markavfc40

Nice one

I'd go with: - - - - Guzan- - - - Lowton Vlaar Clark Bennett Holman Kea Delph Ireland - - - - Bent Gabby - - - - That would be quite fluid as at times Ireland could play just behind Bent with Gabby going wider. Ireland will definately start as we have really missed him. It may however be a toss up who the two up top will be.

The trouble with knowing roughly when your going to die is that very often it will be associated with a prolonged and painful death. I have sadly witnessed this twice at very close quarters. First time 10 years ago with my dad. He was 60. Found out in the June he had bladder cancer, was scheduled to have it removed with in a few weeks but by the time they did it had spread all over. At the time they told him it had spread and nothing they could do he had been through hell in hospital for around 4 weeks. He could have stayed in hospital and lived for perhaps another month but he immediately made the decision to come home to die. For 5 days at home he was in out and out consciousness but had perhaps 150 visitors during that time and it gave the opportunity for many to say goodbye to him. He suffered though as his body slowly shut down. With in the last few months I have again witnessed a relatively slow and painful death. My mother in law who was 55 had been having pain in her leg for months. GP get putting it down to arthritis. Anyway being in excruciating pain she went to A and E in June. They did some tests and discovered she had bone cancer. Worse still a couple of days later they discovered it was bone cancer that had spread from the lung and was terminal. Life expectancy 8 months but due to her age hopefully longer. Couple of weeks in and out of hospital and she got hospital acquired pneumonia. On Monday 9th July they told her nothing they good do and she had days to live. She spent the next 5 days in hospital going through hell in extreme pain, struggling for very breath before she died on Friday the 13th. It was terrible to witness it. From my experience I am therefore not sure. My dad got to say goodbye to lots of people but suffered. My mother in law went through hell and having never come to terms with her own impending death wasn't in any frame of mind to be saying goodbye to others. I am sure there are those that have a terminal illness where you are slowly dying who do go relatively peacefully and of course we would all like go like that. I think though if its the choice between really suffering over a period of time or being hit by a bus and gone I'd probably take the latter.

Spot on. Bottom line is that you throw an egg at some one from a couple of feet away you can have no complaints if that person defends himself and gives you a slap. Its a natural reaction for most. There is absolutely no justification for what Mitchell. He is vermin. Of course there is one good thing to come out of all this in that it is another nail in the Tories coffin. It is no surprise that there mask slips every now and then to reveal them in all there revolting glory. A party has never done more with in two and half years of being elected to ensure they will not be re-elected. Well I say elected as they haven't won an election in 20 years and thankfully that will not be changing any time soon. This current term will just serve as a wake up call and reminder as to why we shouldn't vote for this repugnant mob.

Absolutely terrible. I got less than half way through them and I couldn't stand to look at any more.

It depends in what context doesn’t it. If you are continually swearing at a Policeman whilst at the same time talking down to them then I’d suggest it should be seen as an offence. As for Prescott I thought at the time it was an instinctive reaction from a guy that clearly stands no **** about. If I was in the same boat and some pratt **** an egg at me from a couple of feet away I’d certainly be looking to make sure I wasn’t going to give him the opportunity to follow it up. In all fairness the Prescott and Mitchell instances are not comparable apart from they were both instinctive reactions. One to an unprovoked attack the other to a Police officer for having the audacity to do there job. The instinctive reaction of Prescott the vast majority of us can I'd imagine understand, sympathise with and justify. The instinctive reaction of Mitchell is thankfully not one which the vast majority of us can defend or align ourselves with.

The Democrats are the equivalent of Labour and the Republicans are all for the haves and **** the have nots so yes the equivelant of the Tories.

I suppose in what context it is really. If I walk out into the street now and someone attacks me and I punch him to defend myself then I'd say that is fair enough. If however I go out into the street and start verbally abusing a policeman for doing nothing more than doing there job then I 'd say I should be arrested. What do you think?

