David Kelly

Batman Begins was admittedly a reboot but they did it without going straight in against the same old bad guys that everyone knew. Yes I'm sure regular readers of the books would have known about Ra's al Ghul but most didn't (hell most probably hadn't even heard of the Scarecrow). They also built the third film around Bane. Another antagonist who is very familiar to fans but virtually unknown to the masses. I totally agree about The Avengers and I think it worked brilliantly by going straight into the plot of a good battle to save the earth (which lets face it, all the best comic books are about anyway). The Avengers and The Dark Knight trilogy were massive commercial successes (as well as critically well received) so I really don't see why they feel the need to pander to children with origin stories that usually among the dullest in the cannons. Obviously there is a need for it with franchises such as Thor and Green Lantern that haven't been done to before but for the likes of Superman and Spiderman it's frankly criminal. Especially Superman where there virtually limitless alternatives. Hopefully the origin element of Man of Steel will only be a small part of it and rest of the film can get on with something new.

You would certainly think it would be in our interests to send Adam Campbell and Remmi Streete out on loan. They have both been in the first team squad when we've been short and seemingly highly rated. Even time up in Scotland would benefit them.

Looking forward to seeing him play on Thursday. I can see why he hasn't played yet as Taylor is a decent player and Mbiwa doesn't know the league or the language so there was no need to rush him in. But I'm hoping that he's going to be a top notch player for us.

Good to hear. He's looked distinctly poor whenever I've seen him play. I couldn't even say what type of midfielder he's supposed to be. But it really is unfair on him (and Shane and Sammy really) to judge him on the chances he's had. Hopefully he will shine up there but I do feel it would have benefited him more to go on loan somewhere in the championship or even league1.

I can't imagine there's many kids old enough to see this that don't know the origin story of Superman and even Zod's been done before in the Christopher Reeve films and Smallville. It's just lazy and gutless for me. And it's not like there's no material there with decades of comics and graphic novels. I'm sure I'll see it and it could turn out to be a really good film but I'd have just liked to see them be a bit more adventurous like Nolan was with Batman.

Is it going to be another origin superhero film? I'm fucking sick to death of seeing them now like. Every fucker on the planet knows where Superman came from so there's absolutely no need for another one when there's so many good Superman stories out there. I fear that whenever another Batman film gets made without Christopher Nolan there'll be yet another re telling of how his parents were killed when he was a bairn!

Yeah Biggy is much more defensive but I still say if he's not broken though by now he's not going to.

No we fell on our arse because we thought we could do it with kids or players from lower divisions abroad.

I think it will be a struggle (unless we move players on) to bring in anyone else to challenge the first team. We currently have Taylor/Mbwia, Anita, Marveaux and Jonas who would probably not be in the first team but could challenge those who are in it ahead of them. That's four players sitting on the bench who are arguably as good as those playing. Outside of a champions league team you're going to struggle to keep any more than that happy. If you have those players of that level and then another four or five of the level of Perch/Raylor/Simpson as back up then you should have a very good squad. That would clearly be a big improvement over what we've had previously and would allow us to have a good go in Europe. I also think that there are players out there of this standard who will think they can possibly challenge the first team and be willing to come and give it a go or who will be happy being a bit part at a big club (where they won't get the biggest wages but will probably get more than they would get for playing every week in front of a small crowd for a team that will never go anywhere).

He's 21 now and this is the first time he's ever played competitive senior football. This after he was being tipped for greatness about three year ago. At 21 if he's never even managed a run out in a friendly for us I would have to seriously doubt that he will ever make it as a premiership player. Either we've criminally mismanaged his progression by not letting him go out earlier or he was never going to be good enough before and he's now just about found his level (looks like he's doing well at league 1 so maybe he'll be able to do it a championship level). Doubt we'll ever see him in a black and white shirt though.

What he's saying is mostly quite positive, I don't think many are arguing that. The only things I can pick up is, as I've already mentioned, are a) that on one hand he's saying they've learned from their mistake and on the other saying that the injury list we've has is unprecedented. It's not we've all seen it before. And, b ) that Ba has been replaced and we are only looking to sign squad players in the summer. He hasn't and we should be looking to sign a replacement. But really why should we believe proven liars? I can appreciate what he's said but I haven't forgotten the past and it will take a lot more honesty for me to trust them going forward. But I will wait and see and hope he is true to his word.

