Phone in Saturday - Dick Knight

[Uncle Spielberg]

Harty. Keep up the good work.

Look on the bright side at least Hugo didn't phone in.

 

[The Oldman]

Harty, I thought you were a bit subdued tonight and after a good Albion win that surprised me. Is there more to this Sir Dick non appearance than we Know?
Also Keith in Helsinki, you have moaned about not getting a reply to your email from Martin Perry enough times. I admire you as a great supporter of the Albion but give that whining a miss. It's Planning, Asda, NIMBY folk who are stopping us getting 2000 extra seats. Knight and Perry must be spending all there time getting ready for the next Planning Inquiry and probably can't deal with extra seats at the moment. Give them a break.

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

Considering we won Harty seemed out of sorts. He seems to take the Knight snub personally. Never mind Harty, chill out , put on some Neil Diamond and reflect on 3 points today.

 

[Indefatigable]

Back on Dowie, wouldn't the stumbling block have been Dowie wanting is own people alongside him. We could never afford him that luxury. Better to get someone who is happy to work with whom we have in place.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

I didn't feel "hurried off". Although, if I'd had longer, I'd would have had a fret about the back four.

And I thought BensGrandad was being fairly gracious about the extra seats. Not moaning at all, he explained what was going on and (rightly) blamed the Withdean NIMBYs.

 

[London Irish]

As far as the 2,000 extra seats is concerned, I know there are obstacles, but he's had 5 years to sort it, unlike the Falmer Application which has taken a lot of time and money to put together. Those 2,000 seats are critical, and that income could be the difference between staying up and being relegated. We're talking about £1 million here, after all.

So I'm guessing you have the answer to where the park and ride is going to go then?

 

[London Irish]

We have a lot of players who aren't good enough for this division and probably never will be but are under contract (eg, Jones, Hart, Oatway, Watson, Mayo) and others that McGhee surprisingly gave contracts to in the summer (Piercy, Lee, Hammond, Beck).

While I obviously agree with your remarks in support of McGhee, I feel you fall into the familar NSC trap of writing off players in too blanket a fashion. The contracts situation is more complex than this very broadbrush approach you adopt.

A player you've written off there came into the team this weekend and did a competent job, indeed one of his last ditch tackles 10 minutes from the end of the game stopped a virtually certain Preston equaliser. It's a good job one of those 3-month contracts was offered!

McGhee's approach is to give all these players a chance to prove their worth, I think it's a sensible and fairminded approach.

You're right to the extent that McGhee will prune the squad when he gets the chance - he certainly won't carry dead weight and he has warned them all that they have to contribute to the match-day team to get new contracts. But he will base his judgments not just on the partial evidence of what we see of full and reserve games, but also on what they contribute on the other five days of the week in squad training sessions too. That's why he might see some potential in a player that might not be so obvious to a casual observer.

 

[Harty]

Just to remind people of today's phone-in, guests TBA(!), which will start at the final whistle and run through till about 2.55pm.
And before anyone comes on here accusing me of being an anorak on here in the middle of the night its not insomnia its called self employment.

 

[Yorkie]

Dick Knight had said after the poaching of Pardew and Coppell that when he appointed a new manager it would not be at another clubs expense.
Dowie was still at Oldham, admittedly he wasn't under contract, but he was still doing a job there.

McGhee has brought in players who were out in the cold (Virgo, and has been pointed out, Hammond, who did the tackle 10 minutes from the end) and generally brought a hope and honesty to the team. I love his match interviews. He wears his heart on his sleeve and is open about what he wants to do.

I shook Dick Knight's hand at Cardiff before the game. He was in the street looking at some of the merchandise on the official stalls and people were getting him to sign their programmes. He only left because someone from the club hurried him away because they were ready for lunch to be served in the stadium.

A chairman for the fans who has the club at heart.

As has been said before, if there are all these people with money who want to invest then let them come forward, but we'll never get a chairman who is as much a fan as DK.

An aftherthought about the comment - Coppell bringing in experience - most of that experience ie., Rodger and Blackwell, is still with us and McGhee hasn't started using his loans yet.

 

[dougdeep]

Well said Yorkie, as always.