Teasy

Did either of you watch Villa's last game? Or the one before that?, or any of there last 15 or so?

Betting on Newcastle to go down??, that makes me

The likes of Wigan aren't bigger then some Championship clubs are now and I can't see how they ever will be. they are now bigger than the likes of forest in all but history. huddersfield were once a big club and bolton were one of the biggest in the country. blackpool were big aswell. Well they're more attractive by default due to being in the Premiership of course (Wigan over Forest), but that's the only reason, the moment they dropped out of the league that would change.

The likes of Wigan aren't bigger then some Championship clubs are now and I can't see how they ever will be.

So have a few teams in the championship and lower. We're not a big team, big teams have the whole package of fanbase, leadership, prestige and so on that keeps them challenging at the top every year and we aren't even up there every decade. Er yeah some of the teams in the Championship do, which is the point of the thread How many big clubs are in this league like?, 3 or 4? What they won in the past means nowt though. Who regards Preston, Burnley, Huddersfield as big clubs these days? Well nobody but then those clubs haven't really won much in the way of major trophies even in the past and lets not even get started on the other aspects of the clubs (stadium ect).

To be honest the same kind of thing could have been said about the likes of Campbell and Adams, always looked like they were man handling people but never got pulled up on it. Not that Bassong is as good as either obviously.

So have a few teams in the championship and lower. We're not a big team, big teams have the whole package of fanbase, leadership, prestige and so on that keeps them challenging at the top every year and we aren't even up there every decade. Er yeah some of the teams in the Championship do, which is the point of the thread. How many big clubs are in this league like?, 3 or 4?

Not that we've won out for ages like but we still have more trophies then most of the other teams in the Premiership.

Last 10 matches: Newcastle United - 6 points Aston Villa - 7 points That's not a huge gulf like.. Especially considering we had the much harder last 10 matches.

OMG Its only around 10 hours over 8 days. Not even one exam a day. and law is piss easy

I'll blame everyone at Newcastle United AND Ferguson/Manure. I don't ask Ferguson to care, I ask him to not be a fucking hypocritical arsehole just once in his entire life.

Buy players who aren't all getting between 60 and 115 thousand pounds a week maybe? Of course we need to sell certain players, how can anyone still disagree with this? We can't just ignore reality and take a £70 million wage bill into the Championship (not that I'd want most of our players to stay irrespective of their wages). Also he wouldn't have needed to spend £10-£20 million in January. Had he simply put someone in charge a few months back who wasn't incapable of getting a win (Hughton) or a heart attack waiting to happen (Kinnear) we'd have been ok.

Well I still don't quite agree but I think we've both made our point and we're both certainly in agreement that the majority of them need to leave as soon as possible.

That's a very black and white argument, forgive the pun You're basically saying that if they know they have to win to save the club and they don't they don't have the ability to win. But that ignores many factors such as players that just don't give two fucks. Or players who are in very bad form, which isn't usually an issue of lack of effort or motivation. A lot of our players aren't motivated to stay here IMO, they'll all be confident of finding another club either in the Premiership or another big league. Also I'm not talking about big game players, but instead ability vs form and effort. There's no way every one of our players just don't have the ability to play better. Its far more likely that some don't have the ability (a lot of them mind you!), some don't care and some are off form. For all of these reasons the team isn't good enough and most of them need to go ASAP!

The media seem undecided on wether he has a year left or two years left on his contract. Seems a bit odd to me to offer a young player on small wages only a two year contract so I'd lean towards believing he has two years left.

Yes, form doesn't improve purely because a player thinks the team really needs a win Also there's no chance that all of our players are commited to the cause. There's no way to rule out lack of form or effort with a number of our players and its a certainty that those issues will be affecting some of them. I agree they aren't good enough but not for the reason you're saying. Some of them have the ability to play much better but haven't for a number of reasons.

Two problems with that argument Manopark. Firstly it assumes that underperforming players do so simply because they don't think they really need to win. Second is assumes all of our players actually care if we stay up or not. Neither is true.

Yes we could argue that kind of thing all day as nobody can prove how much is ability and how much is effort. But one thing we know is they CAN play much better (Keegan had much longer to get them sorted thoughy). Either way to me saying they're all just not good enough is far too kind on them. In reality they're mostly lazy, uninterested or cowardly.

The difference is back then the players we had that were underperforming stood up to be counted when they absolutely had too, this time they haven't. Just look at the team that beat Fulham, Reading, Spuds and Mackems last year in that last 9 game period: Harper Beye Taylor Faye Jose Enrique Barton Butt Geremi Owen Viduka Martins We've got just about all those players now, other then Faye being replaced by Bassong all of them are in the squad.

We have most of the same players who ended last season with 15 points from our last 9 games. I'd say we certainly have unperforming players, as well as some that aren't good enough regardless of form.

Well we don't have many good players, on current form. But I'd say our best players are the ones on lower wages, players we should have a decent chance of keeping if we went down and players we certainly shouldn't need to sell.

I think I'd like to see Martins come off the bench again. So that leaves Viduka, Owen and Lovenkrands as the possible starters if I was picking the team.

Exactly, you just can't have a £70 million wage bill in the Championship, its crazy enough in the Premiership considering were we've been in the league in recent years. But to even consider having that kind of bill in the Championship is crazy beyond words.

Michael Owen Claudio Cacapa Joey Barton Mark Viduka Fabricio Coloccini Obafemi Martins Damien Duff Ignacio Gonzalez Alan Smith Geremi That would be enough to save the money they're talking about. About four or five first team players, most of which will be leaving wether we go down or stay up, big fucking woop Also where on earth do the Journal get the info that we spent £18 million on Coloccini and Jonas? Coloccini was just over £9 million with incentives possibly taking the final fee to £10.4 million (we'll never pay the incentives if we go down and he's gone anyway) and Jonas ended up costing us £5 million.

That would be pretty funny, but I don't know of one. I don't even know how to find all of his past predictions.