Wullie

1-0 Boro. David Wheater, he fucking loves the Boro him like you know.

Enjoy yourself mate.

I agree he puts too much emphasis on it, but we've also scored from inswinging set pieces against Tottenham, Reading and Birmingham this season. I'd be surprised if we scored that many from set pieces all of last season. Also, iirc, wasn't Owen's goal against Everton from an outswinging set piece from Emre? Only because Geremi and Milner had gone off. Had either of them still been on the field, Emre would not have taken the kick. Yeah it's working to an extent but it's almost working too often - that's the only type of goal we're scoring and not enough! You can't base your game around set pieces. You can be strong at them, the best sides still are, but football matches by and large are won and lost in open play. They're good at that too, we're not.

Allardyce much prefers inswingers of all types, that's why we only ever take inswinging corners and free kicks in the hope that they'll get a touch (or not) and go in, like Charlie at Bolton and Oba at Blackburn. Ditto with the wingers, I've noticed the legacy of it remains at Bolton this season, they'll still always try to swing crosses in toward goal with the wrong foot so things like Milner at the SoS happen. It's this percentage thing that Allardyce is obsessed with, an attitude of "if you put enough balls in enough key areas, things will happen." Personally though, I'm rather of the opinion that it's a nonsense.

http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/4912/mag222coverxh6.jpg

Any better chap?

Wullie, man, fix your avatar! I've told you man, there's nowt the matter with it!

I wondered about a festive Pogues remix. "and the bells are ringing out for Habib Beye" Chez, you definitely mentioned to me in the pub that you'd heard some Happy Days/Habib Beye going on.

Telegraph:

Sepp: "So, since getting help, I'm THIS LONG all night!" Pele: "For fuck's sake..."

I really think Dave just meant it as a general comment to all, mate. He could hardly be accusing you of anything given that you copy and pasted from the Times.

7 games? Cripes.

"Concepted"

Today the Metro paper featured the quote from Barwick calling Capello "a winner with a capital W" and describing his attributes. However some joker had snuck in something about the last man being a "loser with a capital L" and describing how inept McClaren was in a similar fashion. It's not on the website but it was definitely there.

Not like ShearersElbow to come on here and moan about it.

Is Derby your game David?

Not sure what you mean. Viduka flicked it to Smith before he was fouled, that's right.

This might explain a few things as to how the big man views the players... No wonder Viduka's on the bench if Sam thought he was the playing s*** as a right midfielder. Thought someone would comment this... Seems I'm the only one who thought it was funny.

It was a great result but let's not pretend it was somehow a good performance. Both sides were diabolical and if we'd lost it, we could have had no complaints, same as Fulham can't. If me and Alex could see that blind drunk then surely everyone else can too.

I think Coach HTT & Wacko hit it right on the nose....English players and coaches spend very little time playing or coaching in other countries, which greatly reduces their ability to adapt new tactitcal schemes and training methods. Aside from Owen, Beckham, & McManaman at Real Madrid and Owen Hargreaves at Bayern Munich, no top Engilsh players have been successful outside of England since Platt & Gazza played in Italy. Indeed. Hargreaves doesn't count either.

Mincer!

Cech and Van der Sar. Where's the planks who love to tell us how shit Shay is in comparison to these world class keepers? Good as he is, Cech makes far too many big ricks imo. VdS is the same keeper who played for Fulham, just got a million times better when he put a red (well you know what I mean) shirt on.

Martins isn't playing up front btw. If he's not doing the right things on the wing... that's because he's not a winger. It's also very difficult for him and Milner to create for a striker who cannot and will not be created for. If people think Martins is not good at getting into goalscoring positions, then God knows what their thoughts are on Alan Smith. All the games he's been up front for us, I don't think he's had a sodding shot yet.