brummie

The last few games, it has become pretty clear to me that we are going down. I still believe in what Lambert is trying to do, but it's too much, too soon. It's like the Tories and the economy. I can see they need to do something with spending, but the rapidity of it is doing huge damage. I fear we will have to go down before we really start to improve. Too many youngsters, heads drop too easily, and they're nigh on impossible to lift after a bad sequence of results.

He's 27 not 23. His type of player - pace and athelticism tend to decline quickly as they approach their 30's. He needs the money now. So what do you do? Bend to his demands? What's the difference in what you were offering and what they did? You could equally say that if he's that type of player, he needs the money because he's going to decline, as you said, which doubly makes him one to avoid, especially at that cost. Nothing we can do. We have to stick to our wage structure, but that doesn't mean fernandes and qpr are monkeys like some are trying to say... There's a good amount of evidence to suggest they are, though, isn't there? Look at the players that club has bought over the last year or so, and the money they will be on. Utterly unsustainable. Fernandes might not be as bad as previous Portsmouth owners, but they were so bad, there's plenty of scope to not be, and still fuck things up royally.

It is largely impossible to build anything these days. Even if you do manage to put a decent team together, on a sound financial basis, you just know at the back of your mind, that pretty soon, one of these moneyed clubs is going to come in and take them away. In fact, they don't even actually have to *do* that any more, just the talk that they will do is enough to fuck things up for you. Match-going supporters have become less and less important over the years, and with this new Sky deal next season, they're going to become even less important. Things are going to get worse. Televison money and the Champions League (two closely intertwined things) have ruined everything, in my opinion. The whole thing - clubs, players, agents, tv companies, pundits, chairmen, the lot - is just one enormous fucking gravy train these days, and if you're not on it, you really don't count. It's gobsmacking that so many people still do give a shit, when you have a lot of clubs, many traditional old clubs like you, us, Everton, whoever, who actually can not win a league. I consider myself so lucky I saw us do that, because, however good a season your side has in future, you know that barring getting bought by some human rights abusing, vile middle east regime, you're playing in a competition which you can not win, one in which finishing fourth has become the new "winning".

He's 27 not 23. His type of player - pace and athelticism tend to decline quickly as they approach their 30's. He needs the money now. So what do you do? Bend to his demands? What's the difference in what you were offering and what they did? You could equally say that if he's that type of player, he needs the money because he's going to decline, as you said, which doubly makes him one to avoid, especially at that cost. I think you're both arguing the same thing. Posssibly I am just super wary now, after our recent experience, of getting lumbered with high earning, uncommitted players, of the wrong age group. I'd also say that there are only two factors which could possibly swing him to them rather than you, one is London, which you can't change, the other is ££££ which you can change, but there have to be limits. Mind you, lucky you lot even trying to get these signings in. I dread to think of the sort of dross at the end of the market we'll be shopping in.

He's 27 not 23. His type of player - pace and athelticism tend to decline quickly as they approach their 30's. He needs the money now. So what do you do? Bend to his demands? What's the difference in what you were offering and what they did? You could equally say that if he's that type of player, he needs the money because he's going to decline, as you said, which doubly makes him one to avoid, especially at that cost.

Yes they are. Portsmouth had a new stadium in the pipeline. Portsmouth actively were looking for extra sponsors and thought buying success now would buy them guaranteed future which was completely wrong. They still went he same way as Leeds. Which QPR will do when they get relegated. Fernandez is way smarter than anyone who was ever connected to Pompey. History is littered with the still smouldering corpses of clever, rich men who went into football club ownership and still got burned.

QPR are the most insanely, short termist run side in the league. If they go down, they'll more than likely implode. The problems provincial sides, ones who can't offer constant CL football, face is that we're not in London, and London is one of the best cities on earth. That's one factor which will swing players (and their wives), there probably aren't many better places to be than London for a youmg multi-millionaire. If Remy has been swung by the insane £££ that QPR have offered, then, frankly, you're better off without him. It's at the very least an indication of what his commitment would be like.

If we get 3 points next week, I probably would too. We have to come out of these 3 games, at worst, undefeated. Reading will have a bit of confidence now. I felt sick when I saw they'd won.

If you could, I'd take that point right now.

From what I have seen of us, and you, lately, that has got 0-0 written all over it. We can't sack our manager. It would undoubtedly make things worse. We need bodies in. If we had to change manager, too, then it wouldn't happen.

I am now starting to get worried about us. Over the last month or so, we've lost 8-0, then 0-4 then 0-3 (to Wigan!), have lost at home to two relegation zone teams and scored against neither of them, gone to a fourth division team and got mullered, and we've just completed the donation of six points to Southampton. There are three positions we desperately need help in - LB, CB, DM - and we would improve beyond measure. Unfortunately, it is starting to look like the chairman doesn't want to spend any money, so week after week, we watch the youngsters get even more depressed and unconfident. Basically, if we don't get at least three decent, experienced heads in, we are gone.

It was clearly just a bad choice of words, but there's no way Owen should be used for BBC football punditry any more. Or Lineker, Hansen, Lawrenson, Savage, Shearer, Murray etc etc

I stand to be corrected, but I don't think I've ever seen a team with as many kids as this before. I mean, tonight they were looking to Agbonlahor for experience - one of the dimmest people in football. Just one experienced, clever leader in the middle of defense or midfield would make the world of difference. In several games this season, our oldest player has been Guzan, 28, and the next oldest 24. The other day, we started with a line up in which the player with the most PL appearances was Barry Bannan. It's a bold experiment, but what has happened is they've got the balance wrong - lots of the kids are decent, but that doesn't mean you can throw them all together and they'll all be decent, it's a totally different thing. Nathan Baker is an incredibly promising CB but raw. Ciaran Clark is a decent midfielder and an ok defender. Lowton looks good at RB. Bennett doesn't look good enough at LB. Throw them all together at the same time and they're going to struggle. The other thing is that a run of bad results, and kids lose morale quicker, they're harder to motivate. Tonight was about the same problem we've had all season. Lightweight midfield and shaky defence, and the former puts more pressure on the latter, plus some moments of awful defending.

that final was probably the most limpest performance I'd seen in 20 years at that point, madras.

