shurlock

Another clean sheet on Saturday - conceded only 2 goals in the last 5 games and now have one of the better defensive records in the league. With all eulogies about our attacking play, these improvements have been overshadowed. In fact, in recent away games, our defense has IMO looked stronger than our attack. Does it mean our problems have been cured? What accounts for the improvement -the addition of Jos? a flattering home record where attack is the best form of defense? a tighter midfield -partly a result of Lallana's injury? anything else? Where are we still weak? against pace? Do we still lack of cover?

Read the thread and don't think its particularly bitter - much less so than WHU, Brum or Leeds.

IMO, last season at Leyton Orient and Butterfield's performance against Cox tipped the balance permanently towards Richardson. It was a canter for Butterfield today, so I don't know we really learned. Can deffo do a job but he's not first choice and I expect NA's looking to strengthen the position like with LB.

Lambert narrowly for me - Chaplow was excellent; but Lambert was indispensable with his physical presence, allowing the likes of Chaplow to play/pick up the ball in dangerous areas. Shackle Lambert like Reading did and the whole team suffers.

Join the queue behind all the others who were calling for something similar well before you.

Frazier everytime for me, though Butterfield is not too shabby a player either. Frazier gives you genuine energy and width and will get to the byline, ensuring his crosses are more reliable. Butterfield's crosses today were absolute peaches but he delivers them from deep. Its much harder to be dangerous from those kind of areas as Palace showed (though granted he didn't have much to aim for). I also feel more comfortable with Frazier when we're up against genuine wide men.

Stick them near the away fans - blocks 1-3 should be able to hold a couple- break their spirits. No different from watching a game with restricted viewing - with some additional heavy breathing thrown in.

Reading it on the train earlier, so don't have the page number but its in a box below a photo of an Ipswich player. http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/3901043/Sorry-Lawrie.html

no outright apology to cortese; just an admission that they put words in his mouth.

Statement in today's sun apologising to lawrie after last month's interview with cortese in which he discussed his efforts to weed out a culture of freebies at the club. Lawrie upset that the sun implied he was one of the hangers on after complimentary tickets. Lawrie has no issue with the club. Not the first time the sun has got it wrong or the first time people have bundled on the bandwagon yet the heat the story generated last month suggests people treat this stuff like the oracle. Not surprised cortese stays out and can't be ar$ed to put the record straight.

Best chant this season has to be watford home, their lot singing 'where were you when you were sh*t'. Priceless. Pork= only james corden -and he would have to be on loads of coke- would think that's having a laugh.

Did Hartlepool for something similar, though with B&B, it added up. Partly its the habit of traveling in Europe and the US where fares are really cheap and realising that we're being taken for a ride over here (excuse the pun). £25 for a L1 game is on the dear side; but we're only talking a few quid over what many tickets cost which is a drip in the ocean when you tally up what an average away day costs.

Don't disagree about the premiership - those prices take the pi $$. But that's another galaxy - the problem hasn't spread to the championship yet and Leeds are largely the exception. I do my homework for away games or let London Saints do it for me (though I've never taken a megatrain) - yet the fares are still a racket. Its only because trains are outside the football world and that people in theory have other options, however remote they are in reality- that trains get an easier time.

While you can shop around, still think train fares -not ticket prices- are the real elephant in the room.

Agree- I don't think playing Guly on the right is a massive problem at home, especially as he already gets license to cut inside (he's not a winger). Teams don't come to St.Marys looking to push up, so while pace is important, its possibly not as important as in away games. For me, the issue is not where Guly plays but whether you gamble with SDR or stick with DC. At home, its a close one; away, SDR possibly has more to offer in absence of pace elsewhere in the side.

It would; yet, its pretty alien to many British managers. A recent bit of work looked at the hotel industry in the UK and Germany -managers in both countries faced similar challenges and market conditions and by extension had the same options available to them; yet whereas managers in German hotels did what they could to delegate power and design even modest jobs so that they drew on the ideas and skills of the workforce; managers in UK hotels tried to make the jobs as simple and commoditised as possible, reducing the discretion of the workforce at every step. Don't need to tell you which performed better. I don't think the problem is necessarily cultural - rather management quality in this country is very patchy. International evidence (US, Germany, France etc) suggests that the UK has some of the best managers and management practises but also some of the very worst.

Another idea is that any exec -say with £X of share options needs to put a similar amount in a pot as skin in the game. If he does well against proper, stretching targets, he gets all the money back; he doesn't he doesn't get his options/bonus and loses the money he initially put up. This ensures a symmetry between performing well and performing poorly. It can't be right that in a bad year, the only sanction the exec suffers is that he doesn't enjoy his bonus or options while still taking home a nice fat juicy wad of base pay. That's similar to the way partnerships used to be run before they were turned into massive bureaucracies.

Guly likes playing in the hole and its his natural position; but alongside Lambert, I dont think he's genuinely been given the chance.

Wage policy can take different forms - some interventionist and some light-touch, some direct and some indirect, some mandatory and some voluntary. There's a big difference between, for instance, setting a blanket salary cap across the economy and incentivising the use of more long-term, sophisticated options packages or toughening up say-on-pay rules or something else.

Problem is that whenever Guly has played with Lambert, he goes further forward and is expected to trouble defenses with his pace or movement. There is only one place for someone in the hole making things tick and that goes to Lambert. Not saying Guly and Lambert can't play together as last season's stats showed but they are quite similar and with Guly, its again a case of fitting a square peg into a round hole.

There is and they matter at some times more than others. But the evidence is weak as to whether they add the value they claim. Indeed, many companies themselves admit that there is a problem; just that they are powerless to do anything about it as the problem is structural. Some are trapped in an arms race where if they don't follow what others are paying, they fear executives will pick up sticks and go elsewhere. Others fear that if they are not paying top dollar, they are signalling to the market and investors that they have someone sh*t in charge which true or not can have all kinds of adverse consequences.

That's the worst offender, especially when its sung only after 2 mins into game on a sunny saturday afternoon at a ground that's within virtual spitting distance.

Frankly I have more sympathy for a footballer than an executive - at least, footballers have talent that is unique. The idea that most executives are one-of-a-kind and irreplaceable is boll*cks. Most are corporate bureaucrats overseeing successful brands or franchises that existed well-before they kicked, screamed and climbed up the greasy pole or riding the luck of the stock markets or world demand (think oil companies), not genuine risk-taking entrepreneurs or steve jobs-type figures.

Mediocrity is relative. Do we have any vaguely witty or ironic chants (aside from maybe Barney's)? Odd to think that for a such a settled, promotion-winning, recording-breaking side, we're so short of new chants. Guess we just have to wait till united are next in town for inspiration.

They opened blocks 1-3 - always a good sign?