NeilS

Whoahhh! I have changed my mind about Jack's loan now. Bring him back asap, I hadn't realised that Treacherous toad was there.

I am for the extension of a loan, learning his trade out of the spot light at Notts County will do Jack the world of good and toughen him up to the physical and Mental strains of a whole football season without being in the spotlight of having to perform at the top level. If he were to come into our team, and he wasn't physically or Mentally ready then he may struggle and Jack that could put back Jack's develpment by years or even stop it in its tracks. For example, pretty much all of the youngsters we have thrown sdtraight into the first team in recent history, bar Gabby have struggled to perform consitantly down the years. Many have been moved on, and some are still trying tho get there. I think patience is the key here, and I am all for letting the younger lads go and develop themselves in the lower leagues. With regards to Januzaj working out for Man Utd, he has done very well in his 2-3 games to date, but the difference there is that he is surrounded by top class players throughout the team and will have less pressure on him to perform. Also, the true test will come later when he has been under scrutiny from the top players in the league, and things don't always work out for him. The future does look bright for the lad, but it is still early days to say he is going to be a certainty.

Has McLeish been mentioned yet? Although drawing every game from here onwards probably won't be enough to save Palace this season.

I agree, The majority of the league places are still up in the air during January, unless you have had a terrible first half of the season. Selling Benteke then could spell disaster for our season. Just look at Sunderland when they sold Bent to us, they were in with a chance of Europa League qualification but nose dived after his sale and we went past them. Keep Benteke until the summer, and with a bit of luck and hopefully the rest of the team finding form, we could put in a late surge up the table and give ourselves an outside chance of Europa League qualification, sell him and we could easily drop like a stone.

So Notts County then, good luck to Jack with the loan move. I hope it goes well for him, and he comes back better off for it.

Ignore this.

It might explain why the top teams have such good records here! (Man Utd/Arsenal etc). Lets look at it, the pitch is big, nicely kept which allows for slick passing. The best teams tend to see the lions share of the possesion, and the bigger pitch will ultimately leave bigger spaces for them to exploit. This however flies in the face of us struggling to break down lesser teams at home; even during our better years we would be drawing too many games because of our inability to break down a well organised defence. I think that rather than reduce the pitch size, we just need to make sure we become better at retaining the ball and exploiting the spaces ourselves. Hopefully Lambert is moving us toward that goal.

Does anybody know when does Boardwalk Empire start again in the UK on Sky Atlantic? I see that the first episode has been out in the US, but cannot find a release date for the UK?

Haha, those were the days.

Is it a case of the fee being £4m ish, and the total overall cost after fees and wages making the deal woth £7m? It may be reported in two different ways? Does that sound feasible, or am I talking rubbish

I guess they are not expecting any action of interest to be happening at BMH. Also, the players we tend to be looking at these days are not "Box Office" names as such, although they one day maybe with the way Lambert is picking players. Are you expecting any action other than possibly Kozak today Richard?

I don't know anything about this guy, but by the sounds of it he is a big brute of a player. We may be looking to play the two big forwards up front, in a similar fashion to the Shearer/Sutton partnership of yester-year, and that It may allow an alternative option to the current front three that we use, and will give a slightly different game plan. I guess that gameplan could be described as a battering ram style to use against teams that defend deep. That may be harsh on the guy, as he may be technically sound like Benteke for all I know. I guess he also would possibly rotate in our current system with Benteke, just in case Benteke gets injured or suspended. We all saw how people panicked when the rumours of Benteke having broken his leg surfaced on twitter. It seems a strange signing, but we don't know all of the stuff going on behind the scenes, or what Lambert is hoping to achieve with this signing. I shall reserve judgement for now as I don't know enough to make any informed opinion on the fella, although I am slightly perplexed by the signing, and I'm not sure yet how this signing will "make a difference", which is what I think the quote was from the other day.

You would hope that the club would have taken action if the Twitter account was Gabby's.

Leftism by Leftfield. Although I have just noticed prior to hitting the post button that Rev has beaten me to it.

I think the original point referred to our time under MON when we were challenging for top 4, not our current boss.

