Tino

Well it wont be if this goes through within the next month. My biggest fear is that this will drag on again and run in to the season, thus compromising getting shearer/a good manager on board with the right conditions (read: Transfer monies) and we can start offloading the freeloaders... I have no doubt we are still a hugely attractive club to buy, I just hope it goes through fast so we get a good shot at going back up right away.

http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11095_5357394,00.html "Ashley is believed to want in the region of �100m and Swanson has been told there is every expectation a deal will be concluded 'quickly' after a 'high level of interest'. It's understood the two parties who have expressed an interest did not approach the club when it was initially put up for sale in September last year. " Doesnt seem to be all that concrete, but the signs are good that Ashley will be out sooner rather than later... We can only hope...

I didnt really have a choice as my father supported the club from a very early age and lived in the area and when i reached the age where i wanted a Brighton shirt (we moved to Brighton when I was young) and started playing down the park, he got me tickets to watch the toon and a shirt. I started following them about a year before Keegan arrived as a player and as he was a player I loved watching from his Liverpool and Hamburg days, I was hooked. Add in McDermot and then later on Gascoigne, Waddle, Beardsley and the original and first English Brazilian Mirandinha (1987 lads!!!) and then on to the time of Keegan as a manager I couldnt support anyone else.

For what its worth and being brutally honest about it all, there is so much that needs changing at the club it makes me sick thinking about it. Heres just a few things we all know are wrong : 1. Paying high wages to attract players to come to the club in the first place - patently the wrong way to do it, even if we had stayed up. 2. Paying inflated transfer fees to get the players in the first place - again, totally wrong, but needs must if we wanted the player in the first place. 3. Buying the wrong players at the wrong time - See point 2 partly, but this is mainly down to mis-management at the club, Wise, Ashley and his cronies. 4. Not giving KK the control he wanted - Relates to point 3, but the manager has to be able to manage the club and not just the team on the pitch. 5. Injuries - Am I the only one who thinks its too much of a coincidence that we seem to suffer injury prone players? Surely this comes down to better medicals before they join, better training (to avoid getting injured) and better physios to get them up and running when they are ready (rather than rushing them back and getting injured again). Surely no team has ever been as unlucky as us for injuries and I dont believe in bad luck that runs that long... The list is endless for inuries over the last 10 years... 6. Youth policy - Do we even have one? Its not hard to create a good youth academy with decent scouts, proper coaching and development plans in place. Look at some of the smaller teams throughout the league who regularly churn out quality young players who get snapped up to bigger clubs. We have produced two players of any note in the last 10 years... There is something fundamentally wrong here. 7. Scouting - partly relates to point 2 and 3, but again, we used to sign great players, even when we werent in the premier league (Andy Cole from Bristol City for example) and when we went up, we took on players who wanted to play for us. These days we seem content to simply sign players for their name and hope they fit in, there is no chemistry checking, no assessing what the squad or the team needs and certainly no bargaining going on to keep the wage bill reasonable. 8. Transfer money - Trickier to hold anyone accountable because we have had money to spend, its just been poorly used and whilst I despise Ashley for his decisions, you cant blame the man for not wanting to sink even more money in when its spent so badly. That said, with Wise gone, perhaps control of that spending power can be given to the manager now. After all, only he really knows what he wants to build as a team and who would fit in to his preferred style of play. I pray we now do the right thing, get rid of the over paid prima donas, get rid of the over age failures hanging on to one last golden hand shake and get rid of the injury prone gutless wankers who still collect 50k a week. But more than that, I hope we take a real look at the entire structure of the club and assess all of it, from the policy on buying players, training, coaching, youth policy and scouting. god knows we need something to cheer us up right now and just clearing out the crap would be a good start.

We are going to be every teams "cup final" every single weekend, which is why we need players who can rise to that and not the pile of dung that trotted out on sunday and keeled over like wet fish. I am actually not too worried about the quality in the division, but more concerned that we are going to be the biggest scalp for every single team that comes SJP and away from home its going to be a real slug to get points, simply because the other teams are going to be even more fired up than one of the other teams visiting. Its pretty worrying, but i'll reserve judgement until the summer is over and we have culled the useless crap from the team and brought in some fresh, keen faces. But yeah, god help us if we dont start right.

Its all very well Hall saying this now, but he sold the club to Ashley in the first place and allegedly without even meeting him, so as far as im concerned hes partly to blame for the position we are in now.

You can tell when things are bad because there is not one but TWO fucking threads devoted to Shola Toiletobi... fuck me we must all be severely depressed. (see other thread : http://www.toontastic.net/board/index.php?showtopic=24361)

Christ They could name one of the toilets after him. They should do that actually, after all, ive seen the amount of piss that misses the target in there.... oh the irony...

You could tell them... "aye man, you guys will be in europe next year.... ...if theres a war"

YES, he will be good, I actually rate him when he's playing in the right postition. He is great at running with the ball, he just needs to learn how and WHEN to pass the bloody thing...

Garth Crooks is off his face, his tits and his tree. He seems to watch a totally different match to the rest of humanity, even a blind women in Thailand who has never seen a football match in her life could have picked a better team of the week...

Christ

Am I the only one who wishes he hadnt pledged to stay? I think in general, hes been ok, but not the player he used to be or even close to the one we signed frankly and I would still group him among the collection of "collect fat wages and cant be assed" players we have at the club. His wages are said to be staggeringly high too so what with his lacklustre play this season and his fat wages, surely hed be perfect dead wood material to get rid off. If we do end up keeping him, then ok I guess hes going to be one of the better players in the division, but fuck me hes gotta step up beyond what he did this year and hes got to take a pay cut. From what I know, none of the players have relegation wage drops/releases in their contracts so that makes it even more important to get rid of the big wage earners and actually get some players who want to play for us. Sick of these dog shit players who collect 60k+ a week and do fuck all for it and dont care about the team, the badge, the club or the fans.

At least we wont have to play the sad fuckers for another two season.... We are going back up and they are sure as hell going down...