peasepud

I still think the recession is a handy little get out for the fat man. The recession isnt whats stopping us filling our ground, its the opposition. The recession isnt wholly to blame for the lack of corporate boxes sold, yes it has impacted but again, companies dont want to fork out £30k to take customers to see Preston North End. Its not exactly a deal maker. Its relegation not recession thats cut our income and the recession was not responsible for us being relegated.

There is no disputing the fact that Shepherd put us into debt, its also though imho no dispute that he did so for the right reasons, he chased the "holy grail" as Ewerk said but frankly I commend him for that. If we'd been told that we werent going to push for Europe in order to consolidate and save money then there would have been hell on. Theres no disupting however that Shepherd (and even more so) the Halls made a vast amount of money out of our club. Personally however Id still rather see us in the CL and our chairman pay himself £20m dividends per season that the position we're in now. The whole concept of football being a business is based on success, no football club can be a money maker if its continually losing games and not competing. Success on the pitch means additional gate receipts, more shirt sales, more exposure on SKY/MoTD etc which in itself means even more merchandise sales on top. Back then we were everyones 2nd team, many a kid got two shirts for Christmas, their own clubs and ours. The only way to get that success is to invest in the team, yes some teams hit lucky and manage that through careful, good quality buys while others go out and buy up the best there is. We tried that and it was merely those world class players not performing fully that didnt win us something major. Yes, Shepherd made some terrible decisions at times and made his gob go at others but at the end of the day (Roeder aside) he never put in a manager because they were cheap or a Yes man. He did it because he (wrongly) thought they were good for the job. If the roles had been reversed and we'd sat and watched Sunderland buy the players we were at the time we'd have had Shepherds head on a stick.

Congrats.

I have to say that I love the argument of "we'd be financially worse off under Shepherd", since when did Shepherd have to find £25m just to keep us alive for another few months? He didnt have to because he knew that out of everything that happens at the club, competing at the top level had to come first otherwise your balance sheets would be fooked. Shepherd never had to beg corporate box owners to renew, Shepherd never had to worry about getting the next sponsorship deal, More importantly Shepherd never ever had to find something to make up for Sky's payments.

its a $10000 itunes giftcard, no thanks...can't even buy a macbook with it Why the fuck would anyone spend 10k on iTunes?

Hughton is the man that needs replacing once we go up and you will see a difference. Only Carroll and Routledge havent had REGULAR PL or top league experience out of our 1st team tbh. Routledge played a full season for crystal palace in the prem in 2005 i believe. was really good aswell for them as i recall. I thought that but wasnt sure, that and how much he played for spurs. Only backs my point that our 1st team by majority has the basis for a good PL team. Of course we neeed quality additions though. By good i mean lower mid-table. Top 4 = Brilliant 5-8 = Very good 9-12 = Good 13-16 = Decent 17-20 = Poor Just my opinion...that team + GOOD manager + Financial backing = Good team Just my opinion agree with all of your sentiments but tbf Routledge broke his foot(?) in his 1st pre season for spurs and that set him back big time. added to that you had the emergence of Aaron Lennon who was on fire that season. not saying he's a brilliant player (Routledge) but i reckon he's a low to mid prem level player easily which is pretty much the best we can hope for atm. I really don't like bursting the bubble of those who have accepted lower standards but you are quite right. Leazes mate i dont think ANYONE has accepted "lower standards" as you put it. This thread proves people have.

And we only have to think back one season to remember what we've got in store in a fourth bottom season. Were it not for a horrendous cock-up by a vastly over-rated referee in the penultimate game last year we'd have finished exactly there. Season of Dross here we come! Fixed it for you In all seriousness though, promotion is the only thing to worry about. It's not like the trophy would be paraded through the streets should we win it (at least I hope it wouldn't). You can however guarantee that the regime will be spouting off like we've won the Champions League "Im sure you'll all join me in agreement at the great things Mike has done for this club, its 18 years since we last won promotion and Mike should be hailed for bringing this chance to the club. Its no surprise that in the preceeding 15 years the previous owners never managed that feat. Mike however has done it in 3. We should never forget that and to celebrate we're renaming the ground the "Sir Michael Ashley is a God stadium".

You've pretty much summed up my feelings already. It would top it off if we finished Champions and "pissed the league" ©Accadacca I wouldnt however give a shit if we ended up 2nd, the celebrations and general relief would be just as great.

I dont care if we finish 10th and then go up because its been found that the top 9 teams were all taking turns to gang-bang Ian Watmores pet dog, as long as we go up.

And then we could sell them without suitable replacements.........

No shit sherlock

You know what? the logic behind buying young players who arent on high wages is a sound one but it wont work in the Prem, to be able to get a 25 year old whos cheap to buy and will accept less than 15k a week will get you the quality of signings we already have. Not a chance of building a mid table Premiership club like that, you need experience in there, you need a couple of older heads with years of PL playing experience. To top it all though, as soon as a player is seen to be "quite good" then he'll be sold on to our rivals and we'll start again. Worse than all of that however is the fact that these rules mean a manager cant effectively build his own team. We are now officially a selling club, a staging post if you will for the bigger clubs such as Wigan, Bolton and the Makems.

Key to the door kidda! Have a good un What was it again??????

havent you being trotting this line out since the season began ? 30 games in to the season and still to be 'undone' ??? give yer heed a shake man. our last away win was 8 games ago, that's not champions material. We're only still top because Forest hit their damp patch at the same time

I learnt all my German from watching GGG porn.

cant believe Im stuck in the house without Sky

Same...gritty, scrappy win...1-0 maybe 2-0 if we get a goal in 1st half! ---Harper--- ---Simpson---Williamson---Coloccini---Van Aanholt--- ---Routedge---Guthrie---Smith---Jonas--- ----------Nolan----- -----Carroll---------- Isnt Enrique and Barton due back soon? A perfect post to introduce you to the patented toontastic formation generation generator thingy. Its not finished and still needs a little bit work but basically its working.... http://www.toontastic.net/formation_generation which would produce.....

Circus (formerly Stanleys) is the best imho, although it depends on what you want I suppose, Aspers is more trying to be the Las Vegas style, showgirls, entertainment etc while Circus and Grosvenor are more aimed towards the gambler. I find Aspers to be too full on, too many people all just standing around drinking rather than getting down to the actual playing of the tables. tbf though thats probably what you're after to take the missus to for a first time.

I dont care, we're going to piss this league anyway. fwiw I dont want to play them, as it stands even at their current poor form they could well turn us over. A premiership without us as top North East dogs is not thinkable as hanging to the coat tails of our "more successful" neighbours would be hell.

Apple store opens Monday. http://www.apple.com/uk/retail/eldonsquare...-2827&sr=em

Got it working I see good stuff Yeah, much preferring the new font, obviously theres still all the things we talked about to be done such as setting up the position names etc but thats fairly close to the finished output. Now Ive just got to rename 60 or so team strips to incorporate all the other clubs

Im working on a little project at the mo and need some additional help with stuff. Team formations, Im trying to sort out a comprehensive list of the possible sensible ones and more importantly the player types within them. Formations Ive got so far are: 3-4-3 3-5-2 4-3-2-1 4-3-3 4-4-1-1 4-4-2 5-3-2 5-2-3 5-2-2-1 What I now need to add in is the player types in one list ie LB (Left Back), RB - Right Back etc etc Anyone fancy sticking them in here to save me time while I do the relevant coding?