HanoiVillan

I feel desperately sorry for them, in as much as I've always liked the team and they have tried to do things the right way. They've always been a selling team, and some of these deals are hardly surprising. Chambers, for example, represents a standard Southampton transfer, receiving a large fee for a top prospect who lacks experience. I don't feel sorry for them for that. But some of these deals feel very different to before. Fonte, for instance, is a good CB, yet it seems like they may be unable or unwilling to prevent him from leaving to go to a team in the division below. That's not normal, that's a firesale. They would need 5 or 6 top players to be competitive next year, and I think they'll struggle to get them all, and then get them settled, in time for the transfer window shutting. Clubs will see them coming from miles away. I wouldn't be accepting a bid of less than, say, 12m now for Vlaar if they came knocking.

I don't think we should be turning our Moses up at him.

Aha, very glad that was a joke that just flew over my head!

Most of those teams you've mentioned are much bigger than us already, ie. they don't need to expand to be attractive to new owners. London is also much bigger than the Midlands conurbation, while Liverpool and Manchester are totally distinct cities with very different cultures - Man Utd aren't competing with Liverpool or Everton for a Scouser's affections.

Bennett's problem - and the reason I preferred Luna - is that his mistakes often seem to lead directly to goal-scoring chances for the opposition. He always seems alarmingly likely to make a kamikaze backpass or give away a penalty. Nevertheless, he does always seem to be giving 100%, and I hope he can improve in the future. Richardson will surely be first choice though.

Am I missing the joke here?

People often say this, but it isn't true. There's another team, with a stadium less than 3 miles away, who have been in the PL for most of the last 15 years. There are 2 other teams, within a 15 mile radius, who have been in the top 2 divisions of English football for almost all of their history. There's another PL team between Birmingham and Manchester as well. We aren't all that attractive as a proposition from a point of view of expansion of fan base.

Me neither. A simple calculation reveals that with him in the team, we score more than a point a game - ie, enough to stay up this season. Without him, we score a lot less than that. That in itself makes his value to us higher than it appears.

Thanks! That's me. Well, sort of, maybe, depending when and where you sent it from. And I thank you.

Most surprising are the comparatively small numbers of coasters in both Italy and Switzerland, which are the centres of the world rollercoaster construction industry.

Maybe best not to sell Vlaar then.

So, who's going to Photoshop that onto Abbey Road then?

He seems to be an attacking right-back/right-winger, which seems like an unlikely area for us to be strengthening. Almost certainly nothing in it, obviously. I did enjoy his wonderful hoofball at around 45 seconds, a pleasure to watch.

Great work Texas_Mike, you asked two good questions and got us all some info, nice one!

Of course, it can obviously get a lot worse. Leeds, Wednesday, Forest, Coventry etc etc. I used to follow Chester City as well, they went under. Our situation isn't all that bad. For anyone under 30, though, it probably is as bad as it has been in their lifetime. I mean, I'm 28 and I don't remember a lower ebb. Maybe there was one and I've forgotten it, but I don't think so. I do agree that it's essential to get the new owner in as soon as possible, but there doesn't seem much chance of that now. I really don't see any reason to believe the situation has changed in any way since Randy's statement.

Because Everton have more resources to spend on loan fees. Because Everton are an attractive club with a very highly-rated manager who is known around the continent as a progressive coach. Because Everton consistently finish in or around the European places these days. Take your pick I suppose. Our last loan signing was Grant Holt but yeah, sure, Isco would be nice.

Who says we don't need to sell?? Nobody has said that we do and there's no evidence to suggest that is the case. Can you see any other way of raising any cash atm? Vlaar is our only current saleable assett? So to raise transfer funds we may need to sell? Why do we need to raise cash? We're better off keeping him than selling him for the sake of it. We may need cash to buy players that Lambert wants? And again, we need to sell our best fit player to do that because?

I think this is a pretty fair summary. I'm not really in agreement with loaning him out, I'd have thought we're more likely to be needing him this season than any other (or at any rate, I hope so).

All those moaners are right, wind turbines really are ugly.

He looked like he'd calmed down and got a bit more composed when he came on at Old Trafford, and I thought he should have had a couple more opportunities after that. Nevertheless, he can hardly have any arguments about his treatment when his performances were a net negative last season. He's obviously another one who we'll accept any offer for.

I don't suppose it's possible, but would anyone take a smaller amount of cash plus Yoshida? He's not great in the air, but pretty decent otherwise, and Saints obviously don't trust him as a starter.

Gutted to be honest, think he would've really improved the team. Oh well, anyone got Karl Henry's number?

Our transformation into the Democratic People's Republic of Newcastle United continues apace.

Teachers work considerably more than the Working Time Directive all throughout the school year. If they get paid for the summer holidays, so what? It simply goes towards evening out all the unpaid overtime they've already done.

An interesting question! Apparently, according to this page, Midsomer averages 2.6 murders an episode, with 8 episodes per year, which works out at a murder rate of 32 per million inhabitants. This isn't very large, though it is much higher than Oxfordshire. On the same page, they claim Abbot Cove, from 'Murder She Wrote', had a murder rate of 1,490 per million, which would be the second-most murderous place in the world, somewhat more dangerous than Caracas. By contrast, Sen Pedro Sula in Honduras, which is by some distance the most dangerous city in the world that's not a warzone, has a murder rate of 1,871 per million. Midsomer is more deadly than Birmingham, which has a murder rate of around 15 per million.