed. I love the Golf though, lovely to drive, good power too. The range seems pretty good and you can extend it a lot depending on how you drive and which mode you have it in. So far I've only charged it at home, but the wife has used the express chargers, which are apparently pretty cheap, easy to use and easy to find, she paid with an app, but you can also use a contactless payment card. I'm not missing paying for petrol at all and it's nice having free parking, free toll (a big and regular expense here) and having use of bus lanes. A big bonus is that you can download an app that lets you manage the car from your phone. You can program it to be charged and heated up at a certain time, lovely for cold mornings. You can also check how the charging is going from the app and even see the location of the car on a map, which must make them pretty hard to steal. I also find you hardly use the brakes, as when you take your foot off, the dynamo takes over and charges the battery, which slows you down all you need. A nice downhill can add a few km to your journey. There are other bells and whistles, but I'm guessing a few of those are common to all Golfs. One word of caution if you're thinking of getting a couple of these, we found if we had both charging on the same circuit, the fuse would throw, but luckily we have two outside circuits, so no problem.

Wonder how Lambert would've been as a winger. I mean it was his job to attack wasn't it? For me, Yoshida is the perfect example of fans' hypocrisy. He always works his socks off. When he gets a chance at centre back, he usually puts in a pretty solid display, sometimes excellent, but even if he plays well he is likely to get dropped when somebody else is fit. He doesn't complain, he just does his best for the club, whichever position he's played in and always stays positive. Does this loyal hard working attitude of getting on with the job he's paid for mean that the fans stay loyal to him in return? Nope, nobody wants to reward him with a run in the team, many would get rid of him at first opportunity and he gets criticised when he's not up to standard out of position. Then these fans will moan about the loyalty of players like Lallana, Lovren, Chambers and Clyne. We have zero loyalty to players, so let's stop moaning when they don't have any to us. He's not the best player, so you can argue we're right to drop him, but by the same measure, we're not the best club, so they're right to drop us.

The post you were referring to said that we could not only finish in the top six, but arguably higher.

Arguably higher?

Haven't had the chance yet. My wife went in and test drove a Mitsubishi the other day and phoned me up to say it was brilliant, then went and tried the VW and phoned me up to say it was tons better. Leafs seem to be everywhere here, so they must be doing something right.

I think we're standing still because we have pretty much reached our level. We area mid table to upper mid table club. We aren't big enough to keep the top players, but we're big enough to attract some decent prospects. The teams who will be consistently above us are bigger names with bigger fanbases, like Spurs. I hear a lot of people talking about "the next level" and I don't get it. The next level means unsustainable spending for a club of our size. Is that really what any of us want? What we're doing at the moment, that's pretty good. There will be times we reach up towards Europa, there will be times we drop into lower mid table. There will be decent cup runs and there will be cup disappointments. We aren't top six size, smaller clubs grab top eight places sometimes and sometimes that'll be us, but probably not every season. We will get great players, but they'll leave if they get too good and their replacements might not always be as good, same as every club.

We do actually have plans to get a generator out there, but will be keeping a petrol car anyway, it's a six hour drive...

I haven't met anyone with a bad word to say about their Tesla. As mentioned above they are everywhere here now and are truly beautiful cars inside and out. One of my friends drove his down to Romania during the summer and had absolutely no problems with charging at all. There are a lot of toll roads here and electric cars don't pay, so you can save a lot, not to mention on taxes and petrol. You can also drive in the bus lane with them.

Thanks for the answer. There are charging points everywhere here, there are a few outside the school where I work and a few in every car park. Supermarkets usually have the fast chargers outside and apparently the 80% charge in half an hour thing is pretty reliable. Teslas were the second most sold cars here last year with Nissan Leaf not far behind and the UP! just behind that. Top was Golf and I think that included the electric version, so Norway is very set up foe electric cars. My only issue is that we have a few square km of forest where we spend most of the summer and we don't have electricity there, so we'd probably keep a petrol car around just for that, but the rest of the year it's mostly to and from the city. Teslas will do about 500km on a full charge, but I don't think we'll be getting that kind of range.

