West Ham showing their confidence in Bilic..

"Rafa Benitez was within three hours of signing for us," Sullivan said, as quoted by the London Evening Standard.

"Every clause in his contract was agreed and then he went to Real Madrid. It was a real blow because he is a really experienced manager in England and done really well in Italy.

"We had an agreement in place but you have to pick yourself up, look who else is available and pick the best you can."

Despite more or less admitting Bilic was not the club's first choice for boss, Sullivan has reiterated his support for the already under-pressure Croatian, with back-to-back defeats raising questions over his side.

"Whoever you take is a gamble. The bottom line is we have a manager. He has our 100 per cent support. We will support him in the transfer market. We like him."

I dare say that Benitez never seriously intended to work for us. He'd have wanted clear indications on what there was to spend, and we've found out that it isn't that much. He would always get a better offer.

As for "we will support him in the transfer market"...

is sullivan braindead?

Strangely not - he's actually quite bright. This is all pretty standard stuff from them - "look, we tried to sign Neymar, it just didn't quite come off - unfortunately you'll have to make do with Henri Camara". It's the same ****, year after year, but now they don't have Allardyce to blame.

I'd love to see Bilic resign, however I don't think he has the balls/CV to do that.

bilic should come out with

"The bottom line is we have a manager" is excellent

lol nh cashy.

It could be worse, they could have got Avram Grant back.

Avram Grant GOAT

Eh, compare it to other sports, and there's a bunch of coaches who are totally ignorant to analytics (as evidenced by their decisions). People who learned the game 50 years ago and got to the top by trusting their gut etc. Wenger doesn't fit that profile.

Otoh, managers will always be careful talking about that kind of stuff, since moronic fans and media will blast them for "excuses".

Is there a thread for keeping track of bets somewhere? Perhaps I'm getting blind, but can't seem to find it.

I probably won't be around tomorrow afternoon whilst plop chalk up a cricket score, so:

superb

I'm tearing up here.

Pretty sure this is the opposite of what most long term married think.

I'm sure they have quite a few in Liverpool too.

In the history of the EPL,how many times with a team of Palaces relative spend made the top 4?

25 years, 60/1 chance, less than 0.5x by probability

Sounds like Ozil's got himself injured.

Wish it was the year of Hulls boom bust run.

ship it schippers

I think people just get used to their partner and not think of them in beauty\ugly terms.
It becomes way less significant.

Everton were 4th in 05, the season we sold Rooney. Only example I can think of!

How much had Neecastle spent the year they binked 4th?

Newcastle haven't hit CL places since they were one of the biggest teams in the late 90s/early 00s, and got there regularly.

Came very close in 11/12 on very little spend, but lolspurs got 4th on the last day of the season, and then didn't get a CL place thanks to Chelsea.