Shearer9

Imagine where we'd be without the goals of Martins.

Martins and Berbatov. I still don't have a total faith in McCarthy coming good, but I think Anelka will turn out to be a really excellent buy for Bolton. Quite underrated.

I'm a huge Sheringham fan but at this point I'd never sign him unless I were a Championship side. I think Gera is a really underrated player, and one we could very realistically get.

Flavio Briatore came into Formula 1 from the fashion world and did a really good job for Benneton and Renault, but I think the role of a Technical or Commercial director in terms of building a successful business team is a lot different from that role as a manager. What made Jose special was his ability to get the right players and use the right tactics, something that wouldn't carry over to F1.

People often talk about the burst of the football bubble and the fall of football, especially in England, but articles like these don't present that side at all. It seems like the revenues will continue to grow as both new geographic and technological fields begin to open up for the Premiership. I'm thinking about things like reliable online streaming, more mobile phone coverage, and the continuation of the Premiership as a brand, as well as just finding new territories in which these products can be sold. So my question is this:how will the football bubble burst? Even if the fans just stopped coming to games, the TV revenue that is provided would make up for drops in attendance, and the product on display doesn't seem to be suffering. So how will this trend reverse itself. Obviously at some point, it must plataeu, but I don't see where the burst theory comes from.

He wouldn't go to Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester United or Chelsea after not playing for two years, so I think he'll be here for at least one more season.

All of that has some truth with it, but I think the defense is rightly hated because of the total inability to do the most basic things, such as show technical skill on the ball, letting high balls bounce, putting in little effort, and an inability to communicate. Despite the fact that a defense can be exposed, you can still judge players by what they do on the ball.

This all might be true, but confidence players are not what we need. Our defense has been made up of them for way too long. There's no reason to expect that Ramage will be a consistent performer at this level. His form is always up and down. I understand your point about no having a settled defense, but when a player fails to show skill or good decision making that have nothing to do with who he's playing with, then I don't see how he's really defendable.

I'm 19, went there, got served, and Dean and everybody were really great. Highly recommend it.

Edgar has always showed a lot more composure and creativity than either Huntington or Ramage. Even though I've only seen him for 2 games, he's tried to work with whichever winger he played behind, rather than lumping the ball upfield. It's this mental ability which I think makes him a better prospect than Huntington, who might be strong, but certainly isn't too pacy.

I think there is definatley a place for Parker in the team, but he just has to be instructed on a role. There is a point where Roeder is almost like Souness, just putting players in positions and letting them do as they please. At some point, Luque has to be played just for the sake of balance to the team. Roeder does do a lot of things similar to Souness, like holding grudges against players and playing others no matter what, which is most disturbing.

Jagielka going into goal against Arsenal for the injured Kenny. This should be an interesting half hour...

The moment that back 5 stepped on the pitch, we were fucked. Unless we had scored 3 or 4, we were never going to win that game. They were woeful from the beginning, I'm surprised it took Bolton as long as it did to break us down. Nothing special from Bolton really, just benefited from us being shite.

Given was really lucky not to be further embarassed there at the end. Lampard should have done better. I hate Chelsea :wullie:

I think Parker could work really well, but I just don't think Glenn has the tactical knowledge to realize how to fix the problems we have when Parker and Emre play. I thought Butt actually looked a lot like Parker today when he was on the ball, very slow, trouble picking out his pass, poor finishing, when we really needed to get the tempo up and move the ball up the field.

Thing that struck me was his lack of pace. The one time that young went flying past him and Ramage had to run across the field to make a sliding challenge for the ball really had me scared shitless.

He needs to work on playing through balls earlier. Our inability to cross really lead to the attack being very directed through the center, but the combonations of Dyer, Emre, Sibierski, Martins, and sometimes Butt (Why the hell was he trying to dictate play so much?) were just a little bit off. There were multiple chances for one of them to be played in for a one on one with the keeper, but they didn't come to anything.

Taylor was brilliant again today, and Huntington performed well also. Crossing was still pretty poor, Roeder really needs to get some work done on crossing this week. Obafemi should get at least 15 goals this season in the league, which would be a great start. But this game still outlines our need for fullbacks. Get some in in January!!

Huntington didn't really show a lot of composure. It was his first game and I'm not going to judge him in the long term based on that one game, but he gave the ball away numerous time, and the worst was that header he failed to clear. I'd like to see him play in his position as well.

First-half diagnosis? Chelsea were toothless more than we were good, bad formation from Mourinho, although their crossing was shite all game. Second-half diagnosis? Battling display, showed a lot of spirit Full-time diagnosis? Terrible to lose it the way we did Star man for United? Taylor. He looked really great back there. Fought in the air, strong in the tackle, covered for both fullbacks, cut out through balls, and seemed to be keeping the defense organized. Martins, Butt, Given, and Sibierski were also good. Worst United player? Pattison- he was terrible, couldn't pass, couldn't run past anyone, basically dead weight. Opposition comment? Chelsea should have had a better tactical plan for such an important game. Mourinho is lucky because they'd really have been under the cosh after a draw. Toon-pros? Played well as a team Toon-cons? Still a lack of good fullback play, although Babayaro was better than last time. Post-match feelings? Sucks to lose this way.

Why do they have costumes for a Christmas party? Halloween was over a month ago.

Wonder what the odds were on a 1-1 at the Emirates..

A huge difference will be the lack of pace from the midfield in getting forward, mainly because of the lack of Emre and Dyer.

I remember at the end of last season, physioroom.com put up some long term stats about the number of injuries, and the link may still be around, someone used it for an article on the main site I think. Anyway, the numbers were amazing. We had one of the lowest rates of freak, collision based injuries last season, yet we had the highest number of injuries overall. The number of muscle injuries, especially hamstrings, was higher than most clubs had in overall injuries. There is something wrong here, and I think it's a combonation of things that have been brought up in this thread. Weather, pitches, training, fitness, warm ups/cool down, fitness coaches. Granted, this year there have been a lot of freak injuries. But the setup still isn't right. After the reign of Souness, it seems to me like Roeder's going over the head of the physios and being very, very cautious with injured players, which is a really good thing, imo. But this also suggests that fitness is probably not where it should be to aid in the recovery process.

I think the whole game would have to break down for us to win, and just be really nasty and scrappy, causing us inevitable further injuries. Wouldn't it be great though for Troisi or Carroll or Huntington to get their first goal - a winner vs. Chelsea.