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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.

Fwiw, Nolan invites supporters to come and speak to him when he's out and about.

That his friend who works at the club told him we've agreed a deal with a Rennes winger or somesuch, who people quickly deduced was this guy. More excellent journalism beneath, this time from the Daily Star: Scathing stuff.

Looks like the Daily Mail read his post, more like.

Could imagine that working out, actually. Ranger would be shown he's mediocre as fuck off the pitch in comparison, so he might start focusing on his football.

Says it all.

Of course Llambias will put the Ashley case, what else could he do? Llambias is an absolute c*nt and everyone knows what Ashley is about and how he operates, we've seen what's happened here and we can all read how he operates with Sports Direct. But this whole " different agenda" stuff that you refer to - it involves completely f*cking and drastically reducing the value of a business he's stuffed hundreds of millions into does it? It involves playing yo-yo with the leagues and surrendering tens of millions in revenue? We lost to Fulham and may well lose to Arsenal, dark forces are at work... A good employee would give his boss his best, most honest opinion, so he could do that - I'm just pointing out that there will be less to divide him and Ashley on than James would like because Llambias will make sure there is. Ashley (and Llambias?) will solemnly believe we won't go down this season, so they've taken no real risks as far as they're concerned. Most supporters' agendas involve us trying to retain our best players and going up the league, eventually into Europe etc. - and therefore their financial advice will be geared to it. Yes, I don't think this is a high priority for Ashley. They're more interested in not going down with a team not financially designed to go down, which means certain investments 'football people' think are sensible aren't good ideas.

Yup. Not wanting to jump the bandwagon, but with Ameobi out for a few weeks at least and only really Best, Ranger and Lovenkrands as striking options, I'd say we really need to be mindful of a possible relegation dogfight on our hands. I'd take 17th now too. Dogfight Not laughing at the idea it can happen, just the idea of having Pardew running the trenches. There'll be lot more finger-pointing and a lot less togetherness than there would have been.