Wes Tender

Funny that when assessing the team against that at the end of the season, you go through most of the players and make no mention of Rodriguez. He is like a new signing for us up top, so we are certainly arguably strengthened in attack, if weakened at the back until we strengthen further there too.

Just as it was last season, when the loss of players was arguably worse than it has been this Summer. But I actually believe that we will improve again, so put me amongst the clowns for believing that a possibility. The MOTD panel thought that Pelle, Rodriguez and Mane would be capable of over 30 goals between them and provided that we replace Alderweireld with somebody similarly capable, I'm quietly confident that the recent purchases, plus those to come will leave us in a strong position once again.

That is something which remains to be seen, much as Bertrand was seen initially by some as being not up to the standard of Shaw.

We are way out on our own in this league for selling our best players for vastly over-inflated prices and then replacing them with players as good or better for far less money.

And we have a couple of weeks to sign both. If we do not, then there is reason for criticism about our Summer signings

Thanks Shylock

You hoist yourself with your own petard by making those comparisons, as exactly the same scepticism met those signings when they were originally made. Why, one poster even opined that Bertrand was a rubbish signing. As usual we have posters going off half-cock by making assessments on how players will perform for us before they have hardly even unpacked their suitcases on arrival. There are players who have a far greater reputation in World football who arrive at a top club and prove ineffective and there are others who do not quite make it at a top club and make a good impact elsewhere. Interestingly, your little list includes examples to illustrate that very point, where Lovren wasn't good at Lyon, was good here and not so good at Scousehampton. Alderveireld wasn't in the frame in Ath. Madrid, but good here, and who knows how he will fare at Spurs? Bertrand is arguably better than Shaw and it is far too early to assess Cedric's prowess against Clyne. I have a hunch that Stekelenburg might well prove to be as good as Forster. I suspect that Caulker is primarily there for extra squad depth and that somebody like V V-D might prove to be as good as Alderweireld. As the window hasn't closed yet, a proper judgement on the merit of our Summer's signings is as usual premature. The fact that comparisons are being made against the signings of the past couple of seasons ought to have established some confidence in the board and some benefit of the doubt awarded to them until it is proven later on in the season that they might have made errors of judgement in the case of one or more individual players.

Stop being so sensitive, Rupert.

It's a testament to what he did for us and the warmth that we continue to feel for him that his name is still chanted to this day, five years after he passed away. Our meteoric rise through the divisions and our current journey into European football are his legacy. Also timely to give warm heartfelt thanks to Katharina for continuing to help fulfil her father's vision for us.

At the end of the first season he managed to get us one whole position higher in half a season than Adkins had us when he left. There is nothing much to suggest that Adkins could not have managed that position too. It is dabateable as to whether Adkins could have got us up to eighth the following season, but all that is important to us is that Koeman has proven to be a step up from Pochettino, who despite doing a good job here, was a bit one-dimensional in his tactics and a bit of a two-faced weasel to boot.

Good players are developed here and bought by bigger clubs. We then replace them with players as good or better than them. The same things apply to managers. They think that they are moving upwards, but then we replace them with an even better manager. Pochettino made a big mistake believing that going to Spurs was a good career move, because their expectations are beyond his capabilities and when he does not achieve what they require, he will gone by the end of the season. Had he achieved here what Koeman did last year, his stock would have been higher than it is after the season he had at Spurs and he would be in the frame for higher things should a vacancy arise in Europe. As it is, if he gets the boot at Spurs, he will be an also ran, yesterday's man. As for us, I am delighted that we have managed to attract a manager like Koeman, who is a marked improvement on Poch and also appears to be a more honourable and principled man too.

