OTF

If we win half of them? TAKE. True that. Even if his intention is to use us to move off elsewhere we're hardly in a position to do anything but grin and bear it, and hopeful enjoy a few magical moments along the way. I don't think that's necessarily the case, but from what we do know of Ben Arfa everything can change in a very short period of time.

If people would just learn that Kevin is a gen Y fucktard that needs feedback and confirmation or derision and outrage to everything he posts we'd soon slow down the rate at which he posts and he'd move on to some other folly where he feels that he is the centre of attention. Doesn't offer any credible value to the forum, so please just stop fueling his ego and replying to his inane and idiotic posts. That's all I have to say on it.

6 a side or indoor? Where you playing OzT? Our summer comp doesn't start until the end of October. 6-a-side - Super 6 comp in Baulkham Hills.

That graph is slightly more meaningful, but why choose 2001 as the year to compare? If you take it back over the same amount of time, is would be between 2004 and 2007 for an increase of 38%. At any length this table is largely useless as there as so many external factors that are an influence. Key for me is noting particular decisions and actions undertaken by the current owner and board that have contributed to an increasing debt. More important of course is what is being done to turn an operating loss into a profit so that the debt can begin to be reduced. Forgive me if it's a silly question, but where has the figure of 175m come from? If you're taking that table as the only evidence* then it indicates that relegation only had a maximum 'cost' to the club of 26m. * - Which I don't suggest anyone does.

It would be good to be able to talk some sort of solution to our current predicament, given that no amount of financial nous will change what has happened in the past. I'd guess that there wouldn't be one too much better than what we're doing currently. That is trying to bring in players who improve the squad on a relatively limited budget on non-excessive wages to ensure our survival and to make sure the positive ground we made last season continues. Improved performances will keep the crowds up, and in turn we should see improvements on the corporate side, with sponsorships, ground advertising etc.

First game of the new season for us. A grading match* that we won pretty comfortably against a pretty weak opposition 4-1. maybe we should have sandbagged it * It's a new competition so they're grading teams to put them in appropriate divisions.

Seems a silly thing to do. It will happen regardless of who does it, so it may at least go to a local mob. It's not as if they're working on the Death Star.

Video of it? WTF. I don't suppose they start charging people for the desktop version now?

Fair play you've proved your point perfectly.

Yeah, if he turns into an empty channel he can easily get out of there again because he has the turning circle of a Scott Parker.

Wouldn't go that far Christmas tree. He's had a good start to the season, but still has a long long way to go to pay off the shit he's put the club through. He was very good against Everton, having someone like Tiote operating behind him gave him more freedom. Fed an inch perfect pass through to Nolan which should have resulted in a penalty when Nolan was brought down by Coleman from behind without touching the ball. Long may his good form continue. I think his personal frustrations about not having played enough of late contributed to some of the brash challenges he made on the field, with a full pre-season and a solid start to the season hopefully we don't see him doing anything too foolish on the pitch, as that would be the most likely reason for an end to his good run.

Corporate income would be way down for the majority of sides, the only ones that would have been in somewhat of a bubble are those with extremely large profiles in places where the financial crisis had much less of an impact - like Manchester United in Asia. That's not simply a Mike Ashley issue, though he hasn't helped it at all. That's not to say that the other fat Bastard Shepherd couldn't have floated his own money to prevent interest from being due, or even just paid the interest out of his own pocket which is effectively what Ashley is doing if he's provided an interest free loan. The wage bill was previously at 75% of annual turn over, which is just flat out shocking.

I'd hav the four you mentioned plus Baines as cover for Enrique, Pienaar as cover for Ben Arfa, Coleman because he's better than Perch, Saha is still good on the odd occasion that he's fit, Yakubu has the scoring touch. I'd also have that big midfield lad they have coming through whose name escapes me, plus that ugly prick Fellaini who is playing shit at the moment but was mint for a patch last season. They're playing shit at the moment, but they're not actually shit IMO. I'd swap squads if I wasn't so attached to Jose Enrique, and didn't think that Ben Arfa and Tiote look quality.

The debt became payable, it wasn't suddenly created. So it would have been 124m debt with 70m payable prior if those were the numbers. Mike Ashley has made plenty of mistakes, there's no denying that from any party including Ashley himself, but some of the fabrications and exaggerations in debt management on here seem absurd to me. It's one thing to talk numbers and another to talk specific things that he has done that have increased the debt. Sacking Allaryce and undermining Keegan are two that immediately spring to mind because both resulted in multi million dollar payouts. The latter of course contributed to the subsequent relegation so a sizable portion of blame lays with Ashley for that. That did of course lead to further losses with a sharp decline in television and prize money. A large amount of that was offset by players sales which netted in excess of 30 million pounds. Those sales and the release of other highly paid players resulted in a sizable drop in our total wage bill.

fair play to plenty of our players being in the mix, though you have to wonder whether he watched the match? If he did surely Tiote would have been worth a mention. Williamson and Coloccini were good in some ways bad in other (particularly Williamson).

That sneaky bastard Perch has timed it perfectly so his suspension coincides with our Carling Cup match at Stamford Bridge - a game he was probably not going to play in anyway.

Rubbish article, picking up on the convenient timings. I don't think anyone here would want Given back, not because everyone is bitter, but more so because Krul is a long term prospect that we want to do right by, and Given would be a stop gap at best. Harper is on the decline it seems, so if we look at the positive side of this it will be good to see Krul get a consistent run in the side - something many of us have been calling for for some time. Lets not forget this kid has kept in Europe for us - had that blinder against Palermo in 2006 in which we managed to win 1-0 away thanks to of all things an Albert Luque goal from an inch perfect left footed Milner cross. About time that he was given a solid run in the side considering that he has never disappointed when called upon in a pinch.

Happy face that corresponds with the period where TV money skyrocketed, so without doing anything our incoming would have increased vastly.

@ the goal Sunderland have just conceded. Thirty yards out Ferdinand goes to clear it, belts into Fabregas' foot (I think) and loops over their keeper.

Perch wasn't good by the way. There's a reason why he gets a yellow every week, he is positionally not very good so has to rush in late and make brash challenges. Always looks rushed on the ball. Don't fancy Ryan Taylor's defending, but I guess he'll have to do while Perch serves his suspension.

Those commentators got it wrong soooo many times, pretty much exclusively in Everton's favour. Carrying on about how great a tackle it was, then realising in the replay how bad it was and that there was no contact with the ball they fell back to a much much weaker penalty claim at the other end 10 minutes earlier. They did rightfully have plenty of good things to say about Tiote, Ben Arfa, Enrique and Barton. Barton I think had possibly his best game for us, the same obviously goes for the two full debutants.

Nervous times there at the end!!! All up though it was a deserved win, we had the upper hand for the majority of the match. Nailed on penalty missed for us as well, though they had half a shout on one as well earlier in the piece. Tiote looks like he will be a mainstay in the side, and Ben Arfa so far is just clearly a level above other attacking players we have, and on the day above all attacking players on the field. Has a range of cleverly disguised passes in his arsenal our players are going to have to get used to having those sort of incisive passes on offer.

Didn't enjoy being felt up by Mike Williamson

Pointing must be an indication it's a shoulder injury. Probably code with the physio's for doing a Stevie Taylor.

Spare the first 10 or 15 his midfield has been dominated and he's failed to do anything about it. It was the same with Hughton last week, and for us even though we largely dominated the second half we couldn't get the goal and they grabbed a second on the counter putting it to bed. Here's hoping we can do the same.