Lallana's Left Peg

Sam McQueen. He's a winger.

Training Ground pics show McQueen, Gallagher, and Turnbull training with the first team for this one.

It doesn't feel like shocking news given his reputation, but what is more disappointing is that my initial reaction when I heard it involved Fonte is that I thought 'I hope Fonte is ok to play' and that is the crux of the issue - Fonte is far more important to us right now and if anyone had said that back in the summer they'd have likely been ridiculed. But the truth is that Osvaldo has not made the impact we'd hoped and that is the most disappointing thing.

Many of our Development squad are nearly ready for more first team action, I'd personally be delighted to see some of them given a chance in this game.

Oh yeah - didn't notice there was a difference in who was responding. Don't know who SL is to be fair. Should probably edit the thread title to say 'Someone at Bristol City'

I don't think it would garner much interest if he bemoaned it. But to accuse us of cheating is strong via an official channel. If we aren't breaking any rules then surely we can't be cheating and his accusations are unfounded?

Bristol City are doing a twitter Q&A this evening with Steve Cotterill, their Manager. This exchanged occurred: If I recall correctly the Premier League gave us special dispensation to set-up an Academy in Bath after we said the old rules around having to live within 1.5hrs of the ground disadvantaged us due to half our catchment area being the English Channel. I think we got lucky in that respect. However, regardless of the merit of the discussion as to whether it should still exist should an official clubs twitter account be used as a vehicle to accuse us of cheating?

In the last minute of added time Saints won a corner. They decided to try and run the clock down and took it short to Stephens. He ran the ball into the corner and was doing well shielding it before a Bolton player had enough and went right through the back of him - a foul born out of frustration but a foul nonetheless. Stephens got up and fronted up to the player and then other players got involved. A Bolton player was running quite fast to get involved and Moore didn't like that so just as the Bolton player got there he shoved him quite hard and nearly launched him into the hoardings That blew it up some more but eventually it cooled down however the verbals kept going. Mostly handshakes all round at the final whistle but there were still a few confrontations going.

The Guardian have now picked up on this: http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/jan/21/southampton-ice-hockey-ralph-krueger-motivation?CMP=twt_gu

I'd agree with that assessment. It was a very comfortable night bar having to weather the 15min storm after the break as Bolton clearly got a bollocking at half time. We should have been out of sight at the break though. I was sat opposite the dugouts in the mini-stand amongst the scouts and local 'types'. I was heading towards the exit during added time and I was right in the corner when the big fight broke out

His play in the first half was very good considering he is just getting back into things. Can't work out if he is quick or moves fast because of a large stride but defenders find it very hard to get the ball off him.

I was at the game tonight. After Martin scored he ran over to celebrate with someone on the bench. I think it was Martin Hunter but I am not 100% sure.

This guy? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Krueger

Aha - so that is important then. So if we sold someone for £30m and didn't buy a replacement then the accounts could show a profit of £30m+ for that year. If we then spent some money the next year and made a loss of £15m for the period, we'd still be £15m in the black as far as FFP is concerned (which even allows for losses anyway I think). I was just trying to see if there was a spending strategy to be best adhered to if you sold someone for a lot of money but it seems like there is no rush to spend so that is good.

Thanks. So basically, if you get £30m for a player then FFP practices make it highly advisable to spend it all in that accounting period (if indeed you want to)?

I've no doubt it was painful but if what Turkish said is true and he is back in a week (or even two) then he'll get an absolute roasting in training over that

I'm aware of the purpose of FFP and general principles, but not the finer details. Can anyone help me with this scenario: You have a player earning £20k a week who was brought up through the Youth System. In the summer you sell him for £30m. You receive yearly instalments of £7.5m over 4 years. You have saved £1m a year in wages which can be used pay other / new players (as long as qualified FFP income remains the same and the wage budget doesn't decrease). However, you now have £30m to play with. Can you spend that on players and wages because the transfer fee qualifies as FFP eligible income or are the wages you can pay above any transfer fee dependent on other income on the commercial side growing as that is what really enables wages to be increased according to FFP? I've probably not explained that too well but hopefully someone will understand where I am coming from. I am just trying to understand whether or not a large transfer fee can be spent on new players wages or whether it doesn't count as proper income in terms of FFP. This may be one of the most boring threads on here ever as well

If my mate went down with an ankle sprain and got carried off on a stretcher with oxygen he'd get an absolute hammering in training and I hope Lovren does too However, fantastic news for both of them as it could have been far far worse.

Maybe you could give this away - are all three English? I'm specifically thinking in terms of the man / woman involved at the Winter Olympics - and whether or not he / she could be Swiss...

John Williams and Les Reed innit

In football when have clubs ever come out and said 'we've got loads of money to spend on players so anyone we speak to just remember we're loaded ok lol'? Why would any club show their hand? For what it is worth I think the club won't be spending ****loads but will still spend to keep on trying to improve the squad as it naturally evolves after the last 5 years and there is still plenty of growth to come from one of the youngest squads in the league.

Did they say they wouldn't?

I reckon it's the one we've been on where we've gone from bottom in League 1 to 9th in the Premier League in 5 years whilst building a great first team made up of astute signings and exciting youth team products. But I could be wrong.

Chambers has been great this season. I think he'll mature into a great player and his frame is going to afford him the capability of playing in many different positions if we need him to.

The Express suggest he left Man City due to the health of his Wife.