UV

Might very well be the best in the league. Not sure I can think of anyone who is better. Probably one of the main reasons for Spurs' excellent defensive record last season tbh. Turned down 11m

So much for the amazing training ground facilities that Fred put in place, eh. Immediately dissed! I was thinking that too, I seem to recall they talked about having visited Milan? I think it was, and building a state of the art training complex. They certainly bragged about it at the time. "It isn't a place for professional footballers to work on a day-to-day basis." That's hugely damning. No-one around to defend the amazing investment by the old board then? Wonder what the training ground was like _before_ we slapped some dulux on the squash courts. Tear the place down and start again tbh. String Freddy up from the tyne bridge for not buying those pot plants.

Rare decent point. You two are joking, aren't you? Ever since the takeover speculation started a few months ago, he's behaved a complete arse. He made it clear that he wasn't going to sell no matter what the offer, thereby putting his own wishes above the interests of the club. He wanted to obstruct a takeover, hoping that he'd then be able to get the Halls' shares on the cheap. He has shown no respect for Sir John Hall (who let's face it is the architect of the modern club), the fans or the club. And you're saying that SJH should have waited till he'd recovered from his cracked rib? This. SJH has the freedom to do the deal anytime he wishes. It makes no difference even if the deal is done when FFS is well and shagging about. Well unless he threatens to do physical harm to SJH has him been well, which in this case justifies the timing of the deal even more. Fuck This. You hypocritical bastards would have been all over Fred criticising him if it were the other way round. Personally I think the timing is purely coincidental, and I don't blame SJH for it at all, but his claims about only selling to Ashley because he's going to be good for the club are laughable. He's been touting his shares around to anyone who'll buy them for ages, and the fact Fred knew nothing about this is proof of his desperation to get rid to anyone whatever their motives. Please give me one example where he's "derided the toon publicly"

Shepherd couldn't afford it or he would have sold up to him without hesitation. If things were so bad, then why as the major shareholder didn't he do something about it and force a change of chairman?

I'd have: 2.5) Got to the ground well in advance realising this sort of thing was likely to happen. 5) Have a word with myself about the massive irony and hypocrisy of a set of supporters going on and on and on and on about "Justice for the 96" then trying to repeat the same scenario and having the nerve to blame the police again.

Thank god he's finally been replaced by someone who's only interested in the club for the love of it, and will pour money into the club and never take a penny out in profit.

Because he seems to be incapable of moving on. I'm sure he sits around at home constantly ringing up the English press. Ruud: "Hello, is that the Sun? Hi, Ruud Gullit here, I've got a story you might be interested in..." Sun Reporter: "Hang on Rudy, it's not about Shearer again is it?" Ruud: "No, no not at all .... well maybe a bit ... but it's a totally new angle on.." Sun Reporter: "FFS". Click Ruud: Sigh. Where's that number for the independant. Or maybe, just maybe he was asked a direct question about the much reported personality clash between him and Shearer during an interview he'd agreed to to do about the CL final, and gave a relatively uncontroversial answer. http://sport.independent.co.uk/football/european/article2573260.ece

You're not getting the point. The people who tend to make shitty threads will quickly reach this new postcount restriction without any problem. Only with additional moderation, manually removing their posting privileges will you stop them, so you're no better off having this restriction. The people you WILL stop are the new posters who actually think about what they post and have something relevant to say when they post. It will probably hit posters who support other clubs the most, who usually only post about subjects relevant to their own clubs. These are some of the best posters on here and give a different perspective on things. God forbid any of these posters should start a thread relevant to their club and ours: Name: Arsenal Ref Posts: 23 (0.032 per day) Name: Bolton_fan Posts: 26 (2.167 per day) Name: Reading Fan Posts: 28 (1.333 per day) Name: Rafa Posts: 84 (0.217 per day) There may be a point in having a requirement of 5 or 10 posts to avoid thread spamming during forum invasions, but quite frankly I've only ever seen that happen on a very few occasions anyway.

Forum Darwinism selecting those with verbal diarrhea and/or nothing to say. New poster A: Has insightful ideas and intelligent arguments which require thought and time to articulate correctly. Signs up, lurks a bit, posts a few replies a day during his lunchtime After a few weeks he decides to start a new thread debating the merits of psychological profiling of players to determine the best way to motivate them on an individual basis. Realises he needs to post 85 more replies before he's allowed the privilege of starting a thread. Says fuck that & signs up for toontastic New poster B: Great Post Great Idea mackems.gif Spot on I Microwave Hamsters. ... a day and a half later ... New Post: Luque? Does he deserve another chance? Is that what you want? 'cos that's what'll happen. PS Postcount++

It's sweet that some of you think these clubs are reducing prices out of the goodness of their hearts, but every single one of them is just trying to maximise revenue. Anyone want to guess which league table these clubs are 6 of the bottom 7 in?

So Spurs turned down Mourinho allowing him to go to his second choice Chelsea, and instead appointed Santini who lasted 13 games? And people have a go at our managerial appointments... Nope, Mourinho prefered chelsea to spurs once the chelsea managerial position was vacant. It was as good as vacant practically the whole of the 03-04 season. It was the worst kept secret in football at the time that Ranieri was going to be dumped at the end of that season and Mourinho was constantly linked. You'd better update Wikipedia with your version of events though as currently it says: No mention of his mad desire to join Spurs there at all.

