Unbelievable

Barton seems to be losing the ball a lot..

Good goal, susses to sleep there..

Aye, seems to be working well..

fuck me, that was close..

Jonas seems to be allowed to roam over the place a lot..

Great play that was...

This isn't happening for real, is it?

Wow, hadn't opened this thread before. What a pleasant surprise that was! Great work! Keep 'm coming Kasper!

Not really. They won't take any of our s*** players.

I want to see Krul lift the trophy so I can change my avatar...

World Cup final. Thanks for reminding me..

Heh?

What a pillock..

Every club is that. Even the big clubs like are s*** as soon as they get some injuries. I reckon that the majority of the top 4's reserves could all make an impact on our first XI Probably true. But they can't make the same impact in their respectively first XI. Which is why I said that every club will have problems as soon as some injuries to some key players come around. Even our first XI is going to struggle to keep our necks above water. We need a full strength team for basically the whole season to have even half a chance of survival. It's a bit different to the difference between 3rd and 4th. I really think (and hope) we aren't that bad tbh. We are if we don't strengthen further, no doubt about it..

How are we "consolidating" anything if we end up not significantly improving on a weaker squad than the one we got relegated with the last time, and with the remnants of quality left one year closer to the ends of their contracts? Consolidating our position in the Premier League means staying up this year, no matter how we do it. Next year we'd no longer be a newly-promoted team and would have the benefit of two season's worth of Premier League income etc, which if it's anything like as lucrative as you've mentioned before will surely see us with a nice transfer kitty. If that doesn't prove to be the case I won't be happy at all. I'd say us having a weaker squad now is debatable tbh, not that it's even possible to compare any season with the train wreck when we went down. Every conceivable thing that could go wrong went wrong. We might have fewer individual talents now but we have better team IMO. As I said before, me being happy just to stay up by any means this time does not mean I'm happy with doing that every year. I can't understand how accepting the situation we're in somehow means I advocate it and want it to continue forever. Again In the same way being satisfied with making astute and low-risk signings doesn't mean that we're happy to sign second-rate players, not hating Ashley and anything Ashley-related doesn't mean that we want the club to languish in the lower half of the league for eternity fighting relegation battle after relegation battle. UV - Going back to your earlier post about the players who 'took us up to 7th', individually, there were some very good players but if they lack the winning mentality, then it doesn't matter how much you spend. Again, I'm going back to my long-standing question of why people attach such significance to the price & wage of a player (i.e. if we're spending lots of money, it's a good thing and we're signing world beaters ) - it's defintely a recurring trait amongst the Ashley bashers. Price is just the amount of money someone is willing to pay for something. It doesn't intrinsically represent the true value or worth of a good (i.e. player) to the club. It's easy to argue that if you're spending more money on players then you have a greater chance of getting together a squad of 'better' skilled players, but our recent experience doesn't support it. I'm not going to speculate on the income levels for this season, best to wait for last season's accounts to come out next March/April and see which direction the club is heading off the pitch. You can only bash Ashley with the concrete numbers from the accounts published, which shows that he's still using his own funds to run the club. People argue this, because it is factually true and can be scientifically proven. You may want to have a read through this for example: http://tomkinstimes.com/2009/10/the-cost-of-premiership-success/ Now, I know spending more does not guarantee better performances, nothing can. Make no mistake though, by spending less or nothing at all whilst our competitors are, we would in effect be decreasing our chance of success in reaching our objective (in this case survival in the Premiership), and no amount of pulling together or strength of character is going to save our bacon when the bad results start rolling in and our collective of players will just not have enough quality about them to turn the tide. I am reasonably satisfied with the business done so far, but I feel we still need some genuine quality added in midfield and up front if we want to have a fighting chance of staying up.

Unbelievable!

Recent toon target Jonathan de Guzman has signed for Real Mallorca on a free.

He could quite possibly revert to playing as a striker there and, provided he stays fit for the season, maybe even get double figures.

