Rich

Fucking hell man, imagine if Jonas was out... Geremi - Butt - Coloccini - Duff as our midfield quartet I know I've used this one before, but that lot would be outrun by Father Ted's 5-a-side team.

He's not travelled. He's a cunt.

Yes. Aye. Just pointing that out for those worrying we'll play 5 at the back...

Coloccini midfield, Geremi right?

Suppose it'll be: Harper, Taylor, Coloccini, Bassong, Enrique, Jonas, Geremi, Barton, Duff, Owen, Carroll. With Lovenkrands and N'Zogbia popping on from the bench when we're about 3 down and Owen/Jonas get crocked... or to win us the game!! Krul, Cacapa, Xisco, Edgar and Lua Lua will probably be the others.

Would be delighted with a point here like!

big deal The old board did it all the time, and still retained their ambition for other players, high league positions, and didn't make profits in the transfer market while undermining the manager, causing him to walk, just like the manager before him complained and just like the current one may do yet, because they certainly aren't giving him much of a chance either. One day, like the others, you might wake up. I could go down the line of blaming Shepherd and Co. here for the nature of how Ashley is having to do business at this football club, but I fear it'd be pointless. Whatever is the cause of it (be it he's a nasty man with no ambition or he's been shafted by events out of his control, etc.) it's a fucking crying shame that it's come to this. I'm gutted that he hasn't "splashed the cash" as well, to be perfectly honest, as it's what I had expected to an extent when I heard we'd been taken over by a billionaire... but when you see the books and absorb the current nature of global finances (as well as Ashley's personal finances) it becomes a little bit easier to understand, although not much easier to accept. You know I'm without an agenda here (bar disliking when people are being odious/tedious), this is just how I see it as it is.

It's more selling the dead wood than anything. While it appears Given and Owen are lost causes, the former should be replaced by staff we already have on the books and the latter will obviously need to be replaced externally. The squad is small but is still infested with fairly useless and massively overpaid players, who are also getting on in years. Viduka and Cacapa can easily be cut out by not renewing their deals, but Geremi and Smith will be another matter entirely. It's fair enough paying top wedge to first-team players, but not people who spend their lives on treatment tables/benches.

I'm also at a loss to see how breaking our transfer record for a defender is "replacing players on the cheap", but there you go...

you can think what you like. The phrase is meeting some of you lot halfway and conceding that the club needed to be careful, but I said this at the time in response to those among you who wet their knickers after every defeat urging the greedy fat bastard to splash the cash. Not surprise you have also forgotten all those absurd posts though. Not sure that was a camp I was ever part of, along with a lot more of the regular posters on here. A minority, probably, much like the minority you appear to be in now. I haven't "forgotten" them though, I don't ever pretend that Shepherd deserved the stick he took (which you well know) and I've always wanted the criticism of him to be based on sound logic/reason and with facts and figures to back it up. I wish I could know how Fred/Sam would have turned out as initially the signs seemed good. However, if Allardyce was going to go down the line he did anyway (as in the style of football he employed) then it would have all ended in tears again - people would have had even LESS patience with him simply because it was Fred at the helm above him - and I'd be struggling to see a way out for Shepherd. Apart from better/more experienced backing in his very early days as manager I'm not sure what else would be different. He still brought in all the staff he wanted and got some of his original targets (Viduka, Smith and Barton) but he also still played horrendous football at times and quickly lost the fans as people began to suss him out. A crystal ball would be handy but we have what we have, unfortunately. Whether it's better or worse than what it would have been had FS stayed is impossible to say, especially in the current climate.

Ideally you'd want Viduka, Geremi, Smith and Cacapa all off the wage bill too as I'd imagine they're all on a pretty penny (some more than others) while barely offering anything to the club at the present time. As a partially-educated guess I'd imagine these four alone are eating up around £200k per week, so over £10M a season... nowt we can blame Shepherd for there like, directly at least. Given and Owen are two more high-earners (the highest?) who look set to go as well, which is obviously a different kettle of fish as these are both automatic choices when fit. If they go they'll need replacing by players of similar quality (hopefully Harper and Krul will both step up as far as Given goes and you'd like to think we'll find someone quality to come in to partner Martins up top, if he wants to stay)... £8m a season here or so for these two sound fair enough as a guess? Then there's Butt, who you'd hope would be getting a reduction in his latest deal due to his age - amongst other things... Obviously it's all well and good from a purely fiscal perspective but replacements will be needed - however, being incredibly optimistic, if they were in the same vein as Bassong, Coloccini and Jonas then I'd be happy enough. The whole thing has an aura of grim inevitability about it, but as long as we stay up it doesn't need to be entirely doom and gloom - this season may end up being looked back upon as a necessary evil more than anything... I hope.

