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But you don't approve of beating up the organ grinder either, you say it's a waste of effort and won't make any difference Dave, hit the off button, this place is finished I never said I didn't approve of going after Ashley. My concern is everything that's been proposed will be like giving him a dead leg as opposed to 'beating him up'. It hasn't read that way, but ok fair enough. Seriously, have you got any thoughts at all about what can be done to beat him up/change him for the better? It's just that what I've read from you has been ultra-passive, almost to the point of masochism given that you agree they've been poisonous to the club and are likely to continue to be, and it's depressing stuff. Didn't originally intend to spring this on you in here, so apologies for that, but it's just you say you'd flout/weaken any boycott, won't abuse him in in the stadium for fear of the consequences etc. So what do you think can/should be done by supporters to improve the club's future?

Mackems, Spurs? Arsenal away, West Ham, Everton etc?

We're talking about the future.E.g this summer.With the likes of Jose,Tiote,Colo etc. OK, well I just prefer not to decide we'll sell all these players before anything has actually happened. I like enjoying having good players at the club rather than constantly saying "he'll be off in the summer", "He's gone" and self-pitying bollocks like that. This certainty we're selling all our good players is killing almost every thread at the moment, it's depressing as fuck. It's not self-pitying, that would be 'why is it always us?'. It's maybe more self-protecting - ambivalent attachment to good things is natural and maybe advisable when you've got strong reason to expect them to be ripped away in unhappy circumstances. The attitude isn't killing all the threads, the people who've created the attitude among supporters are, and yes it is depressing as fuck to think it's not going to change regardless of how healthy the bank balance becomes.

Agree completely. They're likeable in many ways (although the association with Hughes loses them brownie-points), and - to be totally condescending - it's bizarre how a club the size of Fulham have maintained their allegiance with the Premier League for this long. I can't see them being around forever, but West Brom are a big club that just need something to propel them from this yo-yo status quo. That was never going to happen with Di Matteo but Hodgson is the perfect man imo. Great appointment. Yep, Shaun must not know much about either club or the history of football. Until the Premier League started changing things, WBA have always been obvious potential title winners, speaking in the way that we, Tottenham, Sheffield Wednesday et al were. Can't say that for Fulham and don't forsee that ever changing, either. Don't have any particular affection for them, but like all decent clubs who've been on their uppers since Sky changed the game, I'd love to see them establish themselves in the top 6/4 one day* *The right way, unlike Manchester City.

What I can say for Jonas is he's a solid wide-midfielder. With what he offers, on the pitch most particularly in terms of energy and his willingness to use it, as well as his off-pitch character, he's a player you can build a club upon. He won't take a club all the way, someone like Ben Arfa is a natural and appropriate upgrade, but he's reliable and can play a positive role, by no means least including that of assisting his teammates to play well. Even his failings are reliable, and there's something to be said for that.

But you don't approve of beating up the organ grinder either, you say it's a waste of effort and won't make any difference Dave, hit the off button, this place is finished

And of course, we'd absolutely ruined them when we actually attacked them in the first leg.

West Bromwich have more of a future in them than Fulham. Whether he'll have the opportunity to bring it out of them I don't know, but they've more gravitas as a club.

Sort of like a forum re-enactment of the Arsenal match?

I'm determined to give him an honourable burial. He could've been a contender.

Well, strictly speaking, he wasn't relating the mixed economy stuff to his original post/subject - just responding to someone who's only contribution was a wiki entry. It was a follow-on from a discussion the other day in which he, like a lot of people, was advocating wage-capping of players and disagreeing with the idea this couldn't/isn't done in any way in our economy. Working within that idea, half the subject of this thread was about what can be done to change the trends he identified, which is probably where he'd suggest the other parts of the 'mixed' economy come in. The other half, 'why' these trends developed, could include a discussion as to why the other aspects of the economy haven't stopped/altered the developments of these trends. Maybe even more pertinently, to what extent these other aspects of the economy have gone to preventing capitalism actually negating these trends.

