Kanji

Martins took his goal brilliantly. That little move at the end was scintilating. nobody can doubt that. Loved his celebration - the flips and the very long "exhale" of emotions when he was yelling. you just know he was proud to get that goal....Was it just me? or did he want to pull the shirt off and run around a bit? but stopped knowing hed get a yellow? - excellent footballing brain...(just kidding ) Our attacking movements were at times brilliant... I thought Viduka's quick curler that Robinson saved was an excellent strike. Owen's goal was f'ng beautiful. Martins just diggin in and attacking O'Hara, staying honest finding Viduka who has a brilliant touch, and Owen's curler was special.

Hilarious. Thats why Oba is the man. His dress sense is as mean as his rocket shot.

zog....what an awful shirt. (the ck o)

anyone else notice faye doing his beckebauer act again? cracks me up really. i'm worried as bent is chasing down faye, who does a dummy step over and slides away calmly. faye does about 3 of those a match, scares me shitless. love it.

i agree with what was said earlier. with money, we can obviously get better than nicky butt. but what i truly loved, was watching butt do what he does best. if we can get more quality next to him, you won't see him making all of the hollywood style long balls or odd passes as he has been doing. butt is an excellent reader of the game, you could just see that against spurs. his old legs are catching up to him, but nobody out there can say he wasn't one of, if not the most, influential player we had out against the spurs when you look at his goal, his tackling, his protection of the back four. If we sign a Makalele type of player, I would be over the moon, but right now, with the right mix im very happy.

oba is the man. zog....do you only have 1 face? isnt that the same dumbfounded face he made in the team pictures on the main site.

Mario Gomez bagged 2 for Jormany. Big tall lad who looks like hes got strength on him...hes also 22. Anyone know much about him? He's 2nd to Luca Toni in scoring if I recall correctly in the Bundesliga

West Ham going to feild a team of ex toon players? Solano - Bowyer - Parker - Zog ---------------Dyer------------------ -------------Bellamy?--------------- Jesus me.

Remember when our first choice was Carr & Babayaro?....

a bit random...but you all notice players these days put loads of tape on their socks? arsenal wear red socks...adebayor has enough tape to make it look like they are wearing white socks. I remember Roz was the same way, I saw him and thought he had trhe wrong socks on one time...

I agree with alot of you here. owen looked excellent playing more withdrawn. He has much better vision than many give him credit for. Down to his brain, he was picking out geremi/martins out wide all match to keep the ball moving. I quite like him there and once he gets more comfortable there I'd be happy to see him continue in that roll, if that means he is still in the side and still getting in on the goals. he looked like a different player out there today, much happier, much more more confident and i loved seeing him track back as the last man in defense. Oh and everyone talking about his shot - he had a scorcher of one today from distance.

Y Bit like a teacher who doesn't actually teach. "Life is the best lesson". Sorry, but I don't agree with you. If you were coaching under 8's I'd agree though. If you want kids to improve at the game, you coach them. Natural ability and love for the game only gets you so far. This is the whole point though, now if I were trying to develop footballers then yes they would need coached at some point I dare say, but I'm not. I don't look at these kids as a future Wayne Rooney or a potential star in the making I just see them as kids enjoying football for what it is - a game of fun. That's the problem with society today, we can't leave things alone. We see kids mucking about playing football for the sheer hell of it and think they somehow need our help when in reality they don't. In fact adult rule, especially in kids' football, is proving quite damaging to kids and our sport. Kids have a right to play football freely without any form of adult involvement or our outlook on the sport being imposed on what is essentially their play time. So what do you actually do? Nothing other than joining in or watching. Sometimes I'll fetch the goal out and a few balls if the kids themselves haven't sorted these things out for themselves and the odd time you will, as an adult, have to step in to sort a few skirmishes and to remind the elder kids that there are bairns about. The West End's very own Terry Mac Coach, you throw in the odds and bets with the bookies on the upcoming sporting events when you have a talk-about with the youngins?

