Steve Watts

It's worth anyone with an account to place their entire bankroll on a longshot for next year. Any unsettled bets come the end of the season will see the stake refunded, but any that ultimately win will still see the winnings paid out by way of a manual payment. Could essentially be a nice free bet!

In fact, West Ham have double form for this.....clickety click part 2 in 2008, 7 years before their last one. With their current sponsors being Betway, they will be lost at the end of the season too due to the gambling rules...7 years after the last one. Whoever thinks about sponsoring the Hammers in 2029 need to be reaaaaaaaally wary!

West Ham as recently as 2015. clickety click Luton ended their shirt sponsorship for this season in January due to JB Development not fulfilling contractual obligations. Presumably this is finance related.

I can't imagine it would be the first. So many companies went bust in the global crash in 2008.

Completely agree. Would've been a great signing of we'd pulled it off. Not sure if we tried to or not, mind.

I said to someone last night that Tins is possibly our most important signing of the last decade.

I was telling my lad on the way out that I'm not disappointed by that tonight. In my opinion we're safe. And we're not going up, obviously. Meaning that performance is far more important than the result right now. And that performance left me proud to be a fan of this club. I couldn't pick out a single bad performance from anyone wearing red tonight. Absolutely outstanding across the pitch. The energy, enthusiasm, intelligence and confidence of our young players leaves me very optimistic about next season. In a perverse way, the mistakes are a good thing. Gives them something to learn from and should allow them to grow their confidence without cockiness. The next transfer window is so important, but not so much who we buy, but who we keep. The experiences gained from this season will stand us in good stead for next. What an advertisement these kids are for our club, our academy and the pathway for youngsters. One very proud City fan tonight.

I don't think VAR could have interfered. I think it's straight reds only. As it was two bookings VAR don't get involved is my understanding. Notwithstanding that, it was absolutely the correct call to make and Oliver should be applauded for making the decision that other refs would have bottled.

Definitely a contender for the Classics forum...

Yep... Luckily it wasn't printed on a humongous wall for all to see.... Oh.... Wait

Only at City could we get facts about our own club wrong.... And on a mural reminding everyone that we shouldn't forget that period of our history. obviously I should pay more attention as I forgot our promotion season of 1985...!?

I've no idea what you're talking about. You told me just before Christmas that Scott would never make a footballer as long as he had a hole in his arse.... and followed that by getting all excited to learn that Neil Kilkenny is still playing and may be tempted away from Western Union to return home......! ? I was having a convo with a Reading fan tonight. They're absolutely spitting fire at the manager for saying that "Apart from the four goals, we played well" after their hammering by QPR today. I told him that I can understand what the managers saying....unless they really were shit. We shipped 6 at Fulham and we were all praising the overall performance. A mad 20 minutes of defensive capitulation in the first half, (which could've been different if the pen had been given for the foul on Dasilva at 3-2 instead of them going straight up the other end to make it 4-2) was bookended by a really good, if wasteful, performances where we really took the game to the best team in the league. Whether it's a measure of how bad we've been for the last few years, that we're getting all giddy about playing exciting football for once, or whether we're genuinely just recognising the potential for this to be the start of something very special remains to be seen. But I can't see many fans around the country being so happy with what they're seeing after the last two results. It really does feel like it's all beginning to come together. It's just the small matter of getting to the root of the defensive problem. Sort that out and a play-off push is no longer the stuff of fairy tales, but a genuine possibility.

Wait? We lost?

I agree. I'd like to see if he could iron out the errors if he was given the opportunity that Vyner's been given. At the end of the day, he hasn't had a run in the team. He's shown flashes of potential, but admittedly been error prone. But for me, he's a better defender and footballer than Zak and I think his errors could be coached out of him. Like you say though, Nige obviously doesn't agree, so it's all immaterial.

These two statements contradict each other massively then considering his appointment to Director happened on Nige's watch! The truth is that none of us know what is on his job description. Since he returned he's helped a hell of a lot of players progress from his careful loan placements. The truth is also that due to our financial situation we're can't simply pay she loss of money to someone with 20 years experience running an academy.

Curious as to why you think that? I'd say that the many of the young players have benefitted from the moves he got them as Loans Manager. Now as Academy Director, he surely has even more responsibility to bring to the table, doesn't he?

Not sure if it will be "Stop paying transfer fees" as opposed to "Sell academy products and reinvest wisely" as a means to refresh the squad. The key word there of course is "wisely". We have sold to spend before, but had run out of saleable assets until this season. Unfortunately he who shall not be named just spunked the cash for fun to feed his ego trip. With Gould at the helm I would hope that we will be far more sensible. It's a shame that we didn't approach Biff before he left Man City for West Ham. The emotional pull might just have been enough to tempt him here. Now that would have been an ambitious signing.

Parking won't make much of a difference in that situation right now as 2/3 of the ground is uncovered anyway. Obviously covered terraces change that somewhat, but at the moment the club aren't there. Would be great for them to see some sort of success, for sure. The cup run showed the potential.

There's a reason I changed my wording from "us" to "the fan base" before I pressed "Submit Reply"!!!

The park and ride will only be a 10 minute walk from the stadium, however, which would help. And most residents will live within 3 miles, so the younger/fitter among the fan base are in walking distance. Would be even funnier if it were to happen in a Southern Premier League South match!

Nige did throw him under the bus a little after the Huddersfield match though. Can't remember the exact quote, but he was speaking about Ayman and said something along the lines of "he had to cover when the left sided defender wasn't doing his job". It seemed a very pointed comment at the time. Must've been a press interview as it wasn't on the official site. He did mention in that interview that the range in individual performances week on week was too wide.

Fluffy Slippers was another nickname I seem to recall! He always had the technical ability, but always seemed like he could do with bulking out massively every pre-season.

How have Matty's Bryant and Hewlett not had a mention yet?!?

Would still be more mobile than Chris Brunt ever was for us!

Hang on, last month you were moaning about people having freedom of choice stripped away with entry to the ground and now you're trying to say what people should or shouldn't be allowed to wear? If it's a neutral team, then why should it cause any problems? Bizzarre.... It's almost as if we don't see United, Chelsea, Arsenal etc shirts in the ground every home game.