Football League Thread

[parkinho]

Cotterill did a decent job when we were in the **** financially a few years ago, but for many Burnley fans he will be remembered for his 19 game winless run that took us from the brink of the playoffs to the brink of relegation.

He will shore up your woeful defence and make you a solid mid-table side, but don't expect to be entertained - 'Cotterball' is more about being effective than easy on the eye.

[Flabio]

Yeah, I think I'd prefer 'flair but doomed' to 'Coventry City'.

[Flabio]

I see the manager has his finger on the pulse already.

http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/news/Nottingham-Forest-players-banned-from-Twitter-and-Facebook-by-new-boss-Steve-Cotterill-article814531.html

I suspect that's the least of his problems to be honest.

[toythatkills]

Absolutely amazing scenes at London Road. Posh were 1-0 down, then 2-1 up, then 3-2 down, now they're 4-3 up! Incredible.

[EJG1980]

Anyone been reading about the new Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP) to modernise youth player development that has just been voted for by the Football League? It seems as though the Premier League have blackmailed the Football League (by threatening to withdraw youth funding that the PL pays the FL clubs) into helping hammer some nails into their own coffin.

The main point is that the old system for deciding what fee a PL club has to pay a lower league club for a youth player has been scrapped, and replaced with a set of fixed prices depending on the age of the player etc.. It looks like it's been set up to allow the PL clubs to hoover up the best youth talent from the lower leagues for peanuts. A BBC article reported that Chelsea recently paid an initial ?1.5m to MK Dons for 14-year-old Oluwaseyi Ojo. Under the new system they would be able to buy him for less than ?150,000.

Other little gems pointed out by mediawatch on F365:

"Firstly, only clubs with a certain 'level' of Academy (i.e. - the clubs that can afford to build big shiny ones) will be allowed to sign players below the age of 12. So if you're Leyton Orient and discover a genius ten-year-old, then sorry - Spurs or Chelsea will probably get him.

Then, because the rule about clubs only being allowed to recruit kids within a certain radius of the ground has been scrapped, the big boys have another chance. So again, if a child genius living in Plymouth pops up, Argyle will probably get nowhere near him, assuming that Manchester United or Arsenal scouts have their heads screwed on.

And then of course, assuming that the little clubs do manage to find themselves some talent among the flotsam left by the Premier League, should these kids turn out to be half-decent, then Liverpool or Manchester City can nab them for the equivalent of a set of bibs and a bag of chips.

So basically, as long as the youth scouting departments of the big boys are paying attention, there hardly seems any point in Football League clubs recruiting young players at all."

It stinks, another case of the rich in football bending over the poor and giving them one. I don't think it'll be too long before only the Premier League and Championship will be national leagues, everything below that will become regionalised (is that a word??) because the money just won't be there any more.

[Kieran76]

Heard about this yesterday, it really is a disgrace.

[Flabio]

Two wins in a row for Forest? Both against teams we usually lose to even when we're having a *good* season?

Be still my beating heart...

[Kieran76]

7 home wins in a row for The Wednesday. We are finally looking a team that is hard to beat and can grind out results.

[Kieran76]

Leciester have sacked Erriksson.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/15438896.stm

Haven't they had enough managers in the past few years

[Flabio]

This doesn't strike me as the brightest signing ever...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/15521985.stm

[Kit]

Please be true.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2054879/Leicester-target-Kevin-Keegan-Lee-Clark-replace-Sven-Goran-Eriksson.html

[Flabio]

Well, Forests breif resurgence under new management has come to a crashing halt.

Utterly battered by Leeds last night. Bah.

[prinnysquad]

I see Pools have sacked Wadsworth. I wonder if Jeff Stelling will go on and on about how he wasn't given enough time, the fans should have got off his back, etc. Like he did about Tubbo at the weekend. Seems like his club are just as heinous and **** as ours, when it comes to supposed ruthlessness. Doubt he'll lay into his own fans, though.

[Flabio]

Noooooooo....

We're going down, we're going down...

[parkinho]

Another quality away win for Burnley today at Boro, one of the best away performances I've seen for a long time. Only downsides of the day are the injuries to Pato and Stanislas, and the fact I didn't get chance to try a Middlesbrough 'Parmo' after hearing so much about them. Maybe next season!