The demands for "instant success" coupled with lots of money being spent is also a joke, for what it's worth. Especially when the bloke seemingly pushing that line goes and says Allardyce was a good appointment because he'd proven he was capable of building a "pretty good side with little money". To me it looks like toys out of the pram because things aren't being done the way someone wants them to be done (from a purely personal perspective), but then I suppose we're all guilty of that now and again.

I still don't see the logic in Ashley wanting us to do badly - or even to just be average. If that was the case why would he spend £4.6M to sack Allardyce when things were going bad and then spend millions more to bring Keegan in to replace him (i.e. the most ambitious/ludicrous appointment he could have realistically made)? Surely at that time he was doing exactly what NE5 has just demanded he does now - making active movements to retain our Premiership status? Aye, you can question his methods and his decisions, but I find it fairly mad to think he wants to own a "poor" football club. The whole debate hurts my head to be honest, so many people blinded by different things on both sides.

Sad to see him go, but if the money rumoured is near the mark then we'd be daft to turn it down. Fully expecting a 'keeper injury crisis now and Srnicek returning again to keep net like!

Harper, Krul, Forster, Soderberg will do me as far as 'keepers go - but we have to get £10M+ for Given, whether it be in pure cash or in cash/player/s. Maybe Harper will finally get the #1 shirt next season, hope he does the business for us.

Have to agree about the constant "smokescreen" stuff during transfer windows. Usually clutching at straws.

That second one reckons the offer has been accepted, although the first (more reliable by the looks) says it hasn't. He's a bit one-paced from what I've seen, definitely a defensive midfielder who can pass it mind. Not sure.

Sorry about that folks. Was just updating the search engine as Wullie spotted it wasn't showing anything properly from the past couple of months. Should be fully up to date now, although it might be a bit slower than normal until it settles down again and people use it a bit. Didn't realise it would pause everything, but I suppose it makes sense. Nowt to worry about! The new search engine (not a part of SMF) should be ready soon like, which is supposedly lightning-fast and much more accurate - while using far less resources on the server... or so I'm told...

Thought it was alright overall, good to see some honesty.

Have to admit to that being my feeling. I'd be worried if I was coaching a team where there was fighting at training "regularly". I've seen lads on my own team fighting on nights out where women are involved and when plenty of ale is involved, but not on the pitch.

After a look in the technical support, it's actually a bug that can't be fixed on this version of SMF without having to press "CTRL+F5", but it's one that has been remedied for SMF 2.0 (where we're moving everything over to soon), so there's another benefit of upgrading the forum I suppose. No fix at the minute that we can implement, though.

Just tried it again and needed to press "CTRL + F5" for it to work, as Andy suggested. Shouldn't have to do that like. Will see what the craic is.

Given, Harper, Beye, Coloccini, Bassong, Taylor, Enrique, Jonas, Guthrie, Barton, N'Zogbia, Martins and Owen are the only players that I'd consider as having enough quality to be involved with us IF we were somehow able to keep them all/offload the others and have enough cash around to bulk the rest of the squad up so that there were 2 players "competing" for each position (RB, LB, CB, RM, LM, CM x2, CF x2 needed.) In fantasy land, basically... Outside of that I'd be happy to see us retain Krul, Edgar, Lua Lua and Carroll for "spare" players in each position. Cacapa and Smith are two I'd love us to get rid of, ASAP, and I also wouldn't be too upset at losing all the others not mentioned (Duff, Butt, Geremi, Viduka, Ameobi and Xisco - although I don't think any of these are completely without use as squad players, but you surely cannot justify the wages of the likes of Duff, Butt, Geremi and Viduka in that case.) Seems a dream-world at the minute to expect anything like this. If anything we'll be retaining the players I consider expendable and expending the players I consider retainable. Such is life and all that.

Is it any better? I've just tried all 3 different methods of adding avatars after fiddling with some settings here and there and it worked immediately.

Good spot lads. Will have to have a look at it as I've just tried it myself and the same thing happened.