madras

has he got to have the same wages ? Would he play for Pompy for 60k a week, spurs for 35k a week? Would Aston Villa give him top wedge to play for them. I doubt it, but it will be interesting January. he'll do whichever he considers the best (taking into account carrer wise and financial) i'd guess he'd rather play for man utd on £50kpw as opposed to us on £100kpw

has he got to have the same wages ?

i'd have liked that idea before jonas's central role in the 2nd half last week. now i'm not at all sure. i'd probs keep him out wide for sunday.

bellamy ?.......................depends on the price of the deal.

nice drew with grenoble. but the mighty broberg beat bollnas 5-1. looks like i might be switching sports.

nice at home to grenoble today. also i have bet £10 on a bandy match. i have backed broberg to beat bollnas in the swedish eliiteserien. then i went and found out what the fuck it was !! (turns out it's basically field hockey on ice)

i'll take you back to the threat he carries pace wise (which he rarely uses and would be much more effective if he had decent positioning) is offset by his giving the ball away easy through poor control etc. martins was ok under roeder, f***ing hopeless under SA, improved under KK once he got fit to the point where he was VERY dangerous on the break & in the latter half of games, now we're back to kinnear and him being erratic again one good coach among 4 and the lad plays well, hmmmmm...maybe there's more to it? coaching some might say kk had the sense to come up with a system that suited both their strengths, kinnear appears barely able to come up with a system that suits either due to having viduka out maybe. perhaps when he thinks viduka can last most of a game he'll go to 4-3-3. think of how kinnear'd get slagged off if he went to a more attcking line up when we were under the cosh and clinging on to a lead.

i'll take you back to the threat he carries pace wise (which he rarely uses and would be much more effective if he had decent positioning) is offset by his giving the ball away easy through poor control etc.

his threat is often outweighed by his giving the ball away too easily and poor positioning meaning when we get the ball out it comes straight back. True, but Martins isn't exactly the only player guilty of giving the ball away too easily. We have players in far more volatile positions who give it away just as often if not more often. Players like Viduka only offer a threat when the ball is in the box, which first requires us to be dominating the midfield and actually getting the ball into the box first. As our midfielders aren't good enough to do that, more often than not, we have to rely on the threat of a ball in-behind (or over the top of) the defence instead - there's only Martins in our squad who can really capitalize on that. Opposing managers can blatantly see how limited we are when the game is squeezed, so as soon as that threat in-behind is removed, they literally push their defenders right up into the center of the pitch and laugh as our midfielders s*** themselves at the first sign of pressure. i agree about others,particularly midfielders giving the ball away cheep, but what changes could we make in midfield recently ?

his threat is often outweighed by his giving the ball away too easily and poor positioning meaning when we get the ball out it comes straight back.

Virtually identical until you really look at them. Martins has had 27 shots and score 5 goals, however owen has had only 15 shots yet scored 6 goals effectively making him twice the finisher Oba is and in a side struggling to create chances that's critical. Maybe that's why we accomodate him when we can? I'm also curious why you think it's "patently unfair" to criticise Martins for a lack of footballing intelligence when, IMO, that's the one aspect of his game that's indefensable. Also the passing accuracy is quite different and probably the reason why Martins gets taken off... passing accuracy? he's a striker ffs whose main assets are pace, strength and unpredictability...sounds like allardyce style bullshit; "sorry oba, not enough interceptions, you're on the bench the day, alan smith starts" thought i'd repeat this as the main point of agreement with Goalfather: "There is a stark difference however in the way both players have been treated. Formations and personnel and tactics have been tweaked to accomodate Owen. Martins has been treated with contempt by every manager since Roeder. He scored a double in his first game under Allardyce and did not get a chance to play half a dozen games b4 he was replaced by Owen as soon as Owen was half fit." we barely have an ounce of guile or top quality in our team from CM or really the wings when the truth be told...therefore why we disregard our main threat to the opposition with such alarming regularity is beyond me if martins played like he did against villa where he showed good positioning and movement (off the centre halves instead if inbetween them without coming far too deep) he'd get more balls played to him like jonas's to owen the other day (i also think if he played like that joey barton would look twice the player aswell). in the games he's been taking off the tide had already turned with him on the pitch and naturally the longer a game goes on like that the more chance there is of the opposition scoring. too many statmonsters on here who look purely for "when subbed/when the oppo scored" as opposed to the way the game was going before he got subbed.

