ImpossiblyDaft

and frankly that is several top qualiy championship players Got to be five hasn't it? not sure what they average but i would have thought between 10 and 20k At an average side, typically £5k for a first team player, £10k for a star player. Little bit more for sides at the top with parachute payments, but not that much more unless its an all-or-nothing promotion gamble or there's big backing.

The 'ridiculous', it meant to apply to the hatred, not what you hate.

I'm sure about 10%-20% would be sympathy messages. Still leaves a lot of cunts, mind.

SKIIIIIILLS! Epic goal vs. Preston to keep us up the other season. Hero

Some will win, some will lose Some were born to sing the blues Oh the movie never ends It goes on and on and on and on JOURNEY!!! To actually put something in here that's not merely an in-joke, the following are two photos of the same guy 12 months apart:

Money is nothing in this division. You can piss away quite a lot of money and achieve nothing (£1.6m on DJ Campbell... ), or you can do a lot with not much if you have a good structure in place to get some steel into a side. Having said that, if you don't get back up within the parachute payments, you're likely to find any debt constrictive enough to become a mid-table side and eventually go the way of Southampton, Norwich, us, etc. and slide down further - good quality but not real 'star' players are on around a tenth of Alan Smith's wages. Its all about the manager, really. No pressure then...

Unlucky guys, I know how gutting it feels While I'd wanted an away trip up there, didn't want it to be cause you'd come down... Here's hoping that you use it as a chance to press the reset button after years of crap, like we did this season. See you next season...

Its no Journey.

Well, I wouldn't be this weekend; but from experience - Not really, I just drunkenly say "its gutting eh" repeatedly to people who haven't the foggiest what I'm talking about and only wanted to know whether I wanted salt and vinegar on my chips. And pass out on the sofa.

DRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

It'll be a battling draw, but hull will get one too...

Leicester, last season: on the back of a takeover brimming with positive PR, revolving door of players and managers, health scare, general indifference and resignation to the shitness OK, Allen was blatantly no Keegan, but its generally a rather similar pattern: Draw vs villa and a flukey hull result it is, then...

From experience, I'd say don't be too quick to write off players who haven't performed this season; at least one or two will get the chance to redeem themselves. As a couple of examples, look at Fryatt and Howard for Leicester, they were dismal in the season we went down and then when they looked the weak point of the side went and pissed all over league one. Ameobi may even be a 20 goal striker....errr...

Problem with limiting squad sizes is that the big clubs will simply hoard the best players and not risk having any promising young players, rather than harvesting the youth in an Arsenal style manner; requires something more complex than simply saying 'no more than x players a season'.

Owen arguably was... the first time around.

At the time Allardyce was appointed, I was laughed at by a Newcastle supporting mate for suggesting Roy Hodgson would be a better bet. I was also laughed at for saying that Southampton would stay up last season. The key isn't having a manager who is great on paper (though Hodgson's record other than one season at Blackburn is rather good), but having someone who is astute, focussed and builds team sprit without taking any crap: name and experience doesn't matter. As such, what the hell is the point in this thread?

To be fair, when he played for Blackburn he always looked a decent enough player; just the other side on that footage have one hell of a bad keeper.

Aye, we could be the next Leicester Mentalist takeover, absurd managerial appointments, insane signings, instant relegation and comedy drama nation-wide? There's no 'could be', its complete fact. (although technically we went down in 03/04 with Leeds)

Its either stupidity or genius - I mean four grand on Bury vs. Accrington is pretty unusual, a fiver on an accumulator with other rigged games isn't, is it?

Propaganda from start to finish. I firmly believe the police were behind this story and as Lord Justice Taylor put in his report, not one witness he spoke to backed up the story and those who reported it and those who published it were ill advised to do so. Absolute bullshit it is. While the police deliberately lied to the media, which led to a few articles in proper papers that were critical (though more 'tame') of Liverpool fans that all got retracted, Kelvin MacKenzie deserves plenty of blame for the article - there's a quote fairly recently (couple of years back I think) where he basically refuses to apologise for it and says essentially 'they deserved it'.

There was an article on the front page of The Independent a couple of days ago - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/mi...za-1649527.html Hardly the home of crazed conspiracy theories.

OK, only potential shortlist material, but its a great excuse for this bit of timeless footage

hes watching the ball get past him like He was actually up for a corner, and flew back superman stylee to save it.

No it isn't you have Tim Krul

Hansen is a good pundit when he can be bothered, which is very, very, rare. Lawrenson is a waste of time, space, money and air though, agreed.