Toon Saint

A decent team but I'm not sure Reed will be involved tonight as he played the U21 game on Monday. He wasn't in any of the first-team training photo's yesterday either.

oops

That would look lovely framed on Jeff's corridor.

Would be a good signing, offers Forster competition too.

I just don't get your point, Jeff. Why was Blackmore 'sucked in' and how does that make him an 'agenda driven liar'? He reported things from perhaps a couple of players perspectives, that he had close links to. Granted, that might not have turned out as fully indicative of the situation among the squad, but that doesn't mean he was duped or that he is lying - only that what he chose to discuss on twitter didn't reflect the entirety of what the squad were feeling or thinking at the time. But when does that ever happen? Have you ever read an article that is written by consensus and canvasses the opinions of every notable senior player, coach, and board member? We only learn fragments of the 'truth' through various media reports, and generally over time, we bestow more credibility on certain journalists. Personally, I've never for one moment thought that Blackmore was deliberately trying to unsettle things at the club, but there was definitely a story to be had at the club last summer and he was probably closer than most to it. Yes, every journalist has their own preconceptions/subjective opinions on how things are going, and to a degree this will be reflected in their reporting on a subject, but to tar a whole profession as 'agenda driven liars' is massively simplistic. Can you prove beyond doubt that some of the senior players weren't annoyed about Fonte and Cork's contracts and that it had no effect on anything? Probably not, but that wouldn't make you right or wrong. It makes me laugh as you seem to think you have access to some sort of pure unadulterated 'truth' over the summer (what did the corridors tell you exactly?) which allows you to dismiss Blackmore as a liar, constantly harangue people into apologies and admissions that they were 'wrong', and now goading posters into identity changes (surely revealing of your own agenda to make this forum a slave to your massive, yet bruised, ego). You're not a man of nuance are you Jeff?

If we can't convince J-Rod to sign up to a long-term deal when riding high in the Premier League and when the lad is recovering from a career threatening injury, we most probably never will. With that in mind, I would begrudgingly sell him in Jan if the price is right. Can't see the logic in him looking for a move, mind.

:hunt:He plays on the left, he plays on the right, Dusan Tadic makes Saint Charlie look ****e.

Looks like Reed won't be involved on Wednesday then. I'd go for: Forster, Targett, Fonte, Gardos, Clyne, Wanyama, Morgan, Davis, Tadic, Long, Pelle. Bench: K. Davis, Alderweireld, Yoshida, Cork, Isgrove, Gallagher, Mane

I thought Gallagher has been back in first-team training for a couple of weeks now? Bringing Gallagher on for Pelle (if needed) would disrupt our style of play much less than bringing Mayuka on IMO. Hope to see both him and Isgrove involved mid-week anyway.

Surprised Mayuka is getting a place on the bench over Gallagher/Isgrove. What does he actually offer?

I thought it looked a bit odd when watching the replay on MOTD. Think he opened his body to put it in the right-hand corner and the defender has steered it in the opposite side. Shame. Hopefully he'll bang in his first vs. Stoke.

The speculation was so groundless that even the likes of Morgan started believing it and wanted out? Sorry, but the club doesn't exist in some hermetically sealed bubble impervious to bad publicity or PR gaffes. At least modern football clubs don't exist that way. The fact that 5 key players left and others wanted out would suggest it was more than a conspiracy theory constructed by the media. We've done brilliantly well to come out it so well, but why is there this ridiculous right/wrong dichotomy being spouted, whereby criticism levied at individual members of the board is no longer allowed to stand and is worthy of derision just because we now stand 3rd in the table? I thought Krueger did a crap job over the summer and I still think he did a crap job now, for reasons I explained at the time and can't be bothered to re-hash now. Why speak of the board as some sort of monolithic structure that we can only judge from one perspective and at one moment in time? I think this is a tad simplistic and tends to ignore some of the complexities of the criticisms that were made over the course of the summer. Only a small handful were consciously slagging off board members without thought and talking about asset-stripping, and the majority of those were on an obvious wind-up.

So was it 'foresight' or based on ITK knowledge then? It can't be both.

Jeff, you speak about yourself in such lofty, self-righteous terms that it's hard to resist the temptation to peg you down sometimes. From what I remember you were volleying a load of abuse at the 'hysterical bedwetters', which is probably not the best solution to your heroic project of quelling discontent on an internet forum. I don't ever recall you being particularly open about this inside knowledge you supposedly had about the club being 'fine', but you seem fixated on what other people think about you on here.

Can't be bothered to search that out Simon, but you can hardly say that you haven't made reference to your 'foresight' beforehand, albeit in different words or by bumping your old threads to prove a point. Maybe I am talking crap (quite probable if you ask my girlfriend) but I don't dress up what I say as gospel and bang on about it for months afterwards either. I think it is that attitude that seems to aggravate people on here, and not always the point you are making.

