Park Life

Yeah Woodgate was involved in the "Bowyer incident".

Bowyer.

I went for 5-2. Thought we might nick a couple due to Spurs having 9 players in our half most of the game.

I'm a philosopher king and no mistake.

Think it's a mix of getting the ball up the pitch quick and into the box or at Ba etc and containing football. The side is set up to hold positions and be solid and it paid off early season. But he likes hard working almost defensive wingers (Guti in particular - how many assists has he got in all honesty). The wingers we have aren't really that dangerous and have mixed roles (with a massive eye to defending). I wouldn't say in all honesty Pards is an attakcing coach I'd say he's a nailed on pragmatist with high workrate as his benchmark. Tbf to him, mostly it has been successful. Think we've been lucky enough to have 2/3 standout players who have made the difference (Ba scoring from a lot of half chances).

Virgin are a very good brand and I agree a massive step in the right dir.

Look forward to your warblings.

There is also the issue of Euro competition law once they start privatising bits of the NHS...Can of worms imho.

It'll come down to the wage bill as a percentage of turnover. Wages are the highest outgoing of all PL clubs. If you think about it a min, the sale of Carroll and the 35m is equivalent to two years CL money roughly.

A lot of it is to do with the amount Germans spend going to games and at the game. At HSV I'll probs drink 3 pints in me seat, that all goes into the club. The fact that the German economy is outperforming the whole of Europe put together is part of the picture and their ability to start a war at the drop of a hat. The main difference between us and HSV is also this: "In 2001 AOL bought the naming rights to the Volksparkstadion for €15.3 million, retitling the ground as the AOL Arena. In March 2007 the HSH Nordbank bought the naming rights for €25 million, and the stadium was rebranded as the "HSH Nordbank Arena" in a 6 year deal. From July 2010 the arena will be called the "Imtech Arena", after Imtech bought the naming rights." It's a lot of free money for doing nowt but change a few signs over.

Or you can stand for 19 Yeah but you don't get beer brought to your seat then. I was just illustrating its what people spend on other things at matchday which is probably the difference now under Ashley. I get the feeling people are spending a lot less on variables. A good comparison is that hsv ticket prices are more or less where Spurs prices are. Hamburg is the richest city in Germany.

Look at these prices at Hsv (Revenue 125meuro)** Roughly. For decent seats you're looking at 55-90 euros for a Cat A (Bundesliga) game. http://www.hsv.de/?id=5579 Cheap ticket prices The average attendance for a Bundesliga match in 2009/10 was 41,802 fans, last year the average was 41,904. This translates into a total of 12.79 million fans attending the 306 games that took place during the season, which is down from the statistic of 12.82 million last season. The percentage of season tickets purchased rose from 55% to 58%. On average, the percentage of occupied seats in the stadiums remain unchanged from last season at roughly 90%. Meanwhile, the average price of a ticket, including taxes, amounted to € 21.89, the cheapest average ticket price across all major European leagues, the same as in years past. With the success of the Bundesliga continuing the 2. Bundesligaand also boasted impressive attendance statistics. In the season just gone 4.58 million fans attended the matches with an average of attendance of 15,000 fans, it was 15,550 last season. The average ticket price to watch a 2. Bundesliga match was € 13.77 and 43% of all tickets sold went to season ticket holders. " Personally I think ticket prices even out as a revenue stream and probably flat line for long periods. The key to growth is matchday purchases, sponsorship and a bigger catchment for branding secondary sales (ie ManU and Liv shirt sales in Asia and so on...).

Good post. A lot of the 'potential of the club' argument gets pinned to our attendances without it actually giving us the massive edge people say it does. It's basically just a slightly nuanced "we're a bigger club than X" argument by the back door, but it's largely redundant afaic. We need to find ways of competing with Aston Villa and their heavily subsidised ownership. They're in a halcyon time because they've had loads of blank cheques written. Football changes all the time. We're not going to be subsidised and currently they are. At the moment, we're more than competing. Ditto the Blackburn's and Bolton's we've been compared to. Lerner has streamlined the model aggresively recently as well.

