jam

Do you think we'd have won on Saturday without Fonte, Barnard, Hammond and Lambert?

Money doesn't always buy success but if money is spent and success doesn't follow then that should rightly be considered failure.

Keepers making saves doesn't count, only mistakes. You should know that by now!

Citeh?

Er, yeah, I was there. I was actually going to back up your comment about expectations, with regard to a lot of the crowd getting on the team's back when we were one-nil up but hey-ho.

Were you at the game tonight?

Because there's more scope for discussion when we lose.

For me, the way we have played in some of our recent (home) games has been a concern, not because of a lack of flair, style or goals but because we've looked shaky and lost the hold on the game. Against Carlisle an Swindon we were comfortably on top, scored then seemed to lose all the 'oompth' from our play. Against Swindon we almost got punished for it, and they're having a terrible time this season.

Interesting post Saintbletch. But just to clarify, what I find mind-boggling is the reaction of others that they suggest some posters on here enjoy us losing. As you say about taking the action that protects us from being hurt, I suggest that a lot of people who get on Alpine's case after a poor result are doing just that.

No, I think Mel Machin set something long term up there. Howe there under Machin and then O'Driscoll (who Machin brought through as manager) and it seems that their good spells (both in terms of quality of football and success) have been under these people.

I find this 'you seem to prefer it when we lose' notion mindboggling. Is it so beyond comprehension that some people post more when things are going badly partly out of frustration and also because there is simply more to debate?

Indeed. There seems to be a rather patronising notion on here that teams can only get out of it by playing hoofball. Strangly, none the teams that I can think of that have got promoted from this division recently - Norwich, S****horpe, Brighton, Doncaster, Peterborough, Millwall - seemed to manage it by playing that way.

Exaactly. The play-offs are brilliant for the championship; it seems most years that half the division have a shout of scraping in (although, this year seems a little different as the top six/seven seem to be pulling away a little).

Not the same situation. In the Prem the next few go into the Uefaropa League cup thing, so there isn't such a need to add interest in the way the play-offs do.

They're as fair as anything else. Everyone knows the deal before they start, if a team doesn't want to chance the playoffs then they need to finish top two.

Think he's right footed... I'll await your proving me wrong on both counts..!

You think right. The point being there's huge potential for 2+2=5 with this story, unless the scouts from AC and Barca actually said that they were there to check out chambo. I think we played him on the left against Utd and in switched him about a bit. For me he's nowhere near as effective out there but neither was Lallana at first.

I'm pretty surprised to read that there were AC Milan and Barcelona scouts at an Italy vs. England u21 game.

A lot of what he said was pretty fair. As you say, on a hiding to nothing with some of the one-eyed poster that frequent this place.

It does seem like that sometimes (articles based on rumours on here) but they can't publish stories with the same abandon that posters on here can, so there are always going to be situations where the rumour is out there, the journo's heard it and is looking into it and in the meantime a poster has heard it too and bunged it straight online. Regarding whether players read this forum, I can certainly imagine that some do, and some will certainly not like what they read and it might affect their confidence. The answer to that is simple; don't read it. I'm always hearing about actors or writers or sports-people who simple avoid media coverage about themselves for that very reason. For me, the same rules apple for internet forums and the like.

Again with the Echo; they'd be mad not to read this site. But I don't think that just because rumours sometimes appear on here before the Echo publish them, that it necessarily means the Echo have used this place as source. (apologies if this is not what you're getting at)

You don't need to read this forum to know that the fans are nervous about promotion, the way the atmosphere at the ground changes according to how we play makes it obvious.

I'm sure when Crouch was in charge they were listening to what was being said on the forums. TBH, the club would be mad not to do so - it's free and easy customer research.

I don't think Guly's even played poorly in the games I've seen and certainly didn't get the clamour on here after the Swindon game that he should be dropped so Barnard could start.

That, on the back of the fact that Redknapp clearly didn't rate him and I couldn't blame him for being fed up with it here either.