Matt

Are you sure? They pay rent for the land as it forms part of the Park which is owned by the Freemen of the city, but the stadium itself is owned by NUFC.

He may also be drugged to the eyeballs depending on how bad the infection is.

That won't work here considering almost everyone has accomodation in the centre.

Will be out for the league encounter as well.

Still planning on going, my hotel's not far from the main square but will most likely find somewhere a bit further away from the main areas on the night of the game.

It will make it pretty much impossible for anyone not local to get tickets.

I am gradually accepting that I will not be getting a ticket for this. Still should be a good trip though.

They don't train at the same time every day, depends on fixtures, international breaks etc.

I'm pretty relaxed that there's a decent chance that I won't get a ticket but just hope to enjoy the atmosphere. I'm there a fortnight earlier with the missus and plan to scout out some good bars off the beaten track. There's always a chance someone has a spare- no-one on a gate in Belgium is going to be demanding to see your passport- they won't give a toss as long as you behave.

I'm pretty sure that is becuase it's only the Eurostar service which is specific- the onward journey is valid for any service except the ICE and Thalys services which are other international services. I've just booked a train+hotel package and it comes up with 'Brussels' but the hotel I've booked is in Bruges as part of the same deal, so I'm assuming the website books the trains correctly!

Yep, your ticket should be to 'Any Belgian Station'

Eurostar (from London) to Bruges and 2 nights for £189. Not half bad. Don't fancy my chances of getting a ticket, but we'll see!

Zulte Waregem? And between them we playered Lokeren in the Intertoto

Me and the missus are in Bruges from 22-25th October....

He makes it sound like someone is going to break in, bundle a player into a van and drive him off to a new club. You don't have to be careful, you just have to turn them all down!

you can never be certain these days....

Goes to show it's a game of opinions but don't think he reads the game well at all and for last season was most dangerous when he ran very fast in a straight line. In pre-season he's certainly shown a bit more dexterity on the ball. The one thing that is unforgiveable is the way he stops once a move has been broken down- again he needs to be much more alert to his position when we don't have the ball. He's by no means the worst player we've seen in that position but I struggle to see him getting a regular game.

Sinclair to Man City surely spells the end for Adam Johnson?

Walton is a great example of a player who clearly had talent, but just couldn't get head straight, even at Blyth he looked good for that level (Conference North at the time), now he's knocking around the lower reaches of the Northern League.

Right at the start, wasn't it?

You aren't allowed to use loans purely to avoid a ban, if QPR recall him once he's available then the FA will act. Also, chances are Fleetwood are putting up a fair amount of money. Their chairman, Andy Pilley, has already invested over £8m in the club.

Not sure what's so weird about that.

Never understand that to be honest. Are they just never that good to begin with? Seems to happen to our youngsters (often highly rated ones as well) more than other clubs, but that is probably just down to us actually having an interest in their careers as opposed to youngsters from other clubs. Stopping full-time training makes a massive difference, players suddenly are only training once or twice a week and have to balance the demands of playing and travelling with a job outside of football. On top of this you need the mental drive to play competitively in the knowledge that you top-level dreams are virtually over. That's why you see so many players just slide off the face of the earth within a couple of seasons of their release.

What about based on what has actually ocurred, given that 'what we've heard' appears to be throw-away lines in NCJ press? I'm not exactly Freddie's biggest fan but to pin this on something half a decade after he relinquised control is absolute bollocks. You might as well blame Keegan's scrapping of the reserve team. If it's outwith the club's control (around planning etc) then there is only so much that can be done, but given that Boro have long been known as having a well-regarded set-up, we can hardly claim we had no idea what we should have been aiming for.

For all this talk of 'investment', can anyone in the know actually identify what this has been spent on? Or are we just going on paper talk? And someone will have to remind me who was running the club when we bought and upgraded the current training facilities, because I'm pretty sure that was about 10 years ago when Ashley was fully focused on selling clobber.