David Kelly

The Kings Speech. Was ok, well acted but not particularly interesting.

As well as: Outstanding film. Watched The Fighter last night. Really enjoyed it.

Found it quite funny on Saturday when I was reading Wheater in the paper saying he was expecting loads of stick from us as he was a former Boro player. Like any of us give a fuck! I was actually talking to a smoggie at work the other day and he was telling me that they are still charging £30 for a standard adult ticket there. It's no wonder their attendances are falling if they're charging that. That's premiership pricing and they're just a small club simple as.

The new Mogwai is pretty good and after one listen each I quite enjoyed the Boxer Rebellion and Joy Formidable albums too. For any Animal Collective fans, Native Speaker by Braids is good too.

He's never had any form though tbh. Yes of course he's done the odd good thing but he's never had a run of games where he ever looked like he was going to be an asset to the team in this division (tbh he never impressed much in the Championship). That said with the injury situation as it is I don't really think we can consider letting go.

WBA away. He was shite. Should never have played for us again after that 'display'. He has actually put in a couple of good (by his standards at least) performances since then. Seems mental to let him go out on loan given our current resources (Ben Arfa at least a month away, Taylor banned for three games, Gosling anyones guess and have we heard about Barton yet?) but nothing surprises me now.

Barry Ferguson apparently. Unsporting or not, there's no need to go shouting about it on Twitter. It's football, gamesmanship has gone on for decades. I agree especially when Arsenal players have been doing similar things for years. Keown against Manure immediately leaps to mind.

not necessarily, but the point is that it wasn't Manu or Chelsea who bought Carroll, but Liverpool. And it was Villa who bought Milner and Beye, and Spurs who bought Bassong, and worst of all, Wigan who bought N'Zogbia - all of whom couldn't wait to get away and they all went for career reasons or even worse monetary. I'm quite surprised this point appears to have by-passed you tbh, skidders I could understand, and mancmag too who is so obsessed he just disagrees with anything I post. It's not passed me by at all it's just simply not the point I'm making. When Woodgate wanted to go we were a team that was regularly competing in Europe and could have conceivably challenged for the title and we couldn't keep him. We didn't need the money desperately he just wanted to leave for another club. So there are times when you can't stop a player wanting to go. I clearly said however that I don't think we should accept Liverpool and Spurs can do this to us and I don't think Carroll or Milner left for the same reason as Woodgate. I do believe we could have stopped Carroll going to Liverpool had we wanted to and the same goes for Milner but the fat cunt wouldn't pay them a contract which matched what we were supposed to be valuing them at and most importantly he wanted the money. Carroll was on a long contract so we could have just rejected his request and I think Milner was the same so we could have pretty much made them stay. In the instances of both Carroll and Miler I think the club were at fault (less so Milner as I never thought he was worth what we sold him for, and still don't, but the problem again was that he wasn't replaced). You make no sense in mentioning the other players though. N'Zogbia had been agitating for a move away for ages and it had got to the stage where he just wanted to be anywhere else and the other two both left because we'd been relegated so obviously premier league teams were more attractive options to them. I understand, and I agree. Most clubs, even the very biggest ones, sometimes lose their best players when other attractive offers become available. Even ManU lost Ronaldo to Real Madrid, but that doesn't make them a selling club, he had won everything at ManU and wanted another challenge. If they can't stop Ronaldo leaving, how can we stop Woodgate ? You can understand players wanting to leave for certain other clubs, like ManU, Barcelona, Real etc, but they should not be because they see clubs like Villa, Liverpool and Wigan as career moves. This is also a reply to HF. We should really have just told Liverpool to fuck off, same as Spurs, Villa and Wigan. This in itself is a statement of intent, doing exactly this, and strengthening when in a strong position in most cases halts the process of players becoming unsettled and looking elsewhere anyway. My guess is that if we had made such a statement, Carroll would still be here and Enrique and Barton would have signed new contracts by now. Yeah that's fair enough and I certainly agree in the case of Carroll (Milner I'm still not bothered that we lost just that we didn't re invest that money). As I've said before though, I don't think the case of N'Zogbia fits into your argument as I don't for a second think that he went there because he thought they were a bigger club that he could fulfill his ambtions with. He just wanted out and as no big club was coming in for him, he just went to whoever came in (probably with the view that it would be easy for him to leave Wigan whenever someone else came in for him). The players sold after relegation are irrelevant to the argument also.

