Nottsgriff

All depends which route you're coming on. If you're doing m62 a1 a614 then there are a couple in ollerton near the major oak (e.g. Launays) which are very good, there's the dog and duck in clipstone, and the lion in farnsfield, all very good and all around 20 mins from Mansfield. If you're doing m6 a50 m1 (the way i drive up to anfield) then I don't know it as well but on a Sunday you'd be ok coming via j.24 of the m1 to nottingham city centre and calling at the larwood and voce next to trent bridge cricket ground, or the riverside pub/restaurant just over trent bridge, which would be half an hour away from Mansfield. Others will know south notts better than me though, and I'm sure there are other nice places just off the motorway if you're coming that way.

All the rained off stuff is based on quotes from cox after their last game was rained off which have eventually recycled via local press to national press. No rain forecast from now until the game, it will go ahead. The talbot is the best pub near the ground, and it's a decent pub, but the home fans go there on match day too so not sure what it'll be like on the day. The railway inn isn't bad either 5 mins walk from the station towards the town centre.

Total b******s. The haggling would have been over the sell on fees and other monetary clauses - this is his agent's get out for nearly scuppering the deal by trying to say they were looking for a footballing clause that the league officials wouldn't accept (notice there's no blame on us in that article...)

Couldn't have been much better really. A team in disarray in the middle of their winter break, followed by Basel or Dnipro with the second leg at home. As the last 16 draw went on I was sure we were going to get Chelsea.

Wow, we have a back up plan ready to roll. They actually did learn something from the disastrous Dempsey deadline day debacle then!

I read Rodgers comments as saying nobody knows who's going to be available and for what price, so don't get your hopes up. These two are obviously the two we could get sorted for Jan 1st, but from my hazy memory of January windows most business usually gets done late on as clubs get desperate either to buy or to offload players with 6 months left on their contract. I'd be surprised and disappointed if we weren't at least trying to get someone else in as well as these two. Not necessarily just another striker either, a left back and cover for Lucas wouldn't go amiss.

The idea is that the 4-3-3 becomes closer to a 4-5-1 when we lose the ball, with pressing high up the pitch. But that only works if your wide attackers are any good at doing it. Sterling is young and inexperienced, and Shelvey was all over the place on Saturday. It looked much much better when Enrique was on the left, and we need to put him back there as soon as he's fit until we can sign someone else in January. I thought we could see against Southampton (I know, it's only Southampton) how the midfield is supposed to look, and we looked balanced for the first time in a while with Lucas back in there. We knew when the window shut that the squad looked s***. We've had to play the bigger names more often that we'd have liked in the Europa and it's all coming home to roost now. Sterling has been relied on for far too long up front. Allen, playing three times a week for the first time in his career, looks absolutely shot after a really good start to the season. Suso and Wisdom had already tailed off a bit after a good run, and we're left with a threadbare squad and players covering out of position e.g. Downing left back seems to be our best option at the moment, as Enrique is our best option wide left. If we sign two early in January, and Borini stays fit for the rest of the season, then we should look better.

Hindsight is wonderful on those deals though. Ba was, and remains, a near crock who reportedly will never pass a medical. Newcastle took a huge gamble on him and Sylvain Marveaux that summer, both of whom were highly regarded but had failed medicals elsewhere (Marveaux had just failed one for us). Ba worked out better than they ever could have hoped, but where was Marveaux last season? Diame had also reportedly failed medicals at Barcelona and Man Utd among others due to a heart condition. Those are the kind of signings you make when you're desperate and may as well take a punt. Sometimes they work out, sometimes they don't. We can't afford to take those kinds of risks on signings if we're seriously building for top four and beyond. Of that list the only genuinely smart signing in my opinion is Michu, who was identified and targeted by the scouting network Rodgers put in place at Swansea. I hope the set-up he's put in place here starts to spot these kinds of players over the next couple of seasons, but there's no doubt that if we were interested the price would have been a lot higher than £2m.

On Sturridge's extreme greediness, I've just been looking at his stats - how did he manage to get 7 assists to go with his 13 goals last season? Were they all mis-hit shots? He's always struck me as a bit greedy too, but not in an excessively bad way, and nothing that can't be coached out of him. Was genuinely surprised that he'd got so many assists though. [edit - just seen that they are all competition stats, but still only Adam and Suarez for us had more than him whether you count premiership or all comps]

Bitscores was great, I'd gladly pay to know that I'm going to get a decent quality reliable stream that doesn't buffer or drop every couple of minutes. Free streams have been OK for sky games, but for the games that aren't being televised in this country they are all rubbish, and as I have Sky they are the only ones I really need a stream for.

Well someone surely leaked the Sturridge/Ince story for all the papers to have basically the same story on the same day....may as well join in the idle speculation while there's nothing else to go on.

Yeah, you could be right on that. I suppose I jumped to believing the Sturridge and Ince story because I really want us to sign someone early in the window (ahead of the Utd and Arsenal games), and I can't see that being the case with Walcott - Arsenal will keep negotiating right to the deadline if he's going to be sold, particularly with us playing them on deadline eve. Would be happy enough with Walcott, Sturridge and Ince for the window, though would prefer it if it was Walcott, Ince and Huntelaar. I certainly think we need another two proven players if Ince is signed.

How many times have we screamed that we don't have enough pace in the team, strength in the team, and not enough people who'll just hit the bloody thing when we get round the edge of the box. Then we are linked with a pacy, strong, young striker with a decent goalscoring record and Premiership experience for just over £10m, and he's s***, will corrupt the kids (with no evidence to suggest this at all), and is too selfish (usually a good trait in a goalscorer). If we sign him then it'll be because Rodgers rates him, and I've seen nothing to suggest it's that mad a gamble, though I admit I'm not an avid watcher of Chelsea's games. If we get Sturridge and Ince in on day one of the window, with another class attacking player added before the end of it, then I'd say that's a decent window and definitely gives us much more attacking threat than we have now. On Walcott, I may be reading too much into the recent stories, but I think we're going to get him in the summer for nothing if we can show that we are going to be a top four side again, either that or with a really cheap offer on deadline day when Arsenal realise they're going to lose him for nothing. The Mancs don't want or need him, to me that story reeks of Arsenal leaking it to try and provoke a decent sized January bid from us.

Four points off 4th with villa (h) Fulham (h) qpr (a) Sunderland (a) to come. If all goes according to plan we will be sitting nicely when the window opens and we can get reinforcements in. That was a massive win.

Rodgers: "What I demand – when I came into here I promised three things: "That my communication is open, so my door is open for you, if there's football or social life you come and speak to me, you come and speak to me – but I will tell you how I feel. I'm not going to waste six months to tell you something that I know now. So my communication is open. The second point I'll promise you is quality. I'm in here at half seven in the morning and I leave between seven and eight at night. I'll give my life to the club to make it the very best I can and provide quality in my work. I've spent years studying, doing all the dirty work, being away from my family, travel, travel, spending money, having no money, you know, to invest for my future going forward. So I will provide quality in my work. The third thing I will promise you is ambition. I've arrived at 39 years of age at one of the best clubs in the world because I want to succeed and I'm ambitious, and, without being arrogant, I'm good at what I do." - from http://www.theanfiel...gers-interview/ Doesn't sound like someone with a lack of hunger, ambition or work-ethic to me. And I keep saying it, but as much as I loved Kenny our league form was bloody awful before Rodgers took over and I think we were all blinded a bit as to just how bad it was. He had a huge job on to turn that around, just as Kenny would have done himself had he been given the opportunity.