Exactly. As I said previously Martins goals against Tottenham and Blackburn are clear examples. No other striker on our books has that kind of threat, but whatever, lets just convince ourselves he's a neanderthal incapable of dressing himself in the morning. Knowing our rotten luck, the Martins abusers will soon get their wish when he gets injured, then we can all sit back and take in this Owen and Viduka partnership they all crave. Problem is this the year 2008 and not 2000. The ineffectiveness of the partnership would be a shock to the system for you all. could say owens two goals were an example of his movement and nouse that martins doesn't have. You could also say that Owen's two goals were a result of the pace and movement Martins and Jonas possess but Owen doesn't. i'd say both goals were as a result of all those things. myself i thought owen was pretty shifty for the second goal,look where he is when martins gets the ball. i also think,as i've seen it too often,if the positions were reversed martins would have used his pace to go near post,making it much harder to get anything out of the situation. espesh on the first goal it was the movement that lead the way for the pass. Not sure what you are trying to prove here. If the roles were reversed Owen wouldn't have been able to beat the man out wide to deliver the ball like Martins did. Come on! what you on about,first off it's andy griffin he's up against and he doesn't get passed him. did you have another look at owens movement for the first goal. i've never seen martins be that clever. That's because he isn't that clever, he doesn't have the poacher's instinct that Owen has, by the same token, Owen doesn't have the athleticism or explosive speed that Martins has. Unfortunately we only get pure thoroughbreds on their way down, like Butt, Viduka, Owen and probably plenty more through the years. Put them all into the same team and it's Oscar De Lahoya on a football pitch. The class is still there but the legs aren't. Well said. Especially frustrating how managers just can't see past these players' name/history. Yes we all know they have achieved a lot and have been very good players but they are clearly not performing on that level any longer. he's actually saying they both have big faults.

Exactly. As I said previously Martins goals against Tottenham and Blackburn are clear examples. No other striker on our books has that kind of threat, but whatever, lets just convince ourselves he's a neanderthal incapable of dressing himself in the morning. Knowing our rotten luck, the Martins abusers will soon get their wish when he gets injured, then we can all sit back and take in this Owen and Viduka partnership they all crave. Problem is this the year 2008 and not 2000. The ineffectiveness of the partnership would be a shock to the system for you all. could say owens two goals were an example of his movement and nouse that martins doesn't have. You could also say that Owen's two goals were a result of the pace and movement Martins and Jonas possess but Owen doesn't. i'd say both goals were as a result of all those things. myself i thought owen was pretty shifty for the second goal,look where he is when martins gets the ball. i also think,as i've seen it too often,if the positions were reversed martins would have used his pace to go near post,making it much harder to get anything out of the situation. espesh on the first goal it was the movement that lead the way for the pass. Not sure what you are trying to prove here. If the roles were reversed Owen wouldn't have been able to beat the man out wide to deliver the ball like Martins did. Come on! what you on about,first off it's andy griffin he's up against and he doesn't get passed him. did you have another look at owens movement for the first goal. i've never seen martins be that clever. That's because he isn't that clever, he doesn't have the poacher's instinct that Owen has, by the same token, Owen doesn't have the athleticism or explosive speed that Martins has. Unfortunately we only get pure thoroughbreds on their way down, like Butt, Viduka, Owen and probably plenty more through the years. Put them all into the same team and it's Oscar De Lahoya on a football pitch. The class is still there but the legs aren't. i've said for a while that martins is too polite. he knows he has that speed but feels it is impolite to use it.