I have to admit that whichever Birmingham player did it, it wasn't the most sporting thing ever. He didn't look particularly concerned like.

not necessarily, but the point is that it wasn't Manu or Chelsea who bought Carroll, but Liverpool. And it was Villa who bought Milner and Beye, and Spurs who bought Bassong, and worst of all, Wigan who bought N'Zogbia - all of whom couldn't wait to get away and they all went for career reasons or even worse monetary. I'm quite surprised this point appears to have by-passed you tbh, skidders I could understand, and mancmag too who is so obsessed he just disagrees with anything I post. It's not passed me by at all it's just simply not the point I'm making. When Woodgate wanted to go we were a team that was regularly competing in Europe and could have conceivably challenged for the title and we couldn't keep him. We didn't need the money desperately he just wanted to leave for another club. So there are times when you can't stop a player wanting to go. I clearly said however that I don't think we should accept Liverpool and Spurs can do this to us and I don't think Carroll or Milner left for the same reason as Woodgate. I do believe we could have stopped Carroll going to Liverpool had we wanted to and the same goes for Milner but the fat cunt wouldn't pay them a contract which matched what we were supposed to be valuing them at and most importantly he wanted the money. Carroll was on a long contract so we could have just rejected his request and I think Milner was the same so we could have pretty much made them stay. In the instances of both Carroll and Miler I think the club were at fault (less so Milner as I never thought he was worth what we sold him for, and still don't, but the problem again was that he wasn't replaced). You make no sense in mentioning the other players though. N'Zogbia had been agitating for a move away for ages and it had got to the stage where he just wanted to be anywhere else and the other two both left because we'd been relegated so obviously premier league teams were more attractive options to them.

He deserved sending off for his piss poor control. He didn't deserve to be cheered off but it wasn't something he deserved booing for even if it did cost us the chance of winning the game.

It's also worth remembering when we talk about players having a price for us, that Woodgate was sold by the previous regime when we were at a much higher point than we've been since. We don't like it but it is a fact that when one of the very top teams comes in and is prepared to offer massive money for our players it becomes almost impossible to stop their heads from being turned. And no Leazes i'm not saying that we should accept that Liverpool and Spurs should be clubs that can do that to us, but if the likes of manure and chelski come in we're going to struggle to hang on to a player.

It's really sad what FCB has done to us that so many of us aren't feeling very positive about this! Personally while I don't believe for a second we'll be able to hang onto him for the length of his contract, I think its now much more likely he'll be here next season and that in turn makes it more likely our other better players will want to stay too. That said you'd have to be blind not to realise that every player has a price and all this does is increase that price. Given Ashley's lack of reinvesting money he's brought in from transfers in the past, the question remains whether getting a higher fee for a player benefits anyone but the fat cunt himself. Regardless of this, I'm determined to see the positives of this more than the negatives because when I last let Ashley fuck me off that much it made me miss one of the most amazing comebacks in history!

Along with Radiohead and Destroyer, the best albums I've heard this year would probably be The Streets, The Decemberists, Yuck and Iron & Wine. Looking forward to the Strokes album despite their lack of quality since Is This It. But more so I can't wait for the new Okkervill River and TV On The Radio. Hoping for new Modest Mouse, Yo La Tengo and Art Brut too.

Not listened to it all yet but heard about half of is so far and I'm utterly loving it straight away. Pablo Honey is only decent but I've loved everything else they've done so I expected nothing else. Best band in the world by a million miles, they keep trying new things and keep making them work. Great stuff.

Fuck me! Danny's actually talking sense for once!

We played really well today, Ricky, barton and tiote were all class. But we will struggle to score with strike force I don't care what anyone says. Don't think we'll be in too much trouble by the end of the season though. We need a massive overhaul up front in the the summer though.

Paul Brayson was another much like Chopra who was once touted as the next Shearer (or maybe the next Andy Cole as he's about the same age as me) but never got anywhere. Think he was playing for Gateshead or somewhere last I heard of him. Also (around the time of Lewis Guy I think) we had two young England youth midfielders who looked very useful. One of them was Terry Mac's son and the other was a kid called Ross Gardner (if memory serves) who looked really talented. There was some controversy about them getting picked on or something by the youth coaches (possibly Pedro) and he ended up moving to Forrest where as far as I can see never did anything of note. A quick Wiki search tells me he's playing for Shildon now!

Seen him play in Spain and Germany and he was a good player back then. Would certainly look like a better option than JA

You've summed up my feelings exactly there Stevie

I don't mind admitting that I left at four nil. After this week I just had nothing to give with the club offering me nothing in return. I've had a season ticket since 86 and I remember me dad dragging me away early once because we were going somewhere that night but I would never have dreamt I would considered leaving anywhere close to this early. I kept thinking sunderland til half time but anger just overtook me in the end. Am I gutted I missed what followed? Of course I am but I really don't feel bad for it because of the joke of a club I was having to put up with. Massive result for us though and possibly the biggest point of the season.

Best is back to being fucking awful again. Not much in the way of service for the two of them but has to do better than this. Ranger has some potential but is really raw.

Who the fuck is Richardson? Take he's the ninja?

The new iron and wine. Very good, the new Destroyer's mint too.

I think this is a key point actually. I've felt for the past two seasons that AC was very much part of this team spirit (along with Nolan and Barton) and I worry that this could seriously damage that now. You never know though. I thought it would be broken after Hughton was dispatched. Fair enough point but this will certainly be worth keeping an eye on.