Lighthouse

Perfect so far. Takes the pressure off us this evening somewhat. At worst we will be exactly the same as we were this morning but with probably our toughest remaining fixtures out of the way.

Thank feck. No lets hope Stoke don't p*ss off home 10 minutes early like every other team Reading have played in the last month.

Technically there has never been one there, just like the 'Luxemburg' GP. MLG hat coming off.

3 cans of Jupiler and a waffle soon cheered you up. Trying to decide what the most random moment of the weekend was. Finding that WW2 tank in La Roche or the big lorry with a picture of 2 warthogs bumming each other on the back.

We had a thunderstorm on the Friday. Hammered it down all day. Then we had a wet/dry Saturday, damp Sunday morning then rain in the last half hour of the race.

There's a car park in West End which is brilliant for dogging, try finding a place around there.

Just be glad that's all you saw.

You weren't saying that when you fell asleep under Mike's.

Not if you do all the washing up again.

Why don't you move in with JustMike? We can all share a lift into town on matchdays.

lol Has anyone else posted this yet?

There is a bit of a difference in playing 45 minutes in a meaningless international friendly against Ukraine and playing a full 90 minutes in the Premier League against 2 possible Champions League teams and a relegation 6 pointer. Hooiveld is playing alright and I actually thought he looked very good against Wigan (despite people saying he is a liability because he once got beaten in the air by 6ft 3 Paul Scharner). There was and is no need to rush Forren into the team. The fact that he played last night is encouraging and not the basis for some Delgado-esq club vs country outrage.

There wasn't really any entertainment at that campsite other than the local pub. There were some fireworks in the distance, no idea which campsite. We got there on Saturday morning having stayed somewhere near Brussels on Friday night. That was mainly due to us both working on Friday and not being able to get to the Eurotunnel until about 8pm. Given choice I'd go out Thursday night and come back Monday morning. The traffic is better and you wont be in a rush before or after the races. You will be sat outside your tent with a beer and a BBQ whilst most other people are sat stationary on the roads. The Elephant is about 30 minutes walk from the track. It's pretty much a field, has a bit of a slope and can be a bit muddy so if you or someone else has a 4x4 probably best to take that.

Been to Spa 3 times. Grosjean ruined the f**king race on lap 1 twice but appart from that it was great. My advice: - Don't bother with a grandstand ticket unless it's somewhere a bit special like the start/finish straight or on Eau Rouge. - Get a bronze ticket. I normally go to the inside of Bruxelles (the hairpin after Les Combes) to get a really close up view of the cars for free practice. For qualy and race I sit on the outside of Pouhon, on the massive bank with about 10,000 other fans. There is a big screen opposite to keep track of what's going on. - Queues for lunch on race day are terrible. If possible take a packed lunch. - Stay at on of the campsites near the track. Trying to get away from the circuit after is a nightmare and can take hours. Even on the motorway the traffic is backed up. - It gets cold at night in the Ardennes. Take lots of warm clothes if you are camping and don't be a big girls blouse like Baj. - You will need waterproofs, a brolly and sun cream every day. Probably all within the same hour. - Take ear plugs. When we went in 2010 JustMike was proper 'ard and thought he could go without. He couldn't, the cars are seriously loud, especially if you sit on the side of Kemmel straight (well worth a sit for one of the practice sessions just to experience the noise and power). - If you happen to end up in the Elephant campsite like me and Baj last year, there is a pub in the village 5 minutes away which sells beer at 1 euro a bottle (think they were about half a pint). Packed with fans. - Take your own food and BBQ for the evenings. There are no supermarkets open in the evenings at weekends and very little by way of restuaraunts. We ended up driving for an hour looking for somewhere to eat on Saturday.

Favourite -Comedy/CCTV from the ladies toilets Least favourite - Horror/Teen romance (pretty much Twilight if I'm being honnest).

We are pretty lucky Morgan and Lallana were both crap that season. If they had been half decent someone would have offered £500k each for them and we'd have had to sell to balance the books. Surman was a good example of sending youth players on loan. Was very impressive at Bompey for a while then came back and forced his way into our first team.

Generally I don't have a lot of sympathy for people with drug or alcohol addictions. However I do have a lot of sympathy for Gazza. He had 2 of this best friends killed in accidents when he was a kid, he gew up in relative poverty and when he was young his dad suffered from a lot of mental health issues. He now has a lot of mental health issues himself and if were honnest, he was never the sharpest tool in the box either. All of which leads down a path of substance abuse and addiction from which is is hard to deviate. It's different to other celebrity booze cases like Best or Winehouse. GB was a party loving, gambling, misogynistic playboy who developed an alcohol problem through years of living it up and thinking he was untouchable. With Gazza one gets the impression he was trying to deal with a lot of mental demons.

Makes sense to me. It's where I bury my bodies.

Hooiveld looked a lot better yesterday than he did at the start of the season. Don't forget it took Yoshi and Fonte a fair few games together to iron out most of their faults, longer than Jos has had in the side recently. Wouldn't blame Jos for the second goal. Yes he got beaten to the head but he did enough putting pressure on Scharner so that the header lacked power and was off target. We SHOULD have dealt with the second ball but didn't. We should have either played Maloney offside or had someone on the post to boot the ball into the car park if it came back in.

A good point but I do think it's entirely subjective to the particular team. A team with a water tight defense would want to sign Gaston a team with a leaky defense would want to sign Samba. QPR's defense has looked decidedly leaky recently whilst ours hasn't. It's easy to imagine Gaston not being a relegation dogfighter because he is young, foreign and a bit of a flair player. However his class could be the difference between us and teams like Reading and Villa. His skill was central to us beating Villa and it should have been the same against Arsenal but that lino had other ideas. In short. Becuase we've got Jos, Yoshi, Fonte and Forren I wouldn't want to sign Samba.

Carroll cost £35m and used to play for Liverpool Sturridge cost £12m and plays for Liverpool Welbeck plays for Man Utd Rooney plays for Man Utd No way Rickie will get in ahead of that lot, even if his goal record is equal to the first 3 put together.

Agree. For me it's an extra reason for not wanting to go down. If we do Prem teams will be all over the pair of them but I want to see just how good they will be in 5 years time when they are both, theoretically, at the peak of their careers.

2 minor points. 1. Forren hasn't played because he is recovering from a minor injury. Hence he hasn't even been on the bench. 2. Don't talk to Dalek. Watch, I will show you how it's done.

We aren't losing games either. 3 League defeats in 3 months and 2 of those were at Anfield and Old Trafford. Draw every game any you will get 38 points. That will almost ceratinly keep you up this season. We are picking up points away from home. Keep doing that and getting the odd win and we will stay up. Look at our remaining games. Home - Liverpool, Chelsea, QPR, West Ham, Man City, Stoke, West Brom. Away - Reading, Spuds, Swansea, Norwich, Nouveachateau, Sunderland. There are points in ALL of those games. No more trips to OT, Emirates, Etihad, The Bridge, Goodison etc. There are only 2 away games to teams in the top half and they are Spuds and Swansea. Anything can happen there if they have an off day.

I'd just like to bump up this thread in a desperate attempt to add some sense and possitivity to the evening. Thought JRod was excellent today, lots of great running and a superb assist for the second. He's not Usain Bolt quick but he's definitely got a turn of pace and can run in behind players. Thinking about it, today he actual got 2 very good assists, jumping well for the first goal. Starting to look well worth his £7m price tag and the goals will start coming soon. If he can get 10 in all competitions by the end of the season, that would be an excellent return. Maybe a bit ambitious but that should be his target.