ciggiesnbeer

The commentator and me both said "what is he doing there?" At the same time, just as he banged it in. Cool finish.

Excellent.

I am terrified.

I resolved this last time. Its the fans fault. I double checked the numbers, they came out the same. Its us lot who messed this club up.

Holloway off to his usual gobshite already then.

No problem. All international football is terrible. I would hope all our players do bugger all and get subbed off before injury.

He's just so dismissiveness about it what a word I'm not allowed to say. Edit: Kept watching the video it's amazing he's awful Match of the Day is truly awful. The fact that he was so bad they have kicked him off that, shows just how crap he is.

Agreed. I never had a problem with Hutton. He wants to play football and certainly is not a bad player. I prefer Lowton obviously, but the idea that Hutton is terrible is just plain unfair.

I disagree, I think he is an absolutely lethal finisher and one of the best out and out poachers in the league. This is a guy who after months of no football scores within his first 5 minutes in a premier league game. He is a one dimensional player, but when that dimension is goals that is not so bad. I would be happy if we did not sell him and he was available again for the team.

Survival. While I really like our squad and playing style, every time I look at teams around us I see an awful lot of very good signings. Bit worried to be honest. I will hopefully feel better a couple of months into the season.

"We just need to attack more!" - Paul Lambert

Well we have spent 10 million quid on new transfers plus however much on new contracts. That seems pretty sensible until we shift some of the leeches.

Same I am grateful to Hodgson. I hope he (and other countries managers like Belgium) overlook all of our players. I do not want them injured.

By the way Woodward actually asked a good question of Weimann in his interview. It was whether you train a partnership up front (like him and Tekkers link ups) or you just do it spontaneously. Weimann said you dont train for it, it just clicks with certain players. I was surprised. Good question Jack.

Yeah he did that last season at the start I think. It was a bit weird though although he had Ireland & KEA in the middle but dropped deep then Bannan & Holman out very wide but forward slightly with Bent & Weimann up front. Over time he tucked Bannan & Holman in narrower (by the Southampton game) and swapped out Weimann for Takkers trying to fix what was wrong. Eventually he decided what was wrong was that to cover the gap in front of your two DM's you either need to tuck in your wider midfielders or your forwards need to track back a lot. Bent couldnt/wouldnt do that so he dropped him then settled on 3 up front with the hardworking Gabby & Weimann dropping back to fill the gaps out wide and tekkers as the target man.

It would not surprise me at all if lambert played 4-2-4 for a few games next season. Madness. Beautiful, glorious madness. Until you take a battering ala Chelsea, Spuds, We may take a battering anyway. Lambert my simply decide he needs to attack MORE against the top teams and roll the dice at the back. I am all for it. What the hell, we all hated seeing AMC try and limit the damage to a goal or two, if we lose 6 or 8-0 again so what? We have endured much worse and come out the other side.

It would not surprise me at all if lambert played 4-2-4 for a few games next season. Madness. Beautiful, glorious madness.

No chance. Wouldn't have made a difference if Guzan was in goal in those games, imo. Only goal Given had a chance with was the very first, and even that was a stretch. I'd bet my house on the fact that Lambert wasn't referring to Given whatsoever. For me the biggest mistake in the Bradford game was the second half in the second leg. First half we played exactly how we should play against lower league opposition. Kept the ball away from them, passed it around, played with patience. They snatched a flukey goal and Paul panicked. he threw on 3 strikers, dismantled the midfield and our play fell apart. The 4 strikers ended up stood in the penatly area and there was nobody behind them to play the game. We lost all shape and structure. It was like a 13 year old playing FM. I don't think he was referring to that to be honest. BUt that for me was the biggest mistake Fair do's, cant really argue with that. Particularly the latter, Lambert really lost his head there.

I'm not so sure... Presumably he'd be on lower wages than he is now and for £5m I think a lot of fans would be excited about signing an established player with such a good record. And he obviously wouldn't be coming in with any delusions about being our first choice striker. Agreed. Besides not all clubs have our new philosophy. Fulham fans were delighted to see a past his prime Berbatov show up, and he repayed them. Bent will do some club a great service, my biggest concern is giving one of our competitors a bargain rather than offloading his wages.

You never know, he may have been thinking how he stuck with Given in the Bradford games, one goal at least really was poor on Shays part*. Just a thought. *I like the bloke and wanted to stick with him in the cup games too, but it was probably a mistake. Alternatively Lambert could feel bad about shouting at a player and blaming him unfairly for the result? I guess we will never know.

Words cannot adequately express how much I hate that phrase, and we're going to hear it 12000 times this season, aren't we? You betcha! For tekkers and helenius! It will be glorious!* *I hate it too

Good feet for a big man! :D

I think they were singing your mum is a whore. Ah thanks, that would explain it. Bad idea really , he is a player who gets better the angrier he is imho. Also is that kind of stuff really needed at a friendly?

He may end up being a good defender but in all honestly, whenever I see him as a starter I get worried. Hopefully he can remove my anxiety this season.

The "other clubs are much bigger and so can have better service" argument doesnt make sense to me. Unless you want us to go and gouge some holes in Villa park and tear down Bodymoor heath because those facilities are too good for the likes of us. AVTV could simply be much better with little effort. Show full games not highlights, use a better media partner/player, tighten up the spotty interviewing and we are good to go. I dont see why it would cost a penny more to make the service as good as other clubs but if it did, so what? Charge more or take a week of Darren Bents wages and use it to fund all the improvments,