sadoldgit

Indeed. How many teams that spend a fortune roll teams over every game? If we were losing games I'd be worried but we are not. I think we also know that we are no Leeds yet either.

Where are Ipswich and how much did they spend? How much did Man City spend and what are the odds of them winning the Prem? You need to move on mate. It is players and teams that win things not bank balances.

You don't get it do you? When will the penny drop? You can't buy results. Simples.

Couldn't agree more. Perhaps someone can dig out his quotes about us when we went through it?

I don't think he had much say in when the bank decided to pull the plug.

I must admit to having a quiet chortle. Jordan gave Lowe heaps when we were struggling finacially. Not so smug now though is he?

Could work in our favour if they have some young players that need developing! Still, lets see what happens.

Although this fixture will generate a lot of interest it probably has done us no favours. Our prime objective has to be promotion and AP is right to try and play it down, although he has no chance of that happening!

If we hadn't started with minus 10 we would be right up there now.

Amazing. I thought he was very silly, you can't put your hands in someone's face no matter what the provocation. What a result!

I'd love just to download books and read them for nothing but I guess in the end very few people would bother to write any more because they wouldn't be able to make a living out of it.

I don't know aht to make of some of our fans. The bloke didn't do a bad job for us. In his only full season he said we were aiming for the play offs and we succeded. We also were the 2nd highest scoring team in the league. Yet that is regarded as a failure. In his next season the rug was effectively pulled form under his feet when Baird, Bale and Jones were all sold. We were nearer the play offs than relegation when he left (though I can think of at least one person who will bite at this and say we were in free fall). Before Pardew's reign he had a better win ration than anyone, including McMenemy and Bates. Okay, he wasn't our best ever manager, but he was far from our worst and doesn't deserve the scorn he gets from some posters. I wish him all the best at whatever job he gets next. Some of you people should grow up a bit. As for Ian Branfoot, the man that someone famously wrote "I hope you die soon" seem to be going through a revisionary period? The are some incredibly crass people on here, but even Alpine wouldn't have treated Le Tiss the way Branfoot did! I doubt very much whether Alpine would have replaced Shearer with Dixon and Speedy either...but then again....

She will probably get a reduced sentence on appeal. It is a hard one because you cannot condone the taking of a life but most fair minded people would say there were mitigating circumstances. Until the law changes though the legal system has done its job. I don't know how the jury were (if indeed they were) directed by the judge but a group of her peers found her guilty.

My kids step dad is earning in excess of £150,000 per year and "lives" in Spain so I suppose he doesn't pay our tax rate. He has a home here too and a Porshe in the garage that he rarely drives as he alternates between his BMW 4x4 or 4 other cars. I suppose it depends on who you work for but I don't think that BA pilots are slumming it.

I think the point is that many many people now are feeling the effect of the credit crunch and finding work is not easy, nor is keeping a job. I know work for the Government and we have two people who come to work each day for nothing just to have something to put on their CV in the hope that they can get a job that pays later! We will be looking to lose 20% of our staff over the next 3 years. I had a 30 year career in The Print and was their when Murdoch broke the print unions. I was a union rep and later became a manager so saw it all from both sides. I can tell you that the unions will NEVER win. The same things happened in The Print. The union leaders were softened up, some were promoted to management and then made redundant not long after! Murdoch took a hammer to the unions but other employers were more subtle. I was made redundant 10 years ago after spening 22 years with The Guardian. Friends mine who survived the first round of jobs cuts have gone since. Once a company decides that it needs to deal with a situation and the unions try to hold firm, they will pull out all of the stops to change the balance of power. A union might win the battle but to date none have won the war. Just ask the Miners. The threatended strike action just plays into their hands. It gets the public onto their side and gives them an excuse for more hard line action. As a union rep I respect that you have worked hard to improve the pay and conditions of your members over the years. The same happend to me in my job. BUt someone told me the better you wages and conditions the more chance that eventually you will be let go for someone younger and cheaper. My ex wife is now married to a BA pilot. I don't know what is happening about his wages but I do know that he will have to work a lot longer now due to the pension problems. At some point you will also find a cull of execs. This won't happen until they have sorted out the "work force" though. Once that is done the senior management will trim bacl the middle management. Eventaully some of the big boys will be pushed out too. It happens everywhere. All you can do now is work with the mangement and work on damage limitation. To pursue strike action will only mean more losses, less future business and more lost jobs. It sucks, but it is no more than many many thousands of people have experienced over recent times. When I was laid off I was sent to a company that supported those who had been made redundant and helped them try and find new jobs. The course was full of bankers, the very people. like Government employees, who thought they had a job for life. You and I had many discussions about Lowe and his behaviour. Many people who runs Companies act in a similar way. It takes a ceratin type of person to run a business and most of them don't take prisoners. I have head that a ceratin Richard Branson is far from the nice smiley bloke on the telly when it comes to the Boardroom. I have alot of sympathy for your personal circumstances but I think it is time now to work with your members to save what you can. This guy/Company will do what they have to to get their own way. The world has too many martyrs as it is.

