madras

lambias will have a little tug on his sleeve before he leads the team out "and just remember, any silly stunts like deliberatly playing shit and we'll keep your registration till the very......last.....day!"

full backs getting the ball off the keeper, either centre half, perch and either sissoko, anita or cabaye if need be.

he was a classic winger in france but they don't look for the cross played in but the pass played in.

he can sit front of the back 2 (as it will be when debuchy and santon push on). my idea is that with them, particularly sissoko having little time to even train with his team mates but not wanting to waste him, have someone behind him purely as cover. it would be a waste of cabaye or perch to put them there and perch is more than capable

Only 10 players in that first line-up madras. edit: crafty very quickly edited when i relaised i'd left anita out at first.

what i'd play.... krul debuchy saylor colo santon perch anita cabaye sissoko marveaux cisse what i'm expecting.... krul debuchy saylor colo santon cabaye anita gouffran marveaux jonas cisse

williamson won't start. shola starting is my worry.

Thing is i don't think he will be replacing Colo, i know he's here at the moment but Mbiwa is Colo's long term replacement and any CB we buy will be a partner for him rather than a replacement for Colo. That's how i see it anyway. that make sense to anyone ?

us and williamson last season ?

Sissoko said the last time he spoke to us was in October before the transfer bid. possible that a pre contract was almost agreed then ?

in the way we went back for debuchy and cisse i can see this coming off at some point. i wonder if , after being linked with yanga-m'biwa and sissoko last summer, there had been any contact at that time and continuing till this window to persuade them to come here ?

He says similar to the two above posts on desert island discs, which very kindly someone provided a link to in that very rtg thread. If you have a listen he talks about going to Fenwick before the game, how his dad bled black and white "as do I". Sunderland are mentioned once. Nah just kidding, Sunderland aren't mentioned at all.

Yes it was real but in the early 80's when he was England manager after dropping Keegan. NOT as they would have you believe when he was our manager and by a moronic one or two ,not the entire stadium as again, they would have you believe.

thats' the point, i don't think he ever said he supported them, just that he soemtimes went to roker as a kid (mind you that was at a sunderland players testiimonial dinner), i can't find anything in print or interview.

He can be so dominant in games these days, and so clinical in front of goal. Really looking forward to Real - Man Utd. Think he's gonna destroy them on the counter almost single handed. Have to say, I admire him, he's such a great athlete. The way he moves just shows how good he is in shape. Never injured as well. Aye, he was pretty average in the first half, but turned it on in barely 10 minutes to decide the match. Personally think he'll murder ManU, not that I will enjoy it. Vidic and Rio very much on your own there.

How the f*** do you know that I haven't seen him play? And its beside the point, thats a big stretch, he may well be, what if gets injured? then what? Its still Shola and Gouffran. I know, you haven't seen him. Ooooh is this going to be like on the mackem boards ? "how do you know I haven't seen him ?" "because I'm your twin brother and we share a room"

ha, thats like when we were kids.

they don't know yet. they sign him, "fantastic signing, just what we need, was never a mag" they don't sign him "didn't want him as a he's just a shit mag"

i put a bit on real madrid at half time and was tempted to do the same here but having watched so far it'll need better odds than so far given.

us ?

so, the irish, the north sea, money is tight, local public transport now it's matches being on a saturday. oh aye, and the dead!

They get so worked up about it and it's something so trivial If he was a Sunderland supporter that's fine by me, however I would think he's a pretty lousy supporter if he basically lied about his allegiance the minute he got our job. Even Bruce didn't do that at their place. I can only vouch for what I know and that is that he consistently said he was a Newcastle supporter. I've never heard him say otherwise and in spite of the evidence posters on RTG talk about proving he was a red and whiter I haven't been presented with any, therefore I've got to assume he was genuine when he said he was a Newcastle supporter. Always seemed to me he's a Newcastle fan, but one of those (a generation?) that wants to see the north east do well. I believe it's possible that he may've said he 'supports' Sunderland, while being a Newcastle fan. apparently he said at gordon armstrongs testimonial dinner that he used to go to roker as a kid. many did just to watch a game of football, sunderland would come through to SJP similarly without being NUFC fans. i used to go to darlo a bit when they were at feethams. however despite all the evidence, the mans own writings and live interviews they twist it into, he was really a mackem. sad really.

argentina '78 in alaphabetical order, ardiles wearing no.1.

i could never get my head round it when a young'un with ray kennady wearing 5 at liverpool and phil thompson wearing 4.

What people forget is the margins of our victories last season were always slim with only WBA away and Stoke at home being anything close to comfortable... Doesn't take many injuries and other teams strengthing for that slight balance to change... Just because we finished 5th a lot of people on here go on as if we smashed a load of teams... Yeah but we were very comfortable at the back a lot of the time, didn't feel too nervous like we do now from set pieces in particular You obviously don't remember hanging on against Fulham, Wigan, Norwich, Wolves, Villa and Everton all at home and that's just off the top of my head... i don't really remember us hanging on in those games as much as the oppo had some chances, usually when level. we saw out most of the home wins quite comfortably, more comfortably than the crowd seemed to realise at times.