Rayvin

It mentioned 4-1-4-1 as his preferred style there, switching to 4-3-3 when attacking. High pressing as well. Sounds ok to be honest, not that everything in there is positive.

90,000 would pass for a force sufficient to annex a small country these days... How do France even have that many police officers in Paris?

Expecting absolutely nothing from this match, would settle for a couple of shots on target, would be delighted with a goal. On the plus side, the much talked about medical miracle should mean that we're fielding a relatively decent team. Krul back should prevent the scoreline from exceeding 5 goals conceded. Chelsea are a touch out of form mind, and have thrown away an 8 point lead at the top of the division. With this in mind, I'm going to go for an optimistic 4-0 to Chelsea. Keep in mind also that Carver has confirmed he has Pardew's backing to do the job. The job presumably being to occupy one of the relegation spaces that Palace will be trying to avoid.

Bloody hell. To think that this is all at the behest of a few crazies... I hope they catch them alive but it's looking unlikely now.

As an aside from Ched Evans, did everyone see this: http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/jan/08/wojciech-szczesny-father-arsenal-per-mertesacker-rhinoceros He's not wrong about Mertesacker, but I can't imagine it went down well at training...

I agree in the overall scheme of things on the last point, but I'm taking the opportunity to be even slightly optimistic about the club; we might see something a bit different for a bit, there'll not be so much animosity for a while, etc. And has to be better than being stuck with Carver at least...

@CSD: Very decent of you. I may have entirely made that up to be honest, it was just a lingering memory of you saying you were trying to deflate all of us or something. I'm not about to go looking for it either. That said, apparently Garde has confirmed he's interested at least? Are you saying you don't rate him or just that someone else will swoop in for him before he signs? Not sure if the latter is likely to be honest...

Yeah but you always say stuff like that - and I think you said it in the Pardew build up about the chances of him leaving, so you aren't always right. Hope springs eternal and all that. As for who gets it, if they're a decent coach they'll be able to make the best of what we've got at least, which is something that Pardew never managed.

I can't even see from his apology why he thinks the comparison was appropriate.... He has however done a sterling job in shifting the attention away from Oldham and Evans and onto himself.

FFS isn't the whole point of Jihad that they die carrying this shit out? Why are they trying to get away?

I find that entirely consistent with the club's approach to just about everything. I wouldn't worry about it, we could be getting Guardiola in and they'd not say a thing ffs.

If it's just one of those 'to the end of the season' things, it might be better than Carver at least.

Oh good god...

I think that says everything that needs to be known about what's going on here.

So I read the statement, and I'm not sure they do...they've just set out that their role in this has been quite limited and that they're obliged to provide support to the player and any club trying to sign him. In fairness, if they weren't doing that, they'd not be fulfilling their modus operandi. It's not the job of the PFA to stop rapists from playing football - it's the job of the law.

I mean, aside from the whole should he play/shouldn't he play thing, could Oldham possibly have made a bigger mess of this I actually thought that with the legendary intransigence of Ashley with respect of sports direct, they'd go right ahead with it. I wonder what happened in the last 24 hours to change their minds?

I'm not sure these terrorists have any kind of grand plan - I suspect they're just very angry and very warped in their thinking. These guys can't have thought an attack on Charlie Hebdo would precipitate any kind of global response against islam (it's not large enough for that, although I daresay France will crack down further on Islamists in their country), nor is the newspaper any kind of strategic target. They were angry at it for depicting their prophet, and killed everyone there in order to 'avenge' him. No strategy, no plan, just anger and hate.

The news about Rangers is depressing, I was holding on to the notion that he might prefer them to us, and that one day they'd be our saving grace. Now it seems he'd have to divest himself of us very quickly for that to happen. What a shame - guess we're stuck with him.

That's going to be an important message in the coming few days.

Are you sure it isn't quinoa...? It's some form of hipster vegetarian food. That's about as much as I know. A grain of some description.

I missed the owl but it is epic...

Cheers Ant (who also posted the answer, lest the records make me look crazed) Two more observations - firstly, you're at 34,999 failed spam attempts on the board (which I find interesting because I like numbers and am a dork) Secondly, I can't quote your posts why is this? EDIT - your post no longer exists which may explain the second point...

That would explain it. Sorry for bringing it up!

Anyone know what was so special about October 27th, 2013? Apparently there were over 1000 members online on the boards that day...

It's inevitably going to be a solitary smiley!