Bet my house on Villa beating them in the second leg and going through. Oh yeah, definitely. But just being there and being in this position seems so distant right now. It's a double edged sword, really. We went to Wembley twice under Pubehead, and it was a nice day of boozing each time, but really, the two matches were dire. The Chelsea semi final was the most depressed I've been after a football match since the first day of the 86-7 season when I broke all world punting records by correctly assessing we were going down that season. ;-)

Bet my house on Villa beating them in the second leg and going through. Mine too. It isn't that I'm worried about, though, it's the league. Vital game on Saturday, try picking the spirits up after this evening.

Our season in a nutshell there, tonight. Played well in patches, created chances, didn't take them, unbelievably lightweight midfield then starts letting pressure get put on the defence, it all gets a bit wobbly, and is topped off by a display of utterly woeful defending. I like a lot of what Lambert is doing, and the fans have been behind him to an amazing degree, but I think tonight might have been a tipping point for a lot of people. If you look at our recent run of results, no matter what the bigger picture or mitigating circumstances, you've got to wonder what is going on. Oddly, we'll get past Bradford and into the final, but it won't really matter, as either Chelsea or Swansea would beat us the way we are at the moment. A few injuries, and we're a team mostly composed of kids. Some of those kids might turn out alright, some of them aren't good enough, but some of the ones who could be good enough are getting dragged down at the moment. if we don't get in some experience this window - a left back, a centre back (if at least Vlaar or Dunne aren't back very soon), a physical presence in midfield at the very least - then we are playing an awfully dangerous game.

That's the single most ridiculous piece of transfer tattle I have ever heard. First of all, the days of us paying 12m for a player aren't coming back for a few years yet. Secondly, Danny Graham? This seems to have come from that fat turd The Moose, the most clueless source in the media.

Honestly, when that has happened with us and one of our players in the recent past, I've just excommunicated the club in question from football existence. So, basically, Man City and Man United. I don't watch any of their matches, I don't pay any attention to their results, and I actively turn the television off when they come on. All because I know it'll make me miserable. I've genuinely not seen a second of a James Milner game for Man City, ever (unless they're playing us, obvs). It makes it much easier to handle.

James Nursey in the Mirror linking us with Lescott. I wouldn't normally pay any attention, but Nursey, strangely for a tabloid hack, is freakishly accurate on stories about us.

Chamakh has a face so utterly, utterly punchable, it's hard to believe he's managed to reach 28 without being beaten to death.

Not totally true on two fronts. First - His blueprint is for the club to be self sufficient, if a players cost fits within the clubs affordability he’ll be bought irrespective of fee. The other “condition” is that he has resale value, that does not have to be more than he was bought for, just more than his value “on the books” at the time of sale (due to amortisation). Second – “competitive wages” are paid already (daft wages are not) and will continue to be so, so long as it fits with the % of turnover for wages that’s been laid down. It really is quite simple, players will be bought if it fits the model. If they don’t they won’t. In hindsight, he made a mistake in the summer, there was a case for a little speculate to accumulate, especially given the explosion in PL dosh next season. Hopefully he’s learned from that, but it doesn’t need a daft or never ending splash of cash. In fact if we hadn’t had so many injuries (way more than you could possibly reasonably expect) the apparent summer non-spend likely wouldn’t have been a factor. And you're not the only club operating on that basis at the moment, we are trying (after having been at the other end of the scale), and I'd have thought a club like Spurs, who always seem to manage to lose their best players, but replace them well, and also to move on fringe players at the top of their value, are an even better example.

Villa, Reading, and QPR are though. You could say that a lot depends upon Villa's injured players coming back, ,and what both they and QPR do in the window, but Cabaye and Steve Taylor are just around the corner. We have had a torrid run of three results until today, but other than that, we are nowhere near as bad as those results suggest. You'd better tell the wife. She's asking me about all the new places she can see matches next year (Peterborough, Doncaster, Huddersfield etc etc.). You need to tell the Mrs to man up, Leffe. No offence, like.

No he won't. He didn't score goals in our team last year. Not enough, anyway. The Bent style striker, a player who does literally nothing but apply the final touch, is increasingly an anachronism these days. We look a much better, more rounded side without him. We're not going to go down. We're nothing like poor enough. We've had a really sticky spell, but that's the risk playing lots of kids. Before that, we'd started to put together a decent run of form. Right now, we're struggling with injuries, and lifting young players after a couple of drubbings, but that won't last forever. They've got a cup semi final coming up to lift their spirits, too. I've seen plenty of shit Villa sides, i really have, and there are fans who don't see what Lambert is trying to do, but the vast marjotiy see it, and are behind him, and that's not something I've seen with managers of poor Villa sides in the past.

Villa, Reading, and QPR are though. You could say that a lot depends upon Villa's injured players coming back, ,and what both they and QPR do in the window, but Cabaye and Steve Taylor are just around the corner. We have had a torrid run of three results until today, but other than that, we are nowhere near as bad as those results suggest.