tajjuk

Did you look at the table in the OP? Spurs 16th, Everton 17th, West Brom 15th, Swansea 20th. They are all doing signifigantly better than Stoke, spending a lot less Swansea have been in the league elss time than Stoke as well. Everton's wage is about £55 million IIRC, Spurs spend about £70 million on wages IIRC, they have steadily been building for years and are competing with money bags Chelsea who have a net spend of £80 million this year and probably twice the wage bill. Everton are competing for a Champions league place and they don't have the finances to match us. No one said we are going to challenge for the title like City but you can challenge for the top 6 or 7 without spending £100 million every season.

Yet again? Two sucessive promotions says otherwise. Staying up, usually the prime objective of a newly promoted club. One that has been in the premier league for 4 years should be aiming higher, one spending over £100 million should be doing better. Do you actually ever have a point? Because you never seem to make one, no wonder your initials are BS.

Is that the only objective for teams these days? They stayed in the premier league at first attempt rather easily and didn't spend a fortune to do it. £100 million and 4 years later they have gone backwards, are still playing sh*t football and don't exactly have a youthful team. Keep it up and they will be moving towards relegation next season. The 'just stay up' objective catches up with teams, like Charlton for example. Their team pretty much got to 40 points each year and stopped playing.

Shows how cr*p a job Pulis is doing at Stoke IMO. Their net spend over their 4 premiership years is over £100 million now, another bad result this weekend and they could drop to 14th. Agree as well that wages play a massive factor. We're only slightly behind QPR on net spend but their wage bill was £58 million for 11/12, it's likely to be as high as £80 million now if not more. Since promotion they will be closing in on £200 million on transfers and wages in 2 years.

They look awesome, they have also clearly been changed since they were first circulated so they are obviosuly being taken seriously. However they are just plans, impressive ones, but still just plans, nothing more. it's good to see the club is thinking big and has ambition. It's amazing they have created 6 pages of 'debate'. Particularly as those pictures mention no stadium seating capacity, yet that seems to be all that has been debated here. They mainly seem to now focus on re-generation of the area surrounding the stadium. Are so many people relectant and so pessimistic that they couldn't see that the area could be re-devloped and that t would benefit the club, the city council and those living in the area?

I think Cortese is far from perfect, but I also think it's funny that people have picked up on this an instantly assumed it's another example of the evil that is Cortese, when in fact its fairly standard for these tribunals to happen. For all we know it's Nigel Adkin's demands that have caused this, we don't know the facts, but then those don't get in the way of some on here.

Loads of managers go to this tribunal. This isn't really news, I'm sure a load of people with anti-cortese agendas will use this as a stick to beat him with but it's a fairly common situation.

Your mate is telling porkies. We were just out of it under Adkins and we are just out of it under Pochettino. Funny that the same bunch of players are performing about the same. Agree on the Gazza point. We'd be several points better of had he been around.

I would imagine that's the idea. The club doesn't own most of that land so it must be banking on the council wanting to revamp the area. Would probably rely on some compulsory purchase orders as well. Regenerates the area (which it needs), generates new revenue for both the council and club, new jobs. Plus just like Pompey a council supporting the local football club wins votes. Also clearly this has been worked on since the start of the season so some people are taking this seriously. The main issue for me though is access.

Bale is flavour of the month no doubt but this really is his first 'top' season, Wilshere has been injured for a long while, Hazard and Sissoko fairly new to the league. All better mind but as someone above said, lower league managers have probably seen a lot of Lallana in the flesh.

