Wullie

The trouble with playing for draws is our lack of cohesion at the back. Reading should have beaten us out of sight last time out before "we" scored and sunderland could have murdered us today if they weren't absolutely fucking shit - if this is happening against the dross, God help us when we go to Old Trafford and the Emirates. Derby aside, it's not like we're going for draws, getting beat 1-0 with a fluke and creating nowt, it's that we're doing that (not today obviously but in general) but we're leaking chances in bucketfuls. That unfortunately is to be expected with a shiny new back four, of our five new defenders only one of them has played in this league before so to just bring them all in blind to a new club, send them out and then tell the rest of the team to invite as much pressure onto the new defence as possible is absolutely mental. Until they're fully settled as a unit, no matter who the personnel or the opposition are, we should be taking pressure off the poor buggers. As it is, they're making mistakes as individuals and as a back four and this is damaging confidence.

Trouble with the defence - as with the midfield and the attack to be frank - is that I doubt anyone in the league chops and changes as much as we do. Even Betitez tends to keep his back four reasonably consistent. There seems to be no reason to decisions like dropping Beye and Enrique. We shouldn't be dropping players on the basis of one mistake, otherwise you get a merry go round because players will always have good games and bad, and what's worse is that those two haven't even made those mistakes- ok Beye is still getting used to things but that's no reason to change your back four and as for Enrique, I think he's been one of our most consistent performers so far. Isegrim is spot too about changing the system and the personnel to deal with the opposition. He has to stop doing it in your typical Premiership games, let them worry about us instead of swapping things arund to "cope" with shite like Derby, Reading and this mob.

Fuck me.

More like Bowyer, two goals and an assist now.

What you on about? On about how he bottled every single challenge and i know that is not his game but still should get his foot in he pulled out of 3 challenges in the first half that led to Sunderland nearly scoring His passing and set piece deliveries were poor also How does "bottling challenges" not make him a good player then? Emre did ok imo, looked like he wanted to play football.

What you on about?

Barton was awful first half, thought he did well second though.

Christ, I feel like I've run a marathon. Happy with a point in the end, thought Martins was going to win it at the end, it would have been one of the greatest derby victories in my lifetime. Still a hell of a lot to do though, needs to find his best team and fucking stick with it. Why go messing with the full backs when they've done nothing wrong? N'Zogbia was again our most potent force even at LB, they were terrified of him. No surprise to see Viduka getting a slagging from some people. I thought he was class as usual. His pass over the top for Owen when he was about 3/4 of an inch offside was perfection.

Training as normal, so must be dropped. What I've noticed with Allardyce is that he seems to have some sort of buzzword each week which reflects the gameplan for the next match, and this week seems to be about Derby experience, he's playing players that have played before in wins over Sunderland, while apart from the two centre backs, all the other players have played in other famous derby games at some point. I'm obviously old fashioned, I'd rather pick the best team and just beat them in a game of football than watch fucking Smith run round like he's possessed and doing jack shit with the ball.

Bench?

What's wrong with Beye and Jose?

Fucking hell I'm nervous. Come on lads, let's fucking do the twats.

No need for the angst man. Whatever happens will happen. You can't alter it so why worry about it? We've just got to chill and trust them to do the business. Trust them Wulbert. You'll be surprised to know that hasn't made me feel much better.

Some worrying team talk in this thread. I'm alright now, but I'll be churning in the morning. If Alan Smith plays, my insides'll be like a washing machine.

It's a bit different, the red is being used to represent sunderland in fairness. I'm not gonna lose any sleep over it but it does seem a bit of a daft thing to do.

I'm gonna be shaking like a shitting dog on Saturday morning. I was alright last year cos they were that bad, even at one-down I thought we'd beat them but when we won 1-0 there a couple of year ago, Nobby penalty, I felt physically sick every second of the day until that final whistle went.

Give me a shout, let me know where you're at. I'll be watching it with a Boro fan so I'll need a friendly face to cry with.

Did it in 3:39:90. Quite tough, pretty pleased I got them all tbh.

Why? Neither are top class. One never will be and one will need an awful lot of work to get there. Personally I'd love ot talk about our top class wide men but the only one we have with any history of being that is injured (even then it is mainly his history that has been top class). The two young lads (and they arent exactly bairns are they?) are good squad players. Zog could be decent. N'Zogbia's played about an hour on the left wing this season for a start.

What a shit thread.

I usually go in there as well for the match, so I'll probably end up in there Saturday.

I don't think anyone would argue that Allardyce should stay regardless of results or performances. Roeder's team had showed no progress since he took over, hell, it went backwards from the initial 2-0 win over Pompey, which is why he was rightly sacked (or resigned - whatever). If Allardyce's team shows an improvement in performance, or shows some sort of direction, then I'm willing to trust him and give him a couple of seasons. If, of course, the team's regressed and still direction-less like it was when he was appointed, then he's got to go in time. Using that reasoning, the fact that we are currently worse than the first 45 mins away at Bolton means that Allardyce deserves to be sacked. It wasn't only the result you idiot, it was the performance in that game, and the other games during that period. I can't believe you responded to what I wrote literally. I can.

Surely people realise by now that what managers have won as bosses of the Old Firm means very little when we're talking about them coming to Premiership clubs? If winning small-time pots is all that matters as a manager, why don't we look in the Sunday leagues for our next manager, find the one with the most Shropshire Cup victories. Hyperbolic maybe, but Souness, Strachan, Smith are the types of blokes winning in this league. O'Neill I feel is better than the above, but he can't hold a candle to the top managers in the Premiership. Allardyce would walk the SPL and neither can he. A quick look at any of the squads that aren't Celtic or Rangers in the SPL tells its own story. Apart from Scots, they're generally made up of players who were either getting a game in League One and below or Premiership teams youth cast offs.

I was watching this the other night:

Do we know why Beye didn't feature on Saturday?