blunther

I just don't get the fuss. Came on, took two woeful corners, jogged about a bit like he was the most talented player on the pitch. If that's the new, head down, Mr Commitment Jack Grealish then I don't see the point. He had a great game 15 months ago at Wembley, good for him, but he's as ineffective as any of the other losers from last season. Not it a flash decision from 15 minutes of one game. He's not going to have changed dramatically from last season. I'm sure he's got talented feet, but that's not enough. Might be be a decent option for certain types of games, but a saviour and future great he ain't. Hope he proves me wrong, but I ain't holding my breath.

Regarding this 'professor' thing: bear in mind that in the US a professor is more of a job title for someone doing teaching in a university as I understand it, rather than a professional title held by someone with a chair like in the UK. Some PhDs involve doing some teaching. I assume that's where this 'professor' mix up has come from, when it's been translated from a US source, into Chinese and back into English again.

If he's refusing to do his job then he's another one the legal team should be looking at for breach of contract. The contracts they have can't be that one sided in favour of the player only surely. Sack the clearing in the woods and drag him to court.

Joe Lolley anyone? Not sure how he's done at Huddersfield but I've seen his name pop up a few times with goals. At least he'd give a shit, which is more than the current lot

I always liked him. At least he tried. Really thought he'd kick on after a decent season a couple of years back, but just didn't happen. Would have him back in the team ahead of most of our jokers still.

Well I've had a fiver on us to win. 16/1. We have to win one day, right?

Technically good, but his refusal to use his right foot makes him too predictable when trying to beat a player. Also, as Gomez got taken out, he had a couple of seconds with the ball on his right foot and a clear shot at goal. Refused to hit it with his right foot. If I can have a go with my weaker foot, there's no excuse for a professional footballer.

What a guy

it's trotted out frequently , but it doesn't make it true a 2010 study had smoking treatment costs roughly at £13.74 bn ( not accounting for costs that cant necessarily be measured) tax rasied by smoking was £11.1 bn so at face value smoking costs £2.64bn Not true sadly, just a stat shuffled out by people who want to defend their "right" to smoke and drink. Sadly people dont understand moderation. shouldn't talk about Blandy like that Once you add in how much is saved from not paying pensions for those who die of smoking related illnesses, I'd imagine smoking more than pays for itself....

Say what?!

Starting to feel like it's our year now. I just hope sunderland stay shite and we can get something out of Saturday or it'll be a very uncomfortable few weeks.

Yep spot on. Just walk straight past and outside and you'll see all the reps and official transfers. Inside is all touts and people wanting to roll your bags 20 yards for a tip. It's not as pushy as I thought it would be from reading about it. Just head straight outside, which you'd want to do anyway after 15 hours messing about in airports and planes!

No problem! Like I say, dollars are accepted but I think it's more the laziness from Americans not bothering to change their currency. You'll be fine with dollars, but I encountered literally nothing that you couldn't get with pesos more easily and cheaply than you can with $. The collectivos are brilliant, and ridiculously cheap. Funnily enbough my last major holiday before Mexico was Thailand too! Had a great time, but it was much busier, so going all-inc was for us to take it easier too. It's strange not having to pay when you get a round of drinks in, but you'll soon get used to that I'm sure. That sounds a good day. Can't remebber if there's a Hard Rock in Playa or not. Isla Mujeres is on my list if/when I go back. We never made it there but it looks amazing. It's only about an hour from Playa to Cancun by road. Might take a bit longer if you have shared transfers though. We booked a private transfer with 'Canada Transfers' for $99 return (thinking about it, that is the only thing that was priced on dollars! Though you could pay that in pesos too. We did actually take some dollars for this as we had a bit left over from a USA trip). Was well worth £60-70 quid to not have to piss around after a long flight and the airport. You could also order beers for $1 a pop, so for $103, we got private transfers (both ways) and a couple of ice-cold Coronas each waiting for us in the van in an icebox! Certainly beats stopping at about 15 hotels on the way down the road! Yeah, it's crap! Took us about an hour queueing to get through immigration. Then when you get your bags, there was another queue to have your bags scanned at the exit. Bit of a ballache, but can't do much about it. If you have any questions, I'd be more than happy to try and help!

2,500 words. Jesus. Accidentally wrote a thesis on Playa Del Carmen there!