I'm on the Dover/Calais ferry on Friday morning with DFDS. Although Newhaven/Dieppe is closer to our destination of Vannes, Brittany and Brittany Ferries to Le Havre/Caen/Cherbourg/St Malo are even closer, the times of the crossings, the voyage times of the journeys, the costs of the journeys (especially St Malo) are astronomical by comparison to Dover/Calais. We were originally booked with MyFerryLink for just £133 and when Eurotunnel, the owner of their two car ferries and their freight ship ceased allowing them to operate from 1st July, that has caused all of this strife at Calais, because only 200 of the 600 staff of MyFerryLink are being offered jobs. These ships are being lease/purchased now by DFDS, but they should not have been sold to Eurotunnel when the original French operator Sea France went bust. There were decisions against that taken by the Competition Commission, appeals to the high court, etc, the background of the whole fiasco explained here:- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MyFerryLink We had to rebook with just two weeks notice, our ticket with DFDS costing twice as much, although to their credit, MyFerryLink are refunding most of the difference. They have issued tickets on Eurotunnel to our friends who are going with us, at the same original cost of £133, which is way below what that costs, although in light of the developments of the past few days, I reckon that our chances of getting across on the ferry is better than theirs of getting through the tunnel on time.

Good post. I think that one of major advantages over some of the top teams appears to be our knack of buying players of a certain character who possess the ability to meld in well with their team mates, and the team spirit during the past two or three years is the best that I have ever known at the club. These players supplement the cameraderie that has developed with those brought through the academy, who have mostly known each other for many years and have grown up together. Often the players at the top clubs are a collection of individuals rather than a team like ours which is better than the sum of its parts. The other factor that might mean that we supplant one of those top teams, is the luck factor, but across the season rather than necessarily in key games, although that is a help too. Two teams in that top bracket relied heavily on the goals of one main individual without whose contribution they would both be several league places further down; I speak of Suarez at Liverpool and Kane at Spurs. It is not inconceivable that we might have a player who sets the league on fire this season and that the goals that he scores, (or those scored between two players who form a very productive partnership), are enough to raise us higher up the table. Lady luck favours some teams that way and deserts others when star strikers are injured and the goals dry up.

You make the statement in bold and then pretty well contradict it in the next line. Why would those top teams want to poach our best players if they are inferior? Even having the top teams taking the best players doesn't mean that they will play well for those teams, as Di Maria and Falcao proved at United. Those players that the top teams take from us because they have been successful with us, are the inferior players we brought in, like Lovren, Toby, Clyne, and no doubt Wanyama, Mane and Rodriguez and others in the future. Additionally of course, there are those players from our academy conveyor belt too. Our forte is finding players that are missed by the top teams, or those that we think are worth a gamble on, whereas the top teams can afford to buy what they think is a proven player at their level, but as I already pointed out, that doesn't mean that just because they succeeded at their previous club that they will succeed elsewhere, as proven with Lovren. There are only so many players that a top team can sign and there are plenty of players who either go under their radar, or who are their second choices, good enough to be in the frame, but another player is preferred. These are the players who we can sign, along with the undiscovered gems.

Saint 86: It remains to be seen whether we already have signed the DM who will make us rock solid, and whether we will sign the CB. But as Clasie has not yet been tested against other PL teams for us, it is as hasty to reach any conclusions on his abilities in our team as it is to criticise the board for not yet having bought the CB to replace Toby. As you don't know for sure that the paper talk of us wanting to sign Chester or Caulker is accurate, it is premature to make assessments based on whether the board are as ambitious as you would like. Also, all this talk about whether we could have kept Toby who wanted to go to Spurs, whether Cork was deemed to be part of our plans, whether Wanyama wishes to sign a longer contract, or has ambitions to go upwards in his career, it is all speculation. I suggest that you wait until the transfer window closes before going off at half-cock with your criticism of the board and Les Reed. It didn't go too badly last year under arguably a much more uncertain situation.

Under in the comments:- All the top team's have jugglers, who are despised by their rivals. :lol:

So he's in the good company with most of our MPs. They all live in their own ivory towers nowadays, career politicians, ex-legal eagles, ex-lecturers, hardly any of them having any knowledge of the real world or what the majority of their electorate do in their everyday lives and what their concerns and needs are.

