brummie

He's also got a knee injury at the moment

Houllier has apparently said that any loan deals of players out will only happen if the other club pays the ENTIRE salary, not just a contribution.

Good player somewhere in there but make sure nobody looks at him funny / laughs at his car / wears after shave he doesn't like, or he'll go into a massive sulk and be of no use whatsoever.

Holloway really does look out of his depth in the transfer market with the big boys. Just saw clips from his press conference, and it was hard to discern exactly what it was he was saying, but it seemed to be "Liverpools offer was a disgrace but I cant believe Kenny had anything to do with it they need to offer us more money but Charlie should only be playing for Liverpool not anybody else but its a disgrace they can't offer us loads of money because they're a great club" So, basically, he's simultaneously saying he desperately wants to sell him to Liverpool, and only to them, but also demanding they offer more money. I can see a contradiction with that approach.

They would have got less than an extra £1 million if they had of won it. Sunderland are probably already planning how to spend their EL money. Reading RTG today, they seem to have decided they've finished in the top six.

Fulham earned a total of €10,010,114 for their run to the final. So about 8m.

Nah, bollocks is it like that No player is going to give a shit about playing in the Europa League. Obviously, if you finish in the EL places, you're up the league, which makes you more appealling per se, but the very fact you're in the EL makes no difference. You also don't need to build the squad to play in that competition, you just chuck the stiffs in. I'm a season ticket holder and the Europa League was really the only time i ever got to see people like Steve Sidwell, Moustafa Salifou, Nicky Shorey play with any predictability. It's a shame. The old UEFA Cup was miles better, as was the CWC, but with this shitty half arsed attempt at a tournament, they've done the ultimate and managed to come up with something that unites the fans, the clubs, the players AND the TV companies - none of them give a shit about it. The tv revenue even from a decent run is absolutely negligible. I appreciate, incidentally, that Fulham clearly gave a shit when they got to the final, but the fact is, you start out in that competition facing about 200 games against any one of approximately 3000 sides, with that freaky group system where you dont even play each team in your group home and away, and you soon start thinking "hhmmmmm, Thursday night ..... best check if there's something on telly first". Even when you have some good matches, it wears you down. Our first year back in it, I went to all our home games starting with Odense in the Intertoto in fucking July. Ajax was nice (their fans were incredible), and some of my mates did all the aways too and had a nice time, but by the end of it, most people just wanted it to end.

Racist.

Colin Murray is fucking terrible.

I agree entirely.

I wasn't saying they suffered from fixture congestion, they didn't benefit from being in Europe. It was of no benefit at all to us. The first year was nice, did ok, had a decent run, but I think it was the novelty. Watching us play MSK Zilina on a Wednesday night in November isn't that much fun, mind. O'Neill then showed what he thought of it when we played CSKA. The problem is that the EL lasts FOREVER. That season, we started in the Intertoto, so it went on even longer, and nobody really cares about it. Incidentally, there are currently 6 points between 16th and 17th in the league, which is insane. I haven't even entirely discounted our chances of finishing 6th.

He's a fucking idiot. "Boo hoo, they made an offer for my player, I'm going to shoot myself"

God, I keep saying this, but I can not believe how mongish RTG is. Is there a forum for the more serious, adult Sunderland fan? Just read this: So, Villa, since the inception of the PL, have finished in the top six in nine out of the eighteen seasons, ie 50 percent of them. That's finish in it, not be in it for a week in January. Sunderland have not even been in the PL full stop in ten of those seasons. What does that make Sunderland by comparison? Do these people not stop and think? I honestly never had a bad thought about Sunderland till this week, but some of the wailing and nonsense on that forum has really opened my eyes.

Well. If we hadn't signed him, we'd have drawn tonight. One chance, taken. That's the difference.

I can't breathe. The first home match I've missed this season and look what happens.

RTG has gone down.

Ha ha ha!

Yes, but the 45m is in a direct line from the front row to the pitch, I imagine. What a view that must be.

If ever one needed an example of why this country is a fucking mess and why football, in particular, in this country is living in a different world, it is the idea that we should spend hundreds of millions of pounds to build a massive new stadium to host an event for four weeks, then give it to a football club, who will knock the fucking thing down and build a new one. Insanity. And as for West Ham moving into a 60,000 seater stadium with seats in a different postcode to the pitch ... dear God alive.

I actually quite like Quinn, but in that interview the other day, he looked far from disappointed at the sale. Houllier was bang on the money, they are doing all this mud slinging to hide from their fans the fact they wanted to sell the player.

Houllier just said in his press conference on SSN that Lerner spoke to Short about it, then Paul Faulkner (our CEO) negotiated the deal with Niall Quinn, and all through that, Lerner and Faulkner were keeping Houllier up to date with what was happening in the deal. He then said he assumed Quinn would have kept Bruce up to date, but that doesn't seem to be the way it was at their end, but that's not his problem. He also said that every point in the negotiations, Sunderland had the chance to say no, but they didn't, they wanted to sell the player.

Interesting how willing they seem to be to sell their top players (which Kenwyne would've been at that time). Says volumes tbh. It's not so much that as the "woe is us" act when they subsequently do sell them.

Ha ha ha, talk about hypocritical - on two counts, tapping up Bent themselves, and negotiating with Spurs to sell them Jones then acting offended about it. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/article5594062.ece

The heroes and villains one

Delfonso or Delfonzo will do.