Northern Monkey

Yes you've forgotten one thing. You support the club apparently. If people cant see the difference between the s**** that Souness served up and the football that Roeder has encouraged us to play (minus Owen & Shearer) then they are not watching the same side that i saw last season. Souness's side couldnt string two passes together, let alone elicit praise from the southern press for actually trying to play football.

 

Yes, we are definitely watching different teams. And reading different papers. For which game did the team get "elicit praise" from the southern press?

Souness - picked the wrong team/tactics, we were shite.

Roeder - picks the wrong team/tactics, we are MARGINALLY less shite.

Who cares what the "southern press" thinks - those of us who actually go to/watch the match can see than Roeder is an idiot. Bramble walking back into the team is evidence of that.

Maybe McLaren was giving Dire a chance to prove he was good enough~?

 

Alas, he failed miserably in that.

nee worse than any of the rest of that sorry shower of shite

Again, thats apologist stuff - he was shite. Ignore the rest, tahts irrelevan. Dyer was very very poor, both in the team sense, and what he did individually.

He's not Internaitonal class, but there again neither are a number of the shithouses that McLaren will continue to pick, so maybe Dire has an England career ahead of him after all.

We can't believe how lucky we are.

 

So far, and it is early days, we appear to have bagged the absolute perfect owner. The man has just been magnificent

We can't believe how lucky we are.

 

So far, and it is early days, we appear to have bagged the absolute perfect owner. The man has just been magnificent.

pity your team are as bad as ours 

 

Not for long - better manager, better chairman, matter of time.

Charlton/Fulham weren't the Souness levels. Birmingham, aye, i'd give you that - and worse.

 

And besides, Souness ALSO drew at home to Charlton and he ALSO lost at home to Fulham, 4-1.

 

So now you have been converted from a Roeder basher to a Roeder lover? Apologies in advance if I am oversimplifying things.

 

Funny that, I have turned into a Roeder - opposer from a Roeder supporter. I still wish Roeder all the best but I have drawn the conclusion that Roeder isn't the right man for this club for long term future, and there are + there were better, more qualified available managers in the market whom we should go for.

 

Gareth Southgate is improving slowly. Stuart Pearce, despite his eccentricities, doesn't look like the man to drag Man City down to Championship.  Paul Jewell isn't a bad manager either. Coleman is proven to be decent manager. Warnock is a vastly experienced manager aided by another immensely experience coach Brian Kidd. There are a few up and coming young managers from the Championship, Paul Simpson and Billy Davies. Roy Keane too.

 

What exactly does Roeder offer?

 

Motivation skills? Plenty of managers have that. Academy record? Quite a few clubs are now having very decent academies. Cautios transfer policy? Apart from Curbishley of West Ham you won't see any mad managers spending mad money anymore (unless the club has bottomless money supply)

 

Despite implying about the lack of fund, Roeder has forgetten that he splashed out 10 millions for Martins who brings instance success to us. How many clubs can afford to splash 10m just for a striker? 10m for a successful striker isn't something exceptional. Everton paid 8m for Andy Johnson. Bolton paid 8m for Anelka. Liverpool paid 9m for Dirk Kuyt. Tottenham paid 11m for Berbatov. Aston Villa paid 9m for Ashley Young. Apart from Young the others have proven to be a success just like Martins.

 

What is the edge Roeder has that others don't?

Dunno about "egde", but he HAS got a pointy face.

PS - Martins hasn't proven to be a success yet. Lets let him settle in and develop some consistency.

Maybe McLaren was giving Dire a chance to prove he was good enough~?

Alas, he failed miserably in that.

Good original post, he deserves applause.

 

The prospect of Bellamy punishing us on Saturday resonates of Murphy's Law doesn't it ie. our best player - at the time - booted out of the club for non-footballing reasons, and the whole episode - contrary to what some muppets choose to believe - was orchestrated by one single substitution aimed at pressing the player's buttons and it worked.

 

Jesus Christ, are you for real?  Players get substituted in matches all the time ffs.  Souness substitutes Bellamy and somehow you see it as a dastardly plan to force him out of the club. 

He DID engineer his departurem, though. A true measure of the idiocy of the Scottish cunt.

I'd rather have Ameobi in the side than Sibierski, which is why i'd probably agree with Lloydie. I'm not Shola's biggest fan, but he'd be a big bonus to our squad considering the amount of games we're having to play. For the European campaign especially, he'd be a big bonus.

 

Unfortunately, there's a good argument for someone who'd suggest that the team would score less goals if Shola was in of the team, in spite of how many goals he would be scoring. I like Shola, i think he's a decent player overall, with good technical ability and the brain of a predatory striker. I also think that he could have forged a good partnership with Martins.