For the vast majority of people in this country they are either past a tipping point where they can no longer afford to live to a decent standard or are very close to it. Price rises like this will push many over the edge. The energy companies are getting away with this because the Politicians and the regualtors are not keeping them in check. Everything is rising apart from the vast majority of peoples income. There is no doubt this country is ****. Looking specifically at this issue I'd advise going on to any decent comparison site and you will find a far better deal than what British Gas can offer you. I fixed till Jan 2014 with Scottish Power recently. One thing I would say is you want to be looking at getting on to one of these fixed rate deals asap as they will not last much longer as once one or two of the big boys up their prices they all follow.

Mike that pretty much sums up 90% of our squad. I just hope that by the time they have developed and start to click consistantly we aren't entrenched in the bottom three..

I think for much of this season we will be in and around the bottom three but I am hopeful come the final third of the season we will eventually pull away. I don't think that we should be under any illusions though that we are going to be involved in the battle to stay up. The squad is full of unknowns. We started yesterday with only Gabby having any real experience of playing in this league. The rest of the players I wouldn't have thought have started 100 Premier League games between them. Lowton, Bennett, Benteke, Clark, Delph, Albrighton all look promising players but as things stand they lack experience and are very hit and miss in terms of level of performance. You throw in that KEA, Holman and Vlaar are new to this country/league and we have a team that we simply can't be sure will be able to perform consistently at this level. I have no problem with us having inexperienced players in the team but there is a happy medium I guess and I am concerned that the balance is not right and we need more experience in the side. That could be helped by the return to fitness of Ireland and Dunne and by Bent returning to the starting 11. Lambert of course needs to pick them first. It will be interesting to see how the players react if we do find ourselves in a relegation battle and the pressure for every point is immense. Lambert has been very gung ho so far and whilst after last season it is welcomed if the run we are on continues there will come a time when it will all be about securing 3 points regardless of performance.

Few over reactions in this thread I see. The lad is only 21 and this league is a big step up for him combined with playing in a new country. He has missed 3 or 4 good chances but over all in his 4 starts he has done OK. Given his age and lack of experience at this level he will get better as time goes on and I can see us having a very good player on our books eventually. I would however like to see him introduced a little more slowly and for now both Bent and Gabby should be ahead of him in the pecking order.

I agree. The defence at the moment is lacking more than anywhere else on the field. I am not convinced by Clark but feel he is not being helped by the lack of know how/experience of Bennett and Lowton and lack of a real defensive midfielder. As soon as Dunne is fit he should come straight back in alongside Vlaar. That should help but I am not sure that will be enough to stop us leaking goals. With so many new players in the team it was always going to take time for the players to gel. I just hope we are not entrenched in the bottom three by the time they do.

There was never any doubt this was going to be a very tough first season for Lambert but I would have envisaged us picking up at least 2 or 3 more points by now. There is little doubt that things, in terms of league position, will get worse before it gets better and I can see us being in the bottom three by the turn of the year. I am pretty confident though that things will eventually pick up and the second half of the season will be much better. My only concern remains what it has always been and that is that we are trying to integrate too many players at the same time without Premier League experience. You take Gabby out of today's starting line up and I doubt the other 10 players had started 100 Premier League games between them. We are like a team that has just been promoted. Defensively we look vulnerable and the sooner Dunne is back the better. Long term he is not the answer but for now he is. I also think even though Lamberts often gung ho approach has been very refreshing after last season if this poor run of results continues the time will soon be upon us when we will all be happy if we can scrap a few wins even if it means playing ugly.

Nice one mate.

We were superb last night. Last time I went to Man City for a cup game was when we surrendered before kick off and got a spanking after a gutless performace and then had to listen to our manager say he knew before kick off it didn't matter what side he put out we couldn't have won. The contrast to last night was like chalk and cheese and its so refreshing to have a manager that will have a real go no matter who the opposition are. There wil be ups and downs this season but rest assured under Lambert, unlike under our last two managers, we will try to win every game and not be scared to have a right go regardless of who we are up against.