Beeb reporting Anelka given compassionate leave

The "It all evens itself out over the course of a season" rubbish, is the mantra of the Sky 4 supporters. It rarely does even itself out. Yes, you may see the odd favourable decision go your way, but against the Sky 4 it is very rare for one of the other teams to get the benefit of a bad decision, especially on their own soil. The thing about last nights decision that was annoying, is that the ref can't say he was unsighted as both incidents (Elbow & Handball) happened right in front of him. Therefore he has ignored , or chosen to interpret the rules differently to suit. If the incidents would have happened the other way around, you could almost guarantee that he would have taken different action.

It wouldn't suprise me if Ireland ends up without a club when his contract expires, he may end up in some far flung place or retired imo. No top team will want to take him on after the last couple of seasons.

I think they will still get their fair share of dubious decisions, and by that I mean the ref will still favour them in the 50-50's and big calls. I think they will still finish in the top 3, but things will be a lot closer this season. I think the thing to watch is how many late winners they get, I think that number will drop because of the lack of Fergie. That was the thing that Fergie did best, even ignoring the infamous Fergie time, his teams never stopped playing and never gave up until the final whistle. They must easily have scored more goals in the final 5 minutes of a match than any other team in the last twenty years. I have a few Utd fans at my work and was discussing their chances this season at work this morning. One was very dubious and didn't think much of their chances, and the other was very happy with their performance yesterday and thinks that they will be Champions again this season by a clear margin. Even with me trying to throw into the argument that it was only Wigan (who are under a new manager), so not the Wigan of old, seemed to phase him.

Oh dear the top order batsmen are seriously out of form. Bell has been relied upon a lot in this series to dig us out of the mire, and can't be expected to keep saving our skin. Maybe time for a few new faces amongst the top order batsmen. Root, bar one very good innings has struggled, Bairstow never fills me with confidence, and Cook and Trott seem to be struggling to make a real big score. We haven't been the same for over a year now, the South Africans showed us up and we have struggled since.

According to Joe Kinnear at Newcastle, they had met with Bent's representative's last week and agreed things from that point of view, and they were currently in negotiations with Villa about a transfer fee. I think Bent will go, but later in the window as one of the parties (maybe us, maybe Newc or Fulham) compromise and do the deal. It will probably be in the last week of the window, maybe even deadline day. We will have some deals lined up in case it happens late, assuming we want to re-invest in the squad at that point. So what I am saying is that I think we won't see a Kiyotake or AM signing until very late in the window, similar to the Benteke deal last summer. You fail to mention they bid 2 million for him after the talks and were told were to go. Newcastle fans were going mad as they also knew it was a joke and that Fulham would prob get him. I missed that, I hadn't realised they had even lodged a bid. I thought Fulham were the only team that had bid so far (£4m ish?), which was rejected. I was on holiday last week, so missed a lot of information from the internet and had to rely on snippets from SSN. From what you say, It looks more likely that Fulham will be the team to make the effort, just remains to be seen how much they want him, and how much we want rid of him?

According to Joe Kinnear at Newcastle, they had met with Bent's representative's last week and agreed things from that point of view, and they were currently in negotiations with Villa about a transfer fee. I think Bent will go, but later in the window as one of the parties (maybe us, maybe Newc or Fulham) compromise and do the deal. It will probably be in the last week of the window, maybe even deadline day. We will have some deals lined up in case it happens late, assuming we want to re-invest in the squad at that point. So what I am saying is that I think we won't see a Kiyotake or AM signing until very late in the window, similar to the Benteke deal last summer.

The owner of my workplace has just bought a black F Type so I have seen one most days for the last month, I can confirm that it is very nice indeed. I haven't dared ask to go for a spin in it yet though, and don't think I ever will dare.

Clark doesn't seem to be progressing his game as much as we would hope, and is still making lots of mistakes even after three seasons in the first team squad. He should have gained vital experience over these last few years, he is not a new boy now he should be one of the more experienced heads in the dressing room. I don't know whether it is lack of concentration, or talent on his part, but If he is not careful He could well end up being labeled another Titus Bramble, by that I mean highly rated youngster who never learned from his mistakes and became a bit of a mediocre to poor defender. We need him to step up his game, I'm hoping he starts to cut out the rash decisions and becomes the defender we hoped he would. If not, then I don't see him being here in 12 months time.

Didn't the Brazillian lad say that Spurs had promised him that Bale wasn't being sold, so that may put the cat amongst the pigeons if they do now accept an offer from Real Madrid.