He's saying in today's interviews that we are only looking to bring in squad players this summer unless we have to sell (the intimation being we would only have to sell if a player forces a move away and then only at our price). For the main I'm happy enough with that policy. There aren't the gaping holes at the moment that we could see at the start of this season (rightback and cetreback) so topping up the squad with players who can cover our first eleven is what we need. The exception still being that we haven't replaced Ba. I'm as impressed as anyone with the start that Gouffran's made but I think it would be mad to expect him to score the goals that Ba did. We look like we've brought him in to play more wide anyway so that still leaves Cisse as our only first team striker. Even playing a 4-3-3 like we are that's not enough. Cisse's form hasn't been as good this season anyway but all players pick up injuries at time and we have no one to cover him. We need someone pushing him all the way and that we can comfortably rotate with him or play alongside him when the need arises. If we sign someone for that as well as topping up the squad, I'll actually believe they have learned. At this stage I'm far from convinced.

Not having a go at them for not replacing him but I am concerned it appears they think they now have.

Do they have any other options?

Another thing I noticed in the Deccas bit about Ba was him saying he had no hard feelings towards him, he's gone and we've replaced him. I'm sorry but if he thinks we've replaced him with the signings we've made he's learned nothing from this season. Since the summer we've lost three international strikers and brought one back in. Yes I like the look of Gouffran so far but I have no expectation that he'll score goals at anything like the rate of Ba let alone cover Best and Lovenkrands too!

Aye the inexperience of our back up has been a big problem. I had no complaints about reducing the size of our squad as long as the players you're left with can do a job. And you can't expect youngsters to come and do that job. If you think back to when Ossie was manager he tried it with the like of Clarkie, Watson, Howey, Roache etc but they stuggled badly without having the senior players around them. Keegan saw the problem straight away and brough in Killer to help. Obviously very few (if any) teams can have backup players that are as good as their first eleven. If they were that good they wouldn't be back up in the first place. You'll only ever have the odd few players on the bench that would be good enough to be in the starting eleven ahead of any of the others(since the transfer window you could say that we could have (assuming everyone is fit) Jonas, Mbiwa, Anita, Maveaux), you can't replace a whole team. But what you need is to have reasonable squad players of a certain level. Raylor & Simpson would probably be examples of players of this level. Youngsters like Sammy and Ferguson should only ever be coming in one at a time behind these players.

Hopefully he's like that on Saturday! I watched a bit of the game Togo got knocked out and he looked like he couldn't give a fuck so I wasn't at all surprised to see the result.

How good was Pedro for our goal there btw! Shilts did shite for Mira's though!

Exactly. Whether it's naivety or just them being tight, they clearly got it wrong. He is admitting that to an extent but still with the caveat that the injuries are to blame. Injuries or not we should have went into this season with a stronger squad.

I think they their buying was a bit strange in the summer. Dembele, Dempsey & Siggurdson are all good players but they are all a little bit similar. They've now bought Holtby too who's another midfielder (don't know anything more about him) so they have Parker, Sandro, Huddlestone, Livermore, Dembele, Holtby, Siggurdson and Dempsey. That's an incredible amount to have. Surely they must have had other area's they could do with strengthening!

It'll be a good opportunity to give Yanga-Mbiwa a couple of games to bed in. It'll also be interesting to see what our plans are for Haidara. I never expected him to be starting games straight away but I'm a bit surprised he's not been on the bench yet. He's played all season for a French Ligue one team (albeit one of the worst ones) so you wouldn't think we've signed him thinking he's no were near the first team yet.

The injury list we've had this season isn't unprecedented at all. Anyone who knows anything about football knows that. Yes we've had no luck in that area this season but we should have known it could have easily happened. They were duped by the luck we had in that area last term (Ben Arfa's injury in the first half of the season and Taylor's in the second were really the only issues we had). You can't blame back luck in that area when it was clear to everyone that it could happen!

Really I'm surprised!

I was basing the only Krul point on him being a player we've brought in from outside the local area which I thought was what the article was talking about in the first place. Of course we've had much more success over the years (like all clubs have) at bringing through locals. Carroll is clearly the biggest success on purely a monetary basis but Taylor has come through to become an important member of the first team squad (so's Shola sadly). In the past too we've had a couple of good spells, Gazza, Joe Allon, Tinnion, Kevin Scott (although he must have been a bit later thinking about it) came through and played their part and were sold on for a fair bit cash and then we had our own equivalent to the Manure players you mention. For us it was Clark, Watson, Howey, Elliot, Thompson, Alan Neilson, Matty Appleby. Yes they weren't up there with Beckham and Scholes and Giggs but it was still a tremendous success for any academy to have players come through and make such an impact.

We haven't failed yet have we? Didn't it come out that it was bollocks that we'd missed out and it wasn't finalised until April or something? Anyway we've been trying this for years whether it with foreign kids like Zambrella or English ones like Spear. It certainly appears that either our initial scouting or out coaching is flawed because we've not been getting much payback from it. Krul would be the only player I can really think of that we brought into the academy and has come through to be a first team regular. I suppose you could say N'Zogbia but I think he was pretty much straight in and around the first team.