UV

Better than Fabregas!

How is Babayaro a first teamer "at a stretch"?

good

Chimbonda - fair enough Bridge - dismissed in OP Gudjohnsen - cost 12+3m euros - too expensive Malbranque - only £2m less than Duff, same age as Duff, versatile like Duff, on form not as good as Duff. Are we that short on cash? Campbell - high wages, poor fitness, in decline, not hungry Barry - pipe dream getting him at all never mind a swap for Milner Plus you're offloading 2 of our best players this season.

We're not going round in circles. We're not going anywhere because you're avoiding answering any of the points. Anyway, I'd like your opinion on this proposed set of transfers for Summer 06: RB: Chimbonda - 2m plus Faye and Butt who have both been linked with Wigan in the past LB: Bridge - 3-4m ST: Gudjohnson - 4-5m RW: Malbranque - 3m CB: Campbell - 1m LM: Barry - swap for Milner

Yet you still haven't said who would play instead. Which games would they play in, the important ones or the "easier" ones? Do you think most supporters would be happy with the situation when n'zogbia was rested and replaced by someone not used to playing on the LW? What about when he suffers the typical run of poor form that young players have after their first good season? Do you not think people would be whining about lack of adequate backup in that position just like they are now about the full back positions? Ridiculous statement. So it's "who knows" regarding injuries, but "can't be denied" regarding playing development. I could just as easily say "who knows whether playing a lot of games so early in his career brought his game on in leaps and bounds, maybe it did, maybe it didn't. What playing regularly did do however which can't be denied, is affect him injury wise." Would you say that team based training for regular games each week is better for a young players development than training geared more to the development of the player without the pressure of the needs of the team week in week out?

The original attack came through the middle, so obviously he's going to be towards the center. You don't want your defenders stuck out wide marking the winger in that situation. Should have been Duff's man really.

Are you actually coaching kids? What are you teaching them? If there's a player in your position who's better/ more experienced than you ignore them and don't try to learn anything from them. If possible move to a new team where you're automatic first choice with no competition so you can play in as many games as possible, at least 50-60 a season? Worrying. Fair enough, but if we do indentify players that way, Duff sure is an odd signing, as are numerous others. I think you know deep down that there is an inherent flaw in our policy and before anyone starts, I'm not having a go at the club here either, signing the right players is damn hard but I can't help feel we don't exactly help ourselves or do ourselves any favours because of our policy or ways in the transfer market. Regarding Duff and N'Zogbia, by signing the Irishman we are curtailing the Frenchman's development, blocking his path to the first-team and that isn't even going into the whole "did we really need Duff"? debate either which just adds to the whole idiocy of his signing anyway. N'Zogbia or any talent like him needs to play as many games as they can at that age to develop IMO, not competition. Did Fergie buy a class player to provide competition for Giggs or did he allow his talent to flourish by playing games uninterrupted? And while Duff is or was a top player, he didn't bring anything new to the club that N'Zogbia couldn't provide, i.e. he is no improvement down that left-flank, as his performances have shown. Giggs has only played over 40 games in a season once in his career, and Man U typically play over 60 games a season. Maybe he was played too much as a youngster which fucked up his long-term fitness? I still can't quite believe you would recommend playing a 19 year old for 50-60 games a season, and if we don't flog him into the ground who would we play on the left who wouldn't just be a make-do solution? Please don't say Luque. You don't have a very high opinion of your fellow supporters do you? I know I've come to expect that a lot of people have different ideas about the players/club than me (ie wrong ones), but even I don't think there are a significant number who are as superficial and ignorant as to be appeased simply by "big name signings". Maybe you could point some out on this board?

In before Northern Monkey. He turned the corner about 2 years ago, but he only has to make 1 mistake and all his good work in the rest of the season is forgotten by most (if it was ever acknowledged in the first place).

Disagree with the basic premise of the OP that we don't do the things advocated anyway, simply that the manager has different opinions to you and isn't in possession of a crystal ball. This stood out for me though: Are you actually coaching kids? What are you teaching them? If there's a player in your position who's better/ more experienced than you ignore them and don't try to learn anything from them. If possible move to a new team where you're automatic first choice with no competition so you can play in as many games as possible, at least 50-60 a season? Worrying.

