Could you enlighten the uninitiated what the reference was to ozz?

Surely he does not need that huge an engine to play as the attacking member of a 5 man midfield. It is not as he would have to be a box-to-box midfielder as N'Zonzi, Grella or Andrews will be there to shield him defensively. Certainly he should be able to be coming on as a sub and doing that job.

Liked some of the photostop entries sent into b3ta.com on how things would be if America was still part of the Empire... If America... This is one of them...not in the best of taste but... and another...

You might not want to try Thomas Hardy then if you haven't already. Seem to remember whole chapters devoted to landscape descriptions... Jude the Obscure is however excellent as is Return of the Native. Actually he was an excellent writer but heavy on description and was often a real downer of a read.

Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende is a cracking pageturner which begins in nineteenth century Chile before moving onto the Californian gold rush. Allende is an excellent novelist and I highly recommend this book. At the moment I am halfway through The Black Death: The Intimate Story of a Village in Crisis, 1345-50 by John Hatcher which does not sound like a barrel of laughs and, in truth, it isn't. However it is an interesting study/recreation/novelisation of the village of Walsham in Sussex as they await the arrival of the plague and how it affects them. An interesting look at a remarkable time period. The Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera takes place in a Maori community in North Eastern New Zealand and details Maori traditions and history while also focusing on how ingrained sexism can be challenged by strong matriachs as well as children. Very nice little book and made into a film. Oh I have also had to re-read A Streetcar Named Desire...awesome play, awesome film.

I am surprised people do not think the original Die Hard is the best. It has everything including one of the best villains in any action move. Great one-liners. The third is good as well and I liked the most recent one but it did not really feel like a Die Hard movie for some reason. Probably as Willis is so much older now. The second was the weakest I thought.

rover6 will be pleased... August prize for Dundee's Harkins

Nothing wrong in what Benni said from that link. Just that he is open to anything...he did not say he wanted to leave but seems to be more that he wants more opportunities than last season. If he can manage to turn up for pre-season training not too much overweight for a change then he might just have a chance of that becoming reality. "Nobody can doubt my professionalism in the game" does however hint at high levels of self-delusion.

It obviously is to many of the players though. No doubt they enjoy their job but throughout the history of professional football (and before it turned professional for that matter) players have sought to leave their clubs to earn more money elsewhere. Fergie Sutter did it for example...in 1880!!! It is not a question of how you "view" it...it is just human nature.

What defending of the indefensible? It was not the fault of Neill for taking what was offered...it was those people who were offering the ridiculous wages in the first place. No way is he worth those kind of wages but if someone sees fit to dangle them under his nose then it would be a very strange world in which he refused them...

Not anymore like in the days of MacManaman and Campbell...seems to be becoming pretty standard these days.

No such thing as a dead and buried thread with AESF on the scene

Actually having thought about that...I do not think that was true. Did he actually turn any offers down? We failed to come to an agreement with Liverpool in the summer meaning that he went in the January transfer window meaning he chose West Ham over Liverpool. Which also means your second question does not make sense. Would Neill have turned down Liverpool if they had been the only option in January? Almost surely not. This is all old hat. Ultimately Neill did nothing more than look after Number 1. Dont we all? Does not make him a saint but hardly makes him a piece of s either now does it?

Yes and many other players have done that before and since. It is not so much that I do not think it a selfish act as it is but just that I fail to understand the animosity many fans have towards him. It does exist...there is a lot of disgust towards him but it is not as if his actions were anything like as contemptible as those of Barry Ferguson. Nor did he really go on TV and just say he was off like Bentley did despite having years left on his contract. Even Santa Cruz tarting himself around for a year. Yet I know fans who consider Neill to be in a different level of treachery than those. Just does not make sense to me. Part of it must be personal. For some reason he really managed to get under the skin of some fans.

