Bad Mongo

I think Carroll has been surprisingly good. Then again, I don't expect much from him.

There were people saying the same after Souness's summer. Fact is, we've made what seems to be two good signings for good money (Bassong and Jonas), two decent (Coloccini and Guthrie; one expensive, the other cheap) and two failures, one of them on loan, the other rather expensive. Oh, and Nile Ranger. People are blinded by the fact that our best signings were also the cheapest. The team hasn't improved much at all.

If Ashley says Kinnear did a great job just keeping us up, he also admits he didn't improve the squad significantly. BTW, my "couldn't care less" vote means "don't know".

The point you made was that we weren't bringing in young players before, and the examples you used contradicted your point. And Titus Bramble didn't cost £6M by himself, even if I "missed" the point you didn't make. And a further point you didn't make is that the young "talent" Xisco cost quite a bit, but seems a far worse buy than Viana in terms of value for money. One could also question how on earth you think we can succeed without improving the squad. And no, Guthrie isn't better than Viana.

But who on earth would be stupid enough to pay their wages?

Kinnear will probably only be given funds for players the Director of Football is willing to bring in anyway. I think Dennis Wise is capable of bringing in good players, and I think both he and even Kinnear know we need a better CM.

Funny you should put it that way: Luque and Gutierrez were about the same age when signed by us, none of them young, whereas Bramble and Viana were both younger than Guthrie and Bassong. Viana was also obviously a much better talent than Guthrie. Too bad we failed to develop him.

It's not about being incapable of "meeting in the middle", it's about you being incapable of reconciling the facts of the situation with your view, i.e. of learning, so you choose to ignore them instead. That's how you lost: not by being pwn'd, but by proving him right in the statement that you're deluded. BTW, you have made no points, you have only displayed an attitude.

how could i argue logically with "coward"? To be fair, you had already lost the argument with your comment before it.

Although he was most likely just taking the piss.

No one is going to pay for Cacapa, Skeletor.

He won't be leaving in January then.

Yes, and it's the same signal Spurs sends out at the beginning of summer. Then they get their fans optimistic, sell some season tickets, and sell their most valuable assets with a nice profit at the end of the window. It's called business.

Good summary.

Fair enough, Yorkie, but if it's only going to stuff Mike Ashley's pockets he might just as well go for free to Limerick F.C for all I care (or maybe not -- Wikipedia tells me they have been dissolved.)

Yeah, as we've done excellent with the money we got from the sale of James Milner. Improved the squad a lot.

The system didn't bring us any of those players. A bunch of individuals working together and as individuals brought them in. The same scouts could have brought us the same players in any other system. What the system brought us was a conflict between manager and chairman/director (football) that resulted in the manager leaving.

Flipping a coin predicts a win by two goals. Seems inevitable now.

Except, of course, the media reports of Wise & Llabias et al coming to Keegan with a list of key players with a price attached to each and every one of them. They may well want to avoid relegation, but there's no reason to believe they've somehow stopped being interested in cashing in on the players.

It's obviously not a list of the 50 "best" British players, as Paul Robinson is on the list. "We’ve tried to give the little-known and the under-rated their due by concentrating on those who have enhanced their reputations this year." Which still means Steven Taylor shouldn't be on the list.

Woohoo!

Great save by James. And good shot by Enrique.

Fantastic shot by Martins.

We're rubbish.

Yes, but if pigs fly, I'll start changing my mind about gravity as well.