Its a broad question. Im interested to know people's points of view. Looking at the club from a general view. Would we have been better off staying at U.P and being a 'Burnley'? that is building step by step squad wise, recruiting cheap players but players in a mould to fit the club? have we been so focused on becoming a 'bigger club' we've rushed it and made a mess of it all? I'm not saying the season is a disaster after one match, this is not what this post is about, its more general from the last season or so. the move, however nice the stadium is is proving a debatable one. for one thing we don't own it, its not ours, probably never will be. we share it with other sports and have no control over its use apparently as we're not allowed to use it right now. the move was part of the vision to propel the club upwards. but the question is upwards to where? where is it taken us and indeed where has it taken us? are we a club now that still can't attract top players but can spend more money on those 'better' than what we used to buy? i.e. arnautovic, hernandez etc? and if so, are we better off? are we in the Stoke, WBA, Southampton level? if so, weren't we on that level before the move? improvements don't happen overnight, its true. but I think we can watch Everton and see how they go. They haven't moved to a bigger stadium yet, but they have been backed financially and have bought players to propel their status a bit like us. But are we even in their league? for me the worst thing about all this is what we've given up. many thought that U.P was falling apart, it was out dated etc. But wasnt it still a ground we called home, a bit like Turf Moor to Burnley? Couldn't money have been invested into refurbishments instead? slight modifications of the stands to get a few more seats in? I know its all moot now, its gone and dead, but we can still debate whether it was right or wrong to move. If we take away the money from arnautovic, ayew…..as basically thats what we got for the move…a couple of big money but rather average players in terms of quality. we could still have picked up payet, lanzini and the rest if we'd stayed at U.P. So basically am I right in saying that the move basically gave us two expensive players in Ayew and Arnautovic? So was it worth it? I for one expected a lot more from the move. I was expecting this to be a season to really push on, it may still be of course, but what are peoples thoughts? does the investment into the team equal the sacrifice of the move? and should we have looked for a bigger name manager once we moved and enticed him with the promises of a big stadium and money to buy? is Bilic perhaps the reason we can't attract big names? he got hernandez sure, but is that the best we should expect? lets discuss.

Read into it what you will but what do the following all have in common? Cresswell, tore, noble, snodgrass, ayew, feghouli, zaza, fonte, nortveldt and calleri.

Made my mine up ,cant watch them anymore their so fekin boring im not just saying that cos i hate the smarmy bastards but because i think they've lowered the standard of the prem with their one dimensional football ,im goin out now to watch my grass grow till the real k o

Just seen the music thread has been bumped up again so I was thinking on a tangent and wondering what everyone's favourite theme tune fo TV shows, films etc. the one that always stands out for me is the persuaders. John Barry I think. Never get board of it.

Just read if we are drawn at home in the cup we are going to have to play away as the stadium STILL won't be ready to play in. And here's the cruncher WE will have to pay our opponents Compensation! We are so Mickey Mouse!

reading Bilic's remarks after the city loss, he says basically that to have any sort of chance against big teams you have to have all your players fit, and you have to make no mistakes at the back. whilst i agree with him on the latter, I'm not so sure this is the right approach. we are a premier league side, we are in the league to compete. I'm just not a believer in all this defeatism when we are up against big sides. basically he's saying unless we have a fully fit squad and some luck we won't beat anyone 'better than us'. correct me if I'm wrong but is his job not to ensure that when we play bigger clubs that he finds a way to gain advantages elsewhere? what i mean is and you can take a leaf from allardyce on this, there is more to the game than trying to play 'good football'. it worries me that we have just become a nothing sort of club now. we converted from the drab direct stuff of allardyce but now we have become a southampton or a watford perhaps…a team that plays the same way as the big clubs but has nothing near the same in quality of players. the result - its going to be a tonking 9 times out of 10. Bilic made an impact in his first season, he transformed us from the direct style into a counter attack side that even the big sides struggled against..why? because there was a game plan that played on their weaknesses. many times last year i watched in horror as we took to the field against city and co trying to play basically the same way they set out to play. i had hoped bilic would take the summer to reflect and to decide on his tactics and plans etc. pre season tells me he's learnt nothing in this area. someone like benitez will adapt his line ups, his style to look for ways to win matches, bilic seems to have become a poor mans guardiola, sending the same line up out match after match to play the same way regardless. once in a while you will get lucky, things will go your way…but overall you will be a nothing side, getting thrashed here and there and having mourinho and conte saying 'we played good football' after they take us to the cleaners and looking forward to the 3 points in the return. i may be old school, but managers of the past, especially those english ones of old were tacticians as well as coaches. putting an extra midfielder in there to do a particular job, i.e. close out a play maker, playing two up front to press a weak defender etc. i know i play too much FM these days and maybe get carried away but i hated it when Zola would give a press conference before a big match and say we've got no chance, mind games maybe but he did it so many times it just sent a message of why are we bothering. lets not forget this is a sport, a game of competitors . the balance of power favours those with the most money but there are points to be taken from tactical approaches. it doesnt have to be pretty, but it does need to be effective. i don't mean throwing andy carroll on with 10 mins to go and hoofing it up to him desperately after going 4-0 down at home to city…i mean some real thinking and planning. maybe it was simply luck in his first season but he had a plan that worked on several big clubs, the pace and power troubled them at the back…..so why did we abandon this in search of a more 'total football' approach? Slaven please wake up man, we don't want anymore 5-0 home defeats to city and co this season…we want to compete against them all. get it done.

