Rich

I'm not jumping on the bandwagon here because Manchester United have lost today, but last Saturday at 7:04pm, something happened which told me Chelsea were going to win the league. The played s*** against the worst side in the league but scored in the dying seconds. Yes, Man Utd done it at Liverpool, but since Terry came back they look much more solid, even Sheva is playing reasonably well. You hear the phrase mental toughness often in football, Man Utd have it, but Chelsea have it in abundance, I think they'll win the league again, in fact I think they'll do the quadruple. The key game for Chelsea to win the league in my opinion, isn't at SB against Man Utd, I think they'll win that, I think it's at St James', it's the sort of game which we usually get points, if they win that they're champions in my view, especially given the fact Man Utd have to go to City, and they play like they're on wizz whenever they meet at COMS. ps I implore everyone to read Invicta Toon's assessment of Jose Mourinho. Whenever you're feeling down just remember things might be bad, but at the end of the day you're not "Vic". I stuck a bit on at Betfair at 26/5, and it's down to 11/4 now. Not usual one for betting, but I couldn't resist this one.

Both are a fair whack better than what we currently have, I should add.

was nowhere for either of the goals He should have perhaps blocked Benjani from getting the initial strike, but howay man, the Big Rat deals with 99% of shots like that from outside of the area, Brown was probably happy to see him literally having a "punt" from there. As for the Ferdinand goal... crikey, if you're howking him in for blame with that then it's extremely harsh. Les had that situation under control, until the 'keeper made another rick and was caught in no man's land. Brown was outstanding in most areas of his game, unlike the apparently "world class" Heinze who was, yet again, extremely poor at left-back. He's probably a better centre-half and would thrive in a more cultured league, but he was off-form today and hasn't been much better on many other occasions where I've seen him this season.

The own goal was magic, but more the fault of vdS than Les. LuaLua looked triffic when he came on, as well, ran the show for them.

How the feck are we 4 points off 8th place!? I'm bamboozled.

Wayhey, I knew that dosh I stuck on Chelsea earlier in the week was a good investment - no doubt the odds on them doing it have been slashed now.

Fantastic today against Pompey, despite the result. Looked a lot more composed than Big Les alongside him.

Do you actually know what happened in the Feyenord game or are you just making random shite up?. There was absolutly no altercation between the two sets of fans so i fail to see how it was worse. Did you actually go to this particular match, then?

Not to mention Crespo is a little over 6' tall and is fairly decent in the air, Buzza. Dave, you're probably right - although with the new TV money coming his price should be inflated further, so we might get lucky. We paid £10m for him when he was something like a 4th/5th choice striker coming from Inter Milan and probably when he had less time left on his contract than he does right now. He's now first-choice striker, playing in the richest league on the planet and, as I've said, with a bigger contract. His value has gone up, no doubt about it and so it should have, because he has shown glimpses of pure excitement at times and people from outside the Toon will remember him for those ahead of the vast majority of his performances. You cannot build a team around a player who only shows glimpses, though, so I hope he either gets sold for what is apparently "silly money" or he stays and proves me/Gemmill/Nut miles wrong by improving his first-touch/movement off the ball/passing/work-rate. I don't think we've slagged him off for anything else and none of us have labelled him as being "poor", as far as I remember. Just infuriating, more than anything.

Wait and see, fair enough. Cheers for saving me another half-hour.

Was mainly asking Buzza/Hindu about it. What about £15m, Dave?

No, van Buyten wasn't a striker, but that's a fair way away from the point. I do agree with your logic in that if you have smaller strikers you can compensate by having defenders/midfielders who are threats from set-plays, but really it wasn't the debate at hand. From open-play will Martins/Owen work has been the real theme and the question of: are there any Premiership teams who successfully implement a partnership of a similar nature to Owen/Martins? Aye, they could work, but the evidence so far makes it seem like they won't. I'm also not saying we should sell Martins for anything but a big profit here... and I'd of course like to keep both AND buy another good striker to add to the mix (but that's asking a fair amount). I also find the suggestion that having a poor first-touch of a football because you're in a different country to be fairly laughable for a bloke who probably gets paid £40/50k a week to do it right. Martins has never been well-known for his control/technique, I honestly don't know who people think he is sometimes, as evidenced by those who called him a "playmaking forward" in his early days here. As for how young the lad is, 22 isn't exactly kindergarten in modern football, is it? Granted he's still got plenty of time to improve, but it's not going to be as natural/easy as a lot of people seem to think it is. Would people genuinely keep the lad if someone made us an offer of around £20m?

What a load of sh*te man. Where's the reasoning that "but had Owen been fit, we might have scored an extra 15-20 goals this season, been 4 places (or £2m higher), and still in cup competition. I second this, like. Why can't we just get fed well-balanced analysis rather than anti-Shepherd propaganda if we must get fed anything at all? Dear me, I've just had a quick scan and the amount of "only" and "but" comments on display have put me right off. Aye, criticise the club/board for things that they deserve criticism on, but like Nut says, when you take a point like the Owen one and twist it that way without thinking twice then your credibility gets damaged somewhat.

