Rob W

Well I don't think we 'd have done it without RAFA - 2 points a game is a hell of an achievement

We can't be relegated.....................

Unless Mike A is found to have bribed every referee this season........... 

Typical pattern - run of good results and he's God, the next manager of ManU, England and a shoo-in for a knigthood

then there is the "reversion to the mean" as the statos put it and he's s***

you know in many other business's (or Italy)  you would come to an "arrangement" with some people to ensure we stay up - might be a few grand out of next years PL money but......................

Both keepers  showed excellent distribution as well

Good match  - a lot better than lower league football used to be - no Route 1 at all

Good turn out at the "Globe" opposite Baker St. Tube beforehand - loads of flags and banners

Shields had about 6000 spectators, Glossop around 3500 all on the  N side lower tier

New Wembley  is better than the old pile - much better sight lines and seats but the choice of beer (Carlsberg or Tetleys) is grim - plus for some reason the men's bog at the east end  looked like a converted Ladies (ie mainly sitting) with a vast queue at half time

Glossop played something like 4-1-3-2 and Shields 4-4-2

Main difference from the upper leagues was the way players never held the ball at all, and when they'd passed it they stopped; very little choice for the man in possesion

First half was pretty cagey - Glossop looked slightly the bettter side but neither keeper had a lot to do

Second half they scored from a corner after SHields had looked pretty good - started to get a bit desperate but by 75 minutes the Glossop guys were tiring badly - so were some of the Shields team but they were fitter overall and got a deserved equaliser late.  By the time we were in extra time people were out with cramp all over the field - it always used to happen in FA Cup Finals in the 50's & 60's - unfit players, very grassy pitch after a season of playing on mud-heaps.  At one point Shields had 5 guys streched out and Glossop three

Shields got a really well worked early goal and after that it was just a matter of hanging on

Really good day out, lots of singing (and a minutes applause at 17 minutes observed by both sets of supporters) - the fittest team won

I'm going with some mates from Shields........  anything has to be better than being at SJP

yeah - but we never do it do we???

McKeag, Fat Freddie, Ashley - lots of talk about a boycott but still 50,00 suckers there every week.....................

I think the evidence is that, whatever people try to do for him, it doesn'twork

Do we have the right to bang him up somewhere so he can't continue or do we leave him to kill himself by inches

Its just horrible, horrible, horrible

there is a really good correlation between gross spend and winning  in football...................

and we don't spend and we win nowt ..................

don't expect him to spend all his cash but surely encouraging a Cup run would be worthwhile - he gets the extra gate money and we might even win sommat (and I'm old enough to remember the last time we did win a trophy)

We might even  like him them -

as it is he just tells the manger to make sure we're safe - totally pointless TBH - and is thought to be  total s*** by thousands of people

Jeez _ I hope it's better than the game at Villa Park this season - one of the most boring I've ever attended - a real foretaste of the whole season tho'.........

from the Beeb - he can just tell them to take a running jump.......

Summoning powers

It's been confirmed by the high priest of Parliament - Westminster's powers to summon witnesses before its select committees and to punish any accused of telling fibs, are weaker than most people realise.

As the continuing phone-hacking row and, now, the evidence given to the Treasury Committee over interest-rate fixing demonstrate, there is a very real question about what MPs on parliamentary committees can do, when they are not satisfied that they have been told the truth.

This paper by the Clerk of the Commons, Robert Rogers lays bare the threadbare nature of Parliament's powers even to summon witnesses, and the extent to which the sanctions available to MPs are out of date, or inoperable under Human Rights law.

At some point someone, perhaps a banker, perhaps a News International staffer, is bound to refuse to play along.

What then? As the paper makes clear, there is no reliable power to compel witnesses to appear before select committees, still less to punish deliberate lies told to them. Even the much-touted solution of requiring witnesses to give evidence on oath, thus making them liable to penalties of perjury, is fraught with problems.

To be sure, the Commons has the power to send the Serjeant at Arms to bring in a reluctant witness - but, as with many of its powers, it now runs the risk of appearing heavy-handed, or worse, plain silly. Picture the Serjeant, in full regalia arriving to apprehend a witness, only to face a stand-off, perhaps on live TV.

Imagine how MPs might appear to the outside world if some offender was brought to the Bar of the House to be admonished - told off - by Mr Speaker; who, by tradition, dons a black tricorn hat for such occasions (which dates that whole procedure a bit). It last happened to the journalist John Junor in 1956 - and, as Mr Rogers says, the Commons might look like a lynch mob if it tried that now. And then, in this non-deferential age, there's always the possibility that the victim might seize the moment and answer back - with the whole incident an instant sensation on You Tube. Remember how George Galloway thundered back at a US Senate committee.

