Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man

It's a bit unprofessional, isn't it? Shooting from the hip like this so soon after the final whistle is a bit silly. Every club/manager/fanbase seems to think the world is biased against them and they would've had 10/15 more points if it hadn't been for refereeing decisions. This statement against Attwell is surely defamatory. I wouldn't blame Attwell for taking legal action.

Is this actually true? No major news sources are reporting it. If it is true then it's ridiculous; the deal had been completed at least 36 hours before the plane crash, so why Cardiff are trying to put Nantes out of business is beyond me.

Blackburn really are the footballing equivalent of a bag of Revels, aren't they?

Yeah, I agree that the co-commentator, analyst, or whatever you want to call him should be the one to give tactical insights. But the 'main' commentator should also provide background information, facts and stats, which often lead to a little bit of chit-chat, and I quite like that, personally.

In a word, no.

I hardly ever listen to radio commentary personally, but I quite enjoy that style of commentary on the TV. We've got eyes to see what's happening for ourselves, so a little background chat makes it more interesting.

Chelsea are playing Arsenal on Tuesday, which I guess is the reason why this didn't happen. However, I cannot see any reason why that game couldn't have happened on Wednesday, which would've been the logical thing to do.

Bearing in mind that we spent £5m or so on him and would obviously only sell him at a decent profit, how many Premier League teams would be prepared to spend big on Gunn to be their number one? He's having a fantastic season, but he's not the only highly-rated young(ish) Championship goalkeeper so I reckon we're safe.

Not sure if you were joking with this one or not, but I also thought Leeds. It's the third largest city in England, easily the biggest to have only one professional football club, yet they've never really shown it bar a good spell in the 60s and 70s. They've spent most of the last two decades outside the top flight. They really should be one of the biggest sides in the country, and with their fanbase, they could easily fill a 60,000 capacity stadium most weeks in the top flight.

Whoops, that's embarrassing. Cheers for the heads up. Galatasaray to beat Pendikspor in that case; 2/9 looks a great price in the circumstances. And crucially, it's definitely on Sunday

The largest town/city in England to have never had top flight football. On a similar note, Bradford is one of the biggest cities in the country with a large ground and very good attendances considering they've been in League Two for most of the last two decades. Similarly, Gloucester has never had a team in the Football League despite having a large population. I know it's more of a rugby city, but unlike Warrington or St Helens, they don't have any huge football clubs around to complete with for attendances.

Still better than one of Essex's threads, anyway.

Now that Eddie has generously given us permission to post about other clubs (wink, wink), I'll tip Bayern Munich to win at home to Frankfurt at 4/11. They haven't got anything to play for domestically, but no doubt they'll want to build some momentum and maintain sharpness ahead of the Champions League semis. For our game, I'm feeling confident. Stacey to have a shot on target at 5/1 looks good, considering how much he gets forward.

He would, but so did Giannoulis last time, and I doubt he'd fare much better if he were given another go. They're both out of contract, but if we went up, I'd rather keep McCallum as a backup if I had to choose. Releasing both and signing two new left backs would probably take too much out of the budget.

He'd be pretty useful on my save right now as well. I started as La Serena in the Chilean second tier, with the motivation being that it should be pretty enjoyable and not too difficult to develop younger players and bring them into the first team.

Whilst @KeiranShikari's description above is excellent, I think the simplest way to describe it is that he basically runs the academy. I believe he has played a massive role in bringing through academy products into the first team in the last few years, which seem to have increased in terms of both quality and quantity. On Football Manager, he is rated as one best Heads of Youth Development on the game, so he is clearly highly rated both inside and outside the club. He leaves pretty big shoes to fill in a very important role. Not sure where he's going, but maybe he has attracted interest from bigger clubs or wants a more senior role elsewhere?

I was thinking the same. Must be a slow news day.

Window-to-window loans cannot end or be terminated outside the transfer window, so he cannot play for us until the transfer window opens, which is after the season finishes.

I think it's probably the case for all positions that the ones who are truly elite will be able to survive with the best, but those are not quite there will struggle. As a result, the best 50 or so will benefit as they are playing regularly in the Premier League, so the influx of overseas talent has been good for these players because they play against the world's best every week and they are at the level themselves. For anyone outside this elite bracket, they've been eased out. As a result, we've got a stronger elite group but a smaller pool to choose from. With goalkeepers, because it's the most specialised position, it becomes more noticeable like you said.

Domestically, there aren't really any for me. I like to see King's Lynn do well as they're local, but that's about it. Maybe if I had to choose one at a push I'd go Port Vale, as I lived up that way for a few years and went to Vale Park a couple of times. I also had a mammoth Football Manager save with them on FM14 where I became the most successful manager of all time, but I wouldn't be arsed if they got relegated from League One this season. Overseas, I've mentioned on here a few times that I'm also a Lecce fan. I had a season ticket for a few years when I lived out there and I still watch the vast majority of their games. I think I've only missed about six this season.

Actually, you were wrong. The influx of players from overseas has raised the standards at both Premier League and youth level. England are performing consistently better at both youth and senior level than they ever have before, possibly aside from the 1966 World Cup win which was a bit of a one-off, and it's because the players from abroad have made England's top division and academy system arguably the strongest in the world. English players are playing against the best in the world from the age of 16 now so the best ones will only get better.

Indeed, I wouldn't have expected him to be one of the best in the division in this metric. Similar for Nuñez; he's bang average here which isn't bad considering it is most definitely not his best asset.

I don't know a huge amount about Knapper, because he doesn't speak publicly very often and he's extremely guarded when he does, unlike his predecessor. However, I think that if the managerial position was vacant when he arrived and Wagner applied, he wouldn't have been at the top of Knapper's shortlist. Also, I don't think that Wagner and Knapper have completely seen eye to eye on transfer dealings thus far. The possibility of Wagner choosing to leave and waive his right to payoff is basically nil though, as this hardly ever happens nowadays, so ultimately it comes down to whether Knapper wants to continue working with Wagner. Results have been excellent since Knapper arrived and Wagner is doing a very good job, probably enough to keep him in the role next season regardless of which division we're playing in, but it still wouldn't surprise me if there were a mutual termination in the summer whether we get promoted or not.

He has played 4,360 minutes for us over 115 games in all competitions (99 league, 16 cup) according to Transfermarkt. That works out at 38 minutes per appearance, or 48 full matches. He has scored 17 goals, which is one every 256 minutes, or one goal every 2.85 matches based on 90-minute appearances.

Not really a fair comparison; most of those 99 matches were ten minute cameos off the bench and quite a few were when he was 18 or 19. A more fair comparison is this season. At Celtic, most of his appearances have been from the bench, and his league record is seven goals in 455 minutes. Whilst here, most of his appearances were from the bench as well, scoring six in 1,275 minutes. His goals-per-minute record at Celtic is sensational, but Idah did seem like he was always a bigger threat from the bench when he played here this season. And when playing for a team that is far stronger than all bar one of their opponents and against teams who are lower than Championship standard (again, bar one), it stands to reason that his goalscoring record is going to improve. But still, seven goals in 455 is some going by anyone's standards.