KelvinsRightGlove

Yes clearly. We have signed 3 Players from Italy in 3 and a half years. Never mind all the players signed from the UK. Or the players from Holland.

That's why we have a scouting network Bazza. It is their job to identify players who are good enough to play for the club and hopefully make an impact. Cortese is there to broker the deal, you know that thing he did before he came into football. Dealing with multi-million pound/dollar/euro transactions. Now where would the relevance be there? Should we have a Football Manager with no experience of business doing this?

I would say the FA and Southampton as Professional Football Organisations know better who to appoint than you. What's your footballing CV like Bazza? I'm fairly confident it doesn't begin to stack up in comparison.

He signed Billy Sharp, and didn't play him until Lee got injured.

This looks really good fun. I only work round the corner from there so may try and pop down!

That's an absolute killer. Not a huge Deep Purple man myself, but each to their own. Saw Stone Roses last summer and they were bloody brilliant. Off to see them in June here in London, far too excited for a gig that's still so far away!

Waheey! Bit of action on this thread, nice one guys! Yeah I was tempted to book Specials up here in London, but also baulked at the cost. Though did see them in Hyde Park last summer and they have definitely still got it. Well, I wasn't around to catch them before - but they certainly were really good. When/Where's Inspiral Carpets? That sounds good, saw them in Manc a few years ago and really enjoyed it.

I don't follow Wigan or West Brom all that closely, so it would be difficult for me to comment. Why are people so ****ing hung up on this committee thing? It is totally common place, I'd be willing to bet that more clubs have these in the prem than not. I also highly doubt that we signed Mayuka at the expense of another CB, how do you know we weren't in for other CBs and the deals didn't go through for whatever reason? Or would you rather we just spunked millions on a player not up to standard? Who let's face it, you would probably then only moan about the committee wasting money here. If you look around at the general standard of defenders at the moment, there really isn't a great deal of quality out there.

How much did Wigan & West Brom spend to reach a level of security over a prolonged period? Yeah, we out-spent a lot of teams this summer, but, think about how far we have come in such a short space of time. We have had to spend to keep/catch up.

What good is it to whom? To the clubs, it's very good for their bank balances.

Off to see Palma Violets in a pub in Tufnell Park tonight. Really looking forward to this one! Great guitar band, real Clash/Ramones type vibes!

Ok Mr. Paranoid. I didn't say you did, did I?

In balance the "sad stompers", as you put it, are just as quick to dispel anything positive as propaganda. On Di Matteo, I really question how much of those two trophies were down to him. It wasn't a squad he assembled, even during the summer it's doubtful he had any input whatsoever into transfers. It seemed quite clear that the team was effectively being managed by Terry, Lampard & Drogba.

A certain someone is going to need clean boxers when they see this...

Wigan have signed shed loads of players from South America, and DW isn't even from there!

I knew I shouldn't have mentioned this on that other thread. I said this would happen.

Eurgh, christ knows why I keep biting. But how exactly did we not show ambition? We signed a RB linked with UTD and looks to be a very good prospect. An International captain. An international CB. The player of the tournament from the previous African cup of Nations. And a highly sought after 21 year old thought of as being amongst one of the best prospects on the continent. We also effectively traded a back-up striker for a younger, more mobile striker that scored more goals last season. We also broke our record transfer fee twice.

Of the starting XI how many do you think need changing? I wouldn't say wholesale changes are at all necessary, or even helpful.

Riddle me this: A) The squad is stronger now, than it was in May. So it hasn't taken 8 months has it? B) At the half-way point (or just over) we are not in the relegation places. Granted we are only out of it by GD, but clearly we are competitive.

Does look like he joined Twitter about an hour ago. Still unsure as to how reliable he is though.

So basically, it's a city.

Sounds like you have made up your mind there. With that attitude you'll never open up to anything. I get the older music thing. I, like you, am 23. I love load of old bands and artists from right across the spectrum Bowie, The Jam, The Clash, The Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, Eddy Grant (don't knock unless you have seen him live!) & Elvis Costello some of my favourite acts. I get so frustrated when people say there is no good new music at the moment. It just isn't true. You just have to go out and look for it. Sure, you will probably end up listening to some crap, but that makes it all the more enjoyable when you do find something that just jumps out of the speakers and grabs you by the balls (boobs if you are a lady).

Decent

We priced them out of Gaston...

I'm with you & Charlie. Ok, he hasn't got an 8th placed finish, Cup Final or 4th at xmas, BUT he did take us from the bottom end of League One (22nd was it?) to the Premiership in little over 18 months. Yes we have spent money, though not that huge a net spend - thanks in part to Oxo. But it is worth remembering that we barely had a squad back in '09 when we came into this league. If we are honest we barely had a squad the season previous to that. I don't have exact figures to back this up, but I wouldn't be overly surprised if the total cost spent on assembling our squad wasn't that dissimilar to those around. Certainly last season in the Championship. What were our biggest outlays? £1m Rickie, £1.2m(?) Jose, £1m Guly (?), Corky £750k (steal!), Billy £1.8m. Look at what teams like West Ham, Leicester, Boro & Cardiff have been throwing about, £5m on Matt Mills!! Not to mention the lingering Prem players that were still in the West Ham team and those others that came down with them. In my opinion, taking a team from the bottom end of the third tier to the top tier in such a short space of time is just as big, if not bigger an achievement than being 4th at christmas. Perhaps if WGS saw out the season and had kept us their - but really, 4th at xmas is nothing. Well, counts for nothing at least.