Right, part two! Yeah, Tulum is definitely worth a visit. The collectivos are great, but you can also get the 1st class bus from the bus station on 5th Ave too for a few quid if you prefer. There's only one road really down the coast, from Cancun in the North, down to Playa, then further south is Tulum, until eventually you get to Belize. I want to do this trip one day, stopping a few nights at each place then ending up in Belize. Anyway... the collectivos travel down this road. If you want to avoid going into Playa, you can walk to the main road from the hotel and just flag one down. But walking anywhere is a problem when it's 35 degrees and you've had too much tequila the nights beofre. The hotel is in a gated community called 'Playacar' (which confused me initially with the similarity of the name, but there we go). It's deceptively big. I walk from the main road once, then regretted it when my flip flop broke, and I couldn't find a taxi. Ended up walking barefoot on the red hot floor and blistered my foot like a clearing in the woods. So yeah, my advice would just be to taxi to 5th Ave! Likewise, you can walk from the Rui to Playa Del Carmen. Did this a few times. It's about 40 minutes by road, or the quickest way is get to the beach, hang a left and walk all the way in along the beach which is about 30 mintues. Walking along the beach brings you out in Playa at a ferry port. Whcih brings me neatly on to the next trip. Cozumel is an island about a 45 minute ferry ride across the water. It's quite a big island, I think from memory about 15 miles long by a couple wide. You can get the ferry across for a few quid, and rent a car or buggy on the other side. We got some weird two seater knackered old pick up jobby on the other side, which was great, and did a lap of the island, stopping at various restaurants and ruins. Well worth a day for something a bit different. I was concerned about the honesty of the car rental places, as most of them were just a bloke in the street We had no problems, but I've read of others having issues on places like Tripadvisor. Here's a little tip. They take a scan of your credit card before you leave in case they need to charge anything to it. You know those pre-paid Mastercards you can get? I have a FairFX one. I'd already taken the money out, so it only had a few quid on there. As it's a Mastercard, they don't seem to notice it's not a credit card! So if they tried to charge anything to it, it'd just get rejected as it has no money on there. I was quite pleased with myself, and it saved me worrying while going around the island. Turned out fine anyway, but nice to be safe. Didn't get to any of the theme park type places, but some of them looked good. I think that's about it. The rest of the time we spent beach-bumming, or in the sea, or oh no, one more! We went to a place called Akumal, between Playa and Tulum. This is home to a load of sea turtles, and you can go snorkelling with them. The opportunity to snorkel independently is limited, as it's regarded as a protected reserve for the turtles. You can have a guided snorkel, including kit hire, for about 20 quid each. Seeing sea turtles in their natural environment was amazing; one of the higlights of the hoiday for me. Such lovely, peaceful creatures. Word of warning make sure you get some waterproof suncream on the back of your legs and anything exposed while snorkelling. The wife found this out the har dway, and spent the next two months looking like one of those fish-stick things. Don't **** with the sun in Mexico! That goes for the rest of the time too really. Don't underestimate tropical sun. I used P20 most of the time - excellent stuff. One application in the monring, and it actually protects you all day. Took me a while to trust it, but it really does work. Now that really is about it. What a place. Would go back in a heartbeat, but wouldn't go all-incusive again, but different strokes for different folks and all that. If you like the all-inclusive vibe, I don't think you can go wrong with a Riu. Good balance of relaxed and fun, but good quality too (some of the food was great!). The drinks... they have branded spirits if you ask for them by name. Otherwise asking for a whisky will get you some weird cheap stuff called something laughably fake scottish like Kilty McSporran or something like that. The beach is great. The hotel is great. The sea is warm and turquiose. The people are lovely. The town is ace. The surroundings are awesome. Mexico is the best country on Earth. Have a cracking time mate, and I hope some of this info is useful! Up the villa!