http://astonvillacen...e-up-6-percent/ Quite a few players have left Aston Villa over the past few months and it does warrant a post, because quite a large chunk of money has been saved from the wage bill and don't forget, quite a large chunk of cash has also come in. Brad Friedel, Nigel Reo-Coker, John Carew, Robert Pires, Sali Salifou, Isaiah Osbourne, Ashley Young, Stewart Downing, Luke Young, Jonathan Hogg and Jean Makoun have all left. Now, I don't profess to have contacts inside the club, or relationships with the players or owner, so I couldn't tell you for sure what these players earned, but I think a conservative guess would be £300,000 a week or to make it a little more relevant, £15,000,000 a year. Now, I could be a little over, but I think I'm more than likely a low on my guesswork and when you factor in some of the other players that have left, I think it is a fair guess but if we found out one day that it was actually a lot closer to £20,000,000 a year in salaries, I'd not be surprised. Add to the savings the income generated from the sale of Ashley Young and Stewart Downing, close to or around the £35,000,000 mark and you've got to be, if you were the owner of the club, quite happy. But then you've got to add the £13,000,000 spent on N'Zogbia and Given and probably something close to £5,000,000 a year in salaries. Still, you'd be happy wouldn't you? Lerner is a happy man You'd have to be happy because that £10,000,000 a year you are saving in salaries isn't just £10,000,000 and when you double it, for the second year, then add another £10,000,000, you start to see huge savings. But it won't be £10,000,000 by close of business tomorrow as I expect one more player to come in, although if it happens, I'll also be a little disappointed. Now, I really do need to stress that most of the figures above are guess work. I've guessed that we sold Downing for £20mn and Ashley Young for £15mn just like I've guessed we paid £9.5mn for N'Zogbia and £3.5mn for Given. I'm also guessing we are paying them each £45,000 a week, just like we paid Friedel, Reo-Coker, Carew, Downing and Luke Young £45k a week. The other figures I used in my salary guesswork were £20k a week for PIres and Makoun, £10k a week for Salifou, Osbourne and Hogg and £65k a week for Ashley Young. All guesswork and when I came up with my £300,000 a week, if you do the math, you'll see that I rounded it down. Show me the money So, why am I writing about the money? Well, with these savings it is going to make the business look a lot stronger. It is going to position the business ready for fresh investment. Now, I'm not saying that Lerner is selling up, he could be the one willing to make this fresh investment, but in terms of potential, if the ship can now be steadied and the proper foundations that were built a long time before Lerner arrived, can be built on, it is there for the taking. But I'm also writing about the money because if for a moment we can all agree that those weekly salaries are about right, that is one of the barriers to us playing regular Champions League football. We need to pay more. Young and Downing are both earning a lot more now and I'd bet my left foot that the same can be said for Barry and Milner. It isn't just about paying £45,000 a week to five or six players - it is about paying £100,000 a week to two. Behaviour breeds behaviour and if we want to play at the highest level, we need to pay like we were at the highest level. The game is broken and that is the only way in these days. Extremely sad, but unfortunately true. But that also coincides with the secret plan and developing from within. If we can get the best out of our players and then bring in two three or four players from outside to strengthen what we have, it is possible, but not players that have come to finish their career - players that are hungry and want to be successful. To end the post; we don't need any more players." The long and the short of it is that Lerner is out Ashleying Ashley. I think our target revenue should be around £125m with the extra 25m coming from European football/the extra games and add on sponsorship and telly money. That for me should be the 'next phase' target. We have always hovered around the 90-100m mark without Euro football. We have it well within us to match the likes of Roma. Athletico Madrid and so on...Increased success on the pitch if sustained over the next 3 seasons will see us comfortably back in the top 7 PL revenue earners. What happened to the casino btw? We already have the casino manager.

Same with my grandma. Ideally we've got some of the grandma genes and our bodies are immune to fags... The 18mg is about right if you have around 5/6 puffs. The really beautiful thing is carrying the ecig around like a backup cock.

I tried the 5 and 9 variants and they weren't really doing it. I've discussed this with others and the absorbtion is a bit hit and miss/lower. The idea for me isn't standing there and smoing it for 5 min like a real ciggie, but just a few puffs and therefore the higher nic helps battle the craving. Chez was saying the absorbtion is lower than smoking a real fag.

Chez are you still vapping? I've been on it about 4 weeks and smoking much less than real ciggies...Although the 18mg nic packs quite a hit. Take a few puffs and forget for an hour or so. Tempted by the vanilla flavour.

The PL has the highest ratio of foreign players of any European league iirc. Not good for young English players development.

Royal College: "Bill will cause irreparable damage to the NHS".

Think it's still a special job in world football.

5-2 or summink. With our boss midfield missing, I fear the worst.

Capello gets a similar amount to him anyway so that wouldn't be an issue The special one wants a break from club football (a sabatical if you like ). He's unhappy at Madrid and that is basically the biggest club in the world. Two tournaments with Eng and then a top Eng job.

It'll be Pearce caretaker and then Mourinho.