shurlock

I envisage a lovely, lovely geezer from bandit country.

That's a result - you must be glad you didn't buy into all the spin.

Not necessarily - I know lots of lads with STHs who are bang up for it but didnt apply because they were led to think they would not be successful with only one or two away games to their name.

I wonder how many STHs applied with only one or two away games? Anyone on here chance it? Or did you not bother assuming you had no chance of being successful?

The OS says that nobody has got confirmation yet - the club will be writing shortly. Anyone who claims otherwise is bullsh*tting.

Holmes was another.

Its certainly making Blur a sh*t load.

Not a patch on der sturmer.

Please dont spread the cancer of that other thread on here - it really is a parallel universe inhabited by utter nutjobs.

As you say, none of Morgan, Hammond and Cork can take starting for granted now - something which doesn't apply to Lambert; but this is a recent change. Prior to that Morgan would come on with 30 or so mins and either freshen things up or give us better ball retention - no reason why LJ can't be used in this way. At any rate, while Guly and DC have played very well up top, I still think there's a striking berth up for grabs, especially as there are other ways of incorporating the likes of Guly. Can't underestimate how much of our play depends on the diagonal ball from the fullbacks -and anyone who can come on for Lambert in the closing stages or provide another target if he's being covered adds value in my book. Lambert would arguably welcome LJ, not least because he would quite enjoy picking up/playing off somebody else's knock-downs where he can use his guile on the ball and get into shooting positions rather than always being the selfless target man.

No reason he cant be used in the same way Morgan is (NA isn't afraid to make subs around the hour mark); and moving Guly wide doesn't mean he goes from hero to zero (our 'wide' men play quite tucked in and have opportunities to influence games from a central position).

We were good first half at Ipswich, though I thought they could have easily got a few and their CBs arguably made us look good (just look at how they were then battered by P'boro). Leicester was excellent insofar as we created so many chances against a team happy to shut up shop and you could sense the nervousness and panic in the home crowd. IMO, though, Barnsley was a total performance - clean sheet and two excellent halves. Agreed the oppo took the shine off things but they've subsequently become difficult to beat on their own patch. In terms of sheer possession and self-belief, Derby was also up there; and for professionalism and grit, West Ham was the most satisfying.

Juke's scored - header

A bunch of fence rattlers with an IKEA superstore

41,100

Absolutely, he's unplayable and it works a treat. For all the boll*cks about us playing like Barcelona, that diagonal ball which is direct but not a hoof is critical to the way we set up. If someone like LJ could offer -either alone or in combination with Lambert (perhaps from the other wing), it would be money well spent. You're right about midfielders - think Lallana probably has to take more responsibility than Chaplow as Lambert tends to pull off more to his side.

Logically of course that can't happen - you pay up front for your season ticket, so that's 23 games straight away against your name - regardless whether you go. If you just do away games, you'll only as good as the number of games that have been played and unless its the very end of the season, that will always be less than 23. Take the Skates, we're only talking 10 or so away games.

Not a bad idea but it would still leave many dissatisfied - it still requires the club to assign an arbitrary number of points to being a season ticket holder relative to away games and that number could be as high as it wanted. Face it, its in their interest to shift season tickets. I wouldn't be surprised if systems currently run by other clubs stack the scales in a similar way.

If shareholders can't be ar $ed to be vigilant, shouldn't expect too much from joe public.

Am sometimes guilty of this for midweekers - getting the 10pm back to London is a lung-buster at the best of times - even worse when there's a stack of injury time and/or you're in the itchen and they've closed off the northam car park.

Only to an extent. People underestimate our reliance on and amount of joy we get from the direct, diagonal ball to Lambert on the wing or at the far post. Its been especially useful away from home when we've been crowded out in midfield. While I have a few doubts over LJ's technique, he would fit this style of play perfectly; indeed, there's a good case for playing two big men together. If there's one problem with the direct, diagonal ball, its that it sometimes takes strikers out of dangerous positions i.e. in the middle to get on the end of crosses.

Adomah looks a real handful - if we can handle their pace and movement up top, we should be OK.

Game of fine margins. Didnt think we were that good first half -and while we brightened towards the end, thought we allowed Brighton to call the tune for large parts (or perhaps we were forced to play their tune??). Disagree that they came to kill the game as in previous encounters and thought that, by their standards, they were quite adventurous, something which we failed to capitalise on. We were too ponderous in the middle -is Deano fading a bit after his great run towards the end of last season and the start of this one? Felt that Morgan-type figure would have exploited the space with quicker, first-time passing and taken advantage of the willing runs of Richardson. Wouldn't be surprised if he starts at Brizzle. Nor do the McCann rumours totally surprise me. Second half changed as Lallana was pushed further inside to provide that distribution to the flanks - and it was no surprise that the goal came from Richardson. After that, I thought we were comfortable -arguably the sending off, rather than the first pen really killed things; but you reap what you sow and Brighton always seem to skirt a fine lie between cynicism and gamesmanship and totally losing their heads. We had plenty of chances (Lambert, Guly etc) and several decent penalty shouts (Lambert's obstruction etc). After the P'boro performance, it was good to see us maintain a high level of intensity and go for juggular after going a man up. Lambert and Richardson had excellent games - not having to square up against a winger clearly helped Richardson while Noone who was on the other side was their only real threat. Paynter was dogsh*t leaving CMS with even more work. One of my favourite moments was seeing our defense run him ragged with the ole, possession football. So used to putting the fear into ungainly CBs etc, he didn't even get close. Finally, Lallana had another quiet game - needless to say, hope he recovers his earlier season form soon.

Picked tickets up after the game tonight - wasn't a long queue and was done in 5mins.

All minority groups have celebrations/reminders of how far they have come -and lets not forget its only in recent times that black players broke into the game against a number of long-standing stereotypes/obstacles. Surely you can understand why such a thing wouldn't apply to white players. Over time, you would expect the importance of these celebrations to fade -its hard to think of many activities as genuinely meritocratic as football. It wouldn't be surprising if most black footballers themselves found them embarrassing and patronising. Now you've made it, you want to be seen as good player. Full stop. IMO that these awards persist says more about the insecurity of the black community and lack of role models in other walks of life than some fundamental act of hypocrisy by a few old-pros or some die-hard urge to be exclusive. Storm in a tea-cup stuff really.