Joensuu

Is it safe to return to the board? You always have to give it 24 hours after a defeat, as all the usual negative customers, and 'in it for the reactionists' run amok. Can I assume they have all had their fill of negativity, and put the world to rights by emphasising every half negative that can scrape together? Let's bang a nail into this 'are we safe' debate. Yes, yes we are very safe. If we were to lose all of our remaining games it is only 1% likely that we will go down. In other words, if we could replay the season 100 time from this point to the end, and in each of those 100 replays we lose all three games, 99 times we would stay up. This is not over-confidence; quite simply even if we lose all of our remaining games we have more chance of finishing 14th than 18th. BlakeySFC - If yesterday was the beginning of a spiral to relegation, it's going to be a long-winded spiral, there will be at least 41 games to play before we could go down. Dalek - you are wrong, plain wrong (oh, and Hoddle was overrated at the time, and would definately have taken us down had he been managing us this season).

Thought this thread was a good place to share a mate's FB status: So, Russians have been opposed to intervention in Syria and vilified for human rights abuses in the Caucus region. Chechan Islamic terrorists attack Boston. America rebrands freedom fighting rebels as Al Queada terrorists and validates Russian attacks in the region. Russia removes objections over Syria, US invades Syria. It's almost too perfect.... I'm not saying I agree with it, but it does provide the conspiracy theory with it's motive.

Prutton's ban was because a ref was involved. Had he pushed a player in the same way chances are he'd have just been carded. There is no justification for biting. The ban handed to Suarez is appropriate IMO. Had he bitten a ref id hope the ban would have been substantially increased.

Cheers Hutch. It made me wonder what made them think England were likely to go above some of the Scandinavian trio.

Good on France. Question is did they spontaneous break into song like the Kiwi's did? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/newzealand/10001204/New-Zealand-parliament-breaks-out-in-song-after-gay-marriage-vote.html

Wish I could remember the pundit who was speaking about this the other day. The said something about England currently being fourth behind the Scandinavian countries, but that England were expected to rise up above fourth. Did anyone else catch that? Or does anyone know why we might be expected to move up the table?

That's for sure; our supply can't keep up with the demand.

I was wrong with my 'around 21' guess. He was 19 (and 2-3 months shy of 20) when he joined us. I'm not sure that the number of caps is that relevant - I guess it is one objective stat which can be used, but it certainly isn't the only factor (I mean, by using similar 'cap-centric' logic, one could conclude that David Batty was a far better player than Le Tiss (42 caps vs 8 caps)). Agree entirely. Happy to retain, or not to, depending upon the views of our management team. However, I can't see us getting rid of him, unless either he's done something really wrong, or if someone comes in with a decent offer.

It says Forte not Fonte. Guly is not in the list because he is a reasonable back up player whose contract runs until the end of next season. We won't want to pay him off this summer; nor would we find many others who would be willing to pay for his services. As such, there is no sensible reason for us to want to get rid of Guly this summer - although I imagine he will play a lesser role next season.

A fair post, and I'm sure the club were hoping for more. There might be something wrong in how he is settling, or possibly something missing from his commitment in training? However, I disagree that the club purchased Mayuka without having an eye on the future (although I'm sure they were hoping for more from him by now). In the grand scheme of things, £3.5m isn't much to pay for a young, capped striker, full of potential; IMO Mayuka was almost certainly a gamble which could still pay off. Sure he hasn't broken through to the first team in quite the way people were hoping he might, but it's fairly obvious that he possesses some of the raw ability that could see him make it. I feel Mayuka is a bit like a young right wing player we had on our books c. 10 years ago. He was around 21 years old when he joined us, has international caps, bags of pace, but wasn't in contention for the first team. We sent him out on loan to build up experience; but then we had a much larger squad at the time - so he wasn't as likely to get a place on the bench. The only major difference was the young player we signed 11 years ago was purchased for a nomial fee. Question is, should we have cut our losses, and released Kenwyne Jones at the end of his first season? Yes Mayuka isn't the youngest, but he could make it, just as Kenwyne did. If the club think that it is best to part company with Mayuka then fair enough; but I feel from the glimpses that we've seen already that given time he has the potential to do really well. Cut him some slack. [Oh, and repeat all the above replacing Mayuka with Ramirez]

Depends on the offer. £70m no; £120m + probably. Until then we are turning a (slight) profit, and progressing. Keep in that direction and the possible return will be greater - oh, and then there is the outside chance that investors are enjoying the ride. So long as it isn't costing them much and they are in profit on the overall deal, there is every chance they might just sit tight and see what happens.