There's some talk of a Privilege Bill to clarify the powers of Parliament; but again, it is far from straightforward to come up with a system of punishing people who refuse to give evidence, or who lie, without giving the courts some jurisdiction over the proceedings of Parliament (a taboo since the Bill of Rights in 1689).

And, as the convoluted process for dealing with the phone hacking witnesses (see earlier post) demonstrates, the handling of these cases has to be fair, allowing "defendants" a real chance to answer the accusations against them and even turn the tables on their accusers.

To be sure, the reputational damage that can be done by a parliamentary hearing may be far more painful than any penalties at MPs' command - ask Rupert Murdoch or G4S.  And there are very few incidents where a reluctant witness has not, in the end, appeared before a committee. (The exception is Irene Rosenfeld, CEO of Kraft Foods, who did not agree to appear before the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee in March 2011 to answer questions about the takeover of Cadbury - although other Kraft officials did give evidence.)

Parliament does need the power to compel witnesses to attend, and it does need some sanction when it believes it has been lied to - and these things are surely not impossible to arrange. The US Congress has a robust attitude towards perjury at its hearings, and the Scottish Parliament and Welsh National Assembly both have clearer powers than Westminster. And if we're about to enter into an era of parliamentary investigations of the powerful, in the City, in the media or wherever, clear and robust powers will be essential. But MPs need to be very careful what powers they demand or they could end up sounding like King Lear...

"I shall do such things...What they are yet I know not, but they shall be the terrors of the earth..."

"Considering the World Cup is, at the moment, the most watched sporting event in the world by far I'm surprised they are jeopardising it for some Qatari loonbags and a quick buck. "

teh answer, my friend, is in the last 3 words of your post

30 points by January and Ashley will sell anyone he can.....................

why would a top class player go to Old Trafford?

Agreed - but he's done his time so in my book he gets to start again

I don't have to like him, iI don't have to applaud him but he gets a chance to rebuild his life

If we don't offer such a chance what the hell will he do?  A downward spiral of drink, drugs, more bad behavior etc etc

Classic  - we have a bad run and everyone wants his head, we have a good run and we all love him

Looking at it team by team we've played we are now in EXACTLY the same place as last season - we're not that bad a side but we're also not outstanding

What is interests me is taht I can't believe that W Ham & Saints can continue their runs either - it could be very crowded at the top around New Year

                      2013-2014 2013-14 Difference cum diff

1 Manchester City      H 0             0             0             0

2 Aston Villa                A 3             1             -2           -2

3 Crystal Palace         H 3             1             -2           -4

4 Southampton       A 0             0             0            -4

5 Hull                       H 0             1             1           -3

6 Stoke                      A 0             0             0           -3

7 Swansea               A 0             1             1           -2

and there was no chance of us beating  chelsea at home, man utd away and tottenham away last season but we did.

Actually if you compare us game for game against last year we're only a couple of points off the pace..................

It was grim - overall we played a similar game without any width but they were a yard faster and had a cutting edge

Apart from Sisoko and Colwall we were poor and the defence was grim

Two pretty average teams TBH

No-one on our side looked as if they could hit a barn door - we showed some decent  passing touches mind

They need to learn that banging long high balls into a defence that has shown in the first 15 minutes that they have it under control is a waste of time

Sisoko was always a handful but Villa  hardly played for a win - if you are going to play counter attacking football you need pace and decent balls over the top - they had neither TBH

I counted a total of three saves from BOTh 'keepers

The ref had a bad game - he got a lot wrong for both teams but Wiliamson should have had a straight red for that tackle late in the game - it was a real horror.

I've been to Villa a lot over the years to see us play but it was eerie yesterday - sitting high up in the  Trinity Road stand there were thousands of empty seats behind us and there were large gaps even in the Holte End - never seen that in 40 years

Fair play tho - they all rose for the 17 minute tribute  - not something you'd have seen at some other places I can think of

He doesn't care - for a (relatively) small annual investment he keeps the team in the most lucrative league in Europe

the price someone might pay goes up all teh time as long as we stay in the PL

he gets the best seats when he want s them either for himself or his mates or someone he wants to do business with

he doesn't live in the NE, he probably knows no-one from Newcastle and sure as hell he doesn't read BB like this one

He really doesn't care what we think of him - we're outside his universe

well if you've ever been to a game at Swindon you'd know what he meant

but nice to see our neighbours sliding back into the dark pit where they belong

MA cashed out £ 200 mm of shares yesterday - two fingers to the stockmarket who wouldn't vote for his latest bonus package