He was comfortably the best player on the park in the first half. Unfortunately the squad lacks any kind of natural replacement for him and Westwood certainly wasn't a like for like replacement and understandably given his lack of experience at this level looked out of his depth. It would be stretching it to say we wouldn't have lost had Ireland have played the second half but he was certainly a huge miss.

You've just described 80% of the games Bent has scored in. That is what you get with DB. If he ain't scoring he pretty much does **** all else. I do at times feel a little sorry for him though. When he joined we had Downing and Ash laying it on a plate for him. We have nothing like that quality now.

I think he will get it right but it is going to take time and there will be lots of ups and downs before we gain some consistency. I am slightly concerned that the squad lacks enough players with either top flight experience or experience of playing in this country. In todays starting 11 Clark, Bannan, Lowton, Lichaj are still inexperienced, Holman, Benteke, Kea and Vlaar are new to this league/country. Really only Bent and Ireland of the starting 11 could be described as experienced Premier League players. It will take time for the players to gel and for Lambert to get them to play week in week out as he wants and for him to know what his best 11 is. This season is going to be tough but I am confident we will see consistently better performances as it goes on.

Spot on. Over the next 4 years we could spend 100 mill net and Man Utd, Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs could spend half that and still have much better squads as they are starting off with much better squads. We were in the same position in 2006 and I think an 80 mill net spend in the following 4 seasons got us about what you'd expect - three 6th place finishes on the spin, challenging for top four up until the final few games of the seaon on a couple of occasions. Especially when you consider when finsihing sixth three times we had the 8th, 6th and 6th highest wage bill.

The squad worked for him and he managed to get the best out of them which at the time was all that mattered. In terms of him wasting money that is a fair argument I guess but it should perhaps be remembered he had a net spend of approx 80 mill and since he left we have sold three of the players he signed for 64 mill - Milner ( 27 mill ( 20 mill +Ireland ), Downing 20 mill and Ash 17 mill. In all fairness it really doesn't matter now how good we think Mon was or wasn't. What matters now is Paul Lambert. What I will say about O'Neill is that I enjoyed much of his time here - season on season progression, challenging for top 4 for a couple of seasons, a couple of trips to Wembley, scoring a shit load of goals in 07/08, regularly holding our own against the best teams and taking a few big scalps and more often than not winning our local derbies. The football at times was very good at other times poor but in the main it was effective. I hope Lambert can match Mons achievements in terms of top 6 finishes etc and I am very confident with decent backing he can. If we can also play better football than we did under O'Neill along the way then that will be a nice bonus.

If he keeps this up he will want and deserve 50k a week and we'll be looking to sell Given and bring in an understudy to Guzan.

Considering he wasn't on the pitch for that long it was remarkable how much he was involved. Its never easy coming on as a sub but he slotted straight in, linked up well with Bent and the midfield on numerous occasions, held the ball up well, had 2 or 3 shots and scored. Not bad for 20 mins!

He was excelelnt today. Covered loads of ground and always involved. Love the lads workrate and deservedly the sponsores man of the match.

The passion and enthusiasm he showed on the touchline today was unbelievable. You can see the desire to win pouring out of him. He seems to be quickly transmitting that over to the players and its fantastic to see. At the end of the game today he went up to the Holte, clapped the fans who to a man applauded him back and he pointed to the players as if to say give your support to them guys. Fans seem to be right behind him, and rightly so as only a fool wouldn't be, with plenty of Paul Lamberts Claret and blue army chants the likes of which we haven't seen since O'Neill. Today it felt as though it was a mini rebirth of this great club. It was far from a full house ( 34k ) but the fans were behind the team and the manager throughout and the players gave their all on the pitch whilst playing some lovely stuff. Lambert I have always felt is a perfect fit for this club and given decent backing will do great things for us. Today started to confirm that.