afar

I hate when people suggest that English football is all hoof and hope and other leagues football is so much better because they pass it around. It's a load of tosh, it's not difficult to make about 50 sideways passes before final making a positive one. It doesn't make the football any purer, in fact it's probably the opposite, football is about entertaining and no league in the world is as exciting as the PL. The ball is "develeoped in midfield" as Jonas here suggests it's not, it's just done a lot faster, without the unnecessary fannying on. It's obviously pretty effective too considering the success English clubs have had through history.

Yeah, definitely. Silvestre's a better left back than him, but I'd much rather have O'Shea in the squad. He's not ManU standard but he'd do a very good job for a team lower in the league. I think his main flaw is that he doesn't know his best position. Certainly doesn't make anywhere near as many mistakes as Silvestre. What would be the thinking behind you bringing Silvestre in? Loaning out Traore? O'Shea is dog s***. Yeah, I'd have to agree with this. Absolutely useless, wouldn't take him at Newcastle even on a free with no wages. How about in a straight swap for Smith ?

Don't think we'll have anyone through the doors in time to play Bolton, next week could be a busy one though.

For me it's directing peoples thoughts. That's exactly what the press does in England, a large chunk of the population think how the press tells them to on issues. The internet generation is a little more savvy but there is still a sizeable few who's main window on the world outside big brother is what is printed in the red tops. I don't think it's any different in the US. In today's world power is all about the control of public opinion -- never an exact science, and particularly not in a democracy, but huge amounts of time and money are spent trying to influence the media agenda in the US, successfully to a degree. I don't think it is the same, because you've identified two different problems. I don't know which is worse. The media over here frequently seem to be in the pocket of powerful interests, but they are essentially conservative, weak and afraid to rock the boat. We get watered down coverage of the war, Obama's glowing media coverage, the Edwards affair gets swept under the rug....there are many recent examples. The organization is also different, because there is essentially one national daily - USA Today - and nobody reads it. TV is the source for news in this country, and the style of journalism is basically just to read the major local headline, give the sports scores, the weather, the traffic etc. Every nightly local television newscast in the US usually ends with a cuddly human interest story about a cat in a tree being rescued or a child with some disease making a miracle recovery. The media in the US get told the agenda to pursue, as you said. That means that we don't get people like Paxman on TV. When it comes to sports, you simply don't get the level of media criticism that you find in the UK. That may be because sports coverage is local, people rarely travel to support their team away from home and you don't find national dailies. The closest you get is cable sports coverage like ESPN, and lots of annoying Alan Oliver types covering their individual market and occasionally contributing to national television coverage. But on the whole they have no personal or collective agenda. It is more entertainment/show business than journalism. Unlike the US, the media in the UK seem to decide the agenda they want and also have the power to influence popular opinion. They are a law unto themselves. Who The Sun decides to back in an election apparently seems to matter. In the US, we know that Fox News is conservative and MSNBC is a little more liberal, so you just decide which slant you want. Of course, there are columnists and reporters that matter when it comes to national politics in America, but there is no "Fleet Street" equivalent that can really affect national or local sports coverage. If Henry Winter or Martin Samuel don't like Capello's choice for captain, they can spend the next year undermining him during the qualifiers. As I said, the closest equivalent in America is ESPN or talk radio but even then it just isn't the same level of influence or intensity. I guess that pretty much the point I was trying to make.

Uhh no they don't. There is actually a huge controversy right now as to whether the Toronto Argonauts will be allowed to move into BMO field (TFC's pitch). But it doesn't look likely. The TFC supporters would lost their marbles if they shared a field. You were likely watching a replay of the TFC vs. NY match from a couple days ago, as it was at Giants Stadium, the stadium that NY shares with it's NFL team, the NY Giants (though they too are moving into a Soccer Specific Stadium next year) OK then it doesn't get around the fact I couldn't see the bloody 'soccer' pitch markings. In my defence, it's the stupid way they show fixures over here, TOR 0 : 2 NY is actually Toronto AT New York, never understood why they have to do thing the wrong way around !!

For me it's directing peoples thoughts. That's exactly what the press does in England, a large chunk of the population think how the press tells them to on issues. The internet generation is a little more savvy but there is still a sizeable few who's main window on the world outside big brother is what is printed in the red tops. I don't think it's any different in the US. In today's world power is all about the control of public opinion -- never an exact science, and particularly not in a democracy, but huge amounts of time and money are spent trying to influence the media agenda in the US, successfully to a degree. Media yes, I totally agree, but the with the written press I think the two countries are different.

For me it's directing peoples thoughts. That's exactly what the press does in England, a large chunk of the population think how the press tells them to on issues. The internet generation is a little more savvy but there is still a sizeable few who's main window on the world outside big brother is what is printed in the red tops.

I watched some highlights of a home toronto game the other day on TV here. They obviously share the field with the CFL team (CFL is well into it's season now). They made no attempt to cover the markings for the CFL team, it was an absolute nightmare trying to determine where the penalty area was. Robert replaced Dichio who went off injured in the game !

A question I have always had is why are the British Press such a strong force. In the two countries, Canada and the US, I have lived recently, the press does not have anywhere near the influence it ihas in the UK. Perhaps it's down to the British need to get it's fill of scandal and sleeze through this medium. Although I don't generally buy one, the papers on this side of the atlantic seem mostly fact based, yes they have their share of gutter stories but it's nowhere near on the scale of the UK. Maybe it's because there are few national circulations, USA today is about the only US national I can think of, and I have no idea if Canada have a national at all. There was a paper in New York which was pretty trashy, can't remeber it's name but I've not really come across any other paper that you would say are like, the Sun or Mirror or star or News of the world or anything of that ilk.