 

However, and i'm about to exacerbate one of Roeder's weaknesses here (so i'm not drifting that far off-topic), whenever Shola or Sibierski is in the team, the manager feels it necassary to pump long balls forward simply because there's a big man in the side. This is probably the best explanation for why we score less goals as a team with Ameobi in the side. It's cos we're shit at long ball and it doesn't work, not because Shola is this abysmal player.

 

Ameobi's got good footwork once he's navigated his way around his first touch, so if we were to play the ball on the floor as we do with Dyer, there's no reason why Shola and Martins shouldn't have made a decent partnership.

 

All goes back to Roeder's starting line-up problems and/or initial tactics at the start of a game. The Ventspils away game springs to mind instantly, even though there are other and probably better examples, Ameobi was a lone striker and he got no joy. He's not good at holding the ball up and he's not brilliant with his head. But he's got strength and he's a good finisher in the box, including when having his back to goal. He got absolutely no joy that game and we were hopeless from an attacking point of view.

 

Finally though, Shola's missed his big chance at becoming the week-in week-out, main striker at this club, because he's got a season-long injury. Something else that is arguably not his fault, because he should have been operated on far earlier. And when he comes back, so will Owen, and another(s) striker will come in.

 

But he definitely could have done it, with the correct tactician. The tactics were different under Bobby and Souness, yes, but he was only playing with Shearer then, which just didn't work.

He missed his chance of being a week in, week out striker for us by not being good enough, fuck all to do with injuries. This fella is NOT good enough, simple as that. He'll never be prolific, or have any particular footballing ability. He'd do a good job in the Championship, for me. He's on a par with Carr, Shambles, Moore and Roeder in that sense.

Still ahead of Spurs.  Thats good enough for me.

Thus helping explain why we allow shite like Roeder, Shambles, Ameobi and Dire to remain at the club.

...and you must admit that we seem to be going in the right direction, unlike under souness. Our football is slightly better now than it was a year ago.

Going in the right direction? Mid table mediocrity, yay.

Dyer been one of our best players so far, if not the best IMO.

Shame he didn't keep it up for the whole game. He was shown up as not good enough, overall.

I'm with Billy Ray on this one. Roeder has done and is doing a good job in very difficult circumstances. Imagine if we'd been able to play a fit Ameobi alongside Martins instead of Sibierski, imagine if we hadn't had to employ a different back line every game. I'd guess that any four of our defenders playing together regularly would have got better results than the constantly changing lineups we've had to send out.

 

One thing often overlooked is the time it takes players to get back to their best after returning from injury. So it's not just the players who are out, it's the players who are on the pitch but still a couple of weeks away from their best. We've had two or three of those in the side most games this season. Against Fulham we had Duff, Carr, Bramble and Gooch (can't remember how to spell his surname) all lacking match practice / integration into the team.

 

Fucking hell, i'd rather not.

And if you think Bramble and Carr just need match practice, you've not been paying attention.

Dyer - not good enough for Chelsea, and certainly NOT a player ot put behind a lone striker as the 'link man'.

Shevchenko - too good for us.

So all in all, not really a goer.

Get rid.

Yes, we are not a big enough club to get a "world class" manager, but that doesn't mean we should accept a completely awful one.

We are an average club, we should at the very least have an average manager. Not the shite we have for the current (and indeed last) one.

Martins and Dyer will not be a productive partnership for long, because Dyer cannot perform the role of striker properly. imho.

Dyer hasn't deserved his call-up, and lets face it, if we rely on him for England in the first 11 for proper games, we'll lose.

Ultimately, Chopra was not good enough for the Premiership. Anyone who saw him play (and lets not start the pathetic Luque-esque "he needs 400 games in a row" bollocks) saw that he was a very very mediocre player, who never showed any particular signs of being good enough. The (undeniable) fact that Shola is also not good enough is a distraction, and adds nothing to the debate.

 

All true. I have to disagree with part of the above comment. Although he did work hard, he was hardly very "active" unless by active you mean ran around a lot not doing too much then I take it back and agree.

They mean "active" in the same way as Dyer "terrorises defences" by running really fast at them and givign the ball away, and Bramble is a "quality" defender by dint of being capable of standing around looking big.

love the "negromania" at the end hahaha....i remember in denmark there are little things called Flodeboller (with an o with a line through it somewhere) and i think one brand that makes them call then "negro heads" or something too that effect....

 

Its just in english speakin' societies where negro is not acceptable anymore...

 

Unluckily for Emre, England is an English-speaking society! 

 

Yep...agree....shouldn't have been so silly...Its such a shame as well because I'm sure the UEFA or FIFA bastards are gonna come in and "make an example of him" and ban him for like 10 games or something.

 

Hmm, there is a genuine debate about cultural meanings of words. I mean my Granparents still won't be convinced that calling a black person 'black' is now acceptable. English is a fluid language and meanings do change.