This season's kit isn't as awful as many make out. IMO it's okay, but nothing special. Clean stripes would be an improvement (not the messy Sanderson type chevron-stripes we had in the 90s though, they were awful). The two shirts I liked best were the Sash and the Air Florida. Either of those returning would be superb.

I've grown used to Windows 8 now, and I actually quite like it. Drivers etc will get better as time passes and all the 3rd parties get their code updated to be compatible. To be honest, I've not had any issue with drivers yet, everything simply works. Biggest tip I can provide to people to help with navigation, is when in Desktop mode, move your mouse to where the start button would have been, and right click on the 'Metro' image that appears. This right click pulls up a list of loads of really useful tools (Control Panel, Run, Event Viewer, Task Manager etc).

Yucatan is stunning once you exit Cancun. Towns such as Merida and Campache are far nicer to spend time in. Very noticable how wealthy Mexico is compared to the rest of Central America, cross into Guatamala, or Belize, and you'll notice an instant drop in standards.

Made my day

This forum will be a worse place without all the 'interesting' posters like Dune.

Know it's all highly subjective, and also know that the cool kids on here are fully signed up to the skate-hate vibe, but I have to disagree with you on this one Kraken. Much as I hate to admit it, I think the simple skate design is actually a slicker and more distinctive logo than our rather clumsy and IMO somewhat childish crest. Oak + water + rose in a more stylised shield for me.

FWIW, I'm no fan of our current crest. It looks like the designer brainstormed the club and combined the resulting imagary to form an almost childish logo. Yes, it's OUR logo, and we have grown fond of it. Again, this is just my opinion, but I find the previous crest (the city shield we had in 76) to be a far more professional image. Sure it wasn't owned by the club, so I fully understand the change, but to me it feels far more traditional, and far more complete as a logo. I acutually quite like the crest in the centre of the current badge - the tree rose and waves. The bits I find off putting are the scarf, halo and football. I know that these are the parts that try to incorporate the fans, and the history, but they just feel, well, cheesy, and rather tacky IMO. Looking at the Premier logos, only Stoke, Reading, Fulham, and possibly West Brom and Norwich have equally bad designs. I'm sure that a crest revamp will be somewhere on Cortese's to do list. It certainly isn't a priority, but IMO it is a necessary step if his ambition is to be fulfilled. I don't see this as being a priority, and wouldn't want to see us wasting money on the redesign (especially if we ended up with something as shocking at the 2012 Olympics crest), but I still feel that we should update our image a tad - a fresh, ambitious club, not a Blue Peter competition runner up.

If the purchase is completed, does anyone have a breakdown of approximately who will own what percentage of the club. For example, as the money from the council is a loan, I'm assuming that the council won't own any of the shares; would these shares be gifted to the trust? If so, would this (just) push the supporter's share holding over the 50% mark?

Think Lambert would win this if this were his first season with us. He's been phenomenal, but we've come to expect this from him. Having said that, Morgan has really rounded his game this season, he's become a complete defensive midfielder, and probably our most valuable player (only Shaw comes close). I think Morgan would win any vote hands down. No real point discussing young player of the season. Any other season and Clyne would have stormed it; but who could look further than Shaw?

Can I congratulate the skates on potentially becoming the 'biggest' (and 'bestest') fan owned (well, partially fan owned) club in the lower leagues (NB, I'd say Swansea hold this mantle in the upper leagues, and the world-wide crown is held by Real). It seems to me that they are now allowed to buy their own ground, for a currently undisclosed price which might be around the £3m mark. All they need to do now to survive is actually complete the sale in the next 19 days. To do this, all they will need to do is collect the pledged cash from their fanbase. Oh, and hope that a certain former owner doesn't appeal against the process, and if he does that this appeal is spead through the legal system and heard within the next 19 days. To add to the excitment over the next three weeks, we will also find out which league, and on how many points, the skates will be allowed to start next season, if at all. Will the get the just penalty they deserve, or will they earn the anger of their peers, and find another loophole to exploit? Today's result might not be what some were hoping to see, but I'm chuffed. 'Hope' is restored, while there are plenty of twists and turns yet. Will the skates fail to fund their purchase? Will Balram hit them with a late appeal? Will the league grow some mawhinney's again and actually punish them? IF the skates survive the next few weeks unscathed, anyone know the odds on another administration within the year?

RIP. I won't celebrate anyones death. IMO Thatcher demonstrated a remarkable ability to pick the wrong side of an argument and ruthlessly pursue it. She did an excellent job of breaking the unions, who were running rampant in the 70s, strangling their own progressions. Aside from that I can't think of another redeeming quality. Awful politician, with socially backward and corrosive views. But still, RIP Baroness T, I won't miss you, but more will I drink or party at your passing.