Don't really rate Puncheon this season, think he has flattered to deceive, although he's contributed some important goals there is a reason he's been on the bench recently. Fonte has improved after being woeful at the start but Yoshida has been our most consistent centre back. Can't really argue with Morgan and Lambert. Cork is up there but Boruc, Yoshida and Clyne have played better than Fonte and Puncheon for me. As many other have said if we'd stuck with Boruc instead of dropping him we'd be a good 6 points plus better off now and pretty much safe. I said ages ago that if we got him in the team we'd have a keeper earning us points, not costing us points and he has done that. He may have only played 12 games but he's been very important in the last 8 or 9. All those players I've mentioned have improved on their championship counterparts. Boruc is better than Davis. Yoshida is better than Hooiveld Clyne is better than Richardson Jay Rod is better than Sharp Gaston is better than Guly. They have all improved the team and raised the standard of the squad. Surely that's an instant impact? Why would you buy players to replace your better players? Our better players in the championship were Lallana, Lambert, Morgan, Cork, Fonte, you replace your weak links first, othwerwise we would end up with the likes of Lallana and Lambert on the bench as their 'better' replacements were let down by Richardson, Hooiveld and co. Would our squad be worse or better wihout those players we have brought in? Edit: I forgot Shaw, although in recent weeks I think he was dropped he's still amongst our top performers. Stand out top 2 is Morgan and Lambert, the next 3 for me are from Yoshida, Clyne, Boruc, Shaw and Cork.

Yes. Clyne, Boruc and Yoshida could all arguably be in our top 5 players this season. Ramirez is inconsistent but he's played a big role in the points we have got. In recent weeks so has Rodriguez. Has Johnson been Sunderland's best player, has Jarvis been West Ham's? Have any of the Reading signings this season been better than their championship squad? Most new signings don't instantly become key players or top performers at their teams straight away.

Lol, you mean facts you don't agree with, so you dismiss them. Signings that 'hit the ground running', such as who exactly? several other clubs have bought uninspiring signings with the 'premiership experience' you and several others banged on about all season, that have been at best average, Andy Carroll, Matt Jarvis, Andy Johnson, Guthrie spring to mind (oh and the whole QPR quad), whilst other clubs have bought unproven premiership players from foreign climbs that have been revelations, the likes of Michu, De Guzman, Sissoko, Benteke for example. Quite simply pretty much every transfer signing is a gamble, good players for one team don't always become good players for others. Out of the 9 signings we made in the summer Clyne, Boruc, Yoshida, Jay Rod, Davis and even Gaston have played signifigant roles throughout the season, none could be deemed a failure. Two have oddly been unused, Mayuka particularly is odd but not all signings are for the here an now. Before the season started we would have settled for staying up. Currently we are 16th, 4 points clear of the drop with a superior goal difference to our rivals with 9 games to go. I reckon 90% of fans here would have taken that if given to them at the start of the season. Maybe we should have been sh*t, getting rollled over every week, that would make sense of some of the comments on here. To be out of the relegation zone, with 9 games to go and a decent fixture run in, with the team probably deserving more points for their performances is a good thing. Not every performance has been great, but their have been a lot more good performances than bad. How they how people can call the management 'amateurish' or the transfer signings 'inpet' is beyond me. It's funny how all thse other good teams wth better form, players, management etc. have sat below us all season.

They have 9 games left, 4 of which are against Man Utd, Arsenal, Liverpool and Man City. They need 14 points to get to 37, which would possibly enough to stay up. Essentially barring them beating one of those big four they have 5 games to get 14 points, so essentially all 5 of those games are now 'must win'. They have us at home, qpr at home, norwich away, fulham away and west ham away. Certainly they would have a shout of winning those games but avoiding defeat in all of them and winning at least 3? Tough ask for whoever the manager with their squad. Getting beaten at home by two relegation rivals is what has cost him his job because a while back everyone was looking at their fixtures and they had 4 games, all at home against relegation rivals. Very good chances to pick up the wins to keep them up. However they have now wasted two of those.

Where's the gas works gone?

