NJS

The old system wasn't the problem it was the poor choice of managers. Woo takes responsibility for failure in your wonderful system? Its not been a failure - yet. Not after 6 months. Ashley HAS to take the blame at the end of the day, i accept that but i dont think the fans hounding him out is anyway near acceptabe, hence to blame for the mess we're in. (The crux of this Thread). I still think that Keegan put Ahlsey in a difficult spot though.... Has the squad improved to the extent where you think that 4 years down the line with similar windows we would be challenging for Europe? "similar windows" is a bit of a red herring that - assuming the next 8 windows would be exactly the same with the club rowing in oppositie directions? To answer your question anyway,Honesty - yes i do. Jonas - excellent Colo- good Guthrie - good Bassong - good Nacho - dont know Xisco - dont know at least 4 quality signings out of 6 at least with a club that wasnt completely rowing in the same direction - not to mention the deadwood that was removed. My major conern was the lack of quanitity which i was ready to lambast before this al blew up. Who's to say it will be the same for the next 8 windows. You can't judge players on 5 games or less - this time last year people were quite pleased with Rozenhal and Cacapa and Jonas could still be a Cordone. Guthrie should only be a squad player which we need more of but if he plays more than 30 games a season for the next 3 years we will get nowhere near Europe.

But they've shown no sign of squad building - as I said signing Collocini and selling Faye negates the gain to an arguable degree which could be applied to Jonas/Milner - another two Xiscos to replace Owen, Martins and Viduka will leave us with a weaker squad.

The old system wasn't the problem it was the poor choice of managers. Woo takes responsibility for failure in your wonderful system? Its not been a failure - yet. Not after 6 months. Ashley HAS to take the blame at the end of the day, i accept that but i dont think the fans hounding him out is anyway near acceptabe, hence to blame for the mess we're in. (The crux of this Thread). I still think that Keegan put Ahlsey in a difficult spot though.... Has the squad improved to the extent where you think that 4 years down the line with similar windows we would be challenging for Europe?

Oh do f*** off - when did we ever outspend Man U, Liverpool, Arsenal or Blackburn under Keegan? I have no figures available, but i would bet that we did outspend them under Keegan. Keegan spent about 18m net - Dalglish was the big spender with something like 38m When we were spending 6m on Ferdinand, Arsenal were spending 8m on Bergkamp - its a myth that we were huge spenders.

Oh do fuck off - when did we ever outspend Man U, Liverpool, Arsenal or Blackburn under Keegan?

The old system wasn't the problem it was the poor choice of managers. Woo takes responsibility for failure in your wonderful system?

Go on..... Deschamps, Terim, arguably Zico. Maybe even Houllier would have a stab at the job.... 2 for sure anyway. Dechamps who quit two clubs for disagreements with the board? Zico who won one title out of two with the Turkish Chelsea? Houllier who spent 10s of millions and never came within a million miles of the title?

Going by today he will struggle against muscular CFs - I would love to have seen him and Faye together who I think you're wrong about.

Allowing for less injury prone players it may have improved from a team which will finish 14th to one which will finish 11th. I expect a little more but then again I guess I'm deluded.

Abdoulaye Faye is as good as Coloccini is he? In my opinion theres not much difference - both look half decent but not top notch. People have gone way over the top about him and Jonas - its probably too long since we had any decent players which may explain it but I'll judge it over more than 5 games. I was extremely worried about what I saw today from Collocini.

5 words: Abdoulaye Faye and Carlton Fucking Cole. No differnce - Guthrie will play more but is nowhere near the player Emre was (on his very rare days) The others are just like for like. We needed better players and lots of them.

Instincts are good but I don't trust mine at the minute. Keegan has done a lot for us in the past both as player and manager. On the other side of that we have an owner who claims to have bought the club so that he can go to the games with his kids and does so and acts like any other father taking his kids so appearances tie in with his claims. He's also been partially involved with bringing Keegan back, if only by rubber stamping the deal. Why would he try to undermine the manager he brought to the club? My instinct tells me that he would have no reason for doing so. Absent parent - away too much and trusted his minions.