A somewhat capacious forecast, that. I predicted we'd finish 10th-12th, does that make me: a) an omniscient observer blessed with 'foresight' knowing that we'd be just 'fine' b) a hysterical tart who had abandoned any semblance of rationality and won over by the church of St. Richmond c) someone reacting to a constant stream of poor PR, sales of five key players, constant negative media speculation, but tempering this with a knowledge of the qualities still present in the squad. a person as in the dark as everyone else (bar K Billy and Guan) about what was going on behind the scenes. The whole dichotomy you erect between yourself (and a handful of selected others) as some sort of font of 'foresight' and the rest as 'childish', 'myopic', hysterical 'liars' is laughably reductive, and just suggests you are on some sort of bizarre ego-trip.

Jeff, you keep crowing about your amazing 'foresight' but what did you actually say that was so prescient? I'm yet to speak to a fan who predicted we'd be third at this stage of the season.

Easy to say that now. Certainly lots of things were magnified over the summer, perhaps excessively so, but when players like Morgan come out and admit they were 'lacking motivation' and demoralised given events at boardroom level, it shows that poor PR, lack of public leadership, constant negative media speculation, were a problem and did actually have material effects. Our success on the pitch this season will certainly mean I will be more relaxed should 1-2 players leave in the summer, but the transfer window just gone was an unprecedented situation which largely warranted a lot of the anxieties being spouted on here.

Scary thing is there is probably a lot more to come from him, and he seems to be getting better with each game. His performance on Saturday was staggering and great to see him open his PL account - hopefully the first of many. His vision is superb and he is brilliantly destructive in a completely selfless way, always choosing the better placed teammate rather than going for goal himself. When you pair him with the far more selfish Pelle, who does seem to thrive on personal glory and individual accolades, it is a pretty potent combination.

We can rightly talk about what a good job Les Reed and Paul Mitchell have done in firstly appointing Koeman; secondly, in attracting some excellent players to the club; thirdly, in extracting maximum value for the majority of players that were leaving; fourthly, in keeping calm while many were panicking, etc, etc.. That still doesn't disguise the massive void in public leadership that existed between January and May this year; the manner in which contracts for senior players were allowed to drag on without resolution (still the case with Cork); the lack of anything resembling a coherent vision or plan being installed or articulated (unless 'business as usual' really meant the continuation of Cortese's CL dream); the naivety of Hofstetter in taking about inheriting a 'difficult financial situation' which probably left the likes of Brendan Rodgers with a perma-boner for days; Krueger's various calamities and his annoyingly defensive rhetoric about trying to 'keep hold of our best players' as though the height of the board's ambitions was just retaining what we already had. None of that looked good from an outside perspective, and I think it was St. Bletch summed that up much better than me in a previous post a couple of months back (I forget where). Who knows? Maybe it has all turned out for the best and we have come out of it all with a more competitive squad, a more harmonious club, a better bank balance, and even a striped kit. That is a credit to the structure of the club and maybe Reed was the brains behind the operation all along. But mistakes were made during that period which made for a very difficult summer. A lot of my worst fears haven't been realised but that doesn't mean to say they were misplaced. It was one PR disaster after another over the summer, but thankfully, we have come out of it very well and good times seem to be ahead.

I thought it was a penalty watching it live (from Kingsland/Northam corner) and thought it was definitely one watching it on MOTD. Probably not a red card as the goal-scoring chance was possibly gone, but Forster was reckless, and given the speed he was coming out at it wasn't surprising that Fletcher over-cooked it. Not really sure what Fletcher could have done in that scenario (apart from take the chance very early) so definitely have some sympathy for Sunderland there and we got lucky. Forster has looked a bit nervy in the past couple of games, and he's not really convinced me coming for any 1-on-1's yet, which is surprising given his size. Boruc seems better in that regard; Forster is too slow in terms of anticipating the danger.

My favourite Garth Crooks moment:

Wonderfully bonkers game that and a fantastic atmosphere. It felt we were playing with the handbrake on at times, especially during the first 55 mins, but Sunderland were such obliging opponents that it seemed rude of us not to stick it in the net, repeatedly. Can't say I've ever had the feeling after a game that we should have got double figures, but if Pelle had been a bit more on his game we could easily have. Tadic was immense, Clyne also very impressive, and Cork shone in centre midfield. Only thing missing from the game was a Shane Long goal but thought he had a decent 60 mins before going off. Really interesting seeing the relationship between Pelle and Tadic on the pitch. They constantly berate and shout at each other, but seem to be developing a great chemistry and they really feed off of each other's energy. Top 6 has to be a realistic aim now. The squad seems much better equipped to ride out what will be very tough Christmas period. But if we remain in contact with the top 4 at turn of the year, then we'll have a fantastic chance of bettering last year's finish.

Good news, I really rate him as a player and he is an excellent professional. I am slightly surprised, however, that he's been given a four year deal at age 29, but it is nice to see some of the senior pro's being signed up long-term. Hopefully good news on Clyne and J-Rod to follow. Like Davis (before he signed the deal) their contracts run until summer of 2016, so you'd expect that these are being actively worked on behind the scenes. I wonder what Cork thinks about Davis' new deal.