Parksey wrote:Any decent betting offers available online for the CL final? Last season, Paddy Power refunded all bets if Barca won in normal time, for example.
I can't see anyone but West Ham winning the play off final. They've beaten Blackpool 8-1 altogether this season, and I reckon they would have picked them as their opponents in the final ahead of Birmingham. Like I said, as a Boro fan, I want them out of the division, but I can't stand the way Allardyce has acted this season. He's just really lacked grace at times, especially when the pressure was on.
I don't buy all this talk about promotion being a massive achievement and a plaudit on his CV either - as I constantly bleat, they were by far the biggest (and, arguably, best) team in the division this season and so, to have to go up in the Play Offs, after being second for large portions of the season, is underachieving. With their wage bill, it is underachieving. With the players they have (PL standard players and England internationals like Carlton Cole and Rob Green) it is underachieving. True, in the Championship, promotion in any form is the goal, but I don't buy the argument that Allardyce has done "a good job" down there. They were tailor-made for a really strong stab at promotion this season - in the same way Newcastle were when they went down (arguably, West Ham were in a much stronger position than Newcastle, actually). I mean, even today, in the paper David Sullivan is interviewed describing how he was after 30 players in January. Players like Tevez and Torres on loan, Peter Whittingham, Romelu Lukaku, Jordan Rhodes and Jelavic. Him and Gold put £35m into the club this year and, while it is obviously a massive gamble, they are just lightyears ahead of pretty much every Championship club.
And that is why I want them out, basically.
Will still be cheering on Blackpool, mind.
I'm in exactly the same frame of mind Parksey.
As an aside, I might attend the Riverside next season, haven't seen Middlesbrough since they humped us 4-0 or 4-1 at Ewood a good eight or nine years ago and it's reasonably easy for me to get to(Got to go to St. James' Park the season Newcastle were relegated for a 1-0 away win, was a great day out). The Championship really does get better the more I think about it, even more so if West Ham leave it.