James

I personally love the tactic employed by Butt when he makes a forward run when the ball is going behind where he was standing when he started the forward run, allowing the opponents AM to float in brilliantly behind the midfield.

Above Blackburn and Spurs

Anyone else been getting lots of SMF errors this half? Guests might need kicking.

As per usual for this season, it isn't working.

Massive game.

The jokes weren't as pathetic as the subject itself. Roeder goes to a Holland match to watch Kuyt for the millionth time... Benitez goes there to sign him. I thought he was actually watching Kuyt after he had agreed to sign for Liverpool....

It is not his opinion, it is Jackie Milburn's opinion of Newcastle's youth coaching.

Well it is a fairly interesting remark that just like today, we were missing out on top young talent in the 50s due to a bad reputation amongst footballers. Looks like we have very much stood still for fifty years.

Four Four Two interview with Bobby Charlton: "I was very close to Jackie...I spent a lot of time with him...and he actually put me off Newcastle, telling me, "They are dreadful, they're not very good for coaching."" How times change.

We need to fake a major news story to test the server in my opinion.

tbh, it will be the same for other sports in that Italy, Spain and Eastern Europe will have the worst problems, particularly compared with Great Britain, as the drug factories needed to be set up for some of the more effective and untraceable drug treatments would be very risky to set up in GB due to the lack of seclusion, unavailability of alternative electricity sources,and just the general impossibility of sneaking across any borders unnoticed. I think as well that being on an island, in terms of the social networks the British have been a little isolated , and as such the doping culture that existed in some sports never made it to the participants in some sports. Even so, even if there geniunely is less of a problem, in my opinion that doesn't mean that authorities should take a slack attitude on this issue.

I know, but I thought I'd add a bit more as to how I personally think it should be done. It is an hour of each day by the way. And considering what footballers get paid, an extra hour of their day is nothing, and besides they can easily arrange for it to be lunch hour at the club canteen or whatever, and can change where they are going to be at a minute's notice.

Really, stuff like cocaine really isn't an issue any more particularly with more random testing as you can't hide cocaine in the bloodstream. Clubs have been quite happy to take down a player on recreational drugs. Just to clarify, this thread is about stringency of procedures and attitudes to doping control rather than throwing around accusations of doping. decky's been doped i think. anyhow........apart from the knowing where they have to be 1 hour of each week which does seem a bit drastic,i have no problem with atesting team turning up at a training ground etc unannounced and testing everyone. I don't think it is drastic, I don't think it is enough considering that the improvements are in fact merely bring procedures from thousands of miles below to hundreds of miles below what other sports and other countries have been doing for years. As recently as 2003, one Premiership footballer told doping control that he had never been tested in a 12-year career. At the moment, one player who played in the game before will be tested, so if there were any concerns, withdrawal from a match would avoid that outcome. Furthermore, some drugs could be administered during pre-season to a whole team by a team doctor, and traces of drugs will be gone by the time the tests comes along, but the effects of the drugs will remain. Now there is the possibility that a player will be tested when they don't want to be, but if I understand the article correctly, only 30 of 2500 professionals in England will get tested randomly. Because tests aren't regular and systematic, it is impossible to build a biological profile for a player, basically if you take enough tests, you are able to look for more than just drugs, you can look for irregularities in body chemicals which change and fluctuate over the course of a season based on physical exertion. For instance, a fatigued player will be depleted of testosterone, but testosterone can be refilled to the maximum allowed level simply by applying a testosterone patch similar to a nicotine patch. Any tests that the PL do will just say that a player has the legal levels of testosterone. However, with systematic tests, doping control can spot that a player has more testosterone than you would expect them to have even though the test on its own displays legal levels of testosterone. Spotting such an anomaly, testing control can retest an individual. Why retest? Well there is a limit to what you can test with a couple of samples, and these samples are needed to test a wide range of things. Synthetic testosterone is difficult to test for in a general doping test, but if testers know what they are looking for, they have a better chance of finding it. Until this level of systematic testing is achieved, testing will always be ineffective.

Anyone know where I can get a Gutierrez Argentina shirt? I'm willing to pay the typical going rate for a L shirt plus number.

Really, stuff like cocaine really isn't an issue any more particularly with more random testing as you can't hide cocaine in the bloodstream. Clubs have been quite happy to take down a player on recreational drugs. Just to clarify, this thread is about stringency of procedures and attitudes to doping control rather than throwing around accusations of doping.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/7721593.stm This is all a fucking shambles. Gordon Taylor being happy with one player per team being tested post match? What a tool. Even with these so-called improvements, I could tell someone how to dope and not get caught. I don't personally think that the Premier League has a serious drug problem, mainly due to it's island location, but then again I don't believe that no footballer in this division has ever doped and not got caught. The attitude of the PL, FA, and PFA completely stinks, and it is pretty much established these days that authorities and club managers are just as culpable when it comesto doping as the dopers themselves.

Very well done guys, in particular to Rich and Dave and anyone else who has sacrificed sleep for the cause.

I certainly wouldn't. The man just isn't close to being good enough. We'll keep picking up the odd win so his time here doesn't look like a complete disaster and as I've said I'll give him credit for trying his best at keeping things ticking over, but that's all. Fact is he needs to go and be replaced by someone with a lot more tactical sense, Ashley needs to go so they'll be some spending and stability at the club, and the likes of Smith, Cacapa, and Butt have to be replaced as soon as possible. In a perfect world this would all be the case by the January window. In reality, whatever Harris says, I don't think it will be. To be honest, unless the new people want Keegan back, there is no-one out there who would risk coming mid-season who is better than Kinnear. £ $ £ $ £ $ Very naive way of looking at things when: a) There are no guarantees that the people going on will be able to pay any more than Ashley b) The new owners may be very limited in their knowledge of who the good managers are. c) Top managers put their careers ahead of financial gain in most instances. Any self-respecting candidate will tell us to wait until the end of the season if they think we want them that badly.

I certainly wouldn't. The man just isn't close to being good enough. We'll keep picking up the odd win so his time here doesn't look like a complete disaster and as I've said I'll give him credit for trying his best at keeping things ticking over, but that's all. Fact is he needs to go and be replaced by someone with a lot more tactical sense, Ashley needs to go so they'll be some spending and stability at the club, and the likes of Smith, Cacapa, and Butt have to be replaced as soon as possible. In a perfect world this would all be the case by the January window. In reality, whatever Harris says, I don't think it will be. To be honest, unless the new people want Keegan back, there is no-one out there who would risk coming mid-season who is better than Kinnear.

Shola got in the way.

URGH

It is really easy to get run over after the game trying to get to the Underground as well.

Come On Shay!

It isn't something he's done much in his career.

YES!