Ken Tone

Bet you can't prove it! More seriously, and weirdly, the smileys don't show up for me on the main screen , but do in this quote box.

Genuine question because I rarely buy tickets for home league games being a ST-holder.... are there usually many pairs of seats for sale in the 'expensive blocks' of the the kingsland for any game? So manyof the people who sit round me are also ST-holders that you'd never get a pair of seats 'casual' near us. I suspect the Kingsland has the highest number of ST seats sold.

Lol It makes me smile every time someone writes 'compliment' on here when they mean 'complement'. I have this mental image of us buying a new striker whose only job is to stand there saying things like, "Oh, good shot Rickie!" or "I say! Jolly good try, David old chap!" But then, I'm easily amused.

Well technically it is an emergency loan, but as others have said that's just a name and as you imply there is no restriction or need to prove you have an emergency. My understanding is that the main real difference between a standard loan and an emergency one is that a standard one can be for up to 120 odd days and and emergency only up to 90 odd days. So sign a loan player in the main transfer window, and the loan can be up to January window. Sign one in the emergency loan window and you have to do some careful counting.

And of course it doesn't even cost as little as £4.2 million a year to have Barton. That's just his wage. By the time the employer has paid insurance, pension(?) and other 'on costs' and expenses etc it probably costs the club more like £5 million plus. Obscene, isn't it?

Apparently E'to is on £350,000 a week in Russia, or rather around £18 million a year, and only pays 15% income tax! Footballers now really live in a different world to the rest of us. It must actually be quite difficult to spend £18 million year. How many houses and yachts etc can one person enjoy?

With the current astonomical wages being quoted for some 'top' footballers, it strikes me how odd it is that the media still always say £x per week, not £y per year. I realise that football has working class origins where weekly wages were the norm but nowadays it is multi-national, multi-million pound, business. And even in tradtionally working class jobs, more are now paid monthly rather than weekly. Do players really still get paid weekly? It seems highly unlikely. I can think of no other area of such high finance where weekly wages would be quoted. We rightly find it horrific to hear that the boss of such and such a bank earns say a million a year. No one says he gets about £20k a week. For me the weekly wage just helps cover up the absurdity of football finance. What sounds worse to you, Barton on £80k a week, or Barton on some £4.2 million per year?

I'd have thought that the fact he spelled 'vomitory' incorrectly actually indicated he didn't look it up. It's a standard word in crowd control and emergency exit routes from large buildings that he will use regularly. More significantly I thought the expanation he gave was well-reasoned and sensible, even if IMO they did get it wrong on this occasion. I'm old enough to rember the routine corralling of away fans to and from grounds, never mind inside, and frquent OTT use of force, police horses etc ... it caused trouble.

Agree, except I recall someone posting that they'd spoken to Hooiveld and he himself said he was a couple of weeks away from full fitness. So if it is a choice between a fully fit but right-footed Martin and an 80% fit but left-footed Hooiveld ....hmmm. Not sure.

Not quite the next Rio IMO, but I do think he will develop into a good player at championship and maybe premier level, and am sorry we lost him. Hope the tribunal feels the same!

Yes, a 'night on the beers', if indeed he was drinking which we don't know, only 8 days before a game will affect his performance. Has the fact that clubs employ an army of nutritionists, physios, etc, passed you by? They do so because fitness, health, nutrition, sleep patterns, all matter. Presumably you think players needn't even bother training till a day or two before a game? Why do we even bother with a pre-season programme I wonder? That's weeks before a game.

Well quite, and first thoughts are that I'm sure we all wish Dan a speedy recovery. And even if he was behaving as badly as another poster suggests, he should still be able to be out and about without being hassled, let alone attacked. Having said all that, it still amazes me that any professional footballer is out on the razzle late at night during the season. I know it is 8 days till our next game, but does anyone think a top track and field athlete would be out in a night club after 2am when in training, even if their next race was 8 days away? Pro footballers are supposed to be athletes at peak of fitness, watching their scientifically planned diet, sleeping, resting, training, etc appropriately. I know a top distance runner for example, who is now planning her training,and meals and even sleep times, virtually to the minute for the next year or so, as she prepares for the Olympics. Living a quieter life than maybe most young men of that age, with that much money, would choose, is a price footballers should pay in return for all that income. Fans have a right to expect them to be at fit as they can be. They can go on the razzle when they retire on more money than most of us can even dream of.

