madras

I wonder about Patrick Barclay sometimes...."O'Neill is a better manager than Allardyce". There was also a worrying assumption by these hacks that Ashley is clueless and might be bad for the club. Nonsense. O'Neill IS a better manager than Allardyce - his trophy record proves it, as does his getting Celtic to a European Final ; Allardyce has won NOWT... that means souness was better than keegan ? Lets put it another way - as you brought KK into it, who would you choose if both KK and MON were in for the NUFC job at the end of this season? Sorry, but for me, its MON...proven winner and interested in ALL aspects of a club, not just buying players. Proven against Scots. To put it yet another way, who would you have had back in 1992? We are not back in 1992 - I asked who would you choose if both were in for the NUFC job at the end of THIS season - so - who would YOU choose??? And as for your comment about the Scots, did Celtic only play Scots when reaching the UEFA Final against Porto..!!? no you said o'neill was better than allardyce cos he'd wone more, i said o'neill had won more than keegan but proves nowt, no-one mentioned anythig nabout who you'd have now or at the end of the season.

I really enjoyed '94 too. Overall it was a better tournament. Obviously England were excellent in Italia '90 and weren't even there four years later, which put a completely different perspective on things. oh no they weren't

I wonder about Patrick Barclay sometimes...."O'Neill is a better manager than Allardyce". There was also a worrying assumption by these hacks that Ashley is clueless and might be bad for the club. Nonsense. O'Neill IS a better manager than Allardyce - his trophy record proves it, as does his getting Celtic to a European Final ; Allardyce has won NOWT... that means souness was better than keegan ?

He did and we should have moved Faye in there to try and combat that problem.. Too much sense there. Go down that road and you end up identifying the threat beforehand & start with Faye in midfield alongside Barton. BS obviously thought that Butt could do the job & is a good 5 inches/ 2 stone bigger than he actually is. a tad simplistic. diop isn't great regardless of his size but yes he did dominate yet how many would have identified him as a threat beforehand ? bit like saying "we should really watch out for pamarot shooting from distance" The threat Diop can pose is well known. Big club moves had been mooted & he has caused us problems before. BS has has a wealth of information to draw from. He clearly thought Butt could do the job. There wasn't anything (other than a better clearance) that could have been done about Pamarot's shot so the likeness doesn't stand up. We got just about anything & everything wrong in Saturday's game. i agree with that(in bold) but if you'd said before the game we must alter team selection/tactics etc because of diop you'd have been laughed at (and quite rightly).

He did and we should have moved Faye in there to try and combat that problem.. Too much sense there. Go down that road and you end up identifying the threat beforehand & start with Faye in midfield alongside Barton. BS obviously thought that Butt could do the job & is a good 5 inches/ 2 stone bigger than he actually is. a tad simplistic. diop isn't great regardless of his size but yes he did dominate yet how many would have identified him as a threat beforehand ? bit like saying "we should really watch out for pamarot shooting from distance"

aye He can play all across the back 4, so would be good cover for Beye & Enrique. It means also we could just sack Carr & Babayaro for not being able to do their jobs properly. I'm sure there's a gross negligence claim in their against Carr, as for Babayaro, his sick record is certainly worth a sacking. I'm not taking the piss if you thought I was, I'm in agreement we shouldn't be sucked into paying much more than £1m when he was a free agent in the summer. Not falling into the Boumsong trap again... thats because he was a fee agent not because no-one wanted him or he's s***.he's under contract so the fee has to reflect his worth (perceived or otherwise)

Thread is f*** all to do with homegrown/Brits in the team mate. it's got to do with being comfortable with winning the league under certain conditions and buying the title. i don't mind buying the title if it's money the club has created (man utd), slightly uneasy winning it with benefactors money (chelsea), even more uneasy if it's with benefactors and a team of foreigners, irrational i know but it would feel like i have little or no tie to the club.

i'm sure i've done a thread similar to this. anyway you have to back to 1960 and burnley to find the last time a largely home grown team won the league. i know manu utd had scholes,beckham,giggs and the nevilles but also scmichael,bruce,pallister,irwin etc from outside. i'd be uncomfortable but would live with it,even more uncomfortable if we went the arsenal route and didn't have any englsih/brits in the team.

I agree with this team, but I think Roz or Taylor should be in instead of Cacapa for the extra aerial pressence against Jones. aye, i was pissed when i wrote it, roz for cacapa but faye at the back to counter jones is a must.

Hardly an even comparison is it? How many seasons have Dunne and Richards played together? The backline today and in most other games this season has been brand new, in every single respect. Two signings of which were made with minutes to go until the end of the deadline! Agree about Sven being a better manager nevertheless. But if you can't give credit for the work Allardyce has done with the backline, as bad as it was for eleven minutes today, then it'll be difficult for you to credit him for anything. He's brought in better defenders because he's had money to spend, when he gets them playing as a unit he'll get credit. Did you give him credit when the defence played as an excellent unit against Everton, Spurs, Wigan, and West Ham? they weren excllent against west ham or everton Really? How many chances did Everton have in the game? Answer: 1 (yet they managed to score a jammy second goal). Against West Ham there was a 15 minute period where they put us under real pressure, but for the vast majority of the game the defence was solid. in both games there were spells when we defended poorly,against west ham after they scored they looked the most likely winner. dont confuse them not scoring with us defending well

