shurlock

Listening to the dippers sing about poetry in motion reminds me just how cringeworthy the Morgan song is.

Not sure I totally agree. I know lots of Americans and even with the NFL, it's not uncommon to swap allegiances if one team is doing badly and another is doing well. It isn't as in-the-blood as domestic football is to English fans. If so, one can only imagine what their relationship is to the premiership and foreign sport. Certainly we have attractive points of differentiation -our emphasis on bringing through young English players (though I wouldn't push this too far as US fans are unlikely to care much about the state of the national game). But even if this is a necessary condition, it's not a sufficient one without success and the investment it requires (there simply aren't the same financial checks-and-balances to level the playing field and allow a Green Bay Packers of the prem to emerge - the closest example is probably Forest but that was three decades ago). You admit as much regards the reasons why NFL fans over here follow teams like the Patriots. And even if fans do stick with a team through thick and thin once chosen (there are many UK fans who like the Dolphins because they were good when C4 first started showing the NFL), an initial track record of success is necessary (mind you, Marino's Dolphins never won a SB). Agree that Asian fans are far more fickle, though they also tend to follow players rather than teams. Which is to say its less costly to invest in marketable individual players (a la Yoshida) than creating winning teams.

And it's true to an extent with the NFL. Green Bay happen to play good football (if ballet and high-powered passing -as opposed to smash mouth football- are your kind of thing) and play on their Wisconsin folksiness; but above all, they have been highly successful in recent years. Success means everything; yet it costs more to achieve in the prem than perhaps any other professional sport (save perhaps baseball). Of course, wouldn't be surprised if UK fans of the NFL pick teams on a similar unless they have some sort of personal connection to a team or city.

The mongboard great and good have been pouring scorn for years on the idea (and MLG) that we could fill the ground or attract real support from anyone from outside a slither of Hampshire. The surrounding catchment area -dare I say it, Western England- was akin to going into outer space (without oxygen). Now we have grand designs on the international market and the very same great and good are proclaiming Ralphy's vision as credible Fear not the captain of our own 21st century Mayflower is a member of the WEF.

The timing of Lambert's substitution was interesting. Obviously Poch was planning to bring him on - he didn't take part in the half-time warm-up with the subs till the very end. But Poch was visibly angry after Jrod failed to win and bring down an aerial ball for which he was favourite. Lambert was immediately signalled over and the rest is history. If we do bring a player in, can see it'll be a player with good hold-up skills and slightly more mobility.

Doesn't he always slap himself in the face?

Good to see Bunsen Honeydew aka Felix Magath get his first win - want more teams dragged into the dogfight.

Still smarting from the Norwich discussion pal? Your posterboys did you endlessly proud.

Fried - please never leave this place. Cleary its a contextualisation but it's a poor one because small teams face completely different odds of success without some degree of parity. Meanwhile continue to blabber on about credible visions when all we've heard from Krueger are slightly more polished Adkinisms and management 101 shlock. The only thing that's needed to complete your credulity is for Krueger to say how we could become the next Stoke... Keep putting the mong in the mongboard.

And the foam cheesehead hats.

That's why nobody mentioned it. Blinded by its obviousness, huh, sunshine? The reason why people like the packers is that they're both a local team and extremely successful. It's easy to be the skates or the cherries and c**p. Let's see how Krueger squares things within the constraints of the prem before trumpeting b**ll**** about credible and aspirational visions

Which is impossible in the NFL. The paradox is that winning a Super Bowl makes is the best way to make youreslf weaker as teams are rarely able to keep all their championships together while complying with the salary cap. Good to see this flying above the heads of the usual suspects. Krueger's comments would have been far more credible if he had picked an example from the MLB.

A hopelessly naive comment by Krueger, matched only by some hopelessly naive posts. We haven't got a hope in hell in recreating the packers success given how structurally different the NFL is. There every effort is made to level the playing field -from salary caps through draft orders to scheduling. It's easier for small market teams to punch above their weight. Its a million miles away fron the big-get-bigger dynamics of the premiership. People would scoff at the prospect of Suarez or Aguero playing for us; but that's what the NFL effectively grants teams like the packers. For those who don't follow the NFL, the packers have Aaron Rodgers, arguably the best QB in the game. If Krueger is simply saying he wants to return the club to the community, then fair enough. But that's not a credible vision for how he wants to make us competitive on a sustainable basis. Krueger has a lot of learning to do. One can only hope that pieties will be followed by some substance.

