My biggest gripe with the game at present is my board. They're utter tosspots. I've taken Gainsborough Trinity from Conference North obscurity and no cash to 5th in the Premiership in my first season up. As the second season there began, the bank balance was at a healthy 46 million smackers, despite atrocious attendances. This was almost purely down to MY excellent player investments over the years. Great, I thought, I can finally splash the cash on world class players and make us challenge very seriously indeed for the title against the superpowers that are Chelsea and Arsenal. Except as soon as our balance hit 46 million due to the new Sky money, it went straight back down to 33 as my board inexplicably paid out 13 million to 'shareholders'. What shareholders? There hasn't been ANY shareholder investment over the years. I've had to scrimp, save and scrape my way up from the lower echelons, never receiving any real backing from the board. They always rejected stadium expansion requests despite everything I'd done, even though I knew we would need a new stadium. They never gave me funds when we had them etc. I made this fricking club! I've rejected probably close to 50 job offers (Some of them only putting me as the main candidate in the media, granted) from bigger clubs over the years. When we won the Championship, AC Milan offered me the job there (twice) and I rejected it. I'm on only 1,800 a week at Gainsborough. Most of the main players are on more. So I figure, damn, they've wiped 13 million off a hefty budget for losers who've contributed nothing to the club. That's a shame, but I should still get at the very least 20 million as a budget, right? Wrong. 9 million. NINE MILLION! And that was pushing it to the max, minimising my wage budget. Absolute fools. Much of that money came from me selling on star players for big bucks over 2 year deals. Speaking of which, the clubs finances are guaranteed for ages to come. My wage budget is about a fifth of what I'm allowed, and I have TONS of cash filtering in constantly from deals I made. But I get given zip to invest with. Plus European competition and rising attendances (now they've finally agreed to expand the stadium...to a paltry 9k, which I can guarantee we will fill instantly and need more expansion to..we really need a 15k seater to avoid rebuilding yearly). I asked them for a bigger transfer budget. They declined. I issued an ultimatum- they sacked me. Worst board EVER. If I were really in this situation, creating this club from nothing, making them mega rich, then getting this treatment...I'd fist fight every member of the board, and sod right off for that Milan job soaked in blood.

Me either...I'll have very mixed feelings that I won't be able to reconcile til the last day of the season if it happens.

...and if Arsenal balls up too, yeh. It's pretty unlikely, but then again, it's only a couple games left to go. It's dependent on 8 results pretty much ALL going our way though. But never say never Spurs' last games= Bolton at White Hart Lane, then West Ham away. Tricky games. Arsenal's last games= Sunderland away, Man City away, Wigan at home. Probably less tricky. Assuming we beat Chelski and City, Arsenal would need 5 points from those 3 games. Their GD beats our vastly. So they'd need to lose (best candidate for that being City away probably), and draw with Wigan at home (we can assume they'll murder Sunderland). They would also need to lose to Barcelona.

Aye, still scares the ###### out of me But we can do the buggers on these terms. Although, it's probably best for Chelsea's chances of getting points too, to rest some of their main stars and give hungry players a chance. It's never fun to face a bunch of hungry superstars...

Good stuff again Bob. Particularly liked the Cisse and pilot bits, as well as the bit about the automated Sparky. Plenty of other highlights too though...unlike our April campaign

We've lost our last 5 visits to London Also, Charlton's last 9 home games haven't seen any defeats. The skysports preview reckons 1-0 to us though. Where did you see the Charlie Nicholas prediction? We seem to get the wrong results most of the time when we're on Sky...

Fair enough, just figured you'd post it say, Saturday. And do the Chelsea one first (Unless you have and I missed it)

Good, lengthy, and er...bloody early review!

I think we're a bit spoilt here, because we had Duff. There's absolutely no need to compare Pedersen to Duff, it's irrelevant because we'll never get Duff again. These people who want to sell Pedersen ought to think about getting an equal quality or superior player for the same or preferably less money than what we would get for Pedersen. If that isn't a possibility, then there's absolutely no point. As much as Peter might be as good or better (I don't feed into what people say about him just not being ready just cos he's young and inexperienced...if he never plays he'll never be experienced, and look at what Rooney did when he burst on the scene), we have no way to tell right now, and definitely should be aiming to give it one more season where we play Ped and Pet intermittently. Pedersen is clearly suffering from fatigue (If you think that being paid lots of money makes the human body less susceptible to wear and tear, you're an idiot), and it would be good to rest him now and again for Sergio next year.

What's best is I'm partly responsible for their demise, having insulted Ferguson constantly in the press and piled the pressure on him. He got sacked, and replaced by Jewell. I like Jewell, so I'm having a tough time deciding whether to insult him purely for being Man U manager. Oh and I just beat United 4-0 away in my first season in the Prem

Thanks Tango, I checked those players out, though I found only one or two of them- a couple of wingers- to be worth paying any attention to. Except Makoun, of course, who I'd already spotted (good player, but on my version he's now somewhere from 28-30, would cost me about 5 mill, and I've already got about 4 or 5 players in his position that are at least as good). Faty is at United, and won European Defender of the Year or something. Despite having ATROCIOUS technical stats. On my game, Man United are now playing at Maine Road!

