madras

What's it like in Europe? Europe ? Now there's a memory. It's where that man who called you nasty names ran the club you say you support and played there more than any other chairman in the clubs history Fancy that eh mackems.gif d'you think we'd have got back into europe with a fat fred board ?

True, if you get a better player then you pay more in wages but I meant the income all going to the players rather than on transfers and wages. neither of which benefits the club or the fans

why? his last 2 clubs he hasn't been demed worthy a starting place....maybe it wasn't just us ?

Not if it's an increased transfer kitty. which needs bigger wages

same thing ?

oscar swarfega (diego's younger brother) should be available in the summer. his conratct with FC cilit is apparently down the toilet

Because the idea put forward by the media is that no club has a right to think of itself as being a bit different, more special, based on a different way of thinking than anyone else. Which is utter f****** s****. You obviously lap up whatever Martin Samuel wants to feed you. Do you boycott all of news international of just the sun? Apparently not as you seem to be just regurgitating his ill thought out and simplistic point of view. Clubs are different, fans are different, places have different affinities to their clubs. Bilbao, Napoli, Barcelona are just a few examples of why clubs are not created nor should be treated equally. It may seem a contradiction but you can only really see this when you are capable of objectively looking at the situation, rather than from a partisan point of view. Show me a Wigan fan who thinks they are just as special as Barcelona and i'll show you a retard. Good examples. More a way of life than a club. Cultural impact of such clubs and their hinterland is what makes them special. Those clubs are all intertwined with political strife though - Bilbao and the Spain / Basque issue, Napoli the Northern / Southern Italian economic and political divide, and Barcelona the Catalunya / Spanish issue. There are no English clubs which have this element to them - only Celtic and Rangers really have it in Britain. I'd tend to agree that these clubs are "more than football clubs" but that is because they are about more than football, not just because they've got lots of fans. Arsenal have lots of fans, and they're increasingly about little more than selling 'Premium Seats' and 8 quid portions of fish and chips to bankers and lawyers these days. i reckon newcastle/sunderland/leverpool have as much in that scheme as napoli for the same reasons you ascribe to napoli.. the celtic/rangers thing i don't understand as they are scottish man utd's

It's not so strange, Shepherd had used up any goodwill a long time ago. If Ashley and Mort make blunder after blunder with their decision-making they'll soon find support dwindling just like the old board. In the meantime you can either buy in and see if they deliver, or you can decide they don't know what they are doing and hark back to the Shepherd glory years. the hilarious thing about this, is you seem to have convinced yourself that the new board have done better already I'm not convinced of anything, but will give the benefit of the doubt until I know better. If you can tell me for definite that we are doomed to failure next season under the new regime and why I'll listen, otherwise your conjecture's no better than mine really. Except, mine isn't "opinion". The highest 3 consecutive league positions in 50 years is a FACT AND NOT OPINION As is also the FACT that only 4 clubs have qualified for europe more than us in the last decade, and also in the last 15 years. Your "opinion" may tell you different if you like but I prefer to go by facts. Cheers Have we been here before? and your "opinion" is that these facts aren't facts, correct ? mackems.gif true enough they are facts,as is the fact we'd been going backwards at a fair old pace for a couple of years. factalicious.

totally different as lerner (although he didn't own the club at the time) was the man behind getting o'neill in. Fair comment. The owner still removed (and a decent and vocal section of fans contributed to that action) one of the most successful British managers with a background of building a modern infrastructure at a club before giving him enough time to make an impact on the club or the team. I can see why he did it, and I can understand why the fans weren't more patient with Allardyce too, I just happen to think it was the wrong move. oh he made an impact all right

at the same time if clubs were limited in how many they could have they may not go for the mediocre foreigners but keep there allocation for the special.