As promised, laptop now out so I'll give you a proper response. First of all, you'll love it. If you don't, there's something wrong with you. Like I say, we stayed at the Rui Yucatan, which is next door to the Tequila, about five minutes walk away. The Yucatan is the beachfront one, with the Tequila set back. As you can use other Ruis as part of the deal, a lot of Tequila guests came to the Yucatan through the day to use the beach, so the area around the pool and the lunchtime restaurant got quite busy. To escape the crowds when we wanted some peace, we did the opposite a couple of times and went to the Tequila in the day which was nice and quiet. The Yucatan is newly refurbed so a bit 'swankier'; but the Tequila is a lot more 'Mexican' (as much as you can be on these all-inclusive resorts anyway) and I preferred the layout. You also have the Sports Bar which came in handy a few times. There's a few Villa tops up in there. If you have an old one, might be worth taking them another one so we can outnumber other clubs! Quite nice to escape the heat and sit with some air-conditioned sports and a beer. The timing only really works for evening kick offs though. 3pm kick offs were a bit early to watch! You also have the 'discotheque'. I went here once, and me and the missus vaguely remember dancing around like idiots with some American teenagers. We spent the evening at the Tequila, and thought the Margaitas weren't very strong, so were having Tequila chasers. This turned out to be quite foolish, and the next day was a bit of a write-off! The food and drink at the hotel is quite good, but in the end we kind of regretted going all-inclusive. We don't usually do it, but as it was a honeymoon we thought we'd just be lazing round most of the time. Turns out though that Playa Del Carmen itself, and surrounding areas, are so unbelievably wicked that we ate and drank out most of the time. It's quite cheap, expect about half the price you do in England, so a quid or two for a beer, three quid for a cocktail, seven quid for a meal. The food is great. Just great. Every restaurant we went into was ace. You get a bit of hassle from the shopkeepers like you do in most touristy plces abroad, but they're friendly enough and actually quite funny. Never saw any hint of trouble in Playa, it just seemed a really cool place. On currency, definitely take pesos. Someone above mentioned taking dollars, but Cancun must be different. I think Cancun is pretty much 99% American, hence the dollar being more widely used, whereas Playa is more European. You can use dollars, but they just give you a rate of 10 pesos to a dollar, where the true rate is more like 12 to the $, so you're being ripped off. Might be worthwhile if you're American and already have dollars, but if you're changing anyway, just chanfge straight into Pesos. To get to Playa from the hotel, it's a flat rate of 70 pesos in a taxi. The drivers know this, but some tourists don't. Don't bother negotiating, it's 70 pesos (£3.50) all the time. If a driver tries it on, just get another taxi. There are plenty of them. We never had a problem though, they all seem to know the score. You can just order one at the front desk, and you'll see where they hang out when you get into town. It's mostly one street, 5th Avenue, though the 'Calles' (the roads perpendicular to the Avenues) have some good stuff on too. One 'calle' (I can't remmeber the number - 10th or something) seems to b Club Street, if that's your scene. We took a walk down there one evening, and it was full of youngsters and deafening music. Not our scene but was interesting to look at. We're far too old for that shit. While I'm writing this, my missus has piped up and said 'tell him to go to the bar with the swings. And tell him they keep red wine in the fridge, but that is their only fault'. So there you go! You'll probably see Coco Bongos, and see people selling tickets. I kept reading about it before we went, and everyone was saying how you HAVE to go. So we went. You can book a tour from the hotel, but there';s not point. Just get a taxi there and back and buy your tickets in town. It's about £80 for 'VIP' tickets. For that you get balcony seats, and unlimited booze. Tell the chap what your drink is (we went for Rum and Cokes) and your glass will never be empty. We were hammered. It's a late night. You'll get home about 4am. I still don't really know what to think of it. It was weird. Probably worth going though, it was a laugh. Outside of Playa. You can buy tours from the hotel through the rep, but we didn't bother. They just cost a lot more than you can get them elsewhere. First of all, Chichen Itza. You're going all the way to Mexico, so you have to go really. Buying through the rep bloke, it's about £80. We bought from a tourist information place in Tulum (I'll come to Tulum in a bit) and paid around £35. This included being picked up from the hotel in a minibus at about 8/9am. Then it's about a two hour drive to Valladolid, which as said above is a nice little colonial town. You only get about 45 minutes here, but it's enough to have a quick mooch. Then we stopped off for a spot of lunch, and then to some gift shop type place (travel company obviously on commission). We weren't going to buy anything, but in the end bought an obsidian knife for a few quid, so it didn't break the bank. Then to Chichen Itza. It's midday by this point, so hot as hell. Spent a couple of hours there having a look around. It was good, and interesting. There was a walking tour, but we ended up shuffling off and having a look round ourself. Bought some lovely little decorated bowls from one of the stalls at Chichen Itza (it's a bit more commercialised than it would ideally be, but that's the world we live in I guess). He wanted 800 pesos for four. Got them for 280 eventually. It's a bit of a pain in the arse not to be able to get a simple price for things when you just want to buy a hat or something, but all part of the fun I guess. The only positive to going with Thompson or someone (if you're an early riser) is they leave at about 5am, so you get to Chichen Itza while it's still (relatively) cool. At 1pm, it really is hot. That was okay though in the end, as down the road we went to a cenote. It was quiet, with only our little group of about 12 there. It as quite a developed cenote, with chnging rooms and showers. Other cenotes are nothing more than a hole in some jungle. Depends what you want I guess. It really did cool you down. The water was chuffing freezing! Apparently it's about 400 foot deep, so a bit scary, but a great experience. This one had a platform about 30 foot up which you can jump off. Took me a fair while to pluck up the courage, but I'm really glad I did! Tulum: there are three parts to Tulum, which is about an hour down the road. There's the town, which is worth a look if you're there but nothing particularly special. Then there's some Mayan ruins. And there's the beach strip. The ruins are definitely worth a look. Really impressive, as it's located on the cliffs above the turquiose sea. Just beautiful. Then from the ruins, down the beach running for a good three or four miles, are all the beach clubs and hotels. There must be a good 100 of these. We visited a few and they were all great. You can walk down the beach, or just behind the beach is a little road where you can flag down a taxi. We went a couple of times to a place called Zebra. Amazing food, and the beach was just stunning. I really want to go back and stay a few nights at Zebra - magical place. To get to Tulum, again you can book a trip. Don't bother. In Playa, there are little minibuses called Collectivos. These are about 12 seater minivans, which go to various places, but there's one that's a shuttle between Playa and Tulum. They're used heavily by locals, and it costs 20(!) pesos from Playa to Tulum. Just tell the driver your destination when you get in, and you're away. They just stop wherever someone flags them down, and drop you off wherever you want. If you're going to the ruins, make sure to tell the driver 'Tulum Ruinas', as it's a couple of km from the main town, which is a long walk in the heat. Where it drops you off for the ruins, it's about a ten minute walk to the ruins, or there's a land train whcih was a laugh and cost something daft like 50p. It was here that I booked the Chichen Itza trip above for half the price of the hotel. There;s a few places to get a bit of grub or a cold drink too. I'm going to post this now and then start a new post in case my laptop crashes or something daft. TBC!