Exactly. As I said previously Martins goals against Tottenham and Blackburn are clear examples. No other striker on our books has that kind of threat, but whatever, lets just convince ourselves he's a neanderthal incapable of dressing himself in the morning. Knowing our rotten luck, the Martins abusers will soon get their wish when he gets injured, then we can all sit back and take in this Owen and Viduka partnership they all crave. Problem is this the year 2008 and not 2000. The ineffectiveness of the partnership would be a shock to the system for you all. could say owens two goals were an example of his movement and nouse that martins doesn't have. You could also say that Owen's two goals were a result of the pace and movement Martins and Jonas possess but Owen doesn't. i'd say both goals were as a result of all those things. myself i thought owen was pretty shifty for the second goal,look where he is when martins gets the ball. i also think,as i've seen it too often,if the positions were reversed martins would have used his pace to go near post,making it much harder to get anything out of the situation. espesh on the first goal it was the movement that lead the way for the pass. Not sure what you are trying to prove here. If the roles were reversed Owen wouldn't have been able to beat the man out wide to deliver the ball like Martins did. Come on! what you on about,first off it's andy griffin he's up against and he doesn't get passed him. did you have another look at owens movement for the first goal. i've never seen martins be that clever. This is crazy. but it's all we have

Exactly. As I said previously Martins goals against Tottenham and Blackburn are clear examples. No other striker on our books has that kind of threat, but whatever, lets just convince ourselves he's a neanderthal incapable of dressing himself in the morning. Knowing our rotten luck, the Martins abusers will soon get their wish when he gets injured, then we can all sit back and take in this Owen and Viduka partnership they all crave. Problem is this the year 2008 and not 2000. The ineffectiveness of the partnership would be a shock to the system for you all. could say owens two goals were an example of his movement and nouse that martins doesn't have. You could also say that Owen's two goals were a result of the pace and movement Martins and Jonas possess but Owen doesn't. i'd say both goals were as a result of all those things. myself i thought owen was pretty shifty for the second goal,look where he is when martins gets the ball. i also think,as i've seen it too often,if the positions were reversed martins would have used his pace to go near post,making it much harder to get anything out of the situation. espesh on the first goal it was the movement that lead the way for the pass. Not sure what you are trying to prove here. If the roles were reversed Owen wouldn't have been able to beat the man out wide to deliver the ball like Martins did. Come on! what you on about,first off it's andy griffin he's up against and he doesn't get passed him. did you have another look at owens movement for the first goal. i've never seen martins be that clever.

Exactly. As I said previously Martins goals against Tottenham and Blackburn are clear examples. No other striker on our books has that kind of threat, but whatever, lets just convince ourselves he's a neanderthal incapable of dressing himself in the morning. Knowing our rotten luck, the Martins abusers will soon get their wish when he gets injured, then we can all sit back and take in this Owen and Viduka partnership they all crave. Problem is this the year 2008 and not 2000. The ineffectiveness of the partnership would be a shock to the system for you all. could say owens two goals were an example of his movement and nouse that martins doesn't have. You could also say that Owen's two goals were a result of the pace and movement Martins and Jonas possess but Owen doesn't. i'd say both goals were as a result of all those things. myself i thought owen was pretty shifty for the second goal,look where he is when martins gets the ball. i also think,as i've seen it too often,if the positions were reversed martins would have used his pace to go near post,making it much harder to get anything out of the situation. espesh on the first goal it was the movement that lead the way for the pass.

Exactly. As I said previously Martins goals against Tottenham and Blackburn are clear examples. No other striker on our books has that kind of threat, but whatever, lets just convince ourselves he's a neanderthal incapable of dressing himself in the morning. Knowing our rotten luck, the Martins abusers will soon get their wish when he gets injured, then we can all sit back and take in this Owen and Viduka partnership they all crave. Problem is this the year 2008 and not 2000. The ineffectiveness of the partnership would be a shock to the system for you all. could say owens two goals were an example of his movement and nouse that martins doesn't have.