Fair play to Ooijer who, like Neill, did very little wrong. Neither did I see ever not putting in their full effort to the club. Other than fulfilling their contracts by giving their all they owed nothing else to the club. It is the players that do not give their all when on the pitch for the club that are deserving of such disdain. Even Bentley, for all his gobbing off in the media, deserves our respect as I did not see him shirking. In fact he was by far our best creative source last season. Too many hypocrites on here. So what if players go to who pays them far better wages? I would too and fair play to them. They are not here as fans but as employees. So do not expect to feel about the club in the same way as we do.

What? That changes it then... How DARE he cash in on his own abilities? What a rotter! You do not hear about people in other walks of life working for the company that pays them the most now do you?

I read Faceless Killers first and am now reading my second Wallander book; Sidetracked.

I have been reading the Wallander books by Henning Mankell recently and they are real pageturners. East of Eden by John Steinbeck...a classic I only got around to recently but a great read. Bit long as well as dawdling in parts but there are also some sublime parts and fantastic characters. Particularly the villainess of the piece.

Stop teasing us den and tell us the story!

Why would you want to put a wantaway striker on the wing when we could sell him and spend a quarter to a third of that on a right winger and more on boosting other weak areas of the team? I do not know if Allardyce has earmarked Cruz for departure but he has not played since he made his "sinister" remarks, as Sam described them along with their timing, and it is not beyond reason to imagine that he may have played his last game for the club. Whichever...if we get a good fee for him then no problem or if he decides to stay and give his all to the cause then that is great as well.

Yes but without Roque we do still have quality up front. However we do not on the right side...if ever Emerton got injured we really would be totally screwed. Add to that a central midfield composed of sicknotes, mediocrities and a 38-year old despite the numbers we have there and we are struggling with other areas. In fact it shows the problems we have that the left-side is no longer considered a problem area despite Pedersen being such an anonymous figure there. To be fair he is showing signs of improvement however. Selling your best players is not usually the way to go but when you have one is missing a load of games, does not look interested, keeps bleating to the press and will bring in top dollar now like perhaps never again then it seems best all round to sell and use whatever money we get to allow Sam to really stamp his mould on the team and influence those problem areas.

What is the point of this thread being open anyway? It is a game from years ago. If people need to discuss Allardyce we already have a host of others on which to do so. We are just going over old ground on here and digging up the past.

Support the club waggy. Call yourself a fan?

Come on Colin let´s keep immigration out of this can we? We don´t want this thread being closed down... I have been reading a few books with little in common with each other. Quarantine by Jim Crace is a book I am reading at the moment and is concerned with the 40 days of fasting by Jesus in the desert. Strange for me to be reading a book with Jesus as a character as I do not think I have ever read a novel before like this. It is very well written and won The Whitbread novel of the year and was nominated for the Booker prize. Recommended. I am also reading Empire´s Workshop which deals with American imperialism in Latin America over the past couple of centuries. It is a bit of a leftist account but does not seem too biased so far. It is hard not to make out America to be a bit of a bad guy in some of its dealings with its neighbours to the south however you frame it however. Propping up corrupt dictators, overthrowing democratically elected governments as well as funding and supporting death squads which contributed to hundreds and thousands being killed...it is not the nicest of tales regarding what America has considered its ´backyard´. A very interesting account but also has hopes for a better future for relations between the US and its American neighbours. Finally...an oldie but a goodie is The Comedians by one of my favourite writers, Graham Greene, although it does not really concern comedians as such but instead refer to people who always to some extent in each moment of their lives are putting on a show. Set in Haiti during the reign of Papa Doc it is intriguing and not a barrel of laughs but fascinating nonetheless. Oh I also tried reading Watching The English by some woman whose name I cannot remember. Very dull however and I stopped after a couple of chapters. I expected a look at how the English are defined but instead it was a rather tedious anthropological look into the minutiae of our customs. In other words she tried watching the English as if she was analysing a newly found tribe. Pages and pages on whether someone says "how do you do?" or "alright?" and how saying "living room" shows you to be a different class to someone who says "sitting room". A good idea but bored the heck out of me.

Stead to Ipswich I´m amazed Stead is still only 25...he seems to have been around for ages... and... old "fan favourite" (boo boy of the Blackburn End) Jimmy Quinn is the new Bournemouth manager.