thomas

So the theory so far is Redknapp wakes up one morning and says "Fuck me! I want to manage Newcastle!" Rings Pini who then proceeds to ring Alan Oliver for Morts number. The Zahavster casually name drops Mourinho to grease the wheels. It works and he's put through to Chris, who has unfortunately been suffering from a bout of tinnitus and hears "Marcello Lippi" instead of "Harry Redknapp" and proceeds to blow his socks so far off they concuss Carr at the training ground. Sam is sacked and Mort is sitting in his office darning his socks while waiting for Pini and his client.

You're a piece of work. It wasn't "blindingly obvious" it was a barely plausible scenario that I chose to dismiss based on prior history of the man. When liars speak you tend to doubt them. If he's right he's right and I hold my hands up and say I was wrong.

The Mong who Cried Wolf, TBH. Alan's been on such a tear of printing shite for the last ice age, no one was ever going to believe it.

If it's Shearer ... well, it's been nice knowing a lot of you.

lest it get lost amongst the great quote pyramids of NE5gypt edit: new page! no worry

GET IN

Don't know if the legs are gone but it seems like he purposefully doesn't exert himself; might be scared of another injury. But wether it's physical or mental, he's useless to us right now.

Ouch, not even a mention of Enrique?

We what? edit: If you follow my post history you'll note I'm one of Sams bigger "give him time" cheerleaders. Today, however, I think he got it all wrong tactics and selection wise 1) Roz at RB? If ANYTHING, start Tayls at RB -- at least he has experience there at the senior level and loads of it for the U21 2) Smith and Butt in Midfield. No. Just ... No. 3) Swapping Duff/Zog on the wings at halftime. Recipe for disaster. 4) Drop one of Viduka or Owen for Smith/Carroll. I don't think that partnership can or will work.

They constantly got into good positions, n'zogbia had a decent corner or two as well as the odd good cross. Duff started out like a house on fire, glad to see he hasn't lost much. He does appear short of fitness though and no, didn't look that great in the 2nd half. I think his last one just sailed by my house. Honest to god he probably concussed four or five poor bastards in the stands. None of his shots resulted in the keeper making anything resembling a save.

Spot on

Anyone else note that Enrique and N'Zogbia never played a single 1-2 with each other? Every time one or the other would lay it off and start on a run whoever had the ball would turn their back to the sideline. Infuriating.

Kuyt looking quite crap tbh. Smartest thing Roeder never did

luton - pool very good first half

Which is the all that Dave and I have been saying. Firstly, I doubt the Shepherds, Halls et al carried out a scorched earth policy, destroying all files, contracts, rolodexes, e-mail contact lists or anything containing a phone number. While it's undoubtedly true that we did lose SOME inside contact information, I hardly think it was of such magnitude that Mort is rendered incommunicado. Of course it's conjecture on my part but I'd like to believe he reached out and established relations with those folk during his first few months in charge. Secondly, communication is a two way street. These agents and agencies who would like to tout players and managers are going to be proactive in contacting the new chairman. They'll use whatever channels they did before, which, again, I highly doubt were all of the "straight-to-the-chairmans-cellphone" method. As you say, it's probably in the top 20 "must haves" for an agent/agency, so even if mort was spending his days drumming his fingers on his desk, those agents/agencies would be reaching out to him. It's a fair point you make about agents, but I'm still siding with Occam here; the simplest, and therefore most likely, explanation is that AO is a tit and this is a BS story.

AO might indeed have Morts number, but there is absolutely no compelling reason I can see that a top manager (or his agent) would choose that route to contact the higher ups at Newcastle United. You have to ask yourself, does an agent or agency representing someone generally do that? Is that good business sense? Is it good for privacy? Agencies have contacts at clubs, at FA's, at manger boards etc, that they can all use before resorting to that. If you have, or can think of, a compelling, rational reason why a top continental manager (or his agent) would even KNOW of Alan Oliver, much less contact him, please state it.

What 'official channels' are these? The Yellow Pages? Exactly. I tastefully deleted my post though as you were saying the same thing. AO doesn't even register on the radar of top managers ffs.

Really provides something for the team to rally around though, doesn't it? An "us against the world" mentality of sorts.

as if there's not enough real material to beat allardyce with

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Defenders on ecently promoted sides would be well fucked wouldn't they? Might as well go on the dole It's not the worst of ideas, but the problem lies in the fact that, to some extent, bonus related issues would also be down to bad decisions by refs - cards, incorrectly (or correctly) ruled offside goals, etc. Throw enough clauses in and you've probably got a more complex contract than now. As well, you'd have to institute it league/federation wide, or else talent will flee from the incentive-based clubs and flock to the higher base pay ones.

jesus wept, is basic geography beyond so many? Losing Beye and Faye is going to hurt, but there's far worse temporary replacements we could be looking at than Haim :\

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The sooner people accept this the better.