James

Someone has told me that Carroll is in for Barton, and the team is otherwise unchanged. Take it with a pinch of salt however.

The guy with glasses to his right looks mixed race to me....

Why? For example, a team like fulham who have a bit of cash, but not that much, would be better under wengers guidance than Fergies, who i believe heavily relies on money! Whereas i think Wenger could build up a quality team with little money, look at Kolo Clichy and Eboue less than 1.5 million for the 3! And i reckon them players would all have been willing to join a steady premier league side when they were at their other clubs! Would be different with Arsenal and Fulham. The £1.5m spent on the three you name is a bit of a red herring, as plenty of money is spent on other players at Arsenal so that those three made it. It's not really a red hering if they're in the black below the line isn't it? Of course they spend more money on players than just a handful of millions, but they recoup it by selling at a profit when the player is just past their prime and they have a ready made, perfectly groomed replacement lined up. Wenger edges it. It's hard to imagine where we would have been with a manager like him and the money we have spent over the last five or so seasons.. Ash said that Wenger could have developed those three players at a small club with small finances, whereas I'm saying he wouldn't because he needed to purchase more than those three individuals such that the environment was there for them to develop. Arsenal's finances are irrelevant in this case.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm under the impression that sparta no longer owns a share despite what he thinks....

Why? For example, a team like fulham who have a bit of cash, but not that much, would be better under wengers guidance than Fergies, who i believe heavily relies on money! Whereas i think Wenger could build up a quality team with little money, look at Kolo Clichy and Eboue less than 1.5 million for the 3! And i reckon them players would all have been willing to join a steady premier league side when they were at their other clubs! Would be different with Arsenal and Fulham. The £1.5m spent on the three you name is a bit of a red herring, as plenty of money is spent on other players at Arsenal so that those three made it.

Carroll, Forster and Edgar have been taken out of the reserve team for tonight, so they shall again be involved with the first team squad.

Regardless of how well the likes of Stam did after Manyoo, the fact is that you only leave Manyoo if Fergie wants you to leave. Something that has never been the case at Wenger's Arsenal.

Gary fucking Neville, one of the best 3 right-backs in the world? Fucking hell. I'd say he was around about 1997.

Typing a lot quickly into a teeny quick reply box means thhat you can hardly expect me to notice if I accidentally press two letters at the same time

Taken me a long time to answer my own question, but I wanted to properly think about it. The best way to look at it I think is to compare the two in numerous areas of the game: Past Record Wenger won a league and cup at Monaco having shown what he could do with a decent league performance with Nancy. Ferguson won the Scottish League and Cup with Aberdeen, breaking up the Celtic and Rangers dominance, before going on to win the Cup Winners' Cup. Immediacy of success Fergie took 4 years to win the FA Cup at Manyoo, 5 years to win first European trophy, 6 years to win first League Cup, 7 years to win first league, and 13 years to win European Cup. Wenger took two years to win league and cup double with Arsenal. Overall English success Wenger: 3 Leagues, 4 FA Cups (1 in 4 leagues, 1 in 3 FA Cups won) - 0.58 trophies per season Ferguson: 9 Leagues, 5 FA Cups, 2 League Cups, 1 Champions League, 1 Cup Winners Cup (1 in 2.4 leagues, 1 in 4.4 FA Cups, and two League Cups and two European trophies every 11 years.) - 0.82 trophies per season Young Players Wenger has developed a lot of raw talent into very good players. But a lot of his success relies on large quantities of youngsters increasing competition and increasing probabilities of there being one gem within a large group of players. For every Fabregas, there are three or four players who fall by the wayside. Ferguson's early success was helped by young talent from his own academy. Today, he brings young players in at a slightly older and slightly more proven stage for more money, but as of now, these players have been better than all of Arsenal's youngsters bar Fabregas. Quality of players I'd say that the following players have been amongst the top three in the world in their position at some point during their spell at either Arsenal or Manchester United: Arsenal: Seaman, Viera, Bergkamp, Henry Manchester United: Schmeichel, Cantona, Giggs, Beckham, Van Nistelrooy, Ronaldo, Scholes, Gary Neville It is easy to argue that is testament to Wenger as he is guiding players with less natural ability to trophies, but I disagree, if you are managing your team to some sort of league and cup dominance, some of your players should look world class regardless of natural ability. Lesser Players Neither manager can play an amazing team 100% of the time, but when a lesser squad player leaves Arsenal, they often turn out to be good enough to play for the first team of a top flight club. Meanwhile numerous squad players that looked good at Manyoo leave to other clubs and turn out to be a complete turkey. Fergie therefore seems to get more out of worser players, while Wenger has himself a larger pool of first team players. Evolution Both managers have managed to rebuild a successful team out of the remnants of a previous team. Wenger has done exceptionally well in that he created a new team from scratch. However it is said that Fergie was going to retire because he thought the game was evolving away from his preferred style of management. Opting not to retire, he successfully adapted by building a quality coaching team to surround him. Wenger has never really shown an ability to adapt between eras. Buying Players Fergie has consistently been able to attract more polished players than Wenger, with fewer snubs in the process. Keeping players You only leave Manchester United if you are shit, or if Fergie wants to make long term changes to the way the team plays. Players have historically left Arsenal for career purposes. Seeing the team past the finishing post Much less near-misses for Fergie. Quality of Football Both managers play exciting and attractive football. Mentality Arsenal are still the bad losers that Robson described. Both teams may moan and sulk on match day, especially if things haven't worked out, but Manyoo have more often turned a negative into a positive by the next match, but Arsenal have less bounce back ability, and this has made many of their seasons less successful than they should have been. Taking all into account, Fergie wins for me. Probably the worst time to start the poll last night though.

