Dig Dig

Bloody Christian

It's PC gone mad!

Yes!

Kicking the ball past a player and then beating them for pace insn't generally considered good ball control. I agree that lallana is better than bale with the ball at his feet without having to rely on pace. Put bale in the middle of the park and he would be useless. He also needs to be careful not to become a one trick poney with his kick and rush approach although he does do it expectionally well

Exactly, so I can't see the concern which others have expressed.

It doesn't take a genius to work out that all contributions made by ML and now his estate are in the form of a "loan" repayable upon promotion to the premiership or else when they eventually sell the club. We are debt free in the sense that we owe little to external companies and we are liquid enough to have over 2 million in the bank which means that the club is servicing little or no interest linked to debts.

These are not debts in the normal sense of the word. They are defined as debts but there is a world of difference between this type of loan (from a private beneficiary) and a loan from a bank etc. As others has said, labelling cash injected into the club as a loan is for tax purposes and I don't see the need for us to know the exact mechanisms of the loan made public as it may have an adverse effect on the business model. You can't have it both ways... you have been complaining about about us not spending as we did circa Jan 2010 but at the same time you want us to be debt free?

Don't drag me into this

This has been a real plus this season. I think it started to come together last season but the belief and willingness to fight for the cause this season has been brilliant. It's imperative that we go up this season so we can keep thr nucleous of this squad together.

Been awful for a fair few games now. Lacks composure and strength, dives in and often misses the simple pass. Stephens looked much more better in the middle when he came on, id start with him next game. Plus he has much more hair, looks nicer

Not a fan, we over congest the middle of the park and it gets scrappy. Butters and harding always make themselves availible but rarely get down the line chosing to come inside instead. Plus chaplow seems to lack the composure to play when it's tight in the middle causing us to lose the ball too often. If we play the diamond, he has to be dropped.

Great result to come back home to.... Now lets make it count tomorrow. BTW, how many times have peterborough been on sky this season. Feels like they are on every week!

He's messing about mate

St lard, your constant bemoaning of the way we play just makes you come acoss as a little deluded. What do you honestly expect? We are a very efficient and effective team under NA, solid at the back and scoring enough. The team can mix it up as required and even when we are not at our best we are dominant and pressure most teams either from open play or set pieces. It's refreshing to have a side with some back bone and in spells, we do play very good football.

Yea because we would be top now if that had happened

Alpine banging on about "hitting the ground running" I should imagine

Forget about Saints, by the sound of it, the whole football world seems to have missed a trick with BH. A football god sat on the bench for Reading.....who would have thought it!

Come on, I think you're being a bit too lavish with the praise for BH. Good player no doubt but is it really worth paying 20k a week wages in league one? I don't think so and there is no way you can claim he is more than twice as good as our exising CM's.

Yea, as I said there are a couple of hints in there to indictate that something more permanent is in the pipeline

I think it's safe to speculate that there is a deal in place. Stephens hinted at it in his interview on the OS. Also, what would be in it for Oldham to loan him to us with only 10 games to go unless there was a more substanial fee to come?

Some of our fans need a big reality check, especially when they insist on over analysing our finances based on our most recent signing's. The club have always said we will spend within our means and won't be bankrolled by ML's money without sustainability. There is no use chucking money at getting out of this league. We have already spent sums which relative to the position we are in are considered big sums of money and we are good enough to go up. If we don't it will be a failure on all parties involved. People expecting "big" name signings everytime we bring someone in will undoubtly end up dissapointed more often then not. Whilst I've not seen Stephens, he seems on paper to be a shrewd purchase. Young, playing in the position we need cover most and highly regarded.

Mouse Trap

I was pointing out how contradictory it is to say that most fans are comfortable with "coming close but no cigar" on a thread which you started about how because of injuries we shouldn't push too hard for 2nd. Can you not see any irony in that?

Says the man suggesting we aim for playoffs instead of 2nd.

I'm thinking the same!