Rich

I agree wholeheatedly with the sexy bastard above, but I'm unsure as to whether Babayaro will be "fit". I'd stick Harper, Bramble, Rampage, Butt and Sibierski on the bench, an' all. 16 senior players, who'd have thunk it!?

I certainly don't see how the bloke can be any worse than Souness or Roeder have been, individually speaking. Maybe that's big Fred's masterplan? Get the two shittest managers we can possibly find and lower the supporters' expectations suitably until the time is right for another KK-like assault on the Premiership with the Local Hero returning to right the wrongs of the previous regimes... perhaps Shep is saving up all of his coppers to give to Big Al, as well. If you think about it hard enough, it makes sense in an "ultimate conspiracy theory" kind of a way. That's my new stance on Shepherd/Roeder, anyway, it will provide me with a much brighter outlook if I can convince myself to believe it.

My points entirely, Tmonkey. Excellent point regarding Gerrard BTW, someone I've always thought would be better on the right, I posted that on Liverpool's forum at the start of last season to a few boss eyed replies and that's where Rafa played him and he subsequently had the season of his life. I recently watched England under-21s against Spain's youngsters, for 60 minutes or so Nigel Reo-Coker was playing as what can only be described as Roeder's Parker, stuck between attack and defence not quite knowing what to do. Once Huddlestone came off injured (the anchorman can you believe) NRC reverted to that role and subsequently looked twice the player and out came all his attributes within quick succession as he performed a mini cameo of excellence in that role. That player will probably have his career messed about too, yet he has all the attributes to play and excel in that role. Agree entirely with all of this as well. I have been avoiding the Parker argument for as long as possible and I'm glad to see you lads speaking my thoughts, I just hope he gets a game as a defensive midfielder with N'Zogbia or Dyer and Roeder realises he's our best option there. Nicky Butt has been every bit as bad as Scott Parker lately, yet for some reason is still heralded for a few excellent performances previously in the campaign.

1-0 Downing - beauty of a penalty! 1-1 Greening - down the middle! 1-1 Gook - hits the post! 1-1 Clement - leant back and launched it high! 2-1 Morrison - cool penalty, low with pace. 2-2 Carter - left-footed "super" penalty, sent Jones the wrong way. 3-2 Arca - apparently "right-footed", not sure about that like. Into the corner. 3-3 Robinson - tucks it into bottom-corner and goes nutty. 4-3 Yakubu - high to 'keeper's left hand side, WBA must score. 4-4 Kamara - sends Jones the wrong way. Sudden death! 5-4 Boateng - sends Keily the wrong way, it's getting tense now. 5-4 McDonald - dreadful penalty flies over the bar! 'Boro are through to get slaughtered by Manchester United, no skin off my nose, just glad they'll be knackered for SJP on Saturday

I felt a twinge in me undies watching that. The enthusiasm from his end was great to see and the way in which he, himself, can demonstrate drills will be absolutely invaluable if he does get into management/coaching. The bloke obviously has a lot to offer to strikers, in particular, but the brief moment where he was demonstrating how to defend one-one-one was impressive as well. Don't want to go overboard at all at what was essentially just a stunt, but it was enjoyable to watch and he looked like a little lad having a kickabout.

You bastard... out of interest, did you see anything positive from today? I could have mentioned the return of N'Zogbia, Martins' improved running/passing, Sibierski's few moments of decent-ness... Damien Duff showing brief glimpses of class and being desperate for the ball while in excellent positions (despite never receiving it!) and a few other things. It wasn't completely devoid of goodness. Nearly, like.

I've been trying to think of an appropriate response to that for about 18 seconds... and quite simply, I'm speechless.

In fairness, quite a few of what you might term "vendettas" are not completely without justification (however small)! However, I do agree that too many of us are easily led onto the "he's fucking shite" bandwagon that a lot of our players seem to have, myself included. It seems that in the post-Shearer era nobody is exempt from criticism, which is proving to be as much of a curse as a blessing so far!

My thoughts exactly monkey, some mint posts in this thread from your end, btw. Agree with most of them completely. I can't help but think losing the game will help Arsenal's young players more than hinder them.

Cracking entertainment all around, was thoroughly refreshing after watching the might of Wigan versus Newcastle United immediately previous to it. Probably made it seem a fair bit better than it actually was!

Nicky Butt is a fucking dumpling, misses the game against Charlton now because of his booking. (Sorry if this has already been discussed.) And I know nobody played like Glenn Hoddle today, but his passing in particular was fucking disgraceful for a central midfielder. Feel a bit Grimbo here, but I'm sure there was a prolonged spell in the second half where he gave the ball away every single time he got it. I am getting near the stage of counting how many times he loses posession/gives the ball away/misplaces a pass, such is my utter frustration with our supposed "best player this season" He's vastly overrated, although I do acknowledge there were a lot of poor performances on show. Also, for an apparent defensive midfielder, did he once collect the ball deep from the centre-halves in the second half in an attempt to start off a move himself? I reckon it might have been extremely helpful, had he done so. I hope to high heaven that N'Zogbia gets a run in the centre and makes the position his own, alongside Parker, until we can address this area in the summer. I know everyone is going on about getting fullbacks, centre-halves and strikers - but central midfield is becoming a massive headache from where I sit, if Emre is finished then we look utterly devoid of a ball-playing central midfielder and it is an absolutely ESSENTIAL part of Premiership football these days. Christ, it's a bugger these days, isn't it? I've never known a time where so many of us on here have been so disillusioned with each and every player on our books. Is anyone exempt from criticism lately? I can't help but feel that seeing the likes of Man Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal (along with most Spanish teams on Sky) playing some absolutely exquisite stuff every week is raising our expectations of how NUFC should play, it's a real pisser.

Could be a great weekend for us, this, but we're relying on Watford taking something off Everton and Portsmouth going down to Blackburn, Spurs/Bolton is a bit of a dilemma, but I'm hoping for a draw there. Really doubt we'll catch Bolton anyway, but a draw would be decent enough.

Seriously? Find that very dubious, personally. Football Manager?

I hope it's a draw. Three London teams getting relegated would be magic.

Taylor will play LB, with Gooch partnering Bramble on Sunday. Not saying it's the "right" choice, but remember, Roeder doesn't make decisions, he avoids them as best he can.

BBC Match Report http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42604000/jpg/_42604103_duff270.jpg Yack.

He makes an excellent lasagne.

Slight injury, "should" be okay for Wigan.

1 - 10 Well, that's utter stroganoff because I barely saw Bramble, Taylor or Babayaro up their end of the pitch for most of it. Seriously? Did we have Luque on the left, Milner in the middle, Duff on the right and Dyer up front? Was that supposed to be what was happening? Why does Babayaro seem a) afraid of sprinting and b) afraid of getting beyond Duff and into a useful position? Observation: first time I've seen us play the "killer pass" this season (between fullback and centre-half) and we score a goal from it. Magic. Martins and Dyer need to make a lot more runs like this, and so do the wingers, because from all the football I watch it seems like the pass that equates to the most goals and is the hardest to defend against - Arsenal play it for fun.

What formation were we playing during the middle third of this game?

Good to see PSG/Benfica, Sevilla/Shakhtar, Espanyol/Haifa and Vigo/Bremen in there, all decent enough teams, so it's good that 4 of them will be going out. Ours looks to be one of the biggest games. Very tough draw when you look at some of the other teams we might have been pitted against. Should make for a good night at SJP, though, it's just a shame that we have to play home first.

Thrilling.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

AWOOGA!

Please God, let Fener beat AZ.