Go on.....

Yes - Guttierez is the only position we have improved in.

No evidence of subsidy that apart from in the statement - £9m in 3 transfer windows. No squad improvement this summer.

Because its bollocks - he's been trying to sell the club for months and his shit about being a football fan is just that - he was 23 when he "started watching England" or however he put it - who the fuck did he support when he was a kid then?

Dont hear many denials though....seems like a strange smear if it wasnt true....as despicable as the smear was something about it rings true with me, it just seemed far too specific. They expanded on something he said when naming his dream signing as Henry. I would also not have been surprised if he'd said "Man City are after Ronaldinho - if they can why can't we" (fair question). The Lampard one though is daft - even Keegan at his "daftest" wouldn't have expected Lampard to leave Chelsea for us.

And it REALLY took until late-night on September 1st before he realised enough was enough? If you can't see the s*** hit the fan from Milner's sale up until that time you really are blind. Broken promises, lack of signings, attempted sales - that's what a deadline does. I may of got this completely wrong but straight after the milner sale there was that video interview/press conference about it and he there was no inkling of any issues reagrading the sale of Milner that seemed to be bubbling under the surface - in fact alot of this board were jizzing themselves at the prospect of "3-4 signings" that may be coming in. It was that video where he confirm that that Zayatte or whatever his name was was on trial with us..... Aye but the idea is that KK was told that the Milner sale could be positive thing as it would trigger 3or 4 signings. Now: A. They should have been looking for at least 3or 4 signings ANYWAY. B. They didn't happen and instead two "panic" buys were made. This is pretty central though I still think its the attempted sales which was more crucial.

That's what he's done all his life and that's exactly what he's trying to do with the club itself now.

You've got to admit that virtually everything we're hearing is rumour. If that rumour you've mentioned is true then Wise should be the one out of work, not Keegan. I don't like Wise and never have done but it's just too easy to make something up about him and people will take it in. I'd love to know where to point the finger but I don't as yet and I'll try to stay neutral until I know one way or the other but I understand people taking sides, even if I don't agree with them. This the core point though - sometimes you have to wade through the shit and trust your instinct - I think Kevin Keegan deserves more than some people in this thread are prepared to give him.

And it REALLY took until late-night on September 1st before he realised enough was enough? If you can't see the shit hit the fan from Milner's sale up until that time you really are blind. Broken promises, lack of signings, attempted sales - that's what a deadline does.

I'm not talking about him pinning a sheet to the notice board (he'd have to borrow a stepladder anyway) - I'm talking about a scenario where Keegan is told that Valencia want to see Gonzales play as the've had some inquiries about him so they give Keegan a nudge. If you have a whole set up based on buying cheap and selling high then I don't think I'd trust them not to do that.

I doubt that anybody would have picked the team. As I said I think over the summer and especially at the end they've impose their will on Keegan - fair enough if that's how its supposed to work but then that's Ashley's fault - if the rumours about Wise deliberately humiliating Keegan are true than I don't think an "uneasy" peace would have lasted. I can see the argument he should have realised it wasn;t going to work and gone in May but as I said we'd be no better off.

He would have players in his squad he didn't want. I have every reason to believe it would though - this summer has been a gradual positioning of power camps which the idiots "won" by singularly failing to strengthen the team where Keegan wanted it. They gradually imposed themselves on him over time. The next logical step is team selection. Complete conjecture. I dont' think it's very likely at all that would have happened. Even Roman couldn't force his managers to pick Shevchenko. What about the bloke at Hearts - Romanov wasn't it?

A) - Again it the logical next step for a selling club - I say that as I don't believe for one second he wanted to build gradually. B) - the points were about confidence - I can't think of another manager on earth I would have trusted to restore confidence to that team last year. Not one.