The College Dropout

Aye well it wasn't long till Souness lost most of our support anyway. I think we've had this discussion before but it looks like Sam has no plan or strategy for success. Nothing is consistent except poor performances and long balls. Fuck that. Unless we win a trophy sharpish Sam will always be at odds with the fans because of his style of play.

You have to earn the patience and understanding of the supporters. Sam hasn't done that. When you are as blatantly clueless as Big Sam is showing you deserve nothing.

He looks out of his depth at the minute but I'd give him until May to prove himself unless somebody better came along and we were in trouble. To me he looks like someone who doesn't quite know what to do If I was Sam I'd resign and go after the England job, it's much easier. 13 games in and his own fans who when we were beating his old team 3-1 were chanting his name, turning on him publicly? Disgraceful. Souness or Roeder never got this. 1. That is exactly what the people at SJP think. So they voiced it in their arena. 2. Didn't Souness go 10 games undefeated when he first joined? He was trying to be tough from the start. Sam is trying to be smart and is playing players in blatantly wrong positions. Souness didn't even do that to the whole team. Roeder also had a good run when he first took over as care-taker.

Fulham score lots of goals, they just can't defend or hold on to a lead to save their lives. From their opening 3 games I thought they would be comfortably mid-table because unlike their rivals they have goals in their team

Almost as strange as how he's always singled out for stick while playing out of position and yet others, the likes of N'Zogbia, Martins and the hugely overrated Emre, seem immune regardless of how many poor performances they turn in. Charles and Oba have been our most productive players thus season. Smith continuously gives nowt. Stop reaching. Reaching for what? I don't rate Smith and never said I did. It's just too easy to blame everything on one or two players like Smith, when fans favourites get away with yet another crap performance. To say "Charles and Oba have been our most productive players thus season." only highlights how crap the whole team is and not how good they've been. We aren't picking on Smith (well the vast majority). He's just continuously been utterly shit. Nobody is saying he and one or 2 other players are the main problem. It's down to Sam and his absurd tactics and selection which include Smith in all manners of positions which don't suit him.

McCarthy & Santa Cruz will eat our defenders aerially.

Almost as strange as how he's always singled out for stick while playing out of position and yet others, the likes of N'Zogbia, Martins and the hugely overrated Emre, seem immune regardless of how many poor performances they turn in. Charles and Oba have been our most productive players thus season. Smith continuously gives nowt. Stop reaching.

Good match. Lost £30 thinks to W. Ham but it was a great game.

You notice how we scored in those games? Here's an idea for Sam, perhaps if we have the ball in the oppositions half and keep it for any prolong period of time we would concede less goals.

I can't agree with this. Support is a 2 way thing. The fans had nothing to support. Absolutely nothing. I remember I cheer going up when Beye made that last ditch block and that was probably the highlight of the match. If I was standing in the cold for nearly 2 hours and had to watch that shit from beginning to end I'd do the same. The team has looked clueless over the past few weeks, absolutely clueless. The Liverpool fans probably expected some sort of football competition as well, I don't give a fuck what they do or think. The performance was embarrassing. I wouldn't stand (or sit) there and watch Liverpool slice us open time after time, watch balls get pumped to Oba (not even Viduka ffs) I would tell Sam exactly what I thought. The only thing that has been consistent from Sam is defensive tactics which don't work, picking Alan Smith and an insistence on long balls. Fuck that.

Hughes and Moyes immediately took their teams forward. Moyes had a couple yoyo years but he showed where he could take them. Hughes took a team of relegation battlers to a team fighting for europe. The team immediately looked better than what Souness had been offering for 16 odd months. We have decent enough players to play with a degree of competence. No shots on target ffs... looking like we could get beat 6 or 7 nil isn't acceptable at any period.

Decent.

What's all this talk of "net" spend? we sold first team players for good fees and they were replaced by first team players for good fees. Sell Kieron Dyer for £6.5M and replace him with Smith for the same figure.. Smith has been terrible Same thing can be shown with Parker and Barton. Sam's signings have been poor.

Depends on what we can bring in. He's looked utterly clueless.

Getting beaten 1-5 at home to Birmingham still beats it, for me. Just. We seem to have little fight with a midfield that just seems to stand off and lolop back and forward with little purporse. I'm burying my head in the sand these days, unfortunately, there is simply too much wrong to even begin analysing it. I need a drink.

Only 1-0 lads.....

I'd like to see them pass the ball to each other.

99 caps and out Y'know He'll get the 100. If only to do a Baggio.

Tomorrow 8:30. Listening to 5live. Apparently Capello wants the job. lol. Y'know he made a positive impact when he came on.

What has happened to Bridge? Woeful Lescott struggles at this level. Campbell is past-it by atleast 2 years. Gerrard. Woeful.

agree. also don't know why people are touting hughes for working on a budget and have a tough side. big sam had the same kind record at bolton, only better. the job requirements at newcastle aren't about working on a shoestring budget or making a side tough and workmanlike, finding bargains for less than a million is no guarantee that a manager will spend bigger sums just as wisely, it could be that they spend the best part of £12m on joey barton and alan smith. Blackburn play far better football than Bolton ever did.

Hughes. Did what he needed to do when he first arrived. The Blackburn side he inherited had many awful players. And unlike Redknapp, MON and Jol he's built a very good side with a very tight budget and got them playing good football. He made use of Emerton. I'm sure that New Zealand character (forgot his name) and Christopher Samba were bought for less than a combined £2m. When he sold his best player (Bellamy)he replaced him with someone even more productive (McCarthy). in the summer I would have wanted him, Ramos or big Sam so i'm not too worried.

No, in fairness, I think he has done a good job too, especially working with that s*** board. lol. He got alot back from what he spent so I don't think his net spending would be that high. He bought the likes of Pennant & Heskey for around £10M and got most of it back. Made a profit on Upson as well.

If's, but's The lad is a liability.

with the new tv deal i think there's plenty of teams who could pay his wages and plenty would make a special case for owen as he has such a high reputation. wigan, spurs and west ham are the three who would probably be most interested, but i could also see the likes of villa and birmingham backed by their new owners making a speculative bid. i don't think there'd be any shortage of takers at all, the problem is, would Owen want to move to any of those clubs? as i've said elsewhere i think the best he can hope for is that man utd or chelsea make a bid for him and use him as a squad player who plays sparingly, the kind of way Man Utd use Giggs or Saha, as that is the very best he can possibly hope for these days. Wigan? Birmingham? He'll never go there. Villa? Sideways step. Spurs? Maybe. if they threw in Defoe or Bent as part of the deal. Yet Keane is one of their best players and is in great form. And the top 4 don't want him. Only realistically leaves Man City.