I really wonder whether all the people drooling over Campbell actually saw him play at all last year. Most times I saw him he looked slow and lumbering and was far more error prone than Bramble. I guarantee if he comes here, after a couple of months people will be calling him another Boumsong and blaming the curse of playing in defense for Newcastle, mystified as to how he's suddenly become crap. PS If we end up paying Pompey for him, and they sign up Bramble for free, how stupid would we have been not to extend Bramble's contract if only to allow us to do a swap deal?

So Spurs turned down Mourinho allowing him to go to his second choice Chelsea, and instead appointed Santini who lasted 13 games? And people have a go at our managerial appointments...

Mistake letting Bramble go IMO. For all his faults he's currently the best defender we have, loyal to the club, and no bother off the field. Even if you think (as most do) that Taylor is better, he's easily the second best.

WOW that's some achievement already. 2 months grace of support from NM (although I'll believe it when I see it) before he's declared the worst manager in the league. Is that 2 months starting from now, or the start of the season?

It's a yes or no question - with three yes options I apologise. I realise now anyone voting yes would struggle with having to actually explain why.

Once again the "worst defense in the league" has finished in the top half of the defensive stats table despite being decimated by injury for the majority of the season. As we all know, all the players are the worst in the league in their positions (apart from one-man defensive hero Taylor of course), I guess it must have just been down to good management. If only we had a defense as good and well organised as Spurs, Bolton or Blackburn we could be in Europe next year :'( This Summer the defense HAS to be a PRIORITY!!!!11!!!!111 Team Pld W D L F A GD GFA GAA PpG Pts 1 Chelsea (2) 38 24 11 3 64 24 40 1.68 0.63 2.18 83 2 Manchester United (1) 38 28 5 5 83 27 56 2.18 0.71 2.34 89 3 Liverp[code]ool (3) 38 20 8 10 57 27 30 1.50 0.71 1.78 68 4 Arsenal (4) 38 19 11 8 63 35 28 1.65 0.92 1.78 68 5 Everton (6) 38 15 13 10 52 36 16 1.36 0.94 1.52 58 6 Aston Villa (11) 38 11 17 10 43 41 2 1.13 1.07 1.31 50 7 Portsmouth (9) 38 14 12 12 45 42 3 1.18 1.10 1.42 54 8 Manchester City (14) 38 11 9 18 29 44 -15 0.76 1.15 1.10 42 9 Reading (8) 38 16 7 15 52 47 5 1.36 1.23 1.44 55 10 Newcastle United (13) 38 11 10 17 38 47 -9 1.00 1.23 1.13 43 11 Middlesbrough (12) 38 12 10 16 44 49 -5 1.15 1.28 1.21 46 12 Bolton Wanderers (7) 38 16 8 14 47 52 -5 1.23 1.36 1.47 56 13 Tottenham Hotspur (5) 38 17 9 12 57 54 3 1.50 1.42 1.57 60 14 Blackburn Rovers (10) 38 15 7 16 52 54 -2 1.36 1.42 1.36 52 15 Sheffield United (18) 38 10 8 20 32 55 -23 0.84 1.44 1.00 38 16 West Ham United (15) 38 12 5 21 35 59 -24 0.92 1.55 1.07 41 17 Wigan Athletic (17) 38 10 8 20 37 59 -22 0.97 1.55 1.00 38 18 Watford (20) 38 5 13 20 29 59 -30 0.76 1.55 0.73 28 19 Fulham (16) 38 8 15 15 38 60 -22 1.00 1.57 1.02 39 20 Charlton Athletic (19) 38 8 10 20 34 60 -26 0.89 1.57 0.89 34[/code]

West Ham were only good enough to stay up directly due to the goals scored by a player they fielded ineligibly for three quarters of the season. An unfashionable northern team would have been docked points without hesitation. In '96 if they'd found out ManU shouldn't have been playing Cantona would you be saying it didn't matter?

Liverpool fans + Man U fans + ouzo = English teams banned from Europe for 10 years. Probably good for us.

And risk his job/position at the club. Top thinking batman. Like he did when he told a blabbermouth like you boy wonder? The papers protect their sources.

Your pal should sell the story to the press & make a bit of cash. The paper can corroborate it by calling in one of the countries many body language experts.

Better keeper isn't the issue being addressed with those stats, merely the "great shot stopper" myth.

What facets of Shay's goalkeeping makes him streets ahead? better shot-stopper, Jussi seems to be king of the hollywood save Jussi's handling isn't as good as Shay's more consistant, very rarely do we see Shay make mistakes Better shot-stopper is arguable, fairly similar imo. Handling? What like on crosses and corners? Shay doesn't make huge clangers but he also takes very few risks which doesn't help the defence. Our defence is s*** which dosen't help Shay. Got to agree with dinho on this. Shay is class woulden't swap him for any other keeper, its unbelievably clear to me that it is our defence that is poor. This whole Given as a great shot stopper thing is a self perpetuating myth based on the other myth that our defense is one of the worst in the premiership. His shots/goal ratio stats show he's average at best within the premiership. This season his injuries have allowed Harper to show he's not even the best shot stopper at the club. Given Minutes Played: 1791 Goals Conceeded: 26 Saves Made: 71 Shots per goal: 3.7 Minutes per goal: 68.9 Harper Minutes Played: 1265 Goals Conceeded: 15 Saves Made: 50 Shots per goal: 4.3 Minutes per goal: 84.3

No. Never. Chairman and manager must have left the squad without the strength in depth a top team should have to make progress in the Premiership.

This is the real reason that the government wont allow it, not the ridiculous public safety reasons they us as an excuse.