Howaythelads

Exactly.

First paragraph is tosh. Second paragraph sounds like an echo from ages ago........... HTL not saying a lot, but just letting everyone know who does and doesn't get his stamp of approval. The sanctimonious tit Insults again. What a surprise. I remember the insults when I (and a few others) posted almost exactly what you've just posted in that second paragraph, such is the power of propaganda and small minds. (Just returning the insult there, mate. Note the smiley thing, so it's not really an insult now) At ease soldier. You, trying to take the moral high ground If we're going over old ground I guess you've forgotten the time you offered me outside, as it were, on the old board. You were laughed at then too. Have a nice weekend by the way. What are you on about now, Alex? What's all this "soldier" stuff. I've never been a soldier, so it looks like as usual you're looking for support at a time you're posting a load of shite.

Just wondering who gives a shite about this, like.

We understand perfectly. We just can't believe anyone can be so gullible and naive. A mediocre squad and a mediocre manager in a mediocre mid-table position is still a mediocre squad and a mediocre manager in a mediocre mid-table position no matter how much "ambition" the board is alleged to have. "Ambition" is a pretty useless quality if you haven't got the intelligence, financial acumen, managerial suss or skill in making appointments that are necessary to realise it. Still, I suppose the thought might be comforting for some. What are your thoughts on the Tooth Fairy? It says something about you that you don't understand. Since you're claiming you were going to matches in the 60's it's astounding you don't understand the frustration of over decades selling our best players for no reason other than a lack of ambition, as opposed to one bad managerial appointment setting the club back. Or is it really so astounding? Waiting for you to get to your favourite subject of nobs.

First paragraph is tosh. Second paragraph sounds like an echo from ages ago........... HTL not saying a lot, but just letting everyone know who does and doesn't get his stamp of approval. The sanctimonious tit Insults again. What a surprise. I remember the insults when I (and a few others) posted almost exactly what you've just posted in that second paragraph, such is the power of propaganda and small minds. (Just returning the insult there, mate. Note the smiley thing, so it's not really an insult now)

I know some people have been taken in by the anti Bellamy propaganda, but even so I'm fairly surprised that some on here are wishing for him to break a leg. No doubt there will be pockets of wankers who will boo him and wish him injury.

First paragraph is tosh. Second paragraph sounds like an echo from ages ago...........

i think that most of the players such as dyer got their act together when souness came in, whereas robert and bellamy were too stubborn to accept the change. Robert was s*** even in robsons last season, he was lazy and was a complete liability apart from when we had free kicks, and even they werent that good by the end its just the sheer volume of free kicks he took hes gonna get some on target. His corners were piss poor as well, never beat the first man. bellamy, unfortunatly for us and himself maintained his s*** attitude and f***** up. i maintain that both players had to go and souness was right to get rid. Jolly good. I won't expect to read posts from you moaning on about us being mid-table since you support the booting out of top players. Do you think shithead was paid that huge wage to have it easy? Every club will have awkward personalities, the job of a manager is to manage it.

Wow, there is a whole tanker full of bollocks in that post. funny cos i agree with 100% of that! Funny indeed to agreed 100% with such exaggerated nonsense (a hallmark of any rant regarding Bellamy it seems). Whether he refused to play or not is entirely down to who you choose to believe. Bellamy continued to voice that despite protesting playing out wide, he had never and would never refuse to play in any position. I'm not even sure Souness himself ever said that Bellamy had flatly refused to play, but if he did, forgive me for remaining suspicious. As to the 100% thing, every manager that he had worked with prior to Souness (or post in the case of Hughes/O'Neill, no idea about Rafa) said that his commitment to training and playing was second to none, and that despite a pushy belief in himself driving them and others to distraction, every single one of them would have him in their team and work with him again. He was the same even as a kid according to my uncle. So no, he is clearly no angel (he may even be a complete arse) an but I don't agree that he was the cancer that Souness needed to cut out. Nor do I agree that we were better off as a club losing him in the manner we did, a manner that was all too predictable as soon as Souness laid his first blow soon after he arrived by questioning publicly whether Bellamy was even a proper striker. I do believe he was and still is a very good player who helped push the club closer to tasting success again for a short period, and that what's done is done. I won't boo or bait him for reacting to Souness, a man who it could be could argued was in the end a f*** sight more damaging to NUFC. ok fair enough maybe i shouldnt have said 100% but i think that a lot of people tend to think he was completely innocent when he was a s*** before souness even came. What about the rooney bid incident, even robson turned round to bellamy and said he was fed up of incident after incident. i think the reason he is more handleable (if thats a word) now is that he got a reality check when he left and has had to pull his finger out of his arse. I don't know anybody who thinks that, tbh.