I long for the day that United collapse completely. Imagine if it got so bad they got relegated- Heaven!!! On the Football Manager game I'm playing now, United are starting to go into freefall in 2012. They're about 10th in the league, and they're playing at Maine Road

That hardly matters. I'm talking about things like belting Dugarry up the arse. Though admittedly, there was the headbutt on Reid earlier in the season...but that pillock had just injured him a second before.

Actually, I dare say it depends equally as much on what Rovers team shows up. Maybe more. With both teams on their best form, we're better.

You answered your own question. We need it to attract those players. It'll earn a touch more cash too, provided we don't throw our league form away to challenge. And, who knows, maybe even some silverware! Look how far Boro got, and we're better than them.

There was nothing unfortunate about it, it was bloody hilarious. Todd is an excellent professional defender. He always was a fair but rough tackler, and now he's stamped the random temper tantrums out of his game too.

I don't reckon Chelsea care anymore now. They're more likely to hammer us than Newcastle, as we might be where they need to secure the title. Newcastle can take them at St James'.

Point taken Colin. It's hardly of major importance- I'm just pleased we're no longer doing short corners! I'll give it a rest, especially since nobody seems to remotely agree with me on it The difference between Reid struggling to get in there and Keane is that Keane was competing with Jermain Defoe, a very highly rated striker, and Mido, another highly rated striker who has been in particularly effective form. Besides, Keane actually won his battle for a place, despite that competition. Reid has managed 8 starts all year, although this is partly due to injury, with no naturally left footed competition.

Surely, 80 is an exaggeration? Suppose for argument's sake that half of MGP's corners are shots. Nelsen hasn't scored all season. If MGP used all his corners to put it in, mathematically speaking he still wouldn't score, but let's assume he got 1 goal as a result. Pedersen, with a bit of chance, could've scored one this season, maybe two, from corners. Do you disagree?

Ok. Do you think ANY team scores every dozen corners? Except maybe Chelsea, with that bugger Terry blasting them in. It's not like he shoots EVERY corner he takes. Yet you're saying we've bagged two from normal corners, one from this. Hardly seems like it's cost us too dearly. Can't contribute to the stats for corner goals mind, perhaps someone else can. Obviously no, he wouldn't be shooting if he didn't think he could score. If he doesn't for much longer, he's bound to give it up. The point is though, Hughes wouldn't be letting him shoot from them if he didn't think he could score them. I reckon he's come pretty close a couple of times, and we could conceivably get one anyway if the keeper doesn't handle the pressure well if it drops into the box after a poor tip (That makes it a must against David James!).

Not sure you're listening mate. He's displayed a talent at it from an early age, and one imagines he must still be doing it in training. The problem, as Bellamy11 pointed out, is the keepers are better at dealing with it at this level. We've never been a team that prolifically scores from corners anyway. You think we score every dozen corners do you? Cos we don't.

I think it'll be Newell who we get next. Done a great job at lowly Luton so far. Interestingly, on my game of Football Manager, Mark Bowen was the man the board appointed after they sacked Hughes. A Brum fan claimed to me recently that Bowen is the brains behind Hughesy. Reckon we'll get Newell though.

No, I'm explaining WHY he has tried it. It clearly hasn't paid any dividends this season, but at least it's not as bad as players who take short corners!! All I'm saying really is he's been trying to score from corners because he's actually bizarrely good at it. I imagine he's been knocking a few of them in in training against Big Brad, or Sparky would have told him to knock it on the head by now. Perhaps it's time for him to knock it on the head, or perhaps he's just been a bit unlucky. Sometimes players who are great at scoring from free kicks have a season where very few or perhaps none go in. I admit to being a little perplexed as to why MGP can't usually whip especially good corners into the box considering how good his placement of the ball is in general. Though, one explanation might be that we lack a bit of height in the team, so perhaps he just can't spot midgets like Bellers and Dickov!

You know why he takes those 'silly shots from corners'? He once scored (I can't remember the exact number) 4 or 5 goals DIRECT FROM CORNERS in one youth game. You won't be annoyed if he puts one in, and realistically how often do we score from corners? I'd say he's come close to bagging goals from them on a number of occasions. In fact, I'd say throwing Kuqi right up near the goalie for those corners would probably be distracting enough to enhance Gamst's chances of scoring. Or Shefki might even nudge it in himself. Of course, the problem is that requires us to play Kuqi!

Bizarrely enough, it's not an entirely impossible scenario. Spurs' last two games are perfectly loseable (Bolton at home, then West Ham away). Arsenal have Sunderland away (That'd be their win), City away is tricky, Wigan could potentially upset them at home. Of our remaining games, we should take City, and if we suddenly regain our form we can do Charlton easily enough even at their place. Then sure, there's Chelsea, but they'll have won the league by then. Course, I wouldn't place any bets on it, but I like the optimism!!! However, I'm very worried we could let it all slip and get zip. I hate the anxiety this part of the season brings!