madras

still find it hard to believe that he's 6ft, just doesn't look it on the pitch.

Spurs. It hasn't happened in the last 2 games that I can remember, but it still happens too much. I do really like Santon but there's a lot of improving to do. it happened more than once V spurs in the second half. not so much the man outside getting by him with the ball, more the ball being played inside him to an oncoming player. he seemed a bit flat footed when it was happening. I wanted colo brought on at the time, let santon push on to the player and an extra body in there would squeeze the space the ball was getting played through.

You reckon ? Had pardew said that he'd get slaughtered on here. Firstly for not minding defeat and secondly for the gibberish that gaining points in their game tonight wouldn't alter their end of season position. I guess that's what this place does on the whole though, it's not what is said but who says it.

had a quick look on a couple of their forums and they don't seem at all confident, hope they're right. on a side note looking at tomorrows games there is a good chance for that gap between 9th and 10th to grow, making it more like two seperate divisions than for a long time.

Reminds me of Nookie the Bear for some strange reason. the ? always thought it was his surname, Nookie Bear and his being a bear was a coincidence.

just had that exact thought myself.

confidence is a big factor in sport, money has sod all to do with it.

The coaches. Have you seen the state of our backroom staff? So that makes SBR's judgment on Carver faulty as well, then...?? Regardless of how hagiographic you want to get about Robson... A. It's completely irrelevant B. Our backroom staff is terrible - there's no two ways about it. Don't be a coconut. So, to summarise, in your opinion SBR had bad judgement? Tbh, i don't have an ounce of the stuff you'd need a ton of to evaluate a man like SBR. You think differently about yourself. What qualifies you for that? Robson had excellent judgement but he didn't get the man he wanted. The rest of your post makes no sense. Particularly the last sentence. There's nowt wrong with Carver imo. And there's nothing behind your opinion at all. I never said there was. I said our backroom staff was terrible. Which juxtaposed to other premier league sides it is. There's nothing to it & Carver is nothing more than bad cop. (Which is useful no doubt) which sides in particular, just had a quick look at west brom, west ham, swansea, southampton, villa, everton and nowt really stands out as being a great coaching staff.

On what paper are Sunderland good? toilet

Aye fkn hell with Cabaye providing the ammo. HBA too, the understanding that HBA had with Ba was verging on telepathic. seriously ?

doesn't bother me one jot...........had we been playing man utd however

I didn't read your earlier post, sorry. even if you didn't would it change its validity...............aha ahahahaha!

Here's a thought, if we work more on our strengths instead of trying to work on other teams weaknesses we might not need a week to get ready for a game. As for Swansea, they are 2 points worse off than they were at this time last season, hardly the fall from grace we had. Last season we were down 12 points after 13 games on the season before so I'm not sure what the comparison is. the season whe finsihed 5th we had a great opening, momentum etc like I said earlier.

Taking things at face value, I hope we can come to some agreement with him at the end of the season and send him back home on loan to see if he can sort his family out and repair his marriage. yip, or take a small fee considering his age etc. a free at the end of the season wouldn't be too bad if they hadn't acted the twat to start with.

I doubt him wanting away will have any negative effect if his personal life is as bad as it seems to be, I'm sure the other players will understand. I'm not sure I would like to be thousands of miles away from my family and he deserves loads of credit for sticking with us if things are as bad as they look. and his perfomances seem to bear this out.

depends on the day, he had days when his control was evostik-like, when whatever came to him stayed there, other days he could control it 10yds.

better at some things but given the three, he'd be on the bench.

draw ?

totally different players, more players you play together than choose between.

thats the crux of it really, we weren't good enough to go into games without the preperation. if this makes sense, as a squad we didn't have the muscle memory, we aren't strong enough to impose ourselves on others without the preperation (imo not many teams outside the champs league elite have that). swansea (and this will probably bite me on the arse on wednesday) dont look like the team of last season for example, early i know being only a dozen or so games in.

then you bring momentums into it, easy to get into, difficuilt to get out of, all aspects of the club deserve blame for what happened then, hopefully we learned for it.

I disagree, it does have an effect, yes we beat coventry away 5-1 a couple of days after an away euro tie but you can't use that as an example. seems bleeding obvious to me if the players play more and the club have less preperation then they'll not be as cohesive etc. for all laudrup disagrees apparently the likes of ferguson and mourinho say more games and less preperation have adverse effects.

was he £5m? think so, that would make him cheaper than chopra i think

This attitude really baffles me.... we were in touching distance of the semi finals, we are not in the situation where we can throw the opportunity of a trophy away. We were also in touching distance of getting relegated. It's the slog of those group games against inferior opposition from the far corners of Europe that get me fed up, and which I think are a real drain on a club of our strength. They should make it a straight knockout competition, and dispense with the idea of 8 CL teams joining in half way through. can't decide if it was the travel and fatigue (as few players often played in both league and europe, especially early on) as opposed to lack of preperation for games.

it would be interesting to find out how the club would feel about another europa adventure. would we feel happier having had the experience from the other year, basically it was a new thing for the club (management both in the dugout and boardroom aswell as many of the players) and would that give us a better footing for another season both in europe and domestically ?