True enough. Some changes should have been made after we finished 3rd, before the rot had set in.

Couple of decent posts in this thread, notably from BillyRay and grassroots.

I raised the same point in a discussion with an English friend recently. The Premierleague lives from it's style (nowadays influenced by a lot of players) and also the hype that is created around it by the media. A lot of the players are only half talented as people are made to believe. It's been said over the years that the step up to international level is big. The England players prove it every time they step onto a football pitch. The media believes these players are top class, should win the World Cup, blah blah blah. Some people are taken in by such hype, which is amazing when you see the performances.

Jesus Christ, are you for real? Players get substituted in matches all the time ffs. Souness substitutes Bellamy and somehow you see it as a dastardly plan to force him out of the club. He DID engineer his departurem, though. A true measure of the idiocy of the Scottish c***. Equalled only by the idiocy of those who fail to see it and are not bothered by it, while at the same complaining that we aren't as good as we were when Bellamy was here. You couldn't make it up.

Individually the England players aren't anywhere near as good as the media hype has some people believe.

Jesus Christ, are you for real? Players get substituted in matches all the time ffs. Souness substitutes Bellamy and somehow you see it as a dastardly plan to force him out of the club. If you have the match on video I suggest you watch it again.

The board of 40, 39 and 20 years ago had no ambition to finish above mid table, the board of today does. When the board of 40, 39 and 20 years ago appointed a decent manager they didn't back him to build a team. Whenever we looked to be in a good position and needed just a couple of quality players to break into the top 6, they sold our best players instead. Note I'm saying break into top 6, I'm not saying challenge for the title. I imagine some of you will think I'm lying, you believe it's impossible for a board to fail to back a manager, ironically that's due to the ambition of the board since the early 90's, they still have that ambition now. I don''t believe any of you anti-board types wiill understand what I'm posting here.

He barely moves? I thought he is one of the best player in the second half. Showed some good movements and good positioning. I think he will at the very least achieve as much as Darren Bent. Kevin Doyle, Leloy Lita, David Kitson, Stephen Hunt Bobby Convey, James Harper, Steve Sidwell Nicky Shorey, Alan Bennett, Greg Halford Steve Coppell Reading is going to be a force to be reckoned for quite a while. Yeah right. If they don't qualify for Europe, they'll do a Wigan - simple as. Two or three of their best performers will probably go - Sidwell/Doyle/maybe even Lita, and the others you mentioned are hardly anything special - at all. They're mid-table fodder at the bery best, just enjoying a honeymoon spell in their first season in the Premiership. They'll go EXACTLY the same way as all the others. The Ipswichs, the Sunderlands, the West Hams the Wigans. They've got absolutely nowt different about them or anything that stands out to suggests otherwise. They'll do nowt in the summer, let one or two of their 'really' good players go and fail to replace them because the good players simply won't want to go somewhere like that. Finish 15th-relegation zone next season and be out of the Premiership within the next four/five years. It's a nice thought but it just ain't gonna happen. IMO. Not saying I disagree with your overall assessment of Reading's likely near term future, but I don't think they're exactly like the others, I think they have more ambition than the boards of West Ham, Ipswich and Sunderland, so they have a chance to do better. Where they'll struggle is in sustaining their position for more than a couple of seasons, I don't think they have the fanbase. By the way, it should ram home to some how important it is the have ambition. Sunderland are definitely different to those other clubs yet they're in your list, or should be given their supporter base that could be tapped into but isn't. That's because they have no ambition, or at least have had none for decades, perhaps that is changing. Ambition is what makes the difference. A club needs a good manager but without ambition that is wasted and you will flounder.

Aye, our chances of winning anything meaningful have taken another hit today, but with Liverpool now bought, what other realistic options are there left for anyone wanting to takeover in the greatest league in the world? Come on Bill Gates! Aye, Liverpool football club perhaps having even greater resources added to the fact they are prepared to employ top footballers ignoring self righteous bollocks from the naive makes it more difficult for us to win owt. Of course it makes it easier, my mistake. It would if they operated the way appear to advocate. Now that would be a mistake.

