Charlie Wayman

The Chelsea v Man City game showed how it should be done. We look pedestrian alongside this teams, the gap is huge.

Something in the attic smells for sure. When Puel went the other coaches went with him but not Black. Why was that you may well ask? On the other hand Pellegrino does not seem to be the sort to challenge Reed so Black's usefulness may be limited. I still recall the very public touchline spat between Black & Tadic at SMS late last season that made me uneasy now and to wonder if anything much has changed behind the scenes.

It wasn't too early to judge the Dutch bloke at Palarse so they would be wrong.

How about we give him testimonial friendly at SMS as no other bugger will least of all the bin dippers of Merseyside

All right then, of starters Les & Cro give him a free ticket for the next home match in the Director's block and give us the chance to give him a cheer... Then, find him a job here in PR on the hospitality side and have him sneak into Staplewood on occasion to watch shooting practice and ask him what he thinks... What's to lose There's only One Ricky Lambert!

One suspects the past is no pointer to the future since the change of ownership. Gao has paid £180m for what he believed to be a top six PL side that would make him the same sort of money as it did for the Liebherr's. The very idea of failure and relegation would be unthinkable to him. Guys with that sort of dosh to chuck about on trophy purchases didn't end up in the position they're in by being gifted of generous spirit, benevolence and patience. Don't be surprised if at the end of November if things have not improved significantly that the current coaching staff will be history.

Get rid of Pellegrino

Thank you Dave effing Merrington! Just shut up making your effing predictions

Nothing strange at all. First visit, chance to say "hello", a few briefings from team leaders on history and vision, a stadium tour and maybe Staplewood, meet the manager and one or two players.

The new boss holds much better press conference 'though and handles the political grenades with aplomb and all this in a foreign language.

Watch him net a hat-trick tomorrow!

When this move fails as it will don't be surprised if the other hoary old chestnut raises its *****ly head again, reducing the number of teams in the PL. You can almost place a bet on the likelihood of lobbying for a league of 16 or even 12 clubs to "ease pressure on the clubs that play in europe etc etc", cover of course for dividing the TV cash amongst fewer clubs so that the big boys get what they want anyway (more of the cash) by another route. These people are anti-football and the status quo isn't going to last much longer.

When you're in a hole and nobody wants to help you get out, best to stop digging for starters.

It's not all about money with every footballer, some play for the love of the game first and foremost as well and one can imagine Ricky Lambert is a footballer at heart and not a mercenary. Remember he didn't hesitate to turn out for Kelvin's testimonial match and revelled in the fun with Matt le Tiss, presumably for a few beers and a return rail ticket. No one should begrudge him the chance of a final hurrah in the top flight and to avoid the indignity of having to regress to a lower division

To be fair he was crap when he came here and many questioned why we contemplated buying him in the first place. He is nowhere near as good as Ricky Lambert who came up from a similar background. In my view he is a joker on and off the pitch who just doesn't know how to take his profession seriously. No excuse for slow, over-weight and unimaginative. Gabbi on the other hand scored 6 goals in his first three games for us and now he doesn't even get a starting place. You couldn't make it up! We must have a mighty fine coaching staff to get that level of improvement out of an established international striker. On match days there are two team announcements that ruin my day because inevitably they signal troubles ahead. One is that Ward Prowse is in the starting line-up, the second is that Gabbi is not.

This. Well said sir!

Do people from working class backgrounds still go to football? I thought they had been weeded out!

Any lawyer will explain to you never to defend the indefensible!

Plenty of smiles around the training pitch today and our new man Hoedt seems to be quite the lad at the centre of things and he's only just joined the squad. Maybe that's what they have needed, a big personality with a GSH to lift the downbeat mood around the place of late. Even Bertie was game for a laugh. Very nice to see.

It is, you are dead right. In political terms it probably amounts to a 'green paper' from FIFA out for consultation and comment so it looks like something akin to this could happen one day. In my view there is nothing wrong with the current format, it ain't broke so no need to fix it. You win some, you lose some. I'd feel cheated if the ref blew for time at say 65 minutes because there had been no stoppages of any consequence during a particular match.

Yes. This one has been tarnished and rendered meaningless by all those players who used to kiss the bloody thing every time they scored a goal and then buggered off at the drop of a hat to the highest bidder. New era now so new untarnished badge please. At least as we can't score goals any more no bugger needs to kiss it!

Ward Prowse is not progressing. None of the weaknesses of his game have been improved in five years; he is still hopeless in tackles, hopeless in the air with his head and can't run. Can't tackle, can't head, can't run - perfect attributes for a mid-fielder. England have now dropped him, without Reed's cloak of protection the truth has been laid bare by Southgate. Ward Prowse is not a PL footballer and would struggle even in the Championship.

Until we dig out Hunter & Jaidi and send them on the way to the job centre things will never improve. Every match Hunter trots out his cliches of wisdom like "we can learn from this!" or " we can take the positives". Two years to learn that you need to keep the ball out of your own net and bang it into theirs. What are these effing useless idiots being paid. The Academy has become a £30m laughing stock.

Gentlemen, we lost a game of football, we lose games of football most seasons even when finishing 8,7,6,8 in consecutive seasons. It is not something new.

Steve Parish? Who in hell will want to work with this prize idiot now. ... and we thought it couldn't get worse than Reed! I doubt Parish meets the PL's fit and proper person test.