Or two?

Talking to my dad about this and he loved subbuteo and would play with friends for hours and another game he still has but is now defunct was called logatta...very indepth football dice game...you had a league of 18 teams playing home and away the first 5 games home team had blue numbered dice and away team had red dice with a couple more 0's on it like a handicap..after those 5 games completed you wrote up league table and when teams start playing each other the points difference decided on which other coloured dice you would use...so a handicap system came into play...you did that with league/cup/euros etc and it gets addictive....i'll take his word on that one:-)...so come on guys what games did you play or maybe still do.

West Ham V Man City is on Eurosport 1 Live on Friday at 15.00

reading ANTKB post about the women's football and also the general comments made about football these days, its pretty obvious that money has destroyed the game. i think because its 'crept' in we've digested it and somehow accepted it. however i think we (fans of all teams) have realised that the game we used to love to watch is dead and in its place is some Khardasian reality show. we've been fed all this nonsense about players 'playing too much football', needing to be rested for 60 mins of a game, being taken off 15 mins early to 'rest them'. i remember (showing my age) looking back on the cup final of 1980, i was very young then so it became more relevant when i watched it over later. but we had one substitute. players went out on the pitch with no desire whatsoever to not play 90 mins in those days. in fact injuries and all, they carried on. if you were still breathing then there was football to be played. i know the argument is that the game has improved, that the pace is much faster, that the players are fine tuned in fitness etc. but theres a fundamental lack of desire, courage and work ethic that has been lost along the way. its all down to the money. its crept its way into the game like a cancer and now the game is rotten to the core even at international level. we see players demanding a new contract, being given one and then demanding to leave the club a few months later. we see players refusing to play in certain positions or to a certain style. is it modern mentality or simply because their lives are so cushy that theres no need for them to be loyal and work hard? look at ravel morrison, a player with great potential. given chance after chance and squandered. would he have squandered those chances if he wasnt a millionaire? a millionaire for what has amounted to a pretty average at best career too. people argue but it cuts both ways, the clubs show no loyalty to players so why should they? but how can clubs show loyalty when the players are the ones with all the power to do as they please? back in years gone by the atmosphere between players and clubs was that the player was grateful for the opportunity, was rewarded for good performance with his pay packet and if told he wasnt moving clubs, then he wasnt moving clubs end of. if the club sold him, then so be it. its amazing how the game has changed. big clubs like arsenal and barcelona now being ruled by player power. you can argue but its fairer, the player gets to decide on his future just as an employee at a company would do. yes, true. but the game is in ruins. clubs are simply vessels for players to move to and from in search of the best pay packet and highest profile for themselves. thats the nature of the modern game. add to this the ticket prices we now pay and we see its us who's funding the lavish lifestyles of the greedy players. its us that watch it on t.v and pay sky or whoever for the privilege who in turn plough money into the players pockets. football is a business yes, but its not like the everyday high street business. its also a sport. personally the biggest mistake made imo is that no one decided that a wage cap, transfer cap etc should be enforced years back. we're now at 220 mill or so for a player…instead of players being worth a new car or house, they are now worth the cost of building a new stadium. huh? instead of buying Neymar, PSG could buy a new stadium….thats where we've got to.