If the signing for QPR didn't go through Puncheon really is in a mess. Surely we wouldn't loan him to another championship club, and he won't agree to go to L1, so where could he go?

Given his wife's family still live down here and he has young children I imagine you're right, he may well be down here a lot in the near future and it would indeed make sense for him to train at Saints. So if he then proves he has some fitness and some desire to play, why shouldn't he earn a short term contract? The main question would be how much, or rather how little, he'd accept in wages.... or will he seek yet another big pay day with someone like Leicester or West Ham. Here he'd be useful back up for Rickie, but I doubt he'd be first choice nowadays, so his wages would reflect that .. and that may be hard for him to accept.

Maybe he's looking for a move to QPR?

Presumably we can now at least assume that we wil not be facing Maynard tomorrow, or we'd have heard by now if he'd signed?

And indeed choosing 123456 makes a lot of sense because so few punters will, so if those numbers do come up, you'll probably not have to share the jackpot. Mind you, now I've said that, other people will choose them, so I'll have to start going for 234567, but .... bugger .... now I've scuppered that, so 345678 then . ... damn!

Been on O2 for years. Never had an 'outage' problem and get a fair signal over most of the UK, often when friends on other networks have nothing. But to be fair I don't try to donload huge lumps of data...no video etc ...mostly just phon, text and emails - maybe I'd feel different if I did. My attempts to use a dongle with a laptop on the move are not so happy unless there is a strong signal.

So never mind all the huge amount of proper statistical data, one anecdote over-rides all that, eh? Btw I can't see how sitting a GCSE early is a good idea unless the pupil gets at least an A, preferably an A*. Your son now has a small issue in terms of his A level or even later uni study. If he wants to study German A level, will he re-sit or have a 2 year gap then try and start A level with what is only a middling grade and be rusty with it? Not good preparation. If he doesn't want to study German A level then it's no big deal unless he maybe wants to try for Oxbridge or one of the other very selective universities. Oxford in particular tend to "de-select" applicants with any GCSEs below grade A... usually they'll overlook one, if it wasn't in a subject to relevant to the HE course, but no more than one. Since he has done a GCSE 2 years early he is presumably very bright, so may indeed be looking at a top uni one day? If he does have high aspirations, he really can't afford anything else below A. Don't let the school put him in for anything else early unless they are very confident of a grade A or A*. If he is just ordinary bright and the early GCSE is just the school being pushy for the sake of their league tables then just 'well done' but don't sit anything else early that he might want to study at A level. Oh and "forgot to say" I passed French O level at 14 and another 10 O levels when I was 15 ,and got a B in the full A level Maths when I was 16, so does that mean exams were easier in the 60's and early 70's when I sat them?

Cant say I know much about him to be honest, but I gather he is only 5'7" and is therefore another partner-for-Lambert sort of player ....presumably Connolly's long term replacement if as it seems Barnard is now being overlooked. Fine. I hope he lives up to expectation and the hype, and look forward to seeing him play if he does come here. But am I the only person who thinks we (also) need an understudy for Rickie, or better still, competition for him? I rate Rickie, but if he is injured or loses form I do not see who we would play in his place. Who else can play a target man role?

You missed "and he's got a dodgy ankle so is crocked anyway"

I agree. Bit worrying to read Bristol fans saying this Fontaine bloke is best next a ball winner, as opposed to being one himself. What we really need is another Svennson type to complement Fonte .... or to put it another way a younger, faster Jaidi... and what is more he has to be able to play left side because the otherwise excellent Fonte apparently can't. Still, maybe the Bristol fans are exaggerating.

I hope you're right mate, but I fear that even after finishing off Gaddafi's followers, which still won't be that easy, the next phase could be very messy. There does not seem to be any stable opposition (the mad colonel stifled that) and there's a real danger of something close to civil war as the various factions try to dominate. There's even danger of a Taliban-like regime. It ain't over yet.

Whilst the 'holding pen' idea may be OTT, it is surely time the club considered building a permanent secure fence across the north car park ...with several large gates that can be open for many, maybe most, games but shut if trouble seems likely. Would allow the stewards and police to concentrate on dealing with the trouble instead of forming a human barrier between fans.. and /or allow order to be kept by fewer personnel. This is after all effectively what they do inside the ground. Quite apart from the effect on trouble as such, in the long run this would even save money. Wages for people cost more than fences over time.

So can we sign this guy instead? Would be a lot cheaper, and will scare oppostion teams witless , so Rickie can sneak in and score whilst they're all marking Janes.