Can't believe so many Toon fans wanted us to wait until after the world cup to chase after a manager who isn't interested in getting back into management full time, laughable really mackems.gif

Carr is a better defensive RB than Solano, and a better attacking RB than Taylor. Having Carr at RB allows us the option of subbing Milner/Solano on the RW if we need to change things around. Welcome back Stephen Carr.

Taylor has 3 CS in his 19.5 games (and one of them he was at RB) what does that make him?

Sting's just a KBJ tbh.

I didn't realise that until now, thanks for the heads up. Ship the fascist bastard out. http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/870/di20canio1xi9.png http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/3528/41398551luquepatw6.jpg

England already has the maximum number of European places a country can have and is in no danger of losing that. The further they go, the more money they get, the better players they can buy, the harder they are for us to beat next season, the less likely we get high enough in the league to qualify. Your logic is severely flawed. Having said that, I still want most English teams to win most of the time (certain teams excluded and depending on the opposition) when we are not in that particular competition. It makes me feel better knowing we are in a league playing against a lot of the best teams in Europe/the world, and puts the constant whining on here about what a terrible team we are into perspective.

League Record only: [pre] mins GA goals per game Onyewu 2 360 4 1 Bramble 2 1244 15 1.085209003 Moore 2 1123 14 1.121994657 Babayaro 2 945 12 1.142857143 Carr 2 1335 19 1.280898876 Taylor 2 1755 25 1.282051282 Ramage 2 1595 24 1.354231975 *Solano 3 1354 22 1.462333826 Edgar 2 241 4 1.493775934 Huntington 2 901 16 1.598224195[/pre] *Solano wasn't playing as a defender for a lot of the games included in this No shock in seeing these stats for me, but I guess I'm just drawing attention my inherent stupidity there.

http://www.stevewalton.co.uk/

Not "people" I notice, just "white people". I object to being stereotyped and discriminated against because of the colour of my skin. I think there's a word for that.

Would love it to be true. It'd certainly open up another European spot... But Spurs will be there or thereabouts come the end, don't you worry. Im not worrying as they won't be. Expect a shock then mate. Do you have a soft spot for Spurs? They are rubbish. People bang on about Berb but he is terrible away from home, JJ is rubbish, Robbo is a joke and dont even get me started on Dawson. Tut, tut, don't you know we're just the luckiest team in the league, after all Spurs have a world class chairman, manager, defense, midfield, attack, scouting network, transfer policy, tea lady, etc. It's a complete freak that we're ahead of them in the league, have conceded less and scored more goals with our reserve team playing for most of the season considering we have the worst chairman, manager, defense, midfield, attack, scouting network, transfer policy, tea lady, etc in the league.

We need to "do a Liverpool" and go crying to UEFA if we don't get in.

Spot on, especially para 3.

With stats as crude as this, defenders in 4-3 victories come out better than those in 0-0 draws, and conversely attackers in 3-4 defeats come out worse than those in a 0-0 draw. Far more relevant IMO are the stats for goals conceeded per game for the defence/midfield, and goals scored per game for the attack/midfield. Here's the defensive stats for league games so far: Player Mins Conceed min/G Luque 99 1 99.00 N'Zogbia 882 9 98.00 Moore 1123 14 80.21 Babayaro 855 11 77.73 Harper 929 12 77.42 Duff 1220 16 76.25 Bramble 974 13 74.92 Pattison 213 3 71.00 Parker 1827 26 70.27 Carr 1335 19 70.26 Sibierski 1032 15 68.80 Milner 1750 26 67.31 Martins 1873 28 66.89 Ramage 1595 24 66.46 Taylor 1485 23 64.57 Ameobi 636 10 63.60 Given 1317 21 62.71 Edgar 241 4 60.25 Dyer 956 16 59.75 Butt 1422 24 59.25 Emre 1368 24 57.00 Solano 1118 20 55.90 Huntington 815 15 54.33 Srnicek 94 2 47.00 Onyewu 90 2 45.00 O'Brien 90 2 45.00 This proves that Harper, Carr, Moore, Bramble, Babayaro is our best defense. However it also shows that we need to play Luque for his defensive abilities