Well the closest recent example would be Villa, and they gave O'Neil plenty more time to turn things around. We at Reading had a similar poor run under Coppell when we blew our play off chances on a run of 11 games without a win. Yes there were rumblings amongst a small number of fans at the time but the owners stuck with him. Slightly different as he was their man in the first place but we were pretty dreadful! Allardyce did also spend a bit of money yes, I'm not trying to defend him, but was it that much relative to the current market place? You'll know the figures better than I will but I guess you were hoping for an impact similar to Sven's at City or O'Neil's at Villa but he didn't, from memory, have anywhere near the kind of money they had. I can understand the wrong man at the wrong club/wrong time arguement, and if he was the new owners man I'm sure it would've been different, but from an outsiders point of view it was a rash move. totally different as lerner (although he didn't own the club at the time) was the man behind getting o'neill in.

i personally think each country should have a limit of non-domestics who can be the starting 16.

The change in ownership certainly handcuffed Allardyce, but I was talking more about the fans reaction and expectations than that of the owner. The owner was obviously the one that pulled the rug on the manager but he does seem to be led by the feeling 'on the terraces.' On the special club comments...as a fan of a small club I've never really wanted Reading to be like any other club, I've just wanted us to the best we can. I can't say I like a lot of the rubbish that surrounds being in the Premiership but I can understand the arguement of the Barca's etc being more than just a football club because of the history of the region. That might mean a lot in terms of the scale of feeling and the numbers involved, but it doesn't really make much difference on individual level (although taking my club as an example, we only really have probably 5-8,000 proper hardcore fans amongst our 18,000 STH who have the club as close to their heart as perhaps your 50,000 (or whatever number you want to go with) Geordie nation addicts). You support a massive club, that make it speacial in it's own way, but all clubs are special in their own different ways. allardyce was given as much to spend on average as previous managers. he offered no hope of improvement....so i'll ask again,how long would any club with a new owner keep a manager in that situation ?

To be fair to Wacko, as another opposition fan that pops on here every now and again, I have to agree that the posts on this site do nothing to dispell the so called media stereotype of Geordie fans expectations and lack of patience. Even some of the replies on this thread trying to disprove it just add more weight to it. As painful as it can be to watch, at some point your going to have to give a manager time to actually build a team and see the job through, even if at times it doesn't look like it's going to pay off. I pity some of the football you've had to put up with under the likes of Roeder and Souness but you have to accept that it's a long process to rebuild, unless you get lucky AND throw lots of money at it like City have with Sven this season. yet the majority just want improvement. how long do you think a club with a new owner would give a manager who shows not even a hope of improvement ?

i think we had him on trial

but divers often get caught,and i'm not just having a go at the cynical hack. whati mean is cheating....is the dive as bad as the trip on a midfield break ?,they arent tret as such by refs or fans

I know they are on a bad run, I hope it continues. yet again i have had to stop myself from posting their fixtures

Reading are a strange one, they've lost as many at home as they've won 6 and 1 draw so they could expect to beat Blackburn, Birmingham have only won 3 at home. reading have the worst run in of all the bottom teams (when i say bottom i mean it)

you say diving or cheating......does that include the regular emre clip of heels when someone breaks past him or defenders putting arms round forwrds at corners etc *ie fouling. what i'm trying to do is equate the ronaldo dives with certainn defensive practices.

we all scream when a player dives, yet when a defender "trips" a forward we say he done the right thing. either way it's cheating and distorting the rules. at corners and free kicks we want our defenders to foul and cheat as much as necessary yet when ronaldo hits the deck its a heinous crime? discuss

Shearer wasnt better.....he was f****** way better!!!He pissed all over Ronaldo!!! different players,different strengths

don't milk it lads, a fantastic player(in his prime) has reached the end of his career,it's been on the wane for long enough.

his first couple of seasons at barcelona he was the best footballer in the world

When Roeder had more players to chose from we played worse and got beat more often, that's the sign of a s**** manager, Souness was the same. maybe we should have got roeder back till the summer then got keegan ?

No it hasn't, it's probably better than it would have been if they hadn't. sure it is, we're having our best and most exhilerating times since.......err......... the relegation struggle of 1992 perhaps ? Nowt too embarrassing though. and many would say we are in this position due the appointment of allardyce who was backed to about the same tune as the previous regime would do on average ?