You're right on the money, HTT - good to see that there are at least a FEW realists on this board. I made the same comment about Villa on the '80% Chance of keeping Owen' thread a few days ago, and was told to Piss Off by Asipith,who found support in Bobyule.... Lets see who is right in a few weeks.....OR months. The only thing i'd agree about that is the fee amount. Ashley may well be intend on getting as much cash for himself as he can, selling Owen increases the chance of relegation so it doesn't make sense to get £5-7m in Jan and risk losing £50-100m in the summer if/when we go down because we couldn't score enough goals. He may be daft but he's not that stupid. He's a gambler who hasn't a clue about football so he won't consider Owen leaving = certain relegation. He'll just look at the ££££ signs. He's gambled our safety on Joe Kinnear FFS. Mike Ashley will recoup his money either way in the long run, whether we stay or up, go down or we get sold. Going down will devalue the club by some margin of course but he can still get his money back even if we are down in the Championship. Sponsorship of the shirt is around the corner, a new TV deal is 2 years away. My point - whether we stay up or go down is of no real consequence to Ashley's ultimate goal of making a profit on NUFC. yeah the sponsorship and tv money we'd get in the championship will help make a profit I'm just saying he can still claw back his money without having to sell the club whether we stay up or go down long term. The TV money and Sponsorship money is obviously bigger if we stay up but will Ashley really be driven to keep Owen based on that? Will he f***. Like I said he's a gambler and knows his investment which we now know isn't as big as he liked to claim having not paid off all the debt, is still safe long-term, regardless of what league we are in and he's the type who would sit it out until he reclaimed every last penny and then sum. i don't think he can. look at how many clubs in the championship and below turn over a profit and then how big those profits are.add his initial outlay to claw back before he can say he's made a profit on anything. Going down would remove the biggest operating cost we have by some margin - wages - which would result in the club turning over a healthy profit even in the Championship as our gates would still be large in my opinion, at least in the region of 35-40,000. Money from the sale of players wouldn't be pennies as was the case with West Ham either. Then there is the parachute payments and even TV revenue from televised matches - we'd be live almost most weeks as Leeds were. You factor that in over a number of years and he'll claw back his money and maybe even a profit. He could of course get out a loan, use that to pay himself back, and load it onto the club. i am not at all sure about the size of the crowd you are predidcting. the wages,offset by the drop in gate reciepts,tv money and sponsorship.....i'd be surprised if they broke even.

it wasn't very good because of the massive drop in standards of play regardless of the results.

You're right on the money, HTT - good to see that there are at least a FEW realists on this board. I made the same comment about Villa on the '80% Chance of keeping Owen' thread a few days ago, and was told to Piss Off by Asipith,who found support in Bobyule.... Lets see who is right in a few weeks.....OR months. The only thing i'd agree about that is the fee amount. Ashley may well be intend on getting as much cash for himself as he can, selling Owen increases the chance of relegation so it doesn't make sense to get £5-7m in Jan and risk losing £50-100m in the summer if/when we go down because we couldn't score enough goals. He may be daft but he's not that stupid. He's a gambler who hasn't a clue about football so he won't consider Owen leaving = certain relegation. He'll just look at the ££££ signs. He's gambled our safety on Joe Kinnear FFS. Mike Ashley will recoup his money either way in the long run, whether we stay or up, go down or we get sold. Going down will devalue the club by some margin of course but he can still get his money back even if we are down in the Championship. Sponsorship of the shirt is around the corner, a new TV deal is 2 years away. My point - whether we stay up or go down is of no real consequence to Ashley's ultimate goal of making a profit on NUFC. yeah the sponsorship and tv money we'd get in the championship will help make a profit I'm just saying he can still claw back his money without having to sell the club whether we stay up or go down long term. The TV money and Sponsorship money is obviously bigger if we stay up but will Ashley really be driven to keep Owen based on that? Will he f***. Like I said he's a gambler and knows his investment which we now know isn't as big as he liked to claim having not paid off all the debt, is still safe long-term, regardless of what league we are in and he's the type who would sit it out until he reclaimed every last penny and then sum. i don't think he can. look at how many clubs in the championship and below turn over a profit and then how big those profits are.add his initial outlay to claw back before he can say he's made a profit on anything.

You're right on the money, HTT - good to see that there are at least a FEW realists on this board. I made the same comment about Villa on the '80% Chance of keeping Owen' thread a few days ago, and was told to Piss Off by Asipith,who found support in Bobyule.... Lets see who is right in a few weeks.....OR months. The only thing i'd agree about that is the fee amount. Ashley may well be intend on getting as much cash for himself as he can, selling Owen increases the chance of relegation so it doesn't make sense to get £5-7m in Jan and risk losing £50-100m in the summer if/when we go down because we couldn't score enough goals. He may be daft but he's not that stupid. He's a gambler who hasn't a clue about football so he won't consider Owen leaving = certain relegation. He'll just look at the ££££ signs. He's gambled our safety on Joe Kinnear FFS. Mike Ashley will recoup his money either way in the long run, whether we stay or up, go down or we get sold. Going down will devalue the club by some margin of course but he can still get his money back even if we are down in the Championship. Sponsorship of the shirt is around the corner, a new TV deal is 2 years away. My point - whether we stay up or go down is of no real consequence to Ashley's ultimate goal of making a profit on NUFC. yeah the sponsorship and tv money we'd get in the championship will help make a profit

