Rich

As jdckelly has argued above, this looks a lot worse at first glance. Time will tell if it's a masterstroke or the blunder it currently seems. Gutted for the man, but as others have said he'll not be out of work for long and he has greatly enhanced his reputation in the game. Hope they crash and burn now though, of course.

It's alreet, Chedjou is coming here.

I spent £28m on him at the end of the first season in FM so this represents something of a bargain to me.

Drives me fucking crackers. January 19th ffs.

Do you not accept it though? FWIW I agree it's sad, but the problem is with the league not us. Not long-term I don't, which is what the question is. Might as well not bother. Surely the whole point of football is to try and win stuff? Especially the domestic league. Course it's the point, but the current situation in the league makes it virtually impossible. Whether or not people will start to think of football as pointless remains to be seen. For me, it just about offers enough on a weekly basis to help me forgot how futile the bigger picture is. Obviously it needs to be done in steps, but it can be done. In our current model we'd need to get into the CL first to garner the revenue/status necessary to get the class players in/keep our current ones, of course. It's naturally a lot easier if you've got someone chucking money at it. Spurs operate a similar way and got relatively close to challenging at the top, mind. They're still up there amongst it now despite a rocky period, although of course they're not in the title race right at this moment. I dunno, taking a long-term view I just don't see why a club of this size shouldn't be trying to compete at the top-level and harbouring the aim of winning the PL. Spurs will have a bigger stadium and revenue will go through the roof in a few years too when they've their new ground. Aye, was telling me Dad this earlier. If they'd had a stadium the size of ours in place then who knows what they could have done, it's hamstrung them enormously being stuck at WHL. Obviously they have the added benefit of being in London and stuff like, so it may balance out currently. It came up because I asked him the question posed by the OP here. I was that intrigued by the responses I've seen. Unsurprisingly he said the same as me.

We're getting Payet though, so it's alreet.

But the camera is at ground level. The ball however. Did we actually go through with those barriers? They're visible on the training pics from today.

Notorious for meddling weren't they? Maybe just a change of philosophy/structure.

Do you not accept it though? FWIW I agree it's sad, but the problem is with the league not us. Not long-term I don't, which is what the question is. Might as well not bother. Surely the whole point of football is to try and win stuff? Especially the domestic league. Course it's the point, but the current situation in the league makes it virtually impossible. Whether or not people will start to think of football as pointless remains to be seen. For me, it just about offers enough on a weekly basis to help me forgot how futile the bigger picture is. Obviously it needs to be done in steps, but it can be done. In our current model we'd need to get into the CL first to garner the revenue/status necessary to get the class players in/keep our current ones, of course. It's naturally a lot easier if you've got someone chucking money at it. Spurs operate a similar way and got relatively close to challenging at the top, mind. They're still up there amongst it now despite a rocky period, although of course they're not in the title race right at this moment. I dunno, taking a long-term view I just don't see why a club of this size shouldn't be trying to compete at the top-level and harbouring the aim of winning the PL.

Do you not accept it though? FWIW I agree it's sad, but the problem is with the league not us. Not long-term I don't, which is what the question is. Might as well not bother. Surely the whole point of football is to try and win stuff? Especially the domestic league.

The concept of being a part of 20 team league and having no ambition to win it should be fucking alien. Cannot believe how readily accepted it is, although I do understand it. Horrendous. Thought there'd be more dafties like me kicking around.

It's magic that they put barriers up while the official site has got extended footage of our training regime readily accessible on it.

Based on the way they were set out at training today the team for this is: Krul Debuchy Williamson Coloccini Santon Obertan Anita Cabaye Gutierrez Marveaux Cisse 4-4-1-1, 4-2-3-1, whatever you want to call it. Hardly groundbreaking, I know, but Taylor doesn't walk straight back in as many suspected following the clean sheet. It was pretty cut-and-dry btw, obviously lined up A team vs. B team. Only two I'm not 100% on are Cabaye and Marveaux, but as both appear in the training photos (rather than the spliced video from Pardew's press conference) I think it's a safe bet.

You son of a gun.

It is the same here for that though, and quite probably everywhere else.

There was a spell when it seemed the only people getting banned were Norwegians like. It's more the trouble-poster ratio and the general posting style for me. Not sure how much clearer I can make it.

Yup.

4 is generic as fuck. Just noticed the curly headed guy in the background Jesus, the short-haired guy behind 5 is even better, total "soon" face

3 looks like the undisputed champ to me.

tollemache's like Invicta, if Invicta had spent the time he's been banned from this forum getting an education.

Only way I could see this happening in this window is if someone makes way. There's very little chance we'll pay those kinds of wages to a player unless he's going to be considered a first-teamer.

Jesus. So tempted to just use that immense TBG gif every time a picture like this is posted now, but I'll refrain.

Read Haidara's latest comments here sausage.

Kasper is my only knowledge of Finland, so I think that place must be great.