See my post -instead of sidestepping the argument. Conveniently you work off gross rather than net spend - either you're entirely stupid or disingenuous (both possible). That still means we've spent more than Norwich but that doesn't factor in appreciation and depreciation of players (if we sold Shaw tmrw for £30m, our spend would be more or less in line with theirs - forget the value of rest of the squad vis-a-vis theirs). Or that we are significantly outperforming them with greater potential to grow (and appreciate financially). So congrats pal- you've basically taken a success story in Norwich to undermine your own point while helping me make my mine.

Pal, you're an utter joke and seem to be going off the rails but for the record: -Norwich have done an excellent job, though there are many more clubs that have tried and failed to get back up. Norwich are the exception not the rule. Part of your cherrypicker's charter. -Norwich didnt face the same rebuild as us after being relegated to L1. -When you net out Oxo, we actually spent very little on getting back to the Prem. Yes we were lucky to have assets like Oxo though they still needed to be stewarded and sold on. You make your own luck. -Our real spending -and what sets us apart from Norwich- has come in the prem. Our champ promotion season was a textbook lesson in prudence and calculated risk.The higher you go, the harder it is eke out a marginal advantage unless you're willing to overspend like City or Chelsea. Let's not pretend that they haven't spent, something for which you already have egg on your face. The difference is that we're 13 points ahead of them (despite being a season behind), have a better squad in terms of youth and potential and have a distinct style which slso happens to be more attractive than Norwich's West Ham-lite, hand-to-mouth pragmatism. -The contention is that Cortese was not a very good businessman. Even if we had all the advantages you say, nobody else took a punt. Indeed, the club is arguably worth more than £150m quoted given how notoriously difficult it is to value youth talent and the long-term contribution of the new academy which did more than anything to eat into KL's credit card. But even assuming Cortese spent £50m and KL sold the club for £150m tomorrow, that's a three-fold increase in capital value which you'll find difficult, if not impossible to realise elsewhere without loading up on risk and still falling short.

Mistakes have been made. But if the club was sold tomorrow, it would be sold for considerably more than what it was bought for. Money has been spent on investing for the future (e.g. Staplewood), so looking at short-terms costs is equally misguided. In business terms, Cortese has overseen a significant increase in the value of the club. Don't similar principles apply in the printer and cartridge biz, T*rkish? Or maybe you're not a very good businessman.

What you mean this? Poor WUM job even by your tenuous standards, pal. If you're going to be a c**t, do it properly at least.

Dont tell me you're planning some kind of Sim City does FM release? Are you tasked with saving the club and revenue streams as the Itchen occasionally floods the adjoining Odeon and disgruntled shoppers and spectators protest over eyesores such as gasworks?

Krueger has big boots to fill...

What do they say about utter stupidity? Something about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. You've drooled and foamed all day, only to restate the same thing over and over without addressing my excruciatingly banal point that there are Hull fans who admire and envy what we've achieved and how we've done it. Talking of which I admire your befuddled determination. I even envy your unparalleled ability to take a mongboard seriously. Got to go now - wait up for me tmrw? xxx

Saw the last episode of True Detective. A strange one. Perhaps the speculation and meta-analysis ran ahead of the show's relatively conventional final arc. That I was somehow expecting a sting in the tail that never came and the bogeyman was straight out of the redneck, Texas Chainsaw Massacre playbook. Unsettling but not in keeping with the insidiousness of the rest of the series. Still there was a lot to like -from the episode's eery naturalism to the ambivalence that solving the case may have just been a temporary or even phyric victory. And of course the pacing allowed the spotlight to finish on Rust and Marty's relationship which was one of the best parts of the show.

Can I have first dibs on the Rust Cohle role? S**g Marty's wife but let someone else save his life SPOILER ALERT

Sorry pal, have had business all day, counting and reading for a living. However good it is to give something back, I dont get paid to lecture morons on mongboards. 'Ask' fans around the league whether they admire -or indeed are envious of what we've achieved. There's plenty of love-in from other clubs fans. FACT. Nowhere am I claiming that they would want to be us. One doesn't follow from the other. Last time I checked the dictionary - 'I' was a personal pronoun. Btw thanks for waiting up for me and drooling on my every word xxx

It was a reference to the sentence that immediately preceded it: "A team that includes four full English internationals" and specifically "is the absolute envy of the rest of the league" I already know you can't count with pearls of wisdom on gross and net spend. Now I know you can't read. It's all bit of a struggle for you, CB Fried. Wipe the drool off and chin up, pal.