Is today a product of forums like this board?

My boys

I shall leave aside the rather starting similarity between our new loan signing and the young males who race their cars round my local one way system, and wish Jimmy Smith all the best. I truly hope he turns out to be the 'next' Scott Parker in terms of loan signings, and that a swift half of ale at the Red Lion in Eaton will match Tiger Tiger in its appeal to a 20-year-old Londoner.

It has been quite a week, and it has got me thinking a bit. First Hucks goes off on one at a press conference called to announce a new bus or something and announces Etuhu is offski. Then Dickson goes, and Peter Grant likens it to the death of Diana. Morons take to their computers to brand the Board a cross between Robert Chase and Harold Shimpan. David Milliband, sorry, Neil Doncaster is forced into the chatrooms to defend these accusations. Then, out of nothing, a press conference is convened and we have secured the services of an Abramorich chav.

My questions for debate are: How much of the above was contrived? Was Hucks speaking from the heart or as part of a wider tactic? And how much of today's announcement is owed to public relations? In the age of the Internet, where we can freely spout the most outrageous stuff, are football clubs now more obliged to make gestures to stem the flow of online criticism?

Montague Withnail

Posted By: Uncle Monty, Jul 19, 17:48:23