OTF

Lovenkrands sucks as a winger. He's lightweight and can't defend. Definitely a forward, best at making runs off the ball, decent finisher as well. Managers want to play him out wide because he's pretty quick and right footed, but when he is played there he goes missing. Up front or not at all for him IMO. May not sound like it, but I really like him as a player. He adds a different dimension to our attack up front as Carroll, Ameobi (and probably Best) all like the ball to come to them, whereas Lovenkrands likes to make runs onto through balls. At the very least he should create a bit more space for the other forward.

Certainly does look cheap and nasty in the pics. The shorts look ridiculous as well, is the Puma logo in the centre on the waistband supposed to look like a belt buckle? ..I just picked up a pair of last seasons home shorts in Rome Seem like good quality shorts (I'll be wearing them playing).

In the Premier League you need some attacking ability from your fullbacks, I don't think Perch has that in his game, plus I'm not sure how quick he is. With our slow central defense we need some pace at the back. Would rather the money not be spent on him and we promote someone from within. IMO 1 decent player is better than half a dozen poor-to-average ones. We had more games last season than we will this one, so in theory numbers shouldn't be an issue, it should all be about improving quality.

I'm not much of a fan of the German team but they've played well and they've played as a team here. Against Argentina they really showed up Maradonna's formation. With three forwards there was no midfielders directly protecting the fullbacks and consequently Germany ripped through them down the sides. It was the same against Australia, but against Argentina you expect a lot more. Even though they put 4 goals passed England, Australia and Argentina, England's wasn't as bad as the others because a few of them came very late in the game on the counter (even though England's defense was horrid in transition). Somehow I don't think Germany will win it, but as others have said if they do it will be well deserved. Spain vs Germany should be very interesting. Surely they will adjust to the wide play of the Germans and will try to prevent any counter attacking plays. At the bcak they're not that quick, so if Spain play their game of possession high up the pitch it could well hurt them as the German's have been quite clinical on the counter. If the Dutch don't choke they should get by Uruguay who are living proof that sometimes cheaters do prosper. Netherlands vs Spain in the final would be good as it would ensure a new World Cup winner.

Did he not take by far the most 'shots' in the tournament, and didn;t score a single goal? There was a Newcastle player there who scored and probably only took 1 shot

They can't sell him, it would make a mockery of their statement about local talent. We all know that this administration would never ever contradict themselves.

I would consider rape for £80k... It's not rape if you consent

Agree, he might well be a handy player for Everton but we certainly need someone with experience that he doens't have. If we did get him I'm sure Hughton would have him as the only new forward.

It will be down to three keepers for the final squad, but you're right that Pim Verbeek is killing the national team. Will only play one formation despite it not really fitting the players we have available. Pure stupidity in thinking that because we qualified by playing like that we should keep doing it in the finals. The only reason we qualified like that is because our players were better than those of the teams we polayed through qualifying. We qualified despite the formation and tactics of Verbeek not because of them.

If they're fake I pity the poor cunt who went to the bother of fabricating them.

Shorts being pulled up to the end of the sleeves is a great look.

Lovenkrands may suffer a fair few injuries, but he had a good season playing in his actual position up front. In the premier league he was largely used out wide which he was poor at. What really has surprised he this season is his finishing. Some lobs, curling shots, powerful strikes, deft touches, glancing headers we've seen them all fro him this season. He also runs some good lines off the ball, something that Shola and Carroll don't do. I think he'll be a key player for us next season. Of all our options to play up front I prefer the Lovenkrands and Carroll combination. As Stevie said, he also really seems like he loves playing for the club. His return from the passing of his father immediately springs to mind.

Ashley selling up after releasing a statement that says it will take 5 years for the club to be operating at a profit?

I think you just get a nominated time share of the trophy given out to the team with the 5th highest average league placement. Either that or the one for posting about shit from 10 years ago that bears absolutely no relevance to the league today. Can't remember for sure.

Further on the TV money, 50% of it is divided up equally amongst all clubs (£22.5m each), and 25% is divided out based on appearances on TV. The final 25% is the prize money that is divided and distributed based on league position. So I was wrong to include the prize money in addition in my earlier calculations.