Babayaro Bernard

Out of these two people, who is the better manager? It's a tough one.

What a player Ronaldo is though. Best winger in the world for as long as I've been following football.

To be honest, it would be good for football if Arsenal won the CL. Bound to make UEFA over-react and push through several homegrown player rules.

= Edward Richard?

Slightly OT, but I once had the slightly surreal experience of watching the brothers Leon Cort and Tesfaye Bramble play together for Southend. Bramble was a striker, Cort was a centre back.

We've replaced a quick headless chicken with a slow one (Smith). Woo! N'Zogbia is more of a headless chicken than Dyer. So is Martins, come to think of it.

What about Kadar, Tozer and Edgar?

Well individually, Carroll was up against Anthony Gardner - a poor to mediocre Premier League centre half.

Snigger. Why would Steve Bruce want with Nicky Butt? He played his own son ahead of him. But then he restored Butt back to the team, and Butt played well for him in the final month as Brum nearly escaped the drop.

I've never said I'd be happy about it, but if we were relegated, we could either make a complete disaster of the situation with probably more disastrous consequences, or we could try to pull ourselves back up after the initial set back and try to find some positives from the situation and properly build for the future.

fwiw, I can see Birmingham and Wigan sniffing around Butt and Carr. To be honest, I can see Keegan identifying who could get their head down and play if we refused to sell them, and I can see Milner and Taylor staying put, perhaps with some kind of captaincy carrot pushed in front of them.

A Londoner getting to see more Toon matches isn't a good thing that could happen because of relegation. You'll be telling us about how great it is that you'll be getting to watch the Toon at Fulham again next season.

Relegation is definitely something no-one wants to see happen, but I don't see it being the end of all things that others would describe. At boardroom level, the worst case scenario is not as bad as it was 12 months ago. Some clubs are unable to rebuild after a relegation, as they have found that loanees increase financial restrictions. Certainly the fact that all debt tied to the club has been paid off means that the club has full command over its own finances, even if Ashley decides to bail out on us. Ashley would need to make a choice however, he'd have to back us or leave, as the priority must be to get promoted the following season, and if he wont back us the valuation of the club would decrease exponentially each year, then he needs to sell and cut his losses. Whatever, it is in whoever owns the club's best interests to secure immediate promotion, and there shouldn't be any immediate financial issues that can hold back our dealings. Looking at management, I think there is no better man for the task than the man already at the helm. Of the three club sides Keegan has overseen, he has got them all promoted in style. Keegan is rare in that he is one of the few people out there who has gone to clubs that were quite honestly below him, and has used his own quality to improve them. If Keegan does go though, the obvious candidates are a bunch of mediocre people who at very best could get us avoiding Premiership relegation next season. We should do what Juventus did and look for someone ambitious who has the potential to grow with the club. The standout candidates would be Boothroyd, Pardew, Ince, Adams and Shearer. The club will certainly haemorrage players. No chance of keeping Owen, he'd end up at West Ham or something similar. Clubs will almost certainly try to poach Martins, Beye, Faye, Butt, Duff, Cacapa, Carr, Geremi, Given, Smith, Viduka, Enrique, N'Zogbia, Milner, Taylor, Rozehnal. Not much of a team left, but apart from where there are contract issues, we will find ourselves in a relative position of power to not be bullied into selling, and I believe that Keegan may be able to persuade a couple of players to follow Keegan's example as a player, and remain at the club. I can see us being left with some bare bones regardless, and before signing anyone, I'd imagine that we'd be left with: Harper, Krul, Soderberg Taylor, Edgar, Kadar, Tozer Milner, Lua Lua Carroll, Ameobi, Zambrella. It would be interesting to see how many of these players would be good in the Championship. This looks terrible in all honesty, but some people believe that there has been a disease at the club where players with big reputations have come here for a final payday more than anything, and relegation would certainly cure us of that disease. Additionally, it would give development players more of a chance to develop by playing in first team games. What if we were to keep Wise and Veterre working on this development outlet? Perhaps we could persuade ten more very promising young players to come into the club by offerring the opportunity to develop into a top quality player by playing games and getting their team promoted back into the top flight. Regardless, these wouldn't be enough, but there are very good Championship players who we could attract then sell on 18 months down the line. If we could sell the potential of the club, the likes of Koumas and Jason Roberts would come and give us the quality we need to dominate the Championship. Then we could hope that the next season, the developmental players would be holding their own, so that we could then replace Koumas and Roberts with Premiership standard players to hopefully complement a new batch of talented youngsters. Some fans might stop going to games, although perhaps these are the fans the club doesn't need right now. I reckon we could keep a raucous crowd, high in numbers that could create a fortress, plus possibly an injection of more youth into the crowd. All in all, I think that if we went down, which again I must emphasise that I hope doesn't happen, we would come straight back up in style, and build a better platform for our Premiership future than we can build at this exact moment.

Derby rejected a bid. "They (Newcastle) did come up with an offer yesterday, a verbal offer, but it was nowhere near our valuation," Jewell said. What more proof to you want, should i get Skirge to do a question time for you? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2008/01/29/ufnbarnes129.xml Still, there is no indication that Derby wanted to sell, or that we intended to buy him as an immediate first teamer. He could have fallen under Wise's jurisdiction rather than Keegan's as far as we know. At the end of the day, ten days was not nearly long enough to make any arrangements. If Barnes is that good, it would be worse if semi reliable ITK rumours are true and Shepherd backed out of matching a £2m valuation at the last minute back in 2007.