Aye, our chances of winning anything meaningful have taken another hit today, but with Liverpool now bought, what other realistic options are there left for anyone wanting to takeover in the greatest league in the world? Come on Bill Gates! Aye, Liverpool football club perhaps having even greater resources added to the fact they are prepared to employ top footballers ignoring self righteous bollocks from the naive makes it more difficult for us to win owt.

You rate Parker, I think he's average at best. To me, in the PL a player who is average is actually inept for the level I want the club to be at, ie top 6. That you disagree doesn't make the point garbage, it just means you disagree.

If Martins is injured we will be knackered. If we had a proper striker playing alongside Martins it wouldn't be such a big deal if Martins was injured, we'd struggle but we wouldn't be knackered. Martins being injured being a big deal is because Dyer is a "makeshift" striker, meaning he wouldn't be able to do the business without Martins who is a real striker. Whether or not Dyer is the best option we have right now I don't think is up for debate, that's a no-brainer and I agree with you, but that doesn't make Dyer the ideal answer. The ideal answer is a proper striker. We should have signed one.

I selected the bit to comment on because that was the bit I wanted to comment on. I think it is very, very risky not signing a striker, something you appear to support because you want to see Martins up front with Dyer. I don't see why you have a problem with me quoting it, tbh. Jesus Wept. Read my f****** posts for God's Sake. I said i misworded it. I'm not happy that we didn't sign a striker. I clearly stated that afterwards. I said that if there was to be any reason at all for me to be glad, it was so that Martins and Dyer could play together. f****** pulling teeth. Jesus Wept. I read your f****** post for God's Sake. As you've already said, you only pointed out you phrased it badly after I'd already replied and terminally pissed you off with what was an innocent, non insulting reply made by me. By then your dummy was gone with accusations of nit-picking, closely followed by an exchange with another poster where you stated I was posting garbage. My reply wasn't nit-picking at all, which you should understand on the basis you claim you badly phrased the section I replied to. I don't see your problem unless you're pissesd off that you spent 2 days writing a few paragraphs, thought it was a masterpiece and threw the dummy out because only a section of it was mentioned in my reply. Which is why I told you to grow up, of course. Your aggressve reaction to what has been pretty much a fuck all exchange is pathetic, mate.