Even if we don't pick up another point this season, it looks like we'd still have a 64.5% chance of staying up. http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?44189-Top-ten Under Pochettino we've averaged 1.5 points per game. If we maintain that over the remaining 6 games we'd finish on 46 points. This would see us probably finish in 11th place (42%), with approximately 1 chance in 4 of finishing 10th (and similar odds for finishing 12th). As such, we'd need to improve upon Pochettino's average to make a 10th place finish likely.

I'm can see merit in arguments for both higher and lower tax economies that have merit. I feel we actually have the level about right already, although I'd like to see slightly more taken from the top earners, and slightly less from those in the middle and bottom. I'd like to see the tax-free lowest band increased to c. £13k. The current upper rate replaced with a new 'middle band' tax rate introduced of c. 30% at £32k, and a new 'upper middle band' of c.38% at £45k, and a 'higher band' of c. 42% over £70k, and finally an 'elite band' of c. 46% over £120k. Although all of that might be too complex to actually run. Nobody should ever be hit with a 50%+ tax IMO. I'd like to see loopholes closed, so that any money generated in the UK, is taxed in the UK, and not taxed overseas (fine Mr tescobucks, register your company in the TaxAvoidance Islands, but UK plc will send you an invoice for the difference between their tax rate an ours for every penny you earn in this country). I'd like to see government spending re-focused, with far less to the MoD (we are currently the 7th largest economy in the world, yet somehow spend the third largest amount on our military; while conversely for a 7th largest economy, we seem to be languishing at 31st on the education index. Surely, paying teachers more, and auditing them less is a better spend than wasting millions on MoD middle management). In education I'd create a single nationalised exam board (half the current issue is that schools are judged on performance, and exam boards earn money by demonstrating that more kids will pass their exam, so if you choose them over other exam boards your school will get better grades). Cut that out and the spiral of 'exams getting easier' will hopefully be removed. I'd like to see significant changes to welfare. I'd actually provide more generous benefits - for a shorter period of time. If you are unlucky enough to lose you job, you will be able to take generous dole of 80% of your last salary (up to £40k) for 18 months, if you still haven't got a job after 18 months your dole would then be reduced to c. £8k pa. To earn back your unemployment allowance, each month of work buys you a month a dole. At any point when unemployed you would be able to 'volunteer' to work on government run projects, which would up you benefit by an additional c. £8k pa. Exceptions would include single parents and the disabled, who should be generously supported (the former by having far more free time with government creches and after school clubs). I would also shake up the NHS (why ring fence spending cuts from your least efficient department). Ideally cut the tiers of management, so instead of having 15 or so levels from top to bottom and flatten the organisation. Introduce (controversial) penalties for non-critical treatment for people who have bad lifestyle choices (excess body fat, smoking, excessive alcohol consumption etc). Also penalties for time-wasting (which could be taken by having to deposit a refundable amount (say £5) whenever you make an appointment (linked with dole, so that if you are on benefits, this money will be automatically taken from your following month's payment). This deposit will be refunded in full if you aren't wasting time, or fail to attend (without giving notice). Doctors should only rarely need to prevent deposit being refunded, but I would estimate c. 30% reduction in appointments. Government should avoid excessive outsourcing. Work should only be outsourced if the role is so specialised that the contract is for less that 3 months (or very generic, such as cleaning contracts). Long-term outsourced contracts are rarely providing the government with a good deal (e.g. 1 gov dept spends c. £30m on pa in total to inhouse IT skills to support and develop all their systems; another similar sized government dept (both have c. 30k people), has outsourced their systems for c. £150m pa and then has c. 50 employees who all chase invoices and contract clauses. And breath..

DP - Osbourne will definitely not be alone in setting the agenda, he is merely sticking to the views of many right wing economic think tanks. IMO, the first rule of government should be to never spend more than you receive (except in absolute emergencies). Governments, and departments should be credited whenever they manage to achieve a surplus, not have their budgets cut if they "don't spend enough by the beginning of April". Once you have a surplus, you can then be generous with the social support you provide. The problem I see in this country is that there is a continuous cycle of the left overspending, leaving the right having to over cut. I would like the government to introduce a automatic legal inquiry with reasonably severe personal penalties for any government minister who sanctions an over spend. If there is good justification (say we are attacked) the court will rule in their favour, if however, they are just building new hospitals or submarines which weren't absolutely needed, the ministers responsible should suffer penalties. The law should also cover all pledges or promises of future spend too. So, no more PPI-type overspending. BTW, I'm saying this as a liberal, and slightly left of centre too. I just think the country should be generous with it's support mechanisms, but never, ever, overspend.