alpine_saint

Cook on a duck. Marvellous.

Of all the players I saw during the Austrian games, three gave me cause for worry. Fonte, because I really dont think he is up to this level; Jos defended better (but his distribution is truly awful). The second was Mayuka; I really dont see what value he adds to the team performance. And finally Lallana, because he really runs around achieving nothing in the most disturbing Brett Ormerod parody we have seen in many-a-year..

What a silly answer. From what I've seen the youngsters have looked good pre-season.

How so ? It only takes a couple of the England batsmen to get a mad glint in their eye and a result is on the cards.

The answer to that question is painfully obvious. If we cannot get the arrogant "only want to win things" Carlos Kickaballs to join us, we have to hope that Isgrove, Stephens, Chambers, JWP, Turnbull et. al step up to the plate and take their opportunities.....

We've had one of our better pre-seasons this summer, but I am inclined to agree with you.

Do you think Cortese sees it like this ? Remember hes spent over 20m quid this summer.

Play starting in 10mins. Will England slow it down, hoping with help from the weather to count the clock down, or will they go for this ? 332 is not over-the-hill, its a good ODI innings.

Was it a relegation battle, or was it mid-table treading of water coupled to a really pants start ? The likes og NickG keep banging on about our form over the last 2/3 of the season being something like 8th.

How long are you content to tread water in the middle of the table before trying to put a Europe-qualifying campaign together ?

I also think Isgrove could step up, but am worried that if he gets smacked up by the wrong big hairy-arsed central defender, he might take a massive step backwards in the confidence department. He is not a season-long solution at this time, I think. Really frustrating that we seem to struggle to capture our target players.

Jesus. I wonder if the release of this report precipitated the handover of Astute and Ambush, and I wonder how ready they REALLY are... Suppose we will find out by seeing how long it takes to decommission Tireless. The RN is a f**king shambles. We should be operating a frigate and at least a flight of Typhoons out of Gibraltar at the moment, yet we are doing nothing.

Seesm highly unlikely when we are already short in this department.

Despite an impressive pre-season I have to say no, sadly not. We are still a couple of pieces of the jigsaw short; there is not enough quality up-front and in central defence. I dont expect us really to encounter relegation issues though.

I take it there is now a consensus that we must break the bank for a striker of merit ?

Even though the rules changed about the shirt numbers (1 to 11 must start, no squad number allocation) a long time ago, it seems to me being in the first 11 still has a psychological impact. My son has just been given 5 by his U-14 team, and 7 by his U16 team, and appears to be dead chuffed about it.

I am under no illusions. If it werent for Rickie, we wouldnt be about to embark on our second season back in the big time. I saw how it was his play that changed the complexion of that Besiktas game in the blink of an eye. People can mewl and puke about his age and his fitness, but he is a critcal member of the team still.

We have made 2 good additions, imo. Is it enough ? I fear not. I feel we are 3-4 players short of where I would like us to be. 1 or 2 of them are, imo, critical. We should be making more of that (relatively) easy starting fixture list.

Already 24 in that list. Who doesnt count towards the 25 ??

so, due to FIFA rules we will get 5%. Is that 5% of the cash exchange, or do we get 5% of the value of Morata (if he is part of the deal) as well ?

From what I saw in Villach last week, this is well deserved.

26m ?!?!. Arent there any Little Latvians around nowadays that can do a job at half the price ?

So, finally got to see the Mossie programme last night (thanks Dad). An enjoyable hours viewing, if a bit gushing. Presenters excitement (at one point I thought he was going to faint) when he went up got to me too, shed a couple of tears myself. Didnt know footage of the planes going over during Operation Jericho existed. We really do need one of these planes flying on the UK/Europe air show circuit.

So, seeing as Levy is now holding out for 125m cash for Bale, we've lost out to the tune of over 30m, with the only compensation being that we had Forecast playing billy-big-balls round the city's bars and flesh-pots for 4-odd years. Superb.

This. Lets not forget the RN scored a few blows as well. Apparently Mountbatten went to Australia and put a model of one TSR2 on the table at their equivalent of the MoD, then put 10 models of Buccaneers. The loss of Aussie interest (again to the F111 although they got theirs) was a real nail in the coffin of the TSR2. I am still angry at Jock Stirrup and the role he played in the death of the Harrier and the scrapping of Ark Royal. They would have done the job off Libya at a fraction of the cost of the Typhoons.