Rayvin

Even if it was, what the fuck has happened to Man Utd. I mean it's brilliant, if it was any other team they were playing I'd be really enjoying this, but seriously... How much of their success was psychological I wonder.

Think this might be Giggs' last season...

Er...that is the pettiest response to a legitimate safety issue I've ever seen. So Northumbria police released a statement saying they aren't responsible for directing when the games will kick off. They aren't responsible. All they appear to have said is that they won't police later games; while I accept that this may mean that they indirectly control the kick offs, the club has clearly always been able to choose a different slot. As they just have. The club (and Sunderland, who we are apparently getting into bed with on this) has found an opportunity to squeeze a bit more money out of the game by getting it set up for peak broadcasting times because of an admittedly poorly worded statement by Northumbria Police. I suspect that they've made no effort to go back to Northumbria Police for clarification, and just jumped on this as an opportunity to bypass 'irrelevant safety concerns'. With all responsibility passed back to the police who they 'expect' to just deal with it. Am I being overly cynical about this? I accept I may be overlooking something. EDIT - On reflection, I accept that the above view doesn't really consider supporter interests. Would we benefit from a later time?

Yeah it could be evaded I suppose. 'Next year's targets will based heavily influenced by this year's performance, and so it would not be appropriate to comment on it at the present time'.

I think that reinforces everything we already knew to be honest. They're being quite clear about prioritising the league. I wonder if it might not be worth asking about longer term strategy though, all the questions are focused on the immediate present and I'd be keen to hear what the answer would be if someone were to say, 'ok, we accept that the plan for this season is 10th - but what about next season, and the season after. What are we building up for?' EDIT - I'm not saying that the answer wouldn't be 'Nothing', but it'd force them to say it at least.

Does sound a lot doesn't it? I wonder where he finds all of this... Given that jobseekers is about £3billion I can only assume that he's planning a raid on pensions.

Cardiff poised to pick up Zaha due to OGS giving head to someone in the MUFC boardroom apparently. We can now follow up our feigned interest with feigned disappointment.

that took me longer than it should have.

I was just thinking that... God I hope they win though, it'd be utterly awful if Sunderland somehow fluked their way to a trophy, we'd never hear the end of it.

I so want this to be true

Can you imagine the excitement on here if we actually do sign this kid after everyone convincing themselves that we aren't actually going to. We'd never do it for £14mill but I don't see why we wouldn't got in for £8m or so (if they'd take it). He's exactly our kind of player. Maybe over the summer though.

Fair enough.

I missed all the Leazes stuff. Was he better or worse than LBT? We should have a hall of infamy.

How does anyone afford that? If you don't have insurance do you just die?

Gutted for Walcott and I don't even like the guy. How devastating must that be?

Yeah that was entirely about Sunderland but sorry if it came off as a dig at us. I was more remarking in surprise at the ability to use the words 'professional job' with any team that includes Lee Cattermole. EDIT - I see he wasn't playing. Normal service resumed then.

Ah shame, I guess that's Carlisle out. Sunderland sound like they've done a professional job there. Either Kidderminster or Peterbrough in the next round. We could be about to see first hand the effect that good cup runs can have on a team fighting relegation.

Thing is, last year was actually quite a good year for both cups - Swansea beat Bradford City in the final of the League Cup, and of course Wigan beat Man City in the FA Cup.

Only downside to that is that teams like West Ham will assume that they won't get anywhere and will continue to treat is as happened today. But I do think it would raise the level of commitment from the bigger teams, which would be something.

I thought that was why we had the League Cup? I mean fair point and all, but if we consider the FA Cup as an opportunity to blood young players then surely we're saying that we're basically happy for it to remain as irrelevant as it is?

Carlisle equalise against Sunderland! Carlisle are my second team so I'll love it if they come out of that with anything.

Yeah that's a good point - would stop big teams for walking through the early rounds by virtue of having larger squads. They either have to risk it with their youngsters/reserves all the way through, or they go in full force and suffer the same as everyone else in terms of tiring out their first team.

I think a point bonus would make a difference, I just can't quite be sure of any side effects it might have that would be undesirable. Even for teams like us, it would be putting us in contention for a CL spot currently. Don't know if that'd make it worth shooting for from MA's point of view though.

We'd never get past the third round ever again.