moose

He's made such a mess of the finance side that it would take years to get back into surplus. We're a million miles away from being sustainable.

I'm going to disagree with that. I think the plans he's putting in place, quite akin to the current macro-economic austerity measures that are equally unpopular, could well see us as a sustainable self-financing club. Our biggest problem, that of buying and paying for a large number of incredibly well paid players with little to no resale value, has become far less of an issue although we are now in a position where many of the remaining playing staff might not have cost a lot but they're also unlikely to generate any future transfer fees for us.

The club needs to be looking to the future and ensuring that the cost of player acquisitions can be funded from operational income, with transfer fees being a bonus that can be reinvested rather than used to prop up the club's cost base.

this club is run by accountants which is all well & good but not when every other Premier League club is run by the desire to be successful!

I am sure we have a desire to be successful, and I am sure other football clubs are also run by accountants.

By half-time yesterday I'd watched 135 minutes of league football by Villa this season, and every last one of them looked worse than last season. Can't believe I've just had to say that.

On the downside the possibility of using Hutton as a part-ex for Jones has gone too.

I'd not at all mind being in the Europa League, but I doubt we'd take it all too seriously and even if you win it takes 45 matches to get there and you end up with 50p and a bag of conkers.

On the plus side, it would be fun to go to some remote village in Khazakstan for a qualifier. Or would it. Hmm...

Agent_ITK‏@Agent_ITK

Will have some big transfer news later

In other words, he's watching Sky Sports News.

Looking at the bench on Saturday I think the only reason Zog played was because there wasn't a better option. He was disappointing all of last season and even the new manager doesn't seem to have perked him up.

On the whole I felt it was a complete and utter let-down. Saw comments from PL before match saying stuff like "if we don't have a shot until the 40th minute the fans won't like it". Damn right. We could have played until Tuesday and barely got a shot on target.

New manager's given us some optimism but sadly the same old players have taken it away. On the plus side we clearly know how to pass, on the downside we haven't got the slightest clue how to pass it into an area where we can be dangerous.

I guess it's game over for Warnock but I think it must be game over for Lichaj too if we're playing a 4th choice centre back ahead of him on the left (making the assumption that he's 4th because he wasn't one of the two actually playing CB and Dunne is injured).

Match verdict : like watching last season.

Admittedly, I burst into laughter when he put in the OG against QPR. Others in the Trinity stand were not as amused as me, but it really got so bad and to the point where you just could not help but laugh at how bad he had gotten.

Yeah I laughed too. it was the most natural response to what I'd just witnessed. I wasn't angry, just bemused.

Tranmere home. Cool

I'd expect a scrappy draw.

is this round seeded?

Yes. I don't think we'll be able to be drawn against the bluenoses.

At least we can just draw a line under this whole sorry affair now.

Think that guy started his account about 7 hours ago.

It don't matter. All these twitter accounts claiming to be "ITK" are ALL talking bollocks.

This. I don't believe there's a genuine football agent amongst them, just a bunch of unemployed 17 year olds wanting attention.

did your missus have glasses on? i was slightly pissed

Yup.

The external difference (if you look closely enough) between men's and women's shirts is that the tag on the right hand side that says something like "official team wear" is missing from the ladies shirts. On that subject, the ladies ones are apparently crap compared to Nike's as they're not fitted and have no proper "shape" to them, according to my gf.

You must have been sat almost right next to me and the missus then, cos he was 2 rows in front of us too.

He had 'langleylad' on the back of his shirt btw, I should have said that's where I got the name from.

By the looks of it we're going to be playing narrow and expecting the full backs to provide the width (come back Kyle Walker, please!). I thought Holman was signed as a winger but he was in the middle of the park against Forest.

I'm starting to agree with Big John's view above that Bent is going to be wasted.

league - 9th

fa cup - quarter finals

league cup - quarter-finals

Thought we looked great at passing, but not that great at passing it to somewhere that would create a goalscoring chance. Warnock was terrible, Guzan didn't do himself any favours but didn't totally embarrass himself, play was at times very narrow.

We were the much better team until Forest changed 7 of theirs and we changed one at half time - the fitness just showed through a bit there but I'm trusting that Lambert purposely left them on to see how tired they got.

BTW if anyone knows "langleylad" I'd love to know what he did to some bloke's sister, I only heard half of the story as he was a couple of rows in front and it looked like tensions were boiling over somewhat as the bloke came up and starting pointing and shouting at him.

what we're saying is that Warnock was the worst on the pitch today! He was the worst by a country mile!

I think he was the only one of our players who looked truly awful against Forest. I'm praying that wasn't Lambert's first attempt at putting together a first XI, because shy of Bent and Given it looked like it was. I'm just hoping Lichaj starts against Bremen.

I think he can train with the team. Many players from the MLS come train with teams in December and January without having to get a work permit. We had Omar Cummings training with us but he didn't sign due to work permit issues. (would've been a terrible signing anyway; average mls player).

The difference is they'd not be getting paid, Makoun is getting paid by us so him turning up would probably be classed as working.

I don't think he can ever train with the reserves can he? That would count as working, so would be a serious no-no if he's not got a work permit.

Top marks to anyone who goes into the NS store and takes a cheeky photo of goth girl