Hardly an even comparison is it? How many seasons have Dunne and Richards played together? The backline today and in most other games this season has been brand new, in every single respect. Two signings of which were made with minutes to go until the end of the deadline! Agree about Sven being a better manager nevertheless. But if you can't give credit for the work Allardyce has done with the backline, as bad as it was for eleven minutes today, then it'll be difficult for you to credit him for anything. He's brought in better defenders because he's had money to spend, when he gets them playing as a unit he'll get credit. Did you give him credit when the defence played as an excellent unit against Everton, Spurs, Wigan, and West Ham? they weren excllent against west ham or everton

whats pissing people off is that we have a squad much better than the performances given. It doesn't help seeing Sven work such amazing magic with his newly formed squad at Man City and them sdoing quite so blisteringly well either. Does kinda undermine any arguments people may try to make about Sam needing time to settle and gel the team... Not really. Sam was left with the daunting task of basically finding a whole new team. Sven had a solid backbone in Dunne and Richards and a lot of his effort could be focused on getting flair into the team. I'm sure in January and next summer, Sam will look for those flair players. ah come on, SGE had richards and dunne to build , then allardyce had owen,martins,butt,n'zogbia,milner,taylor. Yes, but Sam had to focus the majority of his efforts on defence and getting the players in there. The fact that we only just signed Beye and Faye at midnight on deadline day shows that he didn't have time to go scouting the world for flair attacking players. There were areas of more importance to look at, but I'm sure he'll look for flair players in the coming months. do you not think he could be doing better with the squad he's had since 31st august ?

First Google result I found. quick squiz through it and i couldn;t see that but even then you know if we offered the right money chelsea would let him move. No, I think that's complete fantasy tbh. i think abramovich would let him go for the right price as he'd like to prove him wrong

Everton... sp....... nah! no one would fall for that

whats pissing people off is that we have a squad much better than the performances given. It doesn't help seeing Sven work such amazing magic with his newly formed squad at Man City and them sdoing quite so blisteringly well either. Does kinda undermine any arguments people may try to make about Sam needing time to settle and gel the team... Not really. Sam was left with the daunting task of basically finding a whole new team. Sven had a solid backbone in Dunne and Richards and a lot of his effort could be focused on getting flair into the team. I'm sure in January and next summer, Sam will look for those flair players. ah come on, SGE had richards and dunne to build , then allardyce had owen,martins,butt,n'zogbia,milner,taylor.

First Google result I found. quick squiz through it and i couldn;t see that but even then you know if we offered the right money chelsea would let him move.

I think we paid out about £25m, and recieved about £14m through the Parker and Dyer deals. So that's only £11m, which compared to what the likes of Manchester City, West Ham, Portsmouth, Sunderland, and just generally in comparison to the crazy figures paid out this summer - it's quite limited. matters not on how much we spent but on the personnel at hand. (shakespearean toon)

he can

not sure how he would do in england without being able to buy who he wanted, then if was to be given that ability ?

that i'll agree with Coming from you that's a f****** rarity madass... seems obvious...results have been poor, hence he needs results to go for him. i know i can be a touch left field but the f****** obvious rarely gets past me. Being pissed I'm over compensating by drowning the thread in rationality. you............rationality. i don't see the connection I am held in place only by weather systems. you've added an "a" in "wether"

Dawson was good today tbf. i haven't watched motd but i'm guessing tbf means "totally blind fool"

whats pissing people off is that we have a squad much better than the performances given. Do we? Beye, Cacapa, Roz, Enrique are all unknown quantities still. We exagerate (myself included) the ability of players like Martins, Milner, Emre, and Taylor. Their true levels are probably that of an Everton team or a West Ham team. I don't know how good our squad is tbh, because although on paper we think we have a bunch of good players, they have very rarely shown it over the past few years. you do have a point there but i'm posting about derby,boro and reading not just today

that i'll agree with Coming from you that's a f****** rarity madass... seems obvious...results have been poor, hence he needs results to go for him. i know i can be a touch left field but the f****** obvious rarely gets past me. Being pissed I'm over compensating by drowning the thread in rationality. you............rationality. i don't see the connection

lots were saying before the game to play rozenhal as pompey dont play up and at em. then after we were 3 down we never looked like getting into it (milner n'zogbia switch after 60 mins)...did martins come on at half time ? did allardyce think at half time that his starting team (give roz for cacapa) would get us back in to it ? It's all ifs and buts though. On another day Cacapa would have dealt with goal 2 and 3 easily (i.e just cleared them both), and we wouldn't even be having this discussion. As for Martins, he did f*** all when he came on anyway (even if you can argue that he should have been on earlier), so I'm not sure what your argument is. my point is and i'll spell it out clearly for you......do you think, being 3-1 down at half time and showing little like getting back into it that we should keep the same 11(given roz for cacapa)? I understand your point, but there is also an argument that the starting eleven should hold the burden of trying to get us back into the game, and be given a 10-15 minute chance of getting us back into it... and then, if we don't get back into it, change it around. I don't know, maybe Martins could have come on earlier, but I wouldn't say Sam got that wrong, because it is debatable. they had the previous half hour to get back into it. fair enough if we were 1 goal down but 2 down and playing shit needed a drastic change.

that i'll agree with Coming from you that's a f****** rarity madass... seems obvious...results have been poor, hence he needs results to go for him. i know i can be a touch left field but the f****** obvious rarely gets past me.