I think you need to lower your expectations. We'll be lucky to come away with a point. Its called hope mate. Its called being optimistic. Maybe unrealistic as well - make fun of me if you will, but if you ask me...I'm gunning for 3 points every match, no matter who it is. Its the way I've always believed sport should be played.

i rushed home early from school to watch it on espn. I went nuts during those goals. Shearer's 2nd was a bone chilling feeling. Nearly brought to tears on how passionate that goal and performance was. You lot should check it out on youtube, the sea of toon fans rushing forward and jumping is brilliant. bit of an empty feeling now, will we ever get back to the CL? :-[

I'm praying we go in there and batter them. 3 or 4 nil. But i'll be jumping for joy with a 1-0 victory mind you. I think a battering would do the lads a LOAD of confidence, psychologically that is the best way to get the team spirit up is a straight up, powerful convincing victory. I'm not even sure we are capable of doing so...But heres to hoping, and praying. HOWAY the lads.

mackems.gif God thats hilarious. What are you on about mate? Thats such a terribly thought out comment. Milner and Tayls were there trying to pull him out. Our lads know better to get involved in a scuffle...

his interviews crack me up. sign him up - hes def one of my fav players at the club.

We have been crying for a striker of this type since Big Al left...maybe even before. Pace, Strength, etc. Hopefully he can continue to grow and build upon what hes already improved on. Love the comment earlier about Adebayor's development, would love to see this to this guy if we could sign him.

I'd love Carrick to join. Who knows who Man Utd will sign in the summer, it may just push Carrick out. With the right display of ambition by the club, some top players come in, you'd have to think it would tempt the boy. It's his hometown club, hes still a Geordie, he would relish it I'd hope. Any top striker from the ANC we could look at? A Drogba style striker? For the first time, I haven't a clue of who we could sign - b/c quite frankly I thought the lads we signed last summer would be excellent players. 1 Drogba Style Striker 1 Attacking Creative Midfielder - Van Der Vaart mold. 1 Right Winger with blistering pace - Hell i'd even take Routledge, at least he can beat a man. 1 Defensive Midfielder OR play Faye there. 1 Commanding Center Back - Van Buyten perhaps? 2-4 BETTER Squad players. Hell the more i think of it, we do need a 7-10 new players...is that even possible? Oh and we needa hitman, to take out the only player in the EPL who thinks a Mohawk/Bleaching part of his hair is still the cool thing to do....Alan Useless Smith.

If we only had an Anelka/Drogba style striker to scare the bollocks off of the defenders...a tall, pacy lad with strength, eye for goal. but I digress - The thing is, we notice all the bad that Martins does without the simple fact that every single defender in the land, despite knowing Martins has a terribly weak footballing mind and a donkey's first touch - can with a drop of a dime, rip them to shreds with his pace, or his rifle shot. If hes back in the lineup, hell bag a few goals, its very simple. Defenders may know whath is weaknesses are, but they are scared to death of those strengths - Oba, makes me laugh. Burning a defender 1 minute, deciding to not beat one the next, losing the ball after that. Then that silly little grin comes on his face, cracks me up. But jesus me, do you lot not remember what he did to attack when in the lineup, and this was with Sibierski supporting him. Oba has so much to his game that he never uses. I pray that KK can get it out of him. The fact of the matter is, we NEED him to play. We NEED him on the field, if anything - like whats been said before he causes defences to worry about him in addition to Micky Owen. Viduka is managable, Smith bloody useless, Ameobi is a clumsy bambi - Martins is the only who can consisently cause a problem (for us too) whilst still having a shiter.

that def made me happy reading that. hearing about that injury and seeing the pics and reading all of the reactions, i was worried for him and felt absolutly terrible for him. For him, he's going to have a long, tough recovery and hopefully can be the player he was prior to the injury - its gong to be one helluva mountain to climb. But good luck to him...

i never commented about alan smith - but officially today. i go on record for saying... alan smith, get lost. you are a useless footballer. go back to leeds.

He played on the left in the first half if i recall correctly...had a stinging shot saved well too... He looked very good to be honest, and I thoguht taylor played very well too... on a side note, huddlestone has a nice array of passes...

was going to say the same as well...that was one of the most painful misses...what a tourney though. wow.

I'd welcome Geremi in the holding role....think he would actually be quite good there behind Barton or Emre playing the more advanced role... Anybody think he could possibly play at left back? Moving Zogs up field and rotating Milner/Duff/Zog as our widemen?