Wallsendmag

With all due respect to many people on here I'd back my opinion against most. On the subject of rating midfielders, I still think back to the many hours I wasted trying to tell people that Vurnon Anita was actually no good when most people disagreed with me Not saying Jeff Hendrick is a world beater as he isn't. But he's made a career out of getting into better teams than Sunderland currently are.

Sheff Utd finished top 2. Did you watch much of them last season? They were so, so poor. As I said back in September. The standard of that league was truely abysmal last season.

There's loads of ways of defining how good a player actually is. Your average Sunderland fan thinks that players like Cattermole and Kevin Ball are good footballers because they can go round kicking lumps out of people. I don't. I'll never let a Sunderland fan lecture me about anything football related because more often than not they are clueless and have a history of overhyping bang average players just because they play for them. Hendrick walks into your team. End of.

I'm not saying he's particularly good but he's more than good enough for the vast majority of Championship teams. Look at the teams that were up the top last year. Sheff Utd, Luton, Coventry, Sunderland, Preston, Millwall etc. In years gone by teams with the quality of players they have wouldn't have got close to being promoted. It was such a weak league. I do think it'll be stronger next season though.

You underestimate how bad the Championship is. A player with over 100 PL appearances and 79 caps for Ireland gets into most teams in that league as things stand.

My football knowledge is spot on. I called it back in September after watching half a dozen or so Championship games on Sky that it was the worst standard Championship in years and was proven right. Watched your last game v Luton Town and it was embarrassing how (no disrespect to Luton) a bunch of hammer throwers were able to completely dominate you and beat you so easily. Your midfield looked so weak. Hendrick would walk into your team 100%.

Certainly would. No debate about it. He'd probably be your best player as well now that kid from Man Utd has gone back.

Yes he'd walk into your team. No doubt about it. Reading only got relegated due to a points deduction but even so just because a team finishes higher than another, it doesn't automatically mean that every single player in the higher placed team is better than every single player I'm the team that finished lower.

You had a League One standard plodder in Luke O'Nien as a 1st team regular last season man

Under Ashley we had the 4th highest average standard season ticket prices in England, behind Arsenal, Spurs and Chelsea. Slightly dearer than Man Utd and Liverpool and quite a bit dearer than Man City. Sure Level 7 was cheap as chips but the £811 for an East Stand or Milburn Paddock seat or £679 in the Gallowgate or Leazes was dearer than all the other teams except for the 3 London clubs I mentioned. Of course there were lots of people on long term deals which brought their ticket price down but in order to take full advantage of that those people had to sit through 2 relegation and years of having the piss taken out of them knowing that if they did cancel they'd lose their deal and would need to pay full standard prices if they wanted their ticket back.

He'd walk into your team man

67 for me. Got mixed up between Swindon and Blackpool.

I've never ever known demand for tickets being anywhere near what it is now. Even during the Keegan era, whilst home games were always sold out, it wasn't too difficult to get hold of away tickets and under SBR home tickets were usually still on sale a week before the game apart from for the really big games v the likes of Man Utd and Liverpool.

£65m seems a tad on the high side for a player who's just been relegated with 1 year left on his contract mind. I would have thought somewhere in the £45m bracket.

It's why their crowds look far smaller than the official figure they give out, especially for midweek games. They sell 1000s of £48 season tickets and because they are so cheap it's hardly a big deal if you miss a few matches but obviously you are still counted in the attendance figure.

Still fantastic reading stuff like that and knowing it's 100% true as well!

There's a huge gate in the NW corner to transport equipment in through. It's certainly no smaller than the equivalent access area at the SoL for example. In fact it looks bigger to me.

No but they are exactly the same sized lorries of thise who do. One of your arguments was that it is difficult to access SJP by articulated lorry which is incorrect.

Aye that's true but as you say plenty other options as well. Sky/Setanta/BT have been hauling trucks into SJP regularly for over 30 years now without incident.

Tbf it's a piece of piss to get to in a articulated lorry. Off the A1, over the Redheugh Bridge, along St James' Boulevard, left onto Barrack Road, then turn right into St James' Park where there's a large holding area which the Sky/BT lorries use and to make things even easier the huge access gate to get all their gear in is even in that corner (North West) of the stadium.

Aye. Came to do a talk in at SJP many years ago and confirmed it.

They are literally making up scenarios where they are being mentioned at big events just to try to convince each other that they are still relevant these days, which sadly for them, they aren't. No more than a figure of fun now.

That photo man. He's absolutely foaming he's still here

Owned by a mackem though aren't they. My mate was at a Peter Beardsley talk in there the other week and the flyers for it had him in action in his Liverpool kit