Are you fucking pulling my leg? Barcelona play 3 up-top for starters and are a world-class football team, playing in SPAIN. AC Milan are also a world-class football team, playing in ITALY. Funny how Barca got turned over by a team playing big-man/little-man in the CL and how Milan look like doing the same against Bayern after fucking scraping past Celtic and struggling to deal with Vennegoor in both ties. Comparing us to Barcelona and AC Milan, that's made my day. Find me an example from the Premiership and I'll be more open to it, but I'll still come back and show you umpteen teams who thrive using the big-man/little-man formula. That's not even really the issue, though, it doesn't HAVE to be someone who's tall. Someone like Sheringham in his prime or Gudjohnsen would probably work brilliantly with Owen because they see runs and pick passes, Obafemi Martins struggles to pass the ball five-yards directly ahead of him and has always been the same. This is really people's issue on Martins/Owen, and it's already one I've touched on.

Utter bollocks, man. Where are these "two little men" partnerships pulling up trees, by the way? Is there any team in the league who successfully play without a fairly hefty/tall striker, other than the blatantly obvious Manchester United? Who sort of get away with it by having world class players all over the park and a winger who scores more than most "strikers" in the league. I have no faith in us to pull-off this masterful "pass and move" football that people are advocating and it's never something that has been synonymous with us, apart from when Beardsley/Cole were here (completely different partnership to Owen/Martins like). What parts of Owen/Martins' games do people think will gel, for God's sake? Martins' cunning ability to get his head up and pick a pass? The fact he'll drag his marker out wide to open up space for Owen? If anything, it's going to have to be Owen who does all of the donkey-work and dropping deep, which will be fairly painful to watch - even though MO looked very good on the ball during his few games last season. Partnerships are what tend to do the business for teams who aren't as good elsewhere on the park as their rivals - just look how Bellamy/Shearer, with service, transformed us a few years back and look at how revitalised Spurs are now that they've realised Berbatov/Keane are fantastic together up front. With Martins/Owen I cannot see anything other than two individuals who will want to score goals and be provided with service, two poachers. Or is Martins still the "playmaking forward" that some clueless dolts were calling him earlier in the season?

To be honest I'd probobly agree. Nobody has really stood out in the last 2 games and Duff has been as solid as anybody. If his thick as mince team mates passed the ball to him when he's in fucking ACRES of space, he might get a chance to show what he can do. Haddaway Man! He's a fucking mercenary, etc. Duff has been making himself available for passes for fucking donkeys now and we seemed to notice him in the early part of the AZ game at SJP, since then it's been back to normal though. It's frustrating as fuck to watch, especially when I sit directly in-line with his position during most second-halves. The amount of times Babayaro is wide open/has been wide open in the past is almost as ridiculous, although you never see him waving for the ball like Duff does, which is a shame because he's fairly useful with the ball at his feet.

Crikey, £20m for Martins - that would make my day. Chelsea just might go for it, you never know. Martins/Owen has got "trouble" written all over it, if you ask me. It's going to end up being one or the other, or neither (knowing us), but if they "work" together then I'll be mightily amazed. I can just see it now, though: we knock back a good bid for Martins, he reluctantly stays and then his partnership with Owen is non-existant or he gets injured and we're having to choose between the pair of them at a later juncture - or both of them end up going because we're still ambling around the lower echelons of the league. I hope I'm wrong, by a long way. I wouldn't be surprised if Martins is already deeply unhappy here and he's ready to jump ship at the first opportunity.

But, why do you involve your missus, and not admit it's you yourself, and you only who is fascinated with all those "handsome", "well-hung", "heart-throb(s)" playing footie? There is nothing wrong with fascination with the same sex- it's not considered a disease since the early seventies in psychiatry. IMHO, it's especially charming when you show your infatuation with former NUFC players. Deary me. I am a fag enabler.

Also, people have bloody well missed the irony in that Ginola was considered a bit of a hearthrob while he was here, especially compared to the other two mentioned. I remember my auld lady positively swooning over him back in the day. Never confused, myself. Never.

I've been waiting for fucking ages for Jon to bite at this, but the bastard hasn't.

There are cheerleaders in "soccer", by the way. "Score!" for me! Not at St. James' just yet.

He never learns. It's like punching a dog. No matter how many times you do it, you know when you shout for it, it'll still come running over wagging its tail......aaaaand SMACK! Who would punch a dog!? :-[

Do we really need to sell all the players people say we do? Was the squad not worse than this in the summer before Bellamy/Robert were signed? We're never going to be 100% satisfied with our players, but surely selling them all/trying to replace them isn't the sensible way to go about it - especially when it's Roeder doing the replacing. Most of them aren't half as bad as people make them out to be.

Inside joke, sorry. I would say the Ferdinand comment was more dubious when I look back on it. Worrying times.

Jonathan Woodgate - handsome lad, quality footballer, generally a superb bloke. David Ginola - wizard with the ball at his feet, was the most exciting player I'd seen when he arrived. Les Ferdinand - what can you say? Hung like a baby elephant, as well, if Rob Lee/Alan Shearer are to be believed.