You really do have difficulty in understanding the points made by some other people. When CBF made an example of Chairman Mao as an historically prominent example of a despotic left-wing leader, it is almost as nonsensical to compare China currently with how it was then as it would be to compare Germany with how that is now compared with how it was under Hitler. And although the thread is about what the effect on the Labour party would be if Corbyn was elected, his left-wing leanings are the main criteria of how the party would fare in any future General Election, so it is pertinent to the dabate to establish what defines the left or the right, although the parameters have changed over the past couple of decades and arguably it is more difficult to define right and left than it was previously.

Do some reading yourself on why the left love to label the likes of Hitler and Stalin as right-wing, when they were from the left-wing. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100260720/whenever-you-mention-fascisms-socialist-roots-left-wingers-become-incandescent-why/ GM clearly has much more of an idea than you do.

So in just one sentence, Verbal D, you render the entire thread pointless, because the demise of the Labour Party is connected to the possibility of Jeremy Corbyn being elected leader, is it not? It is a shame that you didn't just post "It isn't going to happen" after every other post. And by the way, although I did consider voting UKIP as I did in the European Parliamentary elections, I voted Conservative in the General Election as I always do. Just because I support us leaving the EU and would like to see tougher controls over immigration, does not make me a UKIPer.

I have looked through the Forum rules and cannot find anything that says that peoples' political views have to be neutral. Furthermore, I see no bullying, but it might be that you have some sort of inferiority complex that makes you feel that you are being bullied for expressing your views. And these so called Tory bully boys express their own views of our current political situation, i.e. it is their own opinion of how they see things from their own experience. That is the essence of debate, that people contribute opinions based on their own experience. No doubt there is much scope for them to observe that your views do not represent the world that they and a lot of other people live in too. But I do share your desire that Corbyn is elected to the leadership of the Labour Party, so in that respect we are in total agreement.

Whatever gave you the inpression that Chanrai was that wealthy? He doesn't appear on Forbes list of Hong Kong Billionaires. Out of the Arab Ice Cream salesman, the Fake Sheik and the Pension fund embezzler Antonov, he appeared to be the richest, but any of their owners are small beer compared to the Liebherrs.

I'd be interested to hear why you consider these two to be "extremists". They might be of the right wing of the Conservative Party, but I fail to see what particular policy positions they hold which could be deemed to be extreme. Presumably as you hope that by staying in the EU the worst excesses of the Thatcherite wing will be destroyed, the main thrust of your labelling them as extremists is based on their wish for us to leave the EU. In which case, they are in accord with the extreme half of the electorate, the other half obviously being the more sensible ones to your mind. Interesting as an aside to note that these two are both from a council house background, who have pulled themselves up in life from striving educationally and through hard work. But I agree with your assessment of Labour's chances of getting elected under Corbyn. I do hope that Labour elect him as their leader.

It was his opinion, which seems valid enough. Instead of your usual snide sniping in an attempt to make yourself look clever by denigrating the opinions of others as clueless, why don't you respond by saying why you think JF doesn't have a clue?

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/mikethemechanics/thelivingyears.html Nothing much has changed. We oldies who have reached pension age now, are part of the generation that caused the biggest single upheaval in society in the early sixties and in many ways the youth of today are more-conformist and less rebellious than that generation was. The biggest difference between then and now is purely that in those days the only ones who could make their voices heard were pop singers especially those with a protest message like Bob Dylan, or high profile politicians. Any ordinary individual could only make their voices heard by joining pressure groups and going on marches, or doing something controversial enough to make the newspapers and then giving the reason for taking such actions; a bit like the suffragettes chaining themselves to railings, Bobby Sands going on hunger strike, streaking during a high profile televised match, vandalising the Lords wicket before a cricket international, etc. Now all the yoof have to do to get across their opinions is to post something controversial on Twitter, Facebook, You Tube or some such mass media outlet, pepper it with bad language and before long it's "gone viral" and for a short period of time it is more widely read than the bible and the spotty adolescent will have been World famous (or infamous) for fifteen minutes as everybody would be according to the prediction of Andy Warhol. The difference between that and those protests of the past is that most of them are still remembered by history, whereas these outbursts from the likes of this prat will long be forgotten by the time he has grown up and has gained some life experience, and the perspective that comes with it.