Sergei Gotsmanov

Very sad. We salute you Sammy. Created goodwill.

How can you want a yng hungry manager who either does well and leaves or does badly and leaves! Pellegrini is very unlikely to be poached

Why pellegrini would be fantastic; He is a big name who will keep existing players He will not be poached He has point to prove He will attract players Sign him up!

Very fair point. Moyes will not walk out on us as nobody will come in for him - except ironically Everton. I am bored of managers doing well and then leaving.

I am backing Alzheimer's. It is he disease I fear most.

Martin Samuel seems to have no understanding of the mechanics and structure of football. Which players did he think we could stop leaving. It is not as if we are selling players to teams like Villa, Everton or Newcastle. In his cloud cuckoo land you just get the cheque book out and everything will be OK. Sadly unless you have an owner like Citeh then the money runs dry and you plummet down the league - what's his take on Newcastle who broke the bank last season and got relegated. We have the best model for our size of anyone in the premier league that has proved resilient when fire sales happen. Our players leave because our model is so good and it makes players look better than they are.

With our existing squad and realistic ambitions we must be a very attractive proposition. Koeman has sacrificed his long term footballing aspirations for money. He will fail to ignite Everton and they will bumble along just above mid-table for a few seasons before the locals turn on him. He has missed out on both the Arsenal and Dutch jobs now.

I would still argue that Koeman is a gentleman but you cannot really turn down that sort of money. Football is a fickle business and he could be out of a job in an instance as he knows from experience. He is a good manager but it will be difficult for him at Everton, there will be higher expectations. Losing a striker who delivers potential 20 plus goals a season will be very hard to replace as will a good young defender. Part of his success with us was centred around the fact that he could cherry pick the Dutch league for the best players because he knew the league. He also found Mane through his Dutch management days. He cannot do that now so effectively and although he will try and poach some of our players historically we are reluctant to sell to former managers.

Although nothing has happened as yet but I really am not impressed that it looks like we could lose Koeman to Everton. Surely the board could have built up some sort of relationship with him that made him show a degree of loyalty? Everton are hardly Arsenal or Barcelona. It makes financial sense to do everything to keep him because losing him will cost considerably more.

I would argue that should tragedy strike and Koeman leaves, we should not be looking for an up and coming manager but one who has already been lured to a top club and failed. They will then be determined to make it work and will be less likely to leave when they succeed.

I like that.

The Germans never tried to take us on again and the blockade continued to the end of the war. Not sure I would have called that a draw.

Thanks

when is the draw?

I think we could actually make this work in our favour. We let him manage Holland as well as us. Not ideal but none of the big clubs would allow him to do this.

Sorry I just cannot support United. I will console myself if they win by the fact that it helps us.

Christ I finally agree with you on something!

should be a good thing as more team to go to play offs and enjoy promotions

I would think you are about right but take him to a competitive game and one that we might win!. My son was 4 but that I did that more for me than him. Now he is fanatical and we sometimes travel away from home.

Thanks JRM. Franny and Doddy got less than a full house at their in the Dell. Sounded quite cheery.

What was the crowd? Hopefully 20K+

I think you miss the spirit of the occasion. The idea is to salute a loyal servant.

How many tickets have been sold? It is a night game and that would rule out taking my son - how many others would fall into that boat?

As somebody who votes mainly right of centre, to see Sadiq Khan's outing as Mayor of London visit the Holocaust memorial makes me genuinely embarrassed to have believed the tory spin. Shame on them.

A very straight forward and accurate assessment of our options! The remain camp portray the leave vote as little Englanders but they ignore, probably the majority of us, who believe in the European concept but just think it is currently grossly undemocratic and dysfunctional. Can no-one else recognise that the Euro benefits German exports at the expense of the recovery of struggling economies in southern Europe. The idea that governments like Greece and Italy can have governments imposed on them is appalling and the fact that the EU parliamentary gravy train is increasingly made up of crackpot protest parties is totally ludicrous. Most of all the idea that you can have a right to free movement in the EU when the minimum wage in some parts is more than a fifth less than ourselves is absolutely absurd. It is a magnet that cripples our schools and health care and most importantly when we really need to help good people like the Syrian refugees we have to sit on our hands. Criminal. I hope that we can speak out for the millions of people across Europe who agree. Maybe then we can change Europe to be the ethical trading zone that my parents voted for in the seventies. A vote leave will not be as black and white as marketed it will be a kick up the arse.