flashingqwerty

not sure why people wouldn't have realised this. The year we got relegated we had the 7th or 8th highest wage bill in the premier league, so it stands to reason we would be far ahead of anyone in the championship. We are also notoriously high payers when it comes to wages.

Yep, footballs coming home - it just doesn't live in England ?

We're not that lucky...

not sure why people are saying we only have 1 cb. Chester and Elphick make 2. SB is quoted as saying he wants to convert jedi to cb. Hutton, Bree and de laet can all play there too. We are short there but not barren

agreed. CB is one of those positions where you need 2/3 experienced heads and to blood youth in lesser games or in 10-15 min spells throughout until they are ready to step up. i wouldnt want huth on more than 1 year though. maybe with another year option.

who said they would improve us? Think you are putting words in my mouth there. Having said that, i could list a lot of players under 21 in league 1 and league 2 with the potential to improve us that we could get for very little. unfortunately when discussing young playes the focus is 'what they could be' as opposed to 'what they are now'. Its the exact point people are trying to make. sign old players suggests short term thinking. signing young players shows long term thinking as you are taking a chance on them becoming more. Id rather we signed 20 teenagers where 2 or 3 break through in 12 months than sign a 35 year old to get us through 1 season. i'd accept a few years of mediocrity if there was a sign we were bringing in lots of young players with a view to making them pay off. I do not want to see us continuing to waste money on now over the future. sustainability first!

Theres a couple dozen in our u23 squad and thousands across europe that we could sign for relatively little.

has anyone considered that barry might come in as a player coach? i think that could be a very good move as he has a good head on him

DOH!

jedi scored a penalty in the 2014 wc against holland so hes level with platt on 3

i'm clearly wrong but i'd have put money on bosnich having appeared at the world cup...

thought jedi put in a solid performance today and think a defeat was harsh on australia. france should count their blessings. over the moon for jedi. only aus captain in 2 wcs and only aus scorer in 2 wcs. fair play to him. great achievement!

i have great respect for iceland. they dont have hugely talented players so cant go toe to toe with teams that do. unlike villa they press really well and fight for 90 minutes. they are incredibly strong mentally and physically and never quit. i wish villa had a fraction of their work ethic. i think thor played reasonably well too. a few misplaced passes but played lw, lb cm and was at cb for a while at one point. very proud to call him a villain!

i suppose what im trying to say is that i can understand why he did it and why he would think it would work. hindsight is the only thing that really makes it bad. of course id have prefered we went full throttle 1st half with the hope of blowing them away. we had enough chances 2nd half to make me think that fresher players in the 1st half might have converted them

im not quite sure how/why this is even a debate. SB has been quoted as saying the game plan was to contain in the first half until the youth of fulham tired ( which it did) and go for it in the 2nd where the risk of fast counter was less. not a bad plan - but every pundit in the land said if we did that we'd lose - and we did. Not only did he get it wrong but seemingly the general consensus out there knew he was wrong.

had a winding up order been issied we would be out of business already as the issuing of such an order would mean it was too late. all we know for sure is that a payment was missed. HMRC doesnt issue a winding up order after 1 missed payment otherwise the vast majority of young business would fold.

with all due respect we do not know the winding up order was ever a possibility. we also do not know that xia was aware of the pulling forward of transfer fees and a number of other items being bandied around by the media. i certainly wont be calling xia or wyness crooks, liars or whatever else until i have the facts. because until the facts are out to do so is nothing more than slander.

so when i said 'excluding this year as they havent been published yet' you took that as what? you said what has been posted about our past accounts is conjecture but its not its a matter of record. i can also back up the 17m figure with published evidence. so whilst the number may not be 100% accurate it certainly wont be far from the mark.

Oh, i hadn't heard about his contract being renewed. i have a file of the players contract dates taken before xmas and his contract was still 30/06/2018 - someone must have forgotten to update it...

Well - i take it back - he was listed the last time i checked ?

you can call it conjecture if you want, but should you be so inclined to actually look at the clubs published accounts (obviously excluding this current season as it isnt published yet) you will find its actually factual and not conjecture. Published businesss accounts in so far as possible are as far from conjecture as you can really get.

i havent said his concerns arent legitimate nor have i said what has been published isnt legitimate. What i have said is that to call someone dishonest and a liar without any proof to back it up is setting yourself up for a fall. I dont have any evidence to say Xia is honest and truth telling, but i am not slandering him. Events have happened that are bad for the club but we as yet do not know who is culpable for what. Based on what we do know, i'd prefer Xia sold the club to someone else, but i am not going to accuse him of being something that i cannot be sure he is because i dont like whats happening to the club. the 'facts' are that we dont know who is responsible for the events of the last few days and until we do i am not going to judge and/or slander anyone.

so your evidence of Xia lying is a quote from a disgruntled member of another company he was attempting to buy? At best this is hearsay and not proof or evidence of anything

your first point - articles and opinions are not proof nor are they facts. Opinions by definition are not facts. We also do not know that the missed tax payment had anything to do with Xia, nor do we know that he knew about the early cashing of transfer revenue. This could be the reason Wyness was suspended so we cannot use this against Xia until we know the facts as they are not currently known. What has come to light to say he isn't a wealthy man? nothing that i have seen. We know that his business in China have lost hundreds of millions over the last 18 months but by no means are they in danger of going out of business and indeed he is still listed among the top 500 wealthiest in China. Whilst he may not have liquid cash, he certainly has a significant amount of assets, and is far from not being wealthy. I'd love to hear what he has said since his arrival that isn't true. He has been over optimistic about the scale of his plans for sure, but i dont believe his desire for that to happen isnt there so that still doesn't make it untrue. As for your last point - i'm afraid the justice system reads 'innocent until proven guilty' so the burden of proof is on you to prove dishonesty rather than the other way around. The truth being that we dont know enough to suggest he is either honest or dishonest, but as you are the one casting aspersions, you carry the burden of proof - and nothing you have mention bears any fruit to suggest he is anything other than overly excitable and possibly naive.

This just simply isnt true. Lerners final year saw the club make losses of over 80m. Xia's first year the club llst 15m and forecasts suggest the club is set to make a similar loss for his second. Tells me he has done a great job in reducing the crap he was left whilst also pushing to get us nearly promoted. As wages are our biggest outlay, and as i have previously posted, players leaving this year (and if i recall correctly, including loans, there are more than 10 of them leaving) will reduce the annual wage bill by 17m. With the contracts set to expire at the end of the 18/19 season set to reduce that by a further 15m. And thats assuimg we dont sell any of them in the mean time. Point being out expediture is going to be dropping massively and will dramatically improve our position.