Wullie

We shouldn't have been trying to play that easy in the second half with Johnson on though really. Easy to say in hindsight I know but certainly the incident with Santon just after we took the lead should have had us discussing how to deal with the arrival of Johnson's pace at half time.

One of them blacks too. KKK will be livid.

The incident with Santon and Johnson in the first half should have had alarm bells ringing. I never understand why Johnson doesn't start, he must be having some shit games when i'm not looking because whenever I see him, his pace always causes real problems.

Worse than West Brom away last season... where did I put my tin hat?

Fucking embarrassing. Disgraceful.

If the "big clubs" (hate that term) weren't so obsessed with snapping up young talent from other clubs before they're out of nappies simply to stop other clubs from doing the same, they wouldn't have such an issue of young players stagnating. Norwich and Swansea have shown that players can indeed come through the divisions to a position where they can play at the top level and we need to get away from a place where players with any talent think they must join a Premier League academy to succeed in the game which has created this gap between the top flight and those below,

The voice at the end is absolutely

You not fancy grassing up those guilty, Dave or is it just comments you hear but are unable to identify who said what? Would be good if supporters could self-police on this one. Away games are a bit of a different matter though. Anyone remember the Coventry stuff that happened when SBR was manager? (think it was in 1999) From what I remember reading about it, it was bang out of order and I'm not sure if those guilty of chanting 'A town full or Paki's' were ever caught. Brought shame to the rest of us good supporters. They're just comments overheard from the area around me. Heard them home and away, and if you're engrossed in the game then it's hard to know who's said it. Don't get me wrong, with the exception of some prick at West Ham away it's not a continuous stream of vile racist abuse, but it's still out of order. I just wanted to make the point that it exists everywhere, including us. Still see him from time to time, he goes to all the aways and he was in the Three Bulls when I was in a couple of weeks ago. Knob.

I think Jonas is a better footballer than he's given credit for, his only problem is a big one for a winger and that's that he can't cross, so don't use him as an orthodox winger, use him like he played against QPR, making runs centrally and playing short passes. His goal against Blackburn showed what he's capable as long as you're not asking him to get to the byline and bang it in.

Shola and Best lumbering around at Craven Cottage on Saturday while Ba and Cisse are playing together against Zambia is going to be fucking excruciating.

He'll have a hard job displacing Shola alright.

If we can get through the next fortnight without selling a big player (and this should be the point where we're dragging Colo, Ba etc to the negotiation table to get them signed up on new deals which suit both parties), I'll have real optimism going into the second half of the season. The clubs at the top are as weak a pool as they have been in 15 years and this is a genuine chance to get amongst them. 4 points off 4th? It's not out of reach.

Where do we go from here? The back 5 basically pick themselves unless you want to argue between Simpson and Taylor but is it to be a 4-4-2 as we've seen so far this season or is it to be some sort of 4-3-3 - Ba and HBA off Cisse? I quite like the idea of a trio made up of Cabaye, Tiote and Jonas.

Who?

I was gutted when I looked on Live Score on Sunday and saw Senegal had won 1-0 but with a Cisse goal instead of Ba, 48 hours later, he's ours too.

Fantastic. We've got some fucking team on paper now like.

Taking so long. When we signed Coloccini, Ashley turned up in a Colo 2 shirt on the Sunday and the club didn't confirm it until about Wednesday!

4 defenders, 4 midfielders and these 2 cats upfront. Black cats? Not happy about this like.

This is exactly the type of signing that will persuade our other quality players to stay and we absolutely must do that this month. On paper we have a frightening XI and only one full back position is a weak link. If the club show the ambition to keep everyone and this guy hits the ground running, there's no reason at all that we can't aim to finish 4th.

Man if we can just drag ourselves to the end of the window without selling anyone, happy fucking days.

TV money's certainly a big part of it but matchday revenue is massive. Look at how screwed Everton are even at full capacity every week because they can't afford to build a new ground to compete with the likes of us, or the London clubs who can charge twice the price for the same capacity. If we have an extra 10k over Everton at an average of £25 a ticket, that's a quarter of a million per fortnight they're down on us.

Indeed but like I said, if they thought enough people were going to turn up, there's every incentive to lower the price given the size of the ground. That looks about standard price for that division btw which is a scandal in itself, no wonder clubs are going out of business left, right and centre. Do you think the standard of players should dictate a higher or lower price for tickets? Not something I've always agreed with personally. Going to a football game for me is largely an emotional investment rather than an entertainment one, so I don't think price should change depending on the standard of football. Of course, because the wage situation is vastly different as much as anything. How far down the leagues would you take that? Not sure I'd be happy paying £500 for a season ticket at the Dog and Duck on a Sunday morning, no matter how big a fan I was. The whole point of lower league clubs is surely to offer a less pricey alternative to tempt people into supporting something with less prospect of having something to show for it. If little Jonny growing up in London lives a stone's throw from Brentford, tickets priced at £38, of course he's going to go to Arsenal instead like he's seen on the TV, but if his dad can take him for a quarter of that, that's how clubs like that build a fanbase.

Indeed but like I said, if they thought enough people were going to turn up, there's every incentive to lower the price given the size of the ground. That looks about standard price for that division btw which is a scandal in itself, no wonder clubs are going out of business left, right and centre.

£16 online, £18 on the day apparently.