vince

A much underrated band, Gene. A little obscure suggestion - "Being Good Is Ok, But Being Better's Better" by Eureka Machines - worth checking out on mySpace. Right, back to being Chelsea for the day - "Celery, Celery......." ;)

Feck me, they must be knackered. That'll teach 'em to not make the play offs this season. :biggrin:

That's not necessarily a given. He would have been available on a free if Reading hadn't taken up that option so they were always going to trigger it to get a fee for him, or keep him.

Looking at the table, any of the sides from 2nd to 6th can go up automatically next week which must be quite unusual. For Huddersfield to do it would require a great deal of luck, I admit, but it is possible.

Agreed. We have to consistantly beat the sides we should be beating, if you see what I mean. I'm sure someone posted stats on ManUre's performance last season which showed that they did precisly that and hardly dropped a point home or away against the bottom half of the division.

I tend to agree with this. At the risk of being put into the "In Pards we trust" bucket, I think we will begin next season with a better squad than that which we end. I'm not sure if Antonio falls into that category yet, I think he's at the point in his career where it can go either way. Reading were always going to trigger any extension that was low risk and probably low cost, IMO, rather than lose him on a "free" and I think this is quite an interesting call now for us - what price is now good value for a fee - 200K? 500K? He's probably not an automatic starter for either side from day one next season either, so does he think he'll get more games there or here, or is he just deciding on the size of the pay packet? You can argue that one either way if you put yourself in his position. I think he has the potential and would be worth around a 400K bid, to keep that part of continuity within the squad. I'd be happy with that, plus a box to box midfielder and Thiery Henry, who surely is heading here after being an unused Barca sub against 10 men tonight (perhaps that's for next summer...)

Theres no certainties in life, except death and taxes, so the questions to ask are (and not necessarily you personally, Pat, its a general question) : do you think the net transfer activity will be good or bad for the team, do you think we will have a better or worse manager next season? Given the intent of the CEO, I think we'll have a stronger side at the start of next season than at the end of this one regardless of who goes, and the manager will either be Pardew, who I believe can do the job next season, or someone better, certainly not someone out of leftfield like the Sturrock appointment. And the final important question based on this thread - do you think 4/1 is good value? Right now, I think it is. I think we'll be shorter odds come end of August.

I'm sure there was a story doing the rounds that Sepp Blatter left his seat and got in the lift to go pitchside to present the cup to Bayern, so missed the equaliser, then was back in the lift to retake his seat for extra time for the winner. Personally, I never leave early, you never know what will happen.

Confimed on BBC in the match report: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_div_2/8583462.stm Let's hope "new manager" syndrome doesn't strike again, eh.

Jeff Steling did say on Sky earlier that Hartlepool had thrown away more points from a winning position than anyone else this season, but I don't fancy your chances, although stranger things have happened (usually to us!)

Not guilty to any of that, apart from the "slightly jolly" bit.

You just have to win *over* two legs, though. If we get that far, we'll be on such a run that I'd back us against anyone at that stage. There's no point worrying about anyone else at this stage, since the slim chance we have almost certainly rests on us having to win all our remaining games.

It was Wotton who was that defender at that point. I actually thought he did as well as he could then, since he managed to clip the player, breaking his stride, but not enough to send him tumbling, and that allowed the other defenders to get back into position. I think if the forward hadn't been clipped, he'd have been able to concentrate more on finding their other attacker on the far wing and they probably would have scored. However, my mate saw it differently. I believe he said, rather loudly, "Wotton, you C...!!"

I'd agree with all of that, never felt they were in it. Many thanks to whoever it was who first suggested parking at Denham and getting the train - dead easy. Parked up, got the 11.12 train, and got into Wembley no problem. Walked up the hill to the Green Man for midday, which was heaving (nice to bump into Minty briefly again as we crossed going in - hope all's well, mate). Back 4 superb, won it at a canter, really. I'd have had Ricky and Jahidi off on 70 for Thursday, with the game won, personally. Great day out, brilliant fans.

Just before Antonios goal, Matt appeared at the back of the block next to me - block 232 - and got a cheer and a verse of "le tiss, le tiss, matty, matt le tiss...". I missed the goal trying to take a photo on my phone! He disappeared with about 10 minutes to go, so presumably was going back to do some other media work.

I was in block 233, and there were boo's from behind me and above when NC was shown, but it could have been at the same time as the waves.

Their form over the last 8 is better than ours: http://stats.football365.com/dom/ENG/D2/oform.html But lets get tomorrows game won before thinking about that one!

And if that did happen, I think I'd fancy Leeds over two legs at that point, rather than Millwall.

I think Norwich and Leeds will take the top two spots. I can see Swindon and Colchester faltering and Saints making a charge up the table. What I don't want is for Millwall to go out on the final day definately in 3rd place, looking down at Saints in 7th, with us in unstoppable form, and Swindon in 6th needing a win or a draw in their final match.........oh, they play each other.......jumpers for goal posts on the half way line, anyone....

Cracking result. Tuesday is now massive. Swindon have us to play and then 4 out of the top 5 in their run in. One game at a time. It ain't over yet....

Looks like Leeds have warmed up tonight with a 4-1 away win over relegation fodder. Didn't we play their oppo away recently....... But Millwall won again, so the play off stop moves one point further off. On the plus side, Swindon lost to MK Dons and I don't fancy their run in much, tbh, so they are probably the team to catch now.

I'm guessing completely here, but does papa have the same squad number as the bloke for Tranmere that did score?? Perhaps those updates are a "push of a button" electronic transmission and matey in charge pressed the button for pen, squad number X, then the wrong effing team!!!

Blimey, this time last year most of the players probably didn't believe they could tie their shoe laces properly, let alone win away consistantly! Some good results and genuine progression from where we started this season has led to high expectations. We'll probably fall just short this season, and if we do, I'll have money on us going up automatically next. Incidendally, if we do go up, what position would be considered acceptable at the end of it I wonder?

Think it'll be a tricky game, I'll be happy with a 1-0 win with a goal off anyones arse, even the refs. Brizzle are currently two up against Swindon - I think I'll be happy with that if we win, or a draw there. Other than that, there's no obvious hard games for the other top sides, so we could do with the odd upset.

To be fair to him, he was *asked* to post that!!! Just looked at the league table, and the thought that came into my head was that that last gasp equaliser for Millwall could now be quite costly, but that's for another day, I'm enjoying tonight a lot.