After watching the pool against Spurs on Saturday I think we have a decent chance. Spurs gifted them the game with two howlers (definite penalty btw, not that Suarez needs an excuse to go down), but before that Spurs were looking comfortable and should have been more ahead. They do generally beat the lower half teams and by a lot, they have beaten QPR, Sunderland, Fulham, Norwich, Wigan, Swansea by at least 3-0, but then again lost to Stoke, Villa and West Brom (and Oldham) so they are inconsistent. They look suspect at the back to crosses and their fullbacks leave the back four exposed. Need Lambert dropping onto Johnson, probably puncheon whipping in crosses from the right with his left, like Lambert's goal against Utd at home. Also Cork and Morgan need to get tight on Garrard and snuff him out, he doesn't have the mobility and power any more so if you keep tight on him you can keep him shackled. Keep Gerrard quiet and keep enrique busy, that will cut the supply to Suarez and get him coming deeper away from our goal. His movement in and around the box is what will kill us. keep him away form the box and he'll become far less effective. Coutinho also looked good against Spurs with the link up play but he's also very leightwieght, so we need to get physical on him. Walker bullied him out of the game (at times unfairly) Our pressing game should work well against Liverpool, they will try to play out and they will attack us, if we can get them on the back foot early there are mistakes in that defence, especially if Reina doesn't recover, Brad Jones looked a bag of nerves on Sunday.

Sssh, facts get in the way of good bedwetting thread.

Our wage bill is £28 million, QPR's for this season will be close to £80 million. 6th highest in the league. Add in their £45 million transfer spend they will have spent over £125 million to be bottom of the league.

Just a thought, could Sunderland be finding the bad form at the wrong time?. Only got 30 points, need a win a against Norwich next week as they have Man Utd, Chelsea and the derby at Newcastle to follow. 2 draws and 4 defeats from the last six and hardly a tough run of fixtures, QPR, Fulham, West Brom, Arsenal, Reading, Swansea.

They're drawing now. Think it's a bit like our game the weather is crap.

I think he's been our most consistent centre back this season, he reads the game excellently and like Morgan generally intercepts the ball before anything develops. He's not a right back though.

Wigan were superb against Everton yesterday, but like City against us Everton looked like they thought they could just turn up. I doubt City will be as complacent again but you never know. Wigan seem to range from Woeful to Wonderful. it will be interesting to see whether the FA cup is an inspiration or a distraction to them. Think Reading are down, they are defending poorly and have some very tough games. QPR have an easier run in but I don't think they can score enough. Villa are still all over the place but have the goals. We need a point a game I reckon, we have 5 home games, 3 are winnable especially West Ham and Stoke who are two of the worst away teams around. We can beat West Brom at home as well, also Sunderland and Reading are beatable away. Our hardest game is Spurs away, if we can bring out the Man City game levels we can cause problems against Chelsea and Liverpool. QPR, Reading and Wigan for me.

Liverpool will play out from the back so our pressing game could work if the team are on it. I fancy getting something from either this or the Chelsea game. Hopefully Suarez will get sent off today or injured, Liverpool are about half the team without him.

Very negative on here. Have to say as someone who has recently played on a pitch like that with the sludgy snow, it's very difficult to play any decent football, literally just standing up becomes difficult, judging speed of passes is very tough, turning and accelerating is difficult etc, first touch becomes difficult. Considering that I thought the team did very well, we completely nullified Norwich and dominated the game playing the better football and creating more chances. Positives: - Defended well - Better away performance from Gaston. - Attacking play was decent in the conditions - Team worked and battled hard, a lot better than last week. - Boruc Negatives - Finishing, several rebounds particularly ones that Lallana and Lambert had should at least have hit the target. We should have won the game. - Players surrounding the referee, yes the decision was very poor but no excuses for that. Think we are going to have to beat one of Liverpool and Chelsea at home, it's probably going to go down to the last day but we essentially need s point a game I reckon.

The loan of £3.8 million for the training ground is listed in the 2011-12 financial figures. The BVI loan appeared this season didn't it?, so wouldn't show up in those financial figures?