 

Let's just hope that Emre did really misunderstand and his aim wasn't to be racist. Although if I was asked for my gut feeling I fear the worst.

 

If he genuinely didn't realise, then he shouldn't be playing football. No-one can be THAT stupid.

 

i know what u mean but what has playin football got to do with it,its not as if footballers are renowned for being intelligent!lol

He shouldn't be more than 5 yards away from his Responsible Carer, is my point.

this team has made a season out of bouncing back from poor losses like this one, and although i don't hold out a ton of hope against liverpool, i haven't seen much this season to leave me despairing about the prospect of going on a vindicating run after that....

 

We were lucky against Spurs and Villa. Then not so lucky against Fulham. Thats the kind of run i fear Roeder is mainly going to be capable of taking us on.

 

Yeah we were lucky against those teams, but when you've had the bad luck we've had this year with injuries and what not, we deserve a bit of luck now and then.

 

Bad luck with injuries?? Who?

 

Who are we missing now? Only 2 players that i WANT in the first team. The rest are simply not good enough for a top half Premiership team.

 

Zog and Owen?

Pretty much. Shay is clearly a big loss, but Harper is a capable stand in, something we lack in pretty much every other area of the pitch.

A fully fit Woodgate is the best English defender. If he has a good season at Boro and carries on playing more games I would like to see us make a move. The potential in a partnership betweem Woody and Gooch or Woody and Taylor is immense.

 

At the moment there is still too many questions over his fitness.

 

Gooch could be a load of s****, lets not build the lad up just yet.

 

To be fair to me I did say potential, thats why I mentioned Taylor as well because we may not keep Gooch!

 

If we're extending Bramble and Sibierki's contracts, Gooch is nailed on to be kept on tbh.  The standard has been set.  And it is positively subterranean.

Extending Brambles contract would be the end. If Roeder does that, there will be NO way of saying he is not a complete and utter waste of time as a Premiership manager.

A fully fit Woodgate is the best English defender. If he has a good season at Boro and carries on playing more games I would like to see us make a move. The potential in a partnership betweem Woody and Gooch or Woody and Taylor is immense.

 

At the moment there is still too many questions over his fitness.

 

Gooch could be a load of s****, lets not build the lad up just yet.

 

I know, mate, it was more of a general comment. He's played one game so far, half of which he seemed great for, the other half he seemed vulnerable.

 

To be fair to me I did say potential, thats why I mentioned Taylor as well because we may not keep Gooch!

this team has made a season out of bouncing back from poor losses like this one, and although i don't hold out a ton of hope against liverpool, i haven't seen much this season to leave me despairing about the prospect of going on a vindicating run after that....

 

We were lucky against Spurs and Villa. Then not so lucky against Fulham. Thats the kind of run i fear Roeder is mainly going to be capable of taking us on.

 

Yeah we were lucky against those teams, but when you've had the bad luck we've had this year with injuries and what not, we deserve a bit of luck now and then.

Bad luck with injuries?? Who?

Who are we missing now? Only 2 players that i WANT in the first team. The rest are simply not good enough for a top half Premiership team.

A fully fit Woodgate is the best English defender. If he has a good season at Boro and carries on playing more games I would like to see us make a move. The potential in a partnership betweem Woody and Gooch or Woody and Taylor is immense.

 

At the moment there is still too many questions over his fitness.

Gooch could be a load of shite, lets not build the lad up just yet.

love the "negromania" at the end hahaha....i remember in denmark there are little things called Flodeboller (with an o with a line through it somewhere) and i think one brand that makes them call then "negro heads" or something too that effect....

 

Its just in english speakin' societies where negro is not acceptable anymore...

 

Unluckily for Emre, England is an English-speaking society! 

 

Yep...agree....shouldn't have been so silly...Its such a shame as well because I'm sure the UEFA or FIFA bastards are gonna come in and "make an example of him" and ban him for like 10 games or something.

 

Hmm, there is a genuine debate about cultural meanings of words. I mean my Granparents still won't be convinced that calling a black person 'black' is now acceptable. English is a fluid language and meanings do change.

 

Let's just hope that Emre did really misunderstand and his aim wasn't to be racist. Although if I was asked for my gut feeling I fear the worst.

If he genuinely didn't realise, then he shouldn't be playing football. No-one can be THAT stupid.

Surpised no nobheads have tried the "Bramble and/or Gooch are better" rubbish.

Ultimately, Chopra was not good enough for the Premiership. Anyone who saw him play (and lets not start the pathetic Luque-esque "he needs 400 games in a row" bollocks) saw that he was a very very mediocre player, who never showed any particular signs of being good enough. The (undeniable) fact that Shola is also not good enough is a distraction, and adds nothing to the debate.