Oh I totally agree, cost us nowt, scored some very important goals through the years and not a problem at all off the field. Having said that we need to move him on, for his own sake as well as ours, he's getting no where in his career playing at Kingston Park and we won't buy a replacement until he's gone, I'm pretty certain of that.

He'll be worth practically nothing come january.

Caption competition: Fergie to Smith, "Can't believe I got 6 million from these idiots for you" Smith "Too right stupid fuckers even gave me a 5 year contract"

If the comments in a previous post from Magilton are true, then this one is dead in the water. Our only hope really is that some other club gets desperate or we drop our valuation, West Brom or Norwich could still be were he ends up but I would have said it's about 75% certain now that he'll see out his contract here.

Think we could get 300 more before the Bolton game? If we put some effort in, I don't see why not, come on guys hook up with your ITK's and get bullshitting !

Congratulations on page 300, that's 100 pages for every player we signed who started against Manure.

Looking on the bright side it may make KK more willing to let Smith go now, if he wants to free up a striking berth. I would much rather we rid ourselves of Smith than Ameobi.

I must admit I wrote them off as relegation battlers, but after watching a large portion of the game against spuds, they looked a very tidy team. I think they will suprise a few.

Bang on. Absolutely, the scenario probably works like this. KK doesn't do a lot of scouting himslef. TBH why would he, he has enough on his plate. Wise and Jiminez and their team probably do the looking around to identify talent. Once identified they'll maybe even make contact wth the selling club before KK even is involved, they'll want a handle on his availability and a price. Once they are armed with all the information they probably pass that on to KK, who will then want to do a little research himself maybe scout him or send out Terry Mc or even just watch a video. He'll then say yeah or nay to Dennis and Tony, who should it be a yeah will follow through to try and close out the deal. Obiviously with Jonas it was a bit of a no brainer because of his contract situation. To me this sounds like a good system and hats off to Wise and Jiminez for identifying this one, lets hope there's more where this one came from.

I rarely post at weekends, so a little late coming to the party here. I've been critical about the pre season, we didn't seem prepared. But bloody hell we were a damn site more prepared than Manure. Terrific performance from the lads. Jonas was my pick of the bunch, the lad just doesn't stop, Sentanta only showed the MUTV version of the coverage over here and they were very critical of his diving, their commentators thought he should have got a yellow card. He does have to watch that but other than that it was a brilliant debut. Colocinni made 1 or 2 small errors early on, but after that was a rock alongside the equally impressive Taylor. Zog is not a LB, Enrique must be absolute dog shite in training if Zoggy is getting picked in that position. If we had been playing against a team with a true RW we would have been in trouble. Given was near faultless in goal, I'm more of a Harper fan than Given but he fully justified his recall yesterday. Guthrie was tidy in the middle but Butt was abysmal, some of his distribution was decent but too many times did he give the ball away cheaply and almost gave away the game in the last few seconds. MUTV commentators were shouting penalty, lol it took them about three replays to admit that it was outside the area. On the evidence of this game we are in for a really good season, if we can add a couple quality signings before the end of the month, if we do, Europe shouldn't be beyond us.

Me too, knew nowt about jonas before he came but the pre-season form is hugely encouraging and seems to have a great attitude. Colocinni is a class act, hopefully he'll make the transistion to the prem without any problems.

Can't say i'd lose a great deal of respect for the man... but it really is a proper bizarre move - unless Faye has made it damn clear that he doesn't want to play for this club. Faye/Coloccini could have had the potential to be so solid. And with a fantastic tackler to the right of them in Beye, and Enrique (or whoever) to the left, it really would represent one of the best back fours in the Premier League. I don't dislike Taylor over-much, but he can certainly be a bit of a liability - he's definitely not of Faye's standard imo. KK has a track record of this though David Kelly and Andy Cole were both sold despite being one of our best performers, KK upgraded with his replacements each though so we soon forgot.

Good post. And I tend to agree there. I know I'm a negative, miserable old git but I'm not trying to emphasis the negative here just trying to see where the club can learn for susequent pre-season, hopefully once August is out the club itself will go through a lessons learned process. And I hope if they do they also acknowledge the good things too, the focus on youth procument and development is a highlight for me.

Well that's what I always got on my school reports

For me there were good points, like listening to fans who wanted the singing sections. The fixtures they arranged catered to the fans too, playing, Doncaster and Hartlepool, no too long a treks and a trip to easy to get to Mallorca for a tournement, them some high class opposition in PSV and Valencia. The public training session was a welcome idea also. The weeding out of a lot of crap (but not all) from the squad. The signings of Bassong, Guthrie, Jonas and Colocinni, look very sound. However there were a lot of bad points too, we didn't get out of the blocks quick enough, we've not strengthen the squad enough in certain areas, looks like August may be written off, we weren't prepared for the injuries we've had. We've still got Alan Smith. The season ticket price changes have been far from universally popular. The club has failed to communicate with the fans IMO, this pre-season, they seem to have let this obeession with not giving the press anything adversely effect fan management.

With the PL season less than 48 hrs away, I am asking for you to grade the pre-season. Has it been a spectactular success or a unmitigated disaster ? Think of every aspect if you would please, from signings to preperation, off field issues, media handling, season ticket administration, communication with the fans, etc, etc.