Because spaKinnear thinks because he's taller he can automatically hold the ball up better. The change from the first half (pass and move) to the second (hoof the ball up-field at every opportunity) was a disgrace. down to moving everything round for the sake of 1 injured player when there was no need imo.

The Stoke defence moved up the minute Martins left the pitch, I expected that to happen and watched for it. like i say i didn't see that. just means we didn't take advantage of it. fwiw i thought stoke played a quite high line all game.

Again, that's just looking at it from a purely stats point of view. The reason we are conceding late goals against Wigan, Sunderland, Fulham and now Stoke ( all s*** sides btw) is because we are sitting back on our lead, dropping deeper and deeper allowing the opposition to overwhelm us. There's nothing wrong with sitting back and then countering fast on the break, but if we take our quicker players like Martins off, we don't have any real threat on the counter. We are actually playing very brainless football in these situations. A single player, Fuller was allowed to single handedly devastate us on our own ground. He wasn't dealt with in 45 mins, we were too busy giving ourselves problems by switching players from defence to midfield and generally panicking rather than controlling the game through possession. it's not really when the goals are conceded as much as when do we get pushed back and haven't got a clue how to get out. thats happened when martins has been both on and off the pitch. you could counter the "needing a fast player to counter attack" with the "of our three front line centre forwards he is the least likely to hold it up and take pressure of the defending" I think that's already been covered with the observation that when he's replaced b y Viduka the defenders move 10 yards up the field because they know that they won't be caught on the break if they push up for offside. i don't see that as martins isn't exactly a whizz at beating the offside trap and it leaves more of a gap in behind the defence for him to play the ball into,which he is more likely to do than martins and owen is more likely to read. have to be honest and say i haven't noticed any teams defences push up more because of any tactical change rather than pushing up more as the game goes on through a necessity to get back into the game. It's been a long tinme since I've seen Owen run onto a through ball from midfield and scoring on the break. He used to do it at Liverpool. Whether teams push up by design or not when Martins goes off, it must make it easier to do that when you know you have a better chance of catching the forward if he is picked out on the break. If I was setting a team up to soak up pressure then hit on the break I'd prefer to have a quick striker on the shoulder of the last defender. so would i, even when we aren't soaking up pressure i'd prefer to have a quick forward playing down the sides of the centre halves instead of inbetween them...unfortunatly we haven't got one with the footballing sense to do it. martins done it against villa. his best allround game in at least a year,then back to the same old headless chicken routine.

Again, that's just looking at it from a purely stats point of view. The reason we are conceding late goals against Wigan, Sunderland, Fulham and now Stoke ( all s*** sides btw) is because we are sitting back on our lead, dropping deeper and deeper allowing the opposition to overwhelm us. There's nothing wrong with sitting back and then countering fast on the break, but if we take our quicker players like Martins off, we don't have any real threat on the counter. We are actually playing very brainless football in these situations. A single player, Fuller was allowed to single handedly devastate us on our own ground. He wasn't dealt with in 45 mins, we were too busy giving ourselves problems by switching players from defence to midfield and generally panicking rather than controlling the game through possession. it's not really when the goals are conceded as much as when do we get pushed back and haven't got a clue how to get out. thats happened when martins has been both on and off the pitch. you could counter the "needing a fast player to counter attack" with the "of our three front line centre forwards he is the least likely to hold it up and take pressure of the defending" I think that's already been covered with the observation that when he's replaced b y Viduka the defenders move 10 yards up the field because they know that they won't be caught on the break if they push up for offside. i don't see that as martins isn't exactly a whizz at beating the offside trap and it leaves more of a gap in behind the defence for him to play the ball into,which he is more likely to do than martins and owen is more likely to read. have to be honest and say i haven't noticed any teams defences push up more because of any tactical change rather than pushing up more as the game goes on through a necessity to get back into the game.