brummie

Barry Bannan! What a goal!

Carragher is possibly the largest cunt who ever walked the earth.

I can't help but notice your lot sitting down the entire match even though you have an entire stand packed out. Weird that. I've never understood that. Everton always sell out their allocation at our place, but always sit. It's rare a team that sells its allocation sits down so consistently. Still make a decent amount of noise, just from a seated position.

I've been watching football for 35 years, and in that entire period they are by far the most fortunate team I've ever seen.

I actually think we've just had our wobble, no goals in four matches. I do wonder how much Wembley will distract, though. I hope we buy a striker tomorrow.

Wait till you live with your girlfriend. You'll get to watch one of those if you're lucky. I was going to say exactly the same thing. How on earth do you lot manage to watch so much football? I've lived with my Mrs ten years now, and if i want to watch a match, i need to start dropping hints and being nice around the house at least 10 days in advance.

Corluka ball watching like a knob head. It was in there half, all we had to do was take it to the corner but we fuck up again (just like Leeds). Birmingham pump it back up field, Mcfadden collects and crosses, Jerome knocks it back into the six yard box and Ridgewell smashes home (Corluka just stopped playing by then for some weird reason). You would have thought we'd learn from our mistakes...guess not. Gomes also seemed to have some sort of mental breakdown as well, I thought.

It is bizarre, isn't it?

Whittingham set up both of theirs So hes leading scorer in the league and joint 2nd with most assists. Surely the best attacking player in the championship this year based on his stats? Havent seen him play much. He was promising with us, but always looked a bit fragile.

Hangeland well iffy for both goals.

Not a bad game thus far.

Gabby with his second. Fantastic finish.

Took 10 seconds to find this http://www.footballeconomy.com/stats2/eng_tottenham.htm They made £39m profit last year. Player trading profit of 56m. They're very good at getting top dollar for their players.

MON still having a go at Wenger after his "long ball" comments following our match the other day. We might be predictable (out to wings), but we're far from long ball. Wenger's achievements are superlative, he's the "total manager" in every sense, managing everything at the club, but he's such a miserly, unsporting tosser he makes himself hard to like.

Money from bums on seats plays a far, far less important role in football finances these days. Besides which, I wonder how much their season tickets cost in relation to most of the rest of the league. Highest prices after Chelsea I think, it's unreal how much it costs. Not just that, but London clubs can charge for - and get much more - corporate entertainment than provincial clubs can. Back to STs, though, my mate is an Arsenal ST holder. His costs him 1200 quid. Mine, best in the house, costs 520 quid. That's the London factor for you.

Money from bums on seats plays a far, far less important role in football finances these days. Besides which, I wonder how much their season tickets cost in relation to most of the rest of the league.

Wrong about James Collins and Richard Dunne Wrong about Sidwell, but in the other sense.

Not being funny, but what the fuck do you expect them to do? They're your closest rivals. Football is built on hypocritical, petty hatred, and the longer it exists, the stronger the game would be.

Isn't Dindane embarassingly shite?

Sir Jack Hayward (now, he was a well intentioned chairman) sold the club to Steve Morgan for a pound, on the basis that he invest certain amounts, most of which would have been clearing the debt.

Out of interest, if you sign Kaboul you will have; King, Dawson, Woodgate, Bassong and Kaboul. In the summer there is no way you will keep all of them happy, so who do you think will leave? Woodgate will probably retire and King may not be offered a new contract. Kaboul has been a straight beast whenever i've seen Pompey play (especially when he played rb). I liked him when he was here but his concentration levels were poor to say the least. Every time I see him, that shitting goal he scored against us in that mental 4-4 anniversary game flashes through my mind. And then i do a sick in my mouth.

I bet we buy Robbie Keane in the next 48 hours.

To entertain the rest of us. They'll probably come in for Wayne Routledge from you before the end of this window.

You're probably right, but it might have to become possible the way things are going. No doubt about it. With the debts of the top clubs what they are, and the effect being felt on smaller clubs now, English football is headed for a crash pretty soon.

The money comes ultimtely from the Lerner Trust, so it isn't just a case of him saying "have this money, no interest" - it isn't just his decision to make. He's done exactly what he needed to do - injected regular sums of money into a club which was moribund, and had been rotting for at least ten years. 15m for the new training ground, for example. He's injecting more to rebuild the North Stand. He's also made money available for transfers, which whilst we've spent money, have been by and large sensible and not involving reckless wages. It is not possible to run a top flight football club on a "spend what you earn" basis with the way the game is now. You can point at Arsenal, but look at the debt they took on to fund Ashburton Grove. What Lerner has done, though, is get the balance absolutely right. He's invested where we needed investment, he's transformed the club, he hasn't saddled the club with unmanageable debt, and he's made us competitive again. We don't have anyone on 100k a week on a 4 year contract. In fact, I believe our highest earners are Young and Carew on 57k. He bought the club for 62m, and I suspect he knew one reason the price was so low was because it needed consistent investment. I don't know how much he could sell it for now, but it would be considerably more than that. He's playing a long term game. Look at it this way. 3 years ago, I didn't want to go to matches any more, I'd had as much as i could take. Since then, we've had two top six finishes, got back into Europe twice (albeit briefly this season), have gone from a squad which we'd have struggle to give away to one which is full of decent footballers, and which could quite possibly provide almost a fifth of the England squad in the WC, and we're going to Wembley next month for the first time in ten years. He's obviously doing something right.