Apparently the players burst into spontaneous applause when he was announced as the new manager. People have to start somewhere and if Gray and Wigley did a good job at a lower level they deserve a chance to step up. Probably should have been at a lower level club though!

Millwall fans were probably thinking the same when we scored in injury time.

You really are a very strange individual. Lets be rubbish for 2 seasons? Do you remember anything about McMenemy's time here and the seasons it took us to get out of Div 2 with Div 1 class players like Channon. If they want instant success why a 5 year plan? Why are they not spending more money on high quality players? If modern football is about instant success how come so mnay teams don't achieve it? p.s. If we don't make the play offs this season I assume you will be calling for them both to be sacked as the abject failures they will be?

Really? Where? Over a long period of time perhaps, but not in one or two transfer windows. Even then look at some of the main spenders. Chelsea spent a mint to become the biggets team in Europe. Tell me how many European Championships they have won. Ipswich spent a relative fortune and spend a great deal of time in the relegation spot. With the money Man City have spet you could argue that they haven't set the league alight and could well not win anything this season. What you don't seem to grasp is it is not what you spend it is who you buy. Some of our biggest signings in terms of cash have been poor. For example, do you remember our first £1m player? Some of our most effective players have been bargains. Pahars and Marsden cost peanuts but were priceless for us when they joined. If you are going to equate spend with success you will spend more time disappointed than not. There are teams above doing much better having spent less. If that doesn't tell you something you have spent too much time under water!

Couldn't agree more Dune. Short mememory syndrome. After last season and the close season I will be more than happy with a mid table finish this year, pushing on next year.

I don't know at what point the penny wil finally drop, but spending money does not necessarly equate with success. I was surprised at all of the changes yesterday as I thought he might give some of the new boys some time to settle, but it was his call and a point at Millwall is no mean feat. We are a Division 1 team, not a Premiership team slumming it. The situation with Ward would seem to indicate that it is not promotion at all costs but a more pragmatic approach with cash is in place (not too disimilar as we had before ) Let's see how the new players bed in shall we before we start throwing toys out of prams?

I agree, he has. No talk about play offs when we were struggling to get out of the relegation zone but now we have climbed the table and are in a position to mount a challenge he is talking it up.

Savage spent most of the interview avoiding the question. Still, we have been there. When things are going bad fans turn on the players/management and the journo was asking a resonable question. The same question we were all asking when we were going down the tubes.

Indeed.

Sorry I don't get this? What has it got to do with anything else if we compalin about the massacre of dolphins and whales? If other want to complain about the production of veal or if they just don't like the Japanese those are separate. To drag in so called hypocrocay or Xenophabia detracts from the actual point. No one here is saying the at the production of veal is okay. No one here is having ago at the Japanese because they don't like Japanese. If we were killing dolphins and whales and putting them on the menu then yes, you would have a point. They are breaking International law. They are doing something that a great many find abhorent. That is what the original post was about.