went last year. On phone now so will try and post more when on my laptop. Stayed at riu yucatan but went to Tequila a few times. Don't take dollars. You can use them but at a crap exchange rate. Take pesos. That's their currency after all. Did a few trips including Chichen Itza but will post more info when I have a proper keyboard. It's bloody great.

Great stuff. Bet he enjoyed that.

I'd ring the changes for this one. For me only Clark, Hutton and Sinclair came out of the Stoke match with any credit. I'd play: Guzan (I'd like to drop him for his shocking distribution but Given is just too weak on crosses for me Hutton Clark Tetchi Jores Charlemagne Ulrich Okore Richard on (I think he's been poor since joining us, but did better than Ali on Saturday) Gil Westwood Cleverley Nzogbia (if fit. Last chance saloon for him) Sinclair Bacuna the front two looks mad, but Weimann is just a headless chicken at the moment, Benteke is weak and lazy and Agbonlahor is just stealing a living. I'm cross at Benteke. Realistically I'd probably keep him in for one more game, and put Bacuna in on the wing for Nzogbia. Bacuna and Sinclair are our only goal threats. For that reason alone they need to play. I don't think it matters. We will lose, and I don't expect us to even be in the race come the last day of the season.

Been really desperate to stay up the last few years thinking if we can just hold on, we'll kick on next year. Now I know we won't. If we stay up this year, next year will be the same. If we stay up next year, the year after will be the same. So let's just get it over with and go down and see what happens. **** the lot of them.

I wanted it to work. I liked the continuity. For some reason I like him as a bloke. I like a lot of his transfers. But this is too much. Has to go.

God help us. Given we're pretty likely to lose this one, I'd try and give a few players a wake - up call by dropping them. I like Sanchez but you don't deserve to keep your place playing like he did today. Pop Westwood in for him. Put Cissokho back in for Richardson. Pop Richardson in a van and drive him to the middle of nowhere in the far North of Scotland and release him into the wild. Drop Benteke. He needs to earn his place and not rely on his reputation. Make him realise that if he wants to move, he has to earn it, otherwise he can just be another also-ran rather tha the player he has/had the potential to be. I'd play a 4 2 3 1. Guzan Hutton Clark Okore Cissokho Westwood Delph Sinclair Gil Bacuna Weimann We'll lose. But we would have lost anyway.

Did anyone see him giving a little wave toward the Holte after the match. Only saw it out of the corner of my eye so could be wrong. Looked like a little 'goodbye' though. If he's going, I'd much rather get a few million for him now and give it to Lambert to spend. For his faults, Lambert can spot a player when given a half decent lump of cash.

As above. Work in progress. We'd have all been chuffed to bits with this points tally at this time. It's a shame that people turn up for a moan. Other than a mad four minutes we did just fine. The next few matches will be tough, but I know that if/when we lose, the boo boys will be out. It's upsetting. We're doing well. Get behind the boys. Four minutes of madness. It happens. Keep the faith.

You know what? If you're going to ironically cheer when sanchez completes a pass, and ironically cheer when he gets taken off, and boo like a word removed when we lose against arsenal despite being third in the league, **** right off. To the rocket polishers at the centre back of the lower Holte who did that, and booed them off at the end: we're better off without you. This site hates 'better fan', but I am a better fan than you words removed. Boo yourself. **** off. Bad day at the office. Onwards and upwards. Up the villa.