Looking at getting an electric Golf or an E-Up as our new car. Would love a Tesla as I have a few friends who have them and rave about them, but I can't justify spending that much. Anybody here have one or something similar? Don't know about the UK, but the savings you can make over here with an electric car are huge. There are lots of subsidies and things you don't have to pay. I should be saving the equivalent of nearly 500 quid a month, which means it'll pay for itself pretty fast. Any experiences would be appreciated.

Thanks for posting that, it was interesting to get the info, even if it shows, as you said, that they can't be compared. Koeman gave out more debuts, but with less meaningful playing time, but the main players of the necessary quality had already moved on before RK started. Funny, the original thing I was asking, or meant to ask, was whether Gape was the style of player who just needed to bulk up and may come through later, or whether he was the type of player that would be showing already if he was good enough for our level. I'm not sure I'm any the wiser. For what it's worth I think MP and RK are mostly equally likely to let kids play if they are ready. Targett was given a chance just like Shaw and Chambers were, JWP still plays his occasional role. I seem to remember Reed's starts under MP came mainly in cups. The main difference is possibly playing kids in cup matches. I think one of the things MP was criticised most for, when we still liked him, was playing a weaker team in the cup matches. This still seems to divide people. I'm pretty sure we'd all be horrified if Gape started in place of Wanyama on a Saturday afternoon against Spurs or United, barring a string of injuries. Cups or when defending a strong lead are probably the most likely times we're going to see kids start, but I think RK is keen to show he's taking the cup seriously, so there won't be too many experiments there.

Wow, I was sure Klitschko was going to sneak that one. Fury wasn't great, but was just far more busy for the whole fight. Almost looked like something was wrong with WK, he hardly threw a punch, especially not a right until the fight was nearly over. Really didn't rate Fury, but at least he looked like he wanted it, very average boxer though, shows how rubbish this division is now.

I think it's more to do with role than being left sided. Full backs come through younger, because they don't need so much physicality. A centre back or a centre forward need to make a big physical change, because they won't be battling big teenagers any more, they'll be battling fully grown men, so they come through later. Players who rely on speed, skill and delivering the ball are generally beginning to make their mark in their early twenties, but I have no idea which category Gape fits into.

Is this lad still seen as promising or a realistic one for the future? He seems to have been around for ages, first being in the squad about three years ago, but has only played about one minute in the first team so far and that was a year ago. He's older than Harry Reed, who many seem to think is already drifting away from contention. He never seems to get a mention these days as one who may come through soon. I can understand central defenders, like Stephens and Turnbull, needing longer to grow into their role at the top level, the same with bigger strikers like Gallagher, who need to transfer their strength at youth level to being powerful enough to battle for the ball with a fully grown defence. The ones who seem to come through youngest are full backs, but at what age do we give a central midfielder to reach a significant age? I've never seen him play, so genuinely, does any know if he's a realistic contender? Or is he likely to be one of those who never quite gets there?

You could say that it'd be nicer to have our own products sitting on the bench, getting an occasional run out than Juanmi, Caulker and Martina, but I assume these were all brought in as realistic challengers for the first team and they just haven't worked out so far. In Koeman's defence, I think he would be playing Shaw, Chambers, Lallana etc if they were available to him and he does use JWP and has used Targett. We'd all be surprised if Reed were getting picked ahead of Clasie or Wanyama and would you really drop VvD or Fonte for one of our young defenders? When another player is ready, they'll come through. We've just sold the best of the recent crop.

Wow, that's a little bit over the top, don't you think? All I can see on this thread are a few people responding to whether or not they think it's the best course of action. The biggest reaction I can see is somebody writing an email. I can't find a single post that reflects being offended, upset or outraged. Perhaps you're reading them all in an outraged voice. Calm down and read them back in a more casual way for a more realistic interpretation.