James

Emre will never be fit enough to start. He's bound to disappoint. Last 30 minutes off the bench is how he is most effective, and therefore how he should be used.

Jesper Gronkjaer

Like I said earlier: As long as we invest in youth and match it with the best players we can possibly get now, there is no problem. Shepherd's transfer policy helped leave us £100m in debt, a lot of which was spent in periods when we weren't competitive, and there was too much short-termism. Short-termism is only good if there is also a good long-term plan in place - something that we did not have post-Robson.

Paul Pott's teeth straightening surgery went badly wrong.

The next Maradonna tbh. Pele man, get it right. Rob Lee

Place one youngster with excellent potential in a team of misfits that wont make it professionally in the reserve or youth teams is not going to turn that youngster into a good Premiership player. The better the crop of youngsters in our academy/reserves, the better the chances that one or two players will come into our first team and become a good regular feature. Its survival of the fittest, and the fittest has had to constantly better himself to stay ahead of the opposition. This is partly how the youth setup works in Brazil.

With our Youth Team getting knocked out of the FA Youth Cup by Shrewsbury, we need to bring in as many good youngsters as possible.

Not holding it against Capello, but that press conference was an absolute mess, from Barwick shouting at everyone at the beginning, the press asking some rude, unanswerable questions, the translator mis-translating, the translator interrupting Capello, Brooking only speaking to deny saying something mentioned in a question to Capello, and Capello generally understanding more than what he was letting on.

Its a fitness related substitution. Geremi's performance always drops in the second half.

You would have Rozehnal in the team ahead of Cacapa HTL?

Drop Martins. Play N'Zogbia up front and play Enrique at left back. Drop Butt. Play Rozehnal in midfield and Faye/Taylor/Edgar centre back.

Yes, Geremi has been poor lately, but to say "get rid of him" is just stupid. He clearly can play well as he has shown in pre-season and we're going to have to be patient with him. If he doesn't find his form eventually then he'll have to be more of a bit-part player and someone else will have to be captain. He's also decent at right back if Beye is ever injured or moves to the centre. im entitled to my own opinion never mind your entitled to your own opinion its twenty past eleven at night now get to bed me lad Your IP matches, so even pretending for a minute you aren't just Kev, why don't you just say it to him in person? who's ip matches who's ? Kev and loves the toon have the same IP address. 20mins between posts. he has the same ip as me when he stays at mine.he signs on my pc in his name hes at home so hes on his own http://www.legendsofamerica.com/photos-ghosts/HomeAlone.jpg

It was more the overly-dramatic statements rather than construction, for me anyway. You don't agree that our 'squud will collapse'? Not as such, no. It may collapse, but it will gain an extra u in the process.

Does Kev have more than one IP address?

There is a big difference going to a new country, being introduced to a different culture and playing in another league than joining a team in the same league where your team mates are brilliant. If he was good he would easily adapt into that back 4. Is Ben Haim's positioning 1 out of 20 in FM by any chance? Chelsea are a completely different culture to Bolton tbf.

Some players don't work at certain clubs. Doesn't make them shite. You should know all about this Luque fanboy

Its a bit unrealistic to expect our defenders to find Geremi at halfway. Its tactics like that which lead to long ball, even if that wasn't the initial intention. Also, passing from centre back to attacking full back can be quite risky these days when Premiership teams like to play Kuyt and Bellamy style players who play as a first line of defence. Getting the ball to the full back via Geremi allows the full back to push up without running the risk of a dangerous interception.

I remember the days when everyone was trying to oust Gary Speed from our side. Same situation now I reckon, with Geremi playing the water carrier role and others not noticing his contribution when he is playing for us. Our bad run coincided with Geremi not playing central midfield. Also, look at the Telegraph match reports. There is a Flash programme at the bottom that has several pro-zone style statistics. Look at Geremi's individual statistics, and compare them to others, in particular, Butt. You'll find that he receives the most passes from our defenders, and he has a better pass completion rate than all our other midfielders, and makes more successful passes, and generally wins the ball more often than other midfielders. What does this actually mean in match terms? Well, he helps the defence play it short, and he is good at quickly getting the ball to our more dangerous players. In moves leading up to goals we have scored, he has been involved more often than any other player, and this demonstrates that some of our best attacking moves have gone through him. He was shit against Fulham though - I thought our midfield found it very difficult playing against a five man midfield when there was a big gaping hole on our right hand side. I also dont think we need Butt, Geremi and Barton if playing three central midfielders. Judging on what I've seen on the pitch complemented with the statistics, Butt needs ousting and replacing in January. I feel we can also get better with Geremi in the team if we ever get around to playing an effective right winger.

I missed seeing the first 30 mins on television, but of what I saw, Beye and Cacapa were our best players, though its a shame that every time Cacapa does something good now, the commentators are going to mention how he's been bad so far for us, even though you know that they only noticed him against Portsmouth. At times, Barton looked good. I'd argue that only him and Beye looked like they were playing to win today, and despite talk about lack of fitness, I'd say he was the fittest player from 80 minutes onwards, this talk is probably due to lack of pace and sharpness more than anything now, and because of his layoff (rest period), he is currently fatiguing slower, which means that as our opponents get more fatigued, they become less sharp and less pacey, and this allows Barton to become one of the better players on the field. Meanwhile, Viduka and Emre dont currently have good enough fitness levels to offer more than 30 minutes of a good performance, but their introductions when others are fatigued are beneficial for us, and with Barton as well, plus the immense fitness levels of Beye, we can be very dangerous towards the end of matches, especially during the more hectic parts of the season. Butt and Geremi were poor today, but I thought the midfield were outnumbered and exposed by the atrocious performance of Martins, who was totally undisciplined and lacked any goal threat whatsoever. Certainly Allardyce recognised this, hence taking Martins off for Viduka to create a very slow strike force that we haven't seen when Sam has made past tactical adjustments. Hopefully Martins will be out of the team next game. I doubt Sam will change a defence that kept a clean sheet, but I would bring in Enrique, play Milner in Martins' position and play N'zogbia in Milner's position.

And I was right to stick by Santa Claudio.

Second time I've predicted the important goalscorer in two games. And no money gambled

We could have had a penalty - Viduka was held back.

What the fuck are you on about man? Is '10% of a good performance' even a term that can be understood by normal human beings? And no, Owen should not get into the team as soon as he's fit because he fucks up Allardyce's thinking re: formation and system. He'd have to play ten times better to be considered good. Martins isn't playing as the system expects - he's slap bang in the centre, where Owen would be doing a better job, especially as he has experience of scoring goals from the right of three strikers at Real Madrid.

Martins has failed to produce even 10% of a good performance in several consecutive games now. He should be out of the team as soon as Owen finds full fitness.

Omosuzi? he's not making his debut. Was one of their only decent players against us. I thought the radio had described him as a debutant - my mistake.