Comparing Dzeko to Ibra is sinful. God, for all the grief that Ibra gets from fans who say "oh, he can't do it on a Wednesday night", the kid is sheer class is showing it again this season.

Andy Carroll, Darren Bent. I do wonder if these English clubs looked into players like Fabiano, Cavani, Pazzini and Forlan.

It's quite handy that we now don't have to deal with Carroll when we go to Tyneside on Saturday.

I doubt we would've dealt with him regardless. I suspect he's still injured.

Might be right, he was slated to be back though. Either way, no matter, we won't see him (if at all) until we take on Pool at the Emirates later in the season.

Adebayor gets his first goal for Real Madrid. Controls a cross from Dolphinhead with his chest and blasts it in from close range.

Real win 2-0 against Sevilla, and are through to the final of the Copa Del Rey I think.

First goal was another well taken goal by Mesut Ozil.

Being on loan might actually suit Adebayor - he doesn't seem to like his options being shut down. Though I expect him to agitate for a permanent transfer with huge potential for embarrassment if he's moderately successful at Madrid.

Light a candle for Ugly Rat-Face - he'll never darken our doors again.

😆 I hope they've got good security in the kit room of the Bernabeu.

And stadium attendances?

I've never brought the stadium attendance argument. How would you quantify it? Attendances are down all over except for the biggest clubs; is the Blackburn season ticket holder really going to give it up because Arsenal are on in the pub? The Orient fan?

I genuinely don't know, but personally I just can't see what difference it would make if they were permitted to show one 3 o'clock per week. The fact a match is on tv has never come into my thinking when deciding if I should attend or not; anyone else?

I find it difficult to comment myself not having lived there at all but tickets are costly and these are tough times. If matches are on TV i can foresee a number of people considering giving up their tickets especially if the club isn't doing very well.

I could be wrong as last year we commissioned an agency to do a qualitative survery on cricket fans and what came out was that someone going to the stadium isn't anymore of a fan than someone watching it on TV but just an adrenaline junkie.

Again the nature of the survey was different, the cultures are different and so is the sport which is why i don't want to apply this same thesis to football fans in England.

But isn't there this feeling that broadcasting matches may impact attendances?

Rohit wrote:

I find it difficult to comment myself not having lived there at all but tickets are costly and these are tough times. If matches are on TV i can foresee a number of people considering giving up their tickets especially if the club isn't doing very well.

I could be wrong as last year we commissioned an agency to do a qualitative survery on cricket fans and what came out was that someone going to the stadium isn't anymore of a fan than someone watching it on TV but just an adrenaline junkie.

Again the nature of the survey was different, the cultures are different and so is the sport which is why i don't want to apply this same thesis to football fans in England.

But isn't there this feeling that broadcasting matches may impact attendances?

Well for a lot of fans a year's subscription of Sky would be the same price as a season ticket.

But in any case your team won't be showing every week even for 3 o'clock kick offs. They can't show every game at 3 O'clock. The reason why we have so many different kick-off times is so that Sky can televise them. There's a law that no 3 0'clock kick off can be shown on TV. Back in the day everyone used to kick off at the same time.

Tony Montana wrote:
Rohit wrote:

I find it difficult to comment myself not having lived there at all but tickets are costly and these are tough times. If matches are on TV i can foresee a number of people considering giving up their tickets especially if the club isn't doing very well.

I could be wrong as last year we commissioned an agency to do a qualitative survery on cricket fans and what came out was that someone going to the stadium isn't anymore of a fan than someone watching it on TV but just an adrenaline junkie.

Again the nature of the survey was different, the cultures are different and so is the sport which is why i don't want to apply this same thesis to football fans in England.

But isn't there this feeling that broadcasting matches may impact attendances?

Well for a lot of fans a year's subscription of Sky would be the same price as a season ticket.

But in any case your team won't be showing every week even for 3 o'clock kick offs. They can't show every game at 3 O'clock. The reason why we have so many different kick-off times is so that Sky can televise them. There's a law that no 3 0'clock kick off can be shown on TV. Back in the day everyone used to kick off at the same time.

Fair enough, but by your logic, ESPN and Sky could both show a 3 o'clock game, but choose not to.

It's illegal for them to show 3 O'clock games. There's a law saying that companies here can't show them.

5 Live just announced that Roberto Di Matteo has been sacked. What a ridiculous reaction to an away loss to City.

Edit: He's been put on gardening leave, apparently.

Who are they going to get?

Curbishley? Allardyce? FFS. 😆

Curbishley was the first name that came up in my head too. Would be such a waste to revert back to kicking and screaming after a genuinely good attempt to play football under Di Matteo. He had a better shot at keeping them in Premier League than anyone else in that end of the table.

I wonder what this means for Vela, by the way. He obviously went there to play. If a Curbishley/Pardew type comes in and decides that the only way to stay up is to play like Stoke then he won't get many minutes.

Curbishley employs hoof football? He's english but he's not really a hoof manager.

Were Charlton like that? Can't remember them being so.

WBA were just losing game after game. Perhaps the board got too scared that Di Matteo could not turn it around.

No, I don't think he does either. It wasn't a very thought-through sentence. I do think he's poor, though.