Giraffidae

that can’t be the real Kevin, as there aren’t any attached pics of his ‘hunky’ pop star idols.

not surprised to read that, they ripped us to shreds except for 10-15 minutes. Watching the defeat wasn’t the same abject pain as on other occasions — like the semis at Italia 90 — because then we had a good chance to win the competition, this time we were outclassed, it was an embarrassment, but the best team won and we didn’t deserve to progress. At no point through the tournament did we look like a team of any significance — we only had the desperate hope that at some point we would ‘click’...

I hope we don’t play Carragher again.

Carragher is a liability — far too slow and his ‘physical’ side of the game won’t be tolerated by the referees at this level.

so the hand of god doesn’t wipe then.

the trend for putting the shirt manufacturers logo at the top and central is so it always appears on cropped ‘head shots’ of players to maximise exposure. Adidas have been doing this for a while now. Looks unbalanced compared to being opposite the club badge like. I wouldn’t have been worried if the puma was black, mackems don’t own the image rights to all black cats all of a sudden — they’re too insignificant — full stop.

“Wendy will be someone to hide the fact that we don’t know how to deal with running a football club, especially during transfer windows as we’ve already over done ‘the club is up for sale’ charade.”

that statement proves yet again, that they really need help in how to run a football club. As a PR point of view, that statement was clearly going to do more harm than good (to the fans, players and coaching staff) — how could they not see it. Not only will are they damaging revenues through season ticket sales, but how do they expect to bring monies in from sponsorship, corporate business? — madness. The use of ‘Geordie this’ and ‘Geordie nation that’ shows exactly what they are — absolute clueless morons. If they are staying on, forget about doing it ‘your way’ Ashley — get someone in who can help you run a football club — NOW. To think that the last statement they put out was an attempt to put an end to the Ashley out songs!!!!!!!!!!

that, BNP vid is shocking, I can imagine a lot of the celebrities featured in it will be contacting their lawyers. Speaking of them lot, interesting story from their website designer has been posted here: BNP Website Designer Simon Bennett Blows The Party Apart In Confess All Statement sound a lovely bunch!

was the same for Chelsea earlier this season, they made do with what they had.

eh? Didn’t you know that it’s so easy to run a football club, even sports shop owner can get his casino manager mate to do a good job of it. No worries, if they can get Kinnear and Wise in, then they must know the right people/mates.

with all the club statements praising him over the last few days, they’ll probably play him tomorrow!

Seriously man, how many other clubs have failed to stick to their intended launch date this week? Preston for example. What a fucking shambles.... Ipswich Town have failed too because of the volcanic ash delaying air transit. They also don’t have a clue when they’ll turn up, Ipswich Town’s retail manager: "The shirts had been cleared by customs for air freight but with the planes grounded because of the volcanic ash, it's not been possible to get them on a flight. "The suppliers looked at alternative transport but have been told they have to wait until a flight becomes available, which means the shirts won't be with us this week. "We will publish details of when the pre-order shirts are available for collection as soon as we have them." blaming the wrong ‘ash’ lads, methinks.

I voted for Enrique as he’s been our best player. To me with the argument for Nolan and his goals, you have to bare in mind how much space was created by both Jonas and Jose with them consistently tying up several of the opposition at a time. Especially before we got Routledge on the right wing. Yes Nolan scored a lot of important goals but he was left frequently unmarked where he shouldn’t have been. I give Nolan more credit for his team motivating skills than his goals.

when our lot first started getting on the pitch I was like “look at those idiots, get them off the pitch , this could turn really nasty”. Then ‘We Are The Champions’ started up and I thought the worlds gone mad because they’ve just been relegated. Good on them like, but I can understand why some of their lot weren’t happy about the show they put on for us. Even though he didn’t take his chances I thought Leon Best looked good when he came on. And their player who was supposed to be on the post for the corner that Carroll scored from was hilarious the way he went for a stroll!

David James has stated in the media in the last couple of days that Pompey won’t be registering for European entry anyway as winning the FA Cup sent them into financial meltdown. The players had contracts giving them mega bonuses, not only to the players but to the clubs that they’d signed from. To attract the players they offered them huge wages and also slapped payouts for ridiculous things that could never happen — including for FA Cup winners and for qualifying for Europe too!

not sure why everyone bangs on about getting a creative midfielder as a priority when we’ve got Barton, Guthrie Nolan and even Jonas already. We might have got away this season without an accomplished holding midfielder, but next season is a different matter — smith, Butt — oh dear! This wage cap, no trophy signing player talk, the reason we did it in the past was because it can bring in huge amounts of sponsorship monies, lift the morale of the fans, sell replica shirts and increase ticket sales. It’s not all about the money going out. Not that I think Ashley and Co. are capable of sussing this, I presume they just sit there thinking ”where’s all the sponsorship revenue gone? — quick get that Ryan Taylor do some PR promotions”.

In todays Chronic: Hughton said: “There is nothing in that one, I can categorically tell you that. “I’m not aware of any move like that.”

Butt has been injured most of this season.

it’s all right him being a nice guy so far, most of this season the injuries have dictated the starting line-ups. If he wants to step up another level he’s got to cull some of his ”confidants” on the way and deal with the consequences when he gets new bodies in. His ”confidants” seem to have been the main force behind the exceptional team spirit we seem to have — will he be big enough to disrupt it? Can he be a bastard? — because he’ll have to be sooner or later.

glad he’s right like, fair do’s.

^ exactly. Can only laugh at their bitterness. Anyway, I slept like a log last night after the promotion tension seemed to be lifted. Unusually I wasn’t at all tense during the match last night, Forest like other teams this season were playing out of their skins last night, but you just knew (like other teams have) they would be burnt out in the last 20 minutes with a decent push, it was ours to take. Men against boys. We’ve been shite more often than not this season, but the signings in the transfer window and Guthrie now being played in the centre has got us going. More importantly the team spirit this season has been exceptional — you can’t put a price on that. Our defending as a team, as well as the passing and movement was a joy. Williamson and Enrique were top class — so was that Perch too.

that Facebook site is amazing, cheers — like time travelling!

What? in the way Hitler did Germany a favour by taking them to war? Ashley has no more sorted our finances out than I have. We are more in debt now than we've ever been while our income has been slashed but hey yeah we've cut the wage bill so great, every cloud and all that. Consider this my friend, we are here in this mess until Ashley has got his pound of flesh. And losing 500k per week apparently. Now worship our savior! Aye, a rather bizarre way of sorting our finances out. Dropping down a division and losing £25m a year. Nice one Mike. No doubt we'll see all the top sides in Europe adopting this method as the only way to see out the credit crunch. Don't forget the comment that we are going to copy the Arsenal model of finding young players for next to nowt either. Keep it under your hat mikey in case someone else has also thought of it. and that chequebook manager Keegan buying players like Bassong and Guthrie — those days of excess just had to stop.

He did, and yes we were all suckered, my argument would be that Hall did nothing to confirm how good or bad Ashleys intentions were. He took no time to look into him, he merely grabbed the cash and ran. Plus as "Life President" he should now be kicking off but he doesnt. I’ve always had the feeling that Ashley has got something on SJH that he hasn’t let on about — hence the stand off.