See, it's these nuances Tdeans was exploring and trying to communicate to otherwise fallow turf.

Ironically, if you read the wiki article, it goes some way to showing he was right. It's glib and inaccurate to simply put the situation he describes down to what is commonly understood as capitalism and its dynamics. Not all club owners run their clubs the way they do in view of capitalism. The Bosman and later rulings were certainly not a product of unbridled capitalism.

In implicit terms, Llamsbias and Ashley, in the form of a 'source'.

Bonza

Er I don't wanna say nothing but we don't live in America. We don't have a captilist society we have a mixed economy so really there's no need to pay footballers so much so yay. You'd rather pay more money to Mike Ashley? That's all that will happen if you cap pay for players, because he'll still charge as much as he can for tickets. The supply of money into the game needs to be cut, that's the only thing that counts. I'd rather see players cleaning their arses with illuminated manuscripts than have supporters keep paying just as much only to chairmen instead. Totally wrong.

No owning to be seen here. One stupid comment from Flatline about Hughton's mythical bottling and making Nolan do teamtalks, but otherwise...

Not so interested in the amount as the type, both on the pitch and off it - i.e. whether they lose us points or not. They're small points, but we've had two injury time equalisers scored against us recently whereas none took place under Hughton (ever, iirc), and we've had four goals scored against us before the 10th minute, compared to one this season under Hughton. The team often looks more panicky and disjointed and less calm and orderly than it did. Furthermore, our open-play attacks seem less measured than they did - I used to detect more of a safety first approach where we'd avoid getting caught on breaks. Not things you can read off a statistics sheet, you just have to use your judgement for that one. As I've said, it's been gradual, I'm just observing we're in a downward trend for some reason. What do I think Pardew's done? Well, if any of it's his fault, maybe it's rooted in his training methods. Less practice? Less research on opposition teams? Or maybe it's to do with the way he picks his team, chopping and changing players and their positions. Let's be clear here - defence is a whole team issue, so I'm talking about Nolan, Jonas and Tiote as much as Williamson and Colloccini here.

Yeah - undoubtedly Pardew's influence. He probably told Williamson to start defending like a muppet and Williamson decided to follow his instructions. And Colo, and Enrique et al? Strange idea. We're just less safe as a team nowadays. Don't mind looking at different reasons as for why yet, and hopefully we'll go back to how we were, but the biggest single difference I can think of since it started is managerial.

Williamson was abysmal against Arsenal. That said, I think the defence in general has been looking gradually worse for a while now. We're less well-drilled and prepared, more frayed around the edges. My personal assumption is this is largely Pardew's influence coming through. Williamson comes off worst out of this situation because he's the least useful as an individual defender out of our first 4. Most good things about him are found through teamwork and organisation - fitting into a unit. He is a better player than Steven Taylor, because he can play a part in a good team that's really progressing whereas Taylor can't in the long term and drags those around him down, but it's true that if you're going to have a dodgy, unstable team, you'd might well be better off with Taylor in the team because issue for issue he's better for flying around. Fwiw, it might be worth noting the times Colloccini has gone out of his way to praise him as a partner (and vice versa) compared to Taylor.

Tries so hard to write intelligently, reads so stupidly. Probably only finished the article because he needed to start breathing again.

He ran from where he scored to the corner of the East Stand/Leazes. Class. I was wondering if Harper had come up. Don't think i've ever seen that happen. Krul did it at some point, possibly when Best got the hat trick. Shay used to do it if we won near the end, though most of the time he used to run back to the fan in the stands behind his goal and do a "get in!!!!!) jester. http://www.midlifecrisisqueen.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/court-jester1.jpg I dunno if it's me that's got the problem for noticing that given everything else but still...

That'll be more than enough. Don't believe Ashley's lies. What lies man? Those quotes were from Henry himself? You're in such a huff that you're not making any sense anymore :lol: No, the idea that Premiership clubs can't begin to sustain themselves without rich man charity.

Particularly stunning was the way Sky managed to report the Keegan Arbitration findings as being a victory for the club.