Lighthouse

Last year we talked about Championship experience being required for promotion. Who were our best players? Rickie, Jos, Lallana and Morgan IMO. The first 2 had never played in the Champ before, the latter 2 had a season each in the Dutch disaster, which you can't count as decent Championship experience. If you're good enough, you can beat anyone. Buying Premier League experience can land you with Joey Barton, Shaun Wright-Phillips and Kieron Dyer, so be careful what you wish for.

Ukraine is top of my countries to visit, wont be this year sadly. Great to see Saints being represented out there though. BTW, make sure your nipper and his mates cover their equipment up before sticking it in any of the local totty. Seriously, there is an AIDS pandemic amongst young people in Southern and Eastern Ukraine.

Arsenal pay proven internationals £55k a week and nobody is going to drive 9 hours every day to get to training. Please tell me this was a wind up.

I was planning the same as VFTT but it looks like one heck of a drive. It's 8 hours from Callais down to Geneva so I'll be looking for flights or maybe the TGV.

We did have a nutter posting on here under the username Tommac. Might have been a wind up, that's not much of a disguise.

Why the f**k does he want to sign for Colchester, that's nowhere near the Northwest?! Sorry, I'll get my coat.

Wow, there's some names from the past. Wasn't there someone called Long life Milk who was supposedly ITK? Loving the thread divergence, keep it up!

I think he nearly scored 3 hattricks in a week once in 2002. 1 for the reserves, 1 midweek against Tranny in the LC then got 2 goals against Man City.

Marian's first name is actually Marians.

Barnard works harder more consistenly and is a more consistent scorer. Guly has good games, games where he goes completely missing and has been on a half season scoring drought. I would rather have him up front than Guly, that's my opinion. To suggest that to suggest otherwise is weird, is weird.

I don't care if his 15 goals didn't get him in the top 100. It's still a decent return for a striker, especially when you consider how hard he works for the team. Guly scored 9 of his 11 goals whilst playing up front last season. Since Sharp and Lee came in in January and he was moved to midfield, he hasn't scored any goals. He has scored once in 2012, playing up front at Forrest. 2 goals from midfield, 9 goals up front and 0 goals since January is neither good nor above average. I'm not one of these cretins who believes stats are the be all and end all, but they do paint a picture of Guly's season. He has been inconsistent and certainly is not the midfield scoring threat many paint him out to be.

Barnard wasn't okay in League 1, he was very good. He scored 15 goals and worked very hard up front, scoring some absolutely vital goals along the way (MK Dons and Wednesday stick out in my mind). He outscored Guly and was more consistent. Last year we only lost 1 game under Adkins when Barnard started. How you can call that 'fair to middling' whilst describing Guly's 11 goals and inconsistency as 'good' and 'above average' I don't know.

Based on...

Thinking back to the last World Cup and how we really struggled to beat USA, Algeria and Slovenia, I think we could at least hold our own in the group stages. We probably wouldn't get through to the knockouts, but there are a few teams in the Euro's we could beat on our day. There's a lot to be said for team spirit, confidence and good communication, as opposed to a collection of all-stars bodged together from around Europe. If it was all about good players, Real Madrid would have won the Champions League for the last 10 years running.

Sometimes he will track back other times he just doesn't even try, that's what I find frustrating about him a lot of the time. If I had to compare him to another player it would be Rasiak. He is a decent championship striker, good in the air, knows where the net is and when he puts in a bit of effort he can create chances for others. However, I think we have better options up front, especially if we sign Rodriguez. I'd personally have him below Barnard in the pecking order, when the latter gets fit.

I could have told you that.

Everton will be fine for a couple of years yet. However if Moyes and Baines decide to move on, with players like Osman, Howard, Jagielka and Neville all getting on a bit that could change.

I mentioned Kranjcar at the beginning of this thread, he's just signed for Dynamo Kiev for £7m.

Don't get him started. Dalek's brand of 'humour' is about as original and funny as Rudi Skacel jokes.

Good move for Aaron. Can't imagine Seaborne sticking around for this season either as I'd have said Martin was the better player.

What about Pompey's first goal at St Mary's? Guly didn't even try and get back a challenge his man, he just jogged casually back towards the penalty area. This isn't the only time it's happened either.

There's a big difference between a drug being legalised and the entirely population going out and getting stoned. How many of you who don't use drugs would go out and buy a bag of weed if it was legalised tomorrow? Probably none of you. The thing about drug use is it's a victimless crime, in the sense that there is nobody to report it to the Police. A bloke in an alley behind a club sells a packet of something to a bloke and that's it. Nobody calls the Police so it's almost impossible to enforce drug laws most of the time.

So they have the internet in Burnley now?

Like anyone in China gives a flying f**k about Cardiff.

She is right.