stevegrant

Sinclair actually made his senior debut for Bristol Rovers, and then saw playing for Chelsea's academy and reserves as a step up... quite a sad state of affairs. It's interesting to note that there are actually two entries for Sinclair on Soccerbase - one of which notes his two substitute appearances for Bristol Rovers in the 04/05 season, the other of which suggests his career began at Chelsea.

I think there may well be some sort of rule, but there's nothing that states how much needs to be invested into youth development. We've spent a hell of a lot on it since the Academy in its current guise was launched, and I'd certainly argue that we've reaped the benefits of that investment both in terms of bringing through players who have contributed to the first team and their subsequent sale price. It just seems such a futile exercise, and the only reason young players go to academies at the likes of Chelsea is for the prestige and possibly money. They get it into their head that they've actually got a chance of getting into the first team when the reality couldn't be further from the truth. They'd be better off going to a club where it wouldn't be quite as prestigious but where the chances of getting first team football are infinitely higher. I agree, and I suspect he'll end up leaving Chelsea at the end of this season in search of permanent first-team football. I don't imagine it's much fun being shipped out for a year or six months to different parts of the country, particularly for a young player.

Given that our youth team beat theirs 4-3 last month, I'd suggest that may not be the case I don't see why the likes of Chelsea bother with a youth set-up, now they've got a seemingly-bottomless pit of Russian Roubles to spend on players, I'll be very surprised if any player breaks into the first team from their youth academy. The last player to come through Chelsea's youth system and get a regular place in the team is John Terry, who made his Chelsea debut ten years ago.

Particularly given that the players they'd be looking to buy shouldn't really need "scouting" in the true meaning of the word, i.e. the player's an unknown and they want to learn a bit more about him before deciding whether to try to sign him. All the players Chelsea would be interested in buying are already high-profile. It doesn't take a scouting network to know who the top players in each of the European leagues are, to be honest.

That would be the same Daily Mirror who reckons we're going to be spending £1.5m on a player in January... I wouldn't read too much into it.

Is that number 41 I can see on Pearce's shorts?

Well it was a second-half thrashing... Cracking result.

Not quite true. Luton were "only" deducted 20 points for failing to agree a CVA, which is a requirement under the Football League's solvency rules. It's the same rule that saw Leeds deducted 15 points last season and Bournemouth and Rotherham 17 points this season. While you're technically correct that it's a rare case, it's only a rare case because the precedent was only set in the summer of 2007 when Leeds failed to agree a CVA due to HMRC getting fed up with "Football Creditors" (i.e. players, staff and other teams) getting 100% of the money owed while they were left with 10% or so. HMRC blocked the CVA at the three other clubs mentioned in the summer just gone, which led to their additional points deduction (in addition to the 10 points penalty received last season when they entered administration). Clubs who owe significant amounts of their debt to HMRC will find it impossible to get a CVA agreed by 75% of the creditors as HMRC will block it regardless of the circumstances. As I understand it, we aren't in arrears with the taxman as yet, so might not have that problem as things stand. Luton's other 10 point deduction was due to the charges they were found guilty of relating to payments to agents that didn't go through the football club's accounts.

How?! The interest rates have only been moving in one direction in the last year, and it's not up...

Exactly. The fact that absolutely nothing has happened on that front only backs up the "tyre kicker" theory, whether Fulthorpe and co like it or not.

You might as well have just said "Have you heard whether Dominic Matteo is supposed to be coming here?"

I'd have to agree. I spoke to someone supposedly involved in the deal some months ago who intimated that they were very close to actually getting something in writing and putting it on the table. The same sort of comment was reeled out to two people I know at one of the pre-season games in the Mick Channon suite, and then again to different people I know in the corporate area at Doncaster Rovers last month. It's been "you'll hear something in the next couple of weeks" for the last six months.

Two of which were from set-pieces, something Arsenal are notoriously rubbish at.

Which of course is entirely the fault of the players we've signed since the end of last season...

I seem to remember someone (maybe Jonah) doing some digging and discovering that Derby pay much lower rates than SFC do, despite their respective stadia being pretty much the same size.

Yep, which makes me feel slightly better with the current situation because, to my knowledge, HMRC has no issues with us at the moment.

Correct. As far as I'm aware, while we owe significant money to both Norwich Union and Barclays Bank, we have ensured that HMRC aren't on the wrong side of us so they would not play a part in any CVA negotiations. Whether NU and BB would accept a fraction of their owings as full and final settlement, only they would know. If they don't accept what's on offer, we would then be subject to the second points deduction as the Football League's solvency rules state that any team exiting administration must have a CVA agreed by creditors accounting for at least 75% of the total debt.

Un-****ing-believable.

It really does take something special for a team to be so rubbish defensively that they concede any goals to Arsenal from set-pieces, but to concede two in one game is just ridiculous. My heart bleeds...

Two things: 2nd October was quite a while ago. Surely midnight on 2nd November would be Sunday night/Monday morning?

A quick look at that ever-reliable () site Wikipedia tells me that both UKIP and the Referendum Party had candidates standing for election in the 1997 General Election, so UKIP certainly wasn't formed as a result of Goldsmith's death. In fact, Wikipedia's entry for the Referendum Party says that "most Referendum Party candidates, activists and supporters were of Eurosceptic, but some were pro-European".

To be fair, I don't think Euell was maligned too much after Nigel Pearson was appointed. The best thing Pearson did for us, in my opinion, was to get decent performances out of both Euell and Inigo Idiakez, both of whom had been utter **** previously. Davis has generally been fairly consistent, but he's received very short shrift from those who still remember the costly ****-ups he made early on in his Saints career against Preston and QPR. Yes, he's not particularly commanding, but I'd rather have an excellent shot-stopper than someone who can take crosses but can't save anything. Also, his distribution has improved dramatically this season.

I thought Euell was excellent last night and gave McGoldrick someone to work off of as he was always looking to get forward to support him and also making runs beyond the front man as well, which is something we've lacked all season really.

Not true. He was a candidate for the Referendum Party, who have absolutely no ties to UKIP at all.

Having been witness to the Stuart Gray and Steve Wigley episodes in the Premier League, I think we're in prime position to pass comment, to be honest! The current situation is borne out of necessity rather than choice.