No way. For me it's not just a question of intent, it's also a question of the consequences it may have. It was bookable because it was high and dangerous, it was a sending off because it was a direct hit which might/may have caused rib fractures..

spain is understandable enough, alonso did get a karate kick to the chest after all and no red the dutch however should be thanking webb for not sending off half their side Well yeah, the Dutch are saying 'he was too harsh' and the Spanish are saying 'he was too lenient'. From what I saw he got all the yellow cards correct. The Dutch should be ashamed at how they conducted themselves and now they even have the nerve to complain about the refereeing?!? Disgraceful. I think we've been here before, but here we go again: - De Jong should have been sent off, no doubt about it; - Van Bommel could have been sent off. He always plays on the edge. For me, this match he didn't step over the line, but I would have accepted it if he was sent off as he was very close to the edge; - the sending off of Heitinga was harsh. There wasn't much in his first booking, the second bookable offence was similar to: - Puyol holding back Robben when he was through on goal and already on a yellow. If Heitinga is sent off, then for consistency's sake so should Puyol have been; - Iniesta lashing out at Van Bommel could and perhaps should have been a sending off; - Mathijssen and Robben were correctly booked for protesting fiercly against refereeing decision. For consistency's sake, so should Iniesta and Xavi have been for repeatedly requesting for Holland players to be booked; - in the build up to the deciding goal Webb missed an unmissable deflection on Sneijder's free kick. I mean, the ball was deflected in an angle of almost 45 degrees from its original trajectory. If a corner is given rather than a free kick, with 3 minutes to go and with a man down, Holland can try and keep possession and we would have perhaps reached penalties; - also in the build up to the goal and with 2 minutes to go, and I admit to have only seen this once, but there appears to be a foul on Elia out on the left wing when Spain wins possession which they score from seconds later. All throughout the second half and in extra time Webb has given free kicks for petty things, yet he missed this particular incident. Looking at the above, I would say there can be complaints from both sides, and I don't think Webb controlled the match at all. The trick to being a good referee in a match like this is allowing play to flow and be very decisive when things go over the edge (like in the case of the De Jong karate kick). In my humble opinion Webb made lots of small and bigger mistakes and most importantly didn't allow the game to flow as a world class referee like Collina would have done. The final was a subdued affair, and Webb is partly to blame for this (although I accept a large portion of the blame must be placed at the feet of the Dutch team, in particular De Jong and to a lesser extent Van Bommel). Make no mistake though, Spain deserved to win and Holland didn't play the game in a fair play manner, but neither did Spain and this Holland basking and Spain praising for their attitude is doing my head in. In reality, there wasn't much difference between the sides and the game as a whole was practically unwatchable bar the tension side of things. It's a bitter pill to swallow seeing a Dutch side perform like this when you know they are capable of doing so much better, especially the likes of Van Persie who just hasn't turned up this World Cup..

I agree, partly.. De Jong was very, very lucky not to get sent off. I think the anger of the Dutch players was mainly because of that ridiculous call not to award a corner after the Sneijder free kick with minutes to go. I mean, that deflection man, how could he have missed it? From the resulting resuming of play Spain score, which is a bit unlucky. I haven't seen a replay of the supposed foul on Elia in the build up, so can't comment on that.. Also, if Heitinga is sent off (correctly mind you), so should Puyol have been. All in all I don't think we can have too many complaints though: Spain were the (slightly) better team. It wasn't a good match as a viewing spectacle, but I can tell you tension was running very high if your team was involved, so I can imagine the disappointment of the Dutch players directly after the match. They were moments away from penalties and possibly winning the World Cup, so losing it to a late goal with some dubious calls from the referee in the build up is a hard pill to swallow.

Cheers Sewelly.. I just couldn't get myself to go online yesterday evening after this surreal experience of being outside at 11pm in complete silence with thousands of other nutcases dressed in orange.. Depressing it was..

VI, congratulations! I am sick as a parrot, but have to admit the best team won on the day.. Losing the World Cup final 3 times ffs! 3 times!!!

Reports in Holland are surfacing Stekelburg may not be able to figure in the final. If so, will be interesting if Van Marwijk goes with talented yet inexperienced Michel Vorm or experienced and dependable, but not world beater standard Sander Boschker if this happens... Hope we don't have to find out!

Not sure if already mentioned, but apparently Man Utd have made an enquiry for Sneijder.. Inter do not want to sell though..