Cloud cuckoo land if you think we'll get £45m over our first season back...perhaps if we won it we'd get two thirds of that... Here's how the prize money breaks down... http://english-premier-league.suite101.com...tball-clubs-get So (for example) Sunderland earned about £20m this year from Premier league position and TV income. You can add to that a few million on sponsorship. We will be a lot better off but as you say, we had a parachute payment for relegation. I reckon we'll be about £10m better off in the top flight. When the daily mail say that the play off game is worth £45m, they're factoring in the £15m for your first season up and then the 2 parachute payments that follow over the next two seasons. The £45 figure was taken from the vestibule of knowledge that is Wikipedia: The total raised from these deals is more than £2.7 billion, giving Premier League clubs an average media income from league games of £45 million a year from 2007 to 2010. They also receive smaller amounts from media rights for the domestic cups and in some cases substantial amounts from media rights for European matches. I also saw that article from which you are quoting ('tis where I obtained the figure West Ham received), and that is what prompted me to ask if the £45m figure was accurate. Breaking it down if the average was £45m that means for 20 teams it's a total of £900m pounds across the season. Sky and Setanta paid a total of £1.7 billion. Breaking that down it was apparently Sky paying £1.3 billion and Setanta £392 million giving them coverage from 2007 to 2010. This is just for the UK. So divisding that by the 3 seasons that it covers that's £564m per season. Then the BBC has a deal for match of the day games. Across the same three seasons that was for £171.6m or £57.2m per season. Sky and BT pay £84.3m over the 3 years (£28.1/season) for the rights to show delayed matches. This takes the total TV money per season from the UK to £649.3m. Then you have international TV rights which apparently was £625m across 3 season, breaking down to £208.3m per season. Add that onto the UK figure and you're at £857.6 per season already very close to the figure required to earn the average team £45m. So even if it's not actually £45m it's certainly closer to that figure than it is to the £14.6m mentioned above.

You mean 'ever' right?

If they do, there's no way in the world they are in excess of the transfer fees still coming in from players sold within the last 18 months, as there is no way in the world that these players were all paid for in full up front.

It's a fair effing point, how can you lose £32.5m from a season in the the championship, then when you go up to the premierleague where your TV money is supposed to average out to around £45m just for league matches, with Domestic Cups potentially adding a small amount to it still lose £28m despite not spending any money on incoming players, or increasing the wages of any of the existing players. It flat out does not make any sense. Let's inflate the TV figure we got from the Championship to £5m which means there's a additional £40m for the upcoming season. Take off that the £12m parachute payment that we would have received and that brings the additional funds figure to the princely sum of £28 million. So how the hell does that get turning into a minescule £4.5m difference over the losses from the previous season?! If no additional players were purchased that should bring the loss to a total of £4.5m. If Nicky Butt was on £50,000 a week taking his wage off the books nets an additional £2.6m so the total losses would then be £1.9m, before taking into account prize money for the position on the table. Finishing 17th on the table this season apparently netted West Ham £3.2m, so if we achieved the lofty ambition of survival next season without signing additional players in theory we should be turning a profit of £1.3m assuming we receive the same amount from gates/tickets. ...Is anyone able to confirm whether the TV figure of £45m is accurate as it all hinges on that.

I hope that is the new shirt, because it could potentially be a helluva lot worse. I think I'll get mine with BOSMAN on the back, should keep me covered for the next 5 years.

The money earnt from the sales of Milner, N'Zogbia, Duff, Bassong and Martins absolutely can not be forgotten. At the very least half of that should be used in strengthening the squad. In the end if you don't spend money you'll be left behind. We're already left behind more than half the teams in the league, not trying to improve the squads puts us in a very real danger of being left behind those in the bottom echelons of the league, and that does not make business sense.

I expect he'll be seen in the SBS studios during the World Cup. Given their penchant for showing full body view with no table to hide behind those watching will get to see exactly what sort of shape he's in.

Bloody Viduka. Should have been keeping fit and doing something as he'd still add a hell of a lot to the Australia squad. I reckon if the World Cup had've been somewhere more appealing to him he'd have done a lot more to stay in contention. It would have been a good swansong for him before heading back to the relatively amateur A-League.

At least this one was brief and to the point without any double speak. I wonder what the next statement will be. I'll take a stab...

Yep, unlucky for him as I think he was in better form than all of the other centre backs named prior to his injury.