No, thats true. Butt is not "inept", he's just "mediocre at his very best". And Parker is "decent int he main". BRAMBLE is inept. Completely agree on Nicky Butt. More like his usual self against Fulham and has been awfully bad on numerous occasions this season. His winner against Spurs was fantastic and some performances have been good, but in the main his passing is inaccurate, he's far too slow, he's not strong enough in the air and for a defensive midfielder he doesn't win the ball nearly enough in one-on-ones. Decent player for someone like Sheffield United, but not what we should consider first team at NUFC. I still maintain that if Scott Parker was asked to play the role that Butt does, as he was a lot last season, then he would excel. Parker simply doesn't have the creative spark/passing/shooting ability to be considered a playmaking midfielder, but I feel his attributes/performances have exceeded Butt's by a long way when played in the same role. It's plainly obvious to me that Parker, even when with Emre, was being asked to be a box-to-box midfielder, instead of a holding player. I don't know how anyone can dispute that, given Roeder's comments about him last season and in the pre-season. Granted the lad has scored goals, but I'd rather see Dyer or Emre in the advanced role alongside him. If Mourinho classed Parker as an anchorman, then that's good enough for me, I don't know what Roeder is playing at trying to suggest otherwise. Parker/Butt together is cringeworthy and reminiscent of the Faye/Clark dynamic duo from last season in terms of an utter lack of creativity. Parker loses the ball far less than Butt and is a far better passer of the ball as well. Couldn't disagree more, tbh. I know I'm not allowed to use stats to defend my points (and I fully understand that stats do NOT tell the whole story), but Parker is miles ahead of Butt both in terms of number of passes made and percentage of passes completed, as well as tackles made and percentage of successful tackles. Let me expand on this a bit before you completely dismiss it... Now obviously that doesn't tell us that Parker is indefinitely better than Butt, because Parker could be passing it back to Bramble 99% of the time (small risk-small gain), while Butt could be looking to release Martins or Dyer with a long-ball an awful lot(high risk-high gain)... so there's no need to call me up on that. However, I do feel that when you watch both play there's certainly very little variation in the TYPE of passes that both make, which suggests that Parker does complete more passes. In your opinion from watching them this season/last season, does Nicky Butt play a lot more "risky" passes than Parker does (causing his completion percentage to drop)? Or is the ratio fairly similar for each? (Meaning that Parker is probably a better passer of the ball.) There's a few layers to that and we're heading into complicated grounds in regards to types of passing, speed of passes, quickness to release the ball, etc. But I know you'll be keeping up with it, which makes a nice change on here From what I remember from previous threads your main issues with Parker are that he dives in all-too-often and holds onto the ball for far too long, please correct me there if I'm wrong. I do agree that you have good arguments with these, but when the lad is winning "76.6%" of the tackles, then surely it's not THAT much of a problem? (Again, a crude way of defending him, but you get my gist - I'm trying to move away from just "I think he's better 'cos he's he captain" s****.) I'd argue that Nicky Butt is far too slow to react to situations and doesn't win the ball enough when he gets into tackling situations, plus he misplaces far more "easy" passes than Parker and he still has the "Cardiff performance" hanging over him, which was utterly disgusting at the time. I do openly admit that I could be biased here because of Nicky Butt's past, but as you likely know it's difficult to get past initial biases in order to make fair judgements on players, so maybe that's why our opinions differ? I know we're never likely to agree on this one, and we've probably both seen every home game this season as well as a massive majority of the away games (being there/ART Sport/internet streaming/etc.) - or at least extended highlights of every away game, so it's not much other than personal feelings on team styles/what we expect from a defensive midfielder/personal bias that seems to be separating us. We'll have to agree to disagree, as you have my points against Parker sorted out in your post. I'll post my thoughts on him one last time though as a reply to your comment. I believe Parker dives into challenges far too often, which can look impressive due to the commitment level and all that, but nevertheless, he dives in because he doesn't anticipate well enough, his reading of the game is very poor. He tends to chase the ball around the pitch like a young schoolboy tbh. Contrast that with Butt, who goes about his work quietly, which is often what you find with defensive midfielders, not noticing them that much generally means they're doing a good job. He plays a more controlled game, relying on anticipation and reading of the game more than Parker. The effect each of these players has on the players around them is important imo. People can argue about Parker's individual ability but most now seem to be of the view that the partnership with Emre is a poor one. Emre is a good player imo and he plays better alongside Butt than he does alongside Parker, the whole team generally plays better without Parker in the side imo, such is the negative effect of his poor quality of passing. I don't go in for the idea some have of telling Parker to play DM and hey presto, problem sorted. It's a specialist role, I don't think his passing is good enough for that role, he just can't do it. Where Butt often lays the ball off to a team-mate without even controlling it first, his first touch is often a pass, Parker dwells for too long. Butt is often aware of the pass before he's even received the ball, which is what gives him the ability to lay it off without taking a first touch to control it, Parker rarely manages to do that, he just doesn't seem to know what's is 'on' around him. Parker also offers very little attacking threat, so I see no role for him there either. His creativity is pretty much zero. I mentioned it above but the damage done to the way we play by the length of time Parker holds onto the ball can't be overstated, it's a massive weakness in his game because it's very important for a player in that role to move the ball on quickly when there are players up front with pace. The needless diving into challenges and the poor quality of passing are what irritate me the most about Parker. Players with pace need the ball released early otherwise they're going to be caught offside more often than not. I think this will become even more apparent with the return of Owen. Imagine if we ever end up with Zog on the left and Dyer on the right as well, for example. Regarding stats. Yes, Parker may have a higher success rate for passes but I'd imagine Butt isn't far behind, factor in that Butt's passing has a far more positive impact on the way we play and to me it means he's a far, far better player than Parker.

I selected the bit to comment on because that was the bit I wanted to comment on. I think it is very, very risky not signing a striker, something you appear to support because you want to see Martins up front with Dyer. I don't see why you have a problem with me quoting it, tbh.

So no apology for your incorrect assertion I told you to grow up purely on the basis I disagree with you. What's your problem, mate? Apart from me disagreeing with you, what is it in my first post that has resulted in you posting in such a childish way? Here's the post again, perhaps you'll tell me where I went wrong and ywhy ou're behaving as though you've been insulted or something. BTW Parker is no better than average, which as far as I'm concerned is inept at this level of football for the ambition I have for the club. He's not good enough and that's the bottom line. That you disagree does not make the opinion garbage. I'm sure the irony of that and the fact you've been spitting out your dummy because someone dared to disagree with you will be totallly lost on you.