brummie

Why is this, exactly? I don't get it. There are certain clubs, it seems, we're one of them, so are you from what I've seen, whose fans *always* stand at away games. Why is this tacitly accepted whilst doing the same thing in the home end isn't?

Mendes off for Pompey

Taylor is having an awesome game for Pompey. Cracking game this.

9th I think. Just saw it, absolutely cast iron pen, James lucky not to get sent off. The reason we're getting so many is invariably Agbonlahor, he gets in the box and people just cant handle his speed so bring him down.

That sounds like a hell of a one-sided fight! tongue.gif It'll make the January tussle for Darren Bent more interesting, that's for certain.

What happened, mate? Drinking prior to the match. Can't remember for sure what the pub was called, near central station. Bricks start coming through the windows, loads of ICF outside, who then start piling in and going absolutely mental, whole place wrecked in no time at all. Totally indiscriminate, its not as if there was some Newcastle "firm" drinking in there. They seemed to pick the first boozer they came across. Not honest-to-goodness salt of the earth eastend types, just brain dead retards out for a ruck. I'll probably remember the name of the pub at some point.

Given the absence of Birmingham City in the list, I would go for ..... Chelsea - two types of fan. The knuckleheaded, far right, violent bastards of the past. The ignorant, arrogant idiots who have latched onto the club since RA. Both utterly, utterly despicable. Man United - don't be confused by the recent vileness of Chelsea fans. This lot are arrogant fuckers, too. i don't have a problem with Manchester based Man U fans, but I object to the gloryhunters who latch on to them elsewhere in the country. I can't take anyone seriously when they tell me they "chose" their club. Liverpool - too many encounters with blade waving, thieving wankers in the 1980s. West Ham - arrogance with absolutely no foundation. "We won the world cup" etc etc. "We're a homely club" "we're the Academy of football". Nope, you're a bunch of C***s. Oh, and I also had a particularly unpleasant ICF-induced time in the late 80s whilst drinking in a pub near central station prior to a Newcastle - West Ham match. Cunts.

Which, in fairness, seems to be pretty much all the time these days.

Villa 1 Citeh 2 - McCann

I do believe that makes it 5 in 5 for Darius "Average" Vassell for City against Villa. I think thats remarkable considering his overall record. Isn't it odd how often players do that often their former clubs? We're doing well so far tonight, but we've had a serious Indian Sign over Villa over the past few years. We could do with nicking a 2nd before O'Niell lifts them at HT... ....And as I type its 2-0. Joey Barton, the player I took out of my fantasy team 2 days ago. I'd be gutted, but we're 2-0 up bluebiggrin.gif It is quite gutting but also thoroughly predictable to be honest. We sound absolute rubbish. We just can not get a result against Citeh, ever.

I've had a piss there, but that was it. That's the most appropriate thing to do there.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/c/chelsea/6178676.stm

Oh, and Bridge has signed a new contract at Chelsea tonight. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/c/chelsea/6178676.stm

Except Lerner has bought and is running Villa for the Lerner family trust, which is worth in excess of $6bn - the 1.3bn is his own, personal wealth. The trust also owns the Cleveland Browns which alone are worth a shade under a billion dollars. I'd be sceptical of all of the above figures. Exceptionally rich people are never going to have the full extent of their worth known.

Ha ha. No chance of that. Aaron Hughes, on the other hand .....

Why does building a casino always get mention in football takeovers? You don't need to buy a football club to build a casino, and you can't just build a casino where you want, either.

Indeed, and at the moment Liverpool are looking seriously like they might not get a Champions League place for next year, and are said to be "shitting it", given that they are in huge amount of debt and need to build a new stadium (unless this proposed takeover goes through, obv). That's how important CL football is these days. If you look at some of the stuff coming out of the G14 about clubs wanting to protect their income streams it is quite frightening - these clubs are effectively hinting at *guaranteed* CL football for themselves. If that happens, we may as well all pack up and go home.

I think a lot of clubs will look at selling stadium naming rights, however, the figures Arsenal got for their naming rights aren't a good yardstick to use. Arsenal were selling naming rights of a brand new stadium, which has never been known as anything else. Selling rights for an established stadium won't bring in anything like the same amount. We're having this discussion on some of our boards, and the general consensus is "so long as they pay up, they can call it what they like, we'll still call it villa park" - sponsors know this, and the price will be lower accordingly. Things are going to get interesting with the West Ham takeover and now tonight they're talking about George Gillet buying Liverpool, with 4 CL places to go for, there's going to be a lot of pissed off billionaires not getting the return they want on their money.

What about getting into the Champions League? That's where the real money is. Alternatively, they could just be looking at cutting costs and increasing profit margin that way.

as if, Glen: 'right bos, I spunked that 25m on some crocks in Jan, now where's that 50 you promised for the summer?' Surely the clever thing to have done would have been to not say anything about how much they were going to spend in January. If a club knows you've got that kind of cash, and knows what kind of player you're looking for, they'll hold you to ransom. Damned if you do, damned if you don't, I suppose. have they said much about their long term plans?

Upson did well playing in a shit side, mind. Dunn I agree is a good player but have you seen the size of him recently? He clearly likes his pies.

The difference between the takeovers of West Ham, Villa, Portsmouth and (possibly about to happen) Leicester and the potential Belgravia one is that the first four are being headed by identifiable individuals with an interest either in sport in general, or football in particular. The Belgravia takeover doesn't seem to have that, which is a bit worrysome. Who are they? Aren't they representing some sort of hedge fund? If so, I'd be a little concerned, as clearly the profit motive is going to be in the prime (which may be the case in the other clubs mentioned, too, but in this case it is obvious from the start). Given that, maybe it would be better to put up with FS in the short term in the hope that someone more transparent than Belgravia comes through for a better longer term solution (which, now the club have set a precedent by talking to possible buyers, is bound to happen)?

I suppose i can understand them really, though, benefit of hindsight and what not. He's mainly a motivator, to be honest, I reckon the only similar (availabalish) manager in the Prem who works on those lines is Allardyce. I'd love to see him get the Toon job, I reckon he'd be made for the job, and he'd get results.

Fair enough. You might want to consider avoiding threads entitled "Martin O'Neill" then. ;-)

Possibly, but I don't think so. Like Ferguson and all the best managers, O'Neill has a knack of keeping players on their toes. The challenge for any manager is sustaining the players' interest after the initial novelty has worn off, and keeping their motivation on a high. O'Neill gets under the players' skin and keeps them going. And when Fergie finally retires,MON won't be seen for dust as he hotfoots it to the Theatre of "cheese sandwich" Dreams-thats why he wouldn't sign Lerners offer of a long term deal. His contract is a total red herring. He had a one year rolling contract at Celtic as well. FWIW i don't think he'll ever be Man United manager, that doesn't strike me as the sort of organisation that would be prepared to give MON the total control he obviously demands in his jobs (and is probably the same reason he didn't wind up at Newcastle). I also strongly suspect United will appoint either from within or a previous player. The one job I might worry about MON leaving for is the England one. Any anyway, we're enjoying having him far too much right now to give even a second though to the possibility of him leaving at some point. He signed a 3 year contract when he joined Celtic. And then switched to a rolling contract. He signed the rolling contract when given the job by Ellis. He has since said, when asked about it, numerous times that he'd be happy to sign a longer contract now Lerner is in charge. At the end of the day, if a club wants rid of a manager, or a manager wants out, contracts matter zilch.