Theregulars

Abject, hopeless, aimless and boring. Oh, and utterly predictable.

We'll need to score 2 or 3 then, which I think we can do.

I want us to pop his eyes out of their sunken depths! Three points would be enough for me but I like your enthusiasm.

Really want to put the Poyet hoodoo to bed. He's a prick.

I recommend the Hotel Neesy

Anyone up for turning it into a night out as well?

Catts for me, like

Grow up man. Don't worry Gattuso. GP's got your back.

I've always regarded them as genuinely just an insignificant club. Their purpose seems to be float around not doing much and then when they get bored of that, get relegated. There's very, very little appeal to Sunderland as a whole and I have no idea how they're actually going to overcome that, because that is the main barrier preventing any sort of progress. That's a bit harsh. Think the same could be said of Swansea 5 years ago. Swansea don't have mackems. That's the dealbreaker.

Whatever the logic and merits and dourness of our situation, we're always better than that shower of shit.

Well said. They're toilet.

I still thought what he did last year was weak but happy as fuck, he tends to be if not a mackem slayer a mackem shield

Surely the club captain could defend him....oh wait! Nobody needs to defend anybody. Even without colo we have leaders in the dressing room who don't require Colo holding their hand telling them everything will be ok. He's injured, he's flew back to Argie, what's the big deal? Nobody was calling Ben Arfa when he spent months in Paris, players do sometimes go home when they injured, nothing new. People question his commitment for the cause but they weren't questioning that in the second half against Cardiff when he held us together and was excellent in getting us the 3 points required. Overall in his time here, he’s shown nothing but a first class attitude, yes his personal problems got in the way earlier this year but he’s come through that and knuckled down for us. No need to give him so much abuse. He very publicly tried to engineer a move away from us in the midst of the worst run of form and injury crisis we've had for years. He only stayed and "knuckled down" because San Lorenzo couldn't afford him and it was clear we would have sued the shit out of him. He has been a great player for us on his day but the whole episode was unsavoury and I lost some time and respect for him, completely understandably.

Shotgun CM with Ian W. The Gattuso to my Pirlo. He does the duty, I get the booty.

In Pirlo

He's done so much more good than bad for us thus far, it's as simple as that for me.

If we win this then their season is a total fucking write off

To sell papers

Because I loved Kinnear's Crazy Gang and can't contain myself at the prospect of him guiding us to total victory.

Every one of our players stops playing well after being in hands for a few months (except Anita, thus far...). Putting aside my contempt for his patronising, dim-witted and obtuse character, he's just so, so, so fucking bad at his job.

He's the worst kind of villain; the one whose motives are completely incomprehensible.

Oh, and "pitiful".

Sums me up too man. It's shocking how little I react to goals etc when we're playing now. Just falling out of love with football in general mainly because of NUFC. It's not about us winning or losing either. It's the fact that everything good about the club is being killed off and everything we're proud of is disappearing and there's nothing we can do about it. Ashley couldn't care less. He's ruining the club and he's going nowhere any time soon. Same for me. I haven't watched any games this season properly, I might keep my eye on the score and I still get excited if we are winning, but while I always care, I've lost interest in putting myself through it. There's not even the hope that it's going to pick up anytime soon. The club that gave me some of my happiest days is long gone.

I don't think so at all. I mentioned Ashley's regime as being part of a situation which isn't ideal for a person with the mental make-up I think he has. I think you might me to keen to shoe-horn my view into the pro- or anti-Ashley black and white stance which this forum has develped. Your argument is an interesting one, and suggests that there is an immaturity to him too. It's not that he's insecure/down on himself, he's actually spoilt. That's an interesting counterpoise.

I've been thinking long and hard about this one, because I simply don't believe, based on his first 6 months here, that he's a bad player. Players have had amazing purple patches and played out of their skin before, but for 6 months, he was as good as Cole, Ferdinand or Shearer in their pomp, and I seriously believe that. He isn't as good a player as any of them, but teams feared us because of him, which is the mark of a serious striker worth his salt. My conclusion - and I'm open for it to be wrong - is that he's weak mentally and quite an isolated person. I think that's more than just that he's a confidence player and he's totally devoid of confidence - that's part of it - but I think there's an element of fragility, a really strong element of self-doubt, that's battling against. You seem him a lot walking around with his head down, looking around a bit listlessly. I wonder whether he's in his own head, talking to himself a bit, maybe even having a go; frustrated because, objectively he knows - on the basis of his body of work when he arrived here his by all accounts strong record in Germany - that he's a good striker, but I wonder whether subjectively he believes it himself. My worry is that it has got to a stage where scoring a goal or two doesn't set him calm and get him feeling comfortable, if anything it adds more pressure to him. Along the lines of - "look, there's more evidence that I can do it, so why can't I do that more regularly? Or was it just a fluke" type of thing. Perhaps he overthinks; I have no idea, I don't know the chap, but based on a completely unqualified hypothesis from his body movement; his listlessness; his disappearance from games and his childish behaviour at times when frustrated (often a sign when an insecure, unconfident person kicks out externally against other people but's its really anger at themselves or frustration with their own performance/situation) just makes me think that he's a spot fragile. Maybe having Demba Ba when he arrived here - not because they were mates, but because he was effectively a really, really nice bonus and there was no pressure, and/or he slotted right into a very comfortable, functioning and smooth unit as we were then - was the reason that a fragility, or cloak of self-doubt were never really exposed. They never had to be. He was a bit off at the start of last year, and to my mind he was nowhere near ready to become the "main man", mentally at least, to take the mantle of our number 9 not in just shirt number but in talismanic status. I think he's been burdened by it and he doesn't truly believe he can do it. There was also a lot of bad luck involved last year - some incredibly incorrect offside decisions/goal line decisions, he hit the bar and post more than average, and maybe that's weighed on his mind and has him feeling that luck is going against him, which weighs in on the self-belief. I don't really know. I'm just somewhat stoned and having a little wonder down Frasier-level psychology lane. I don't know if it's something he's going to get out of, especially in a club where everyone know seems to know and believe the awful truth, that we have no ambition, that making money is the order of the day, that any player will be off (against their wishes if need be) if someone else comes in for them and pays what Ashley thinks is good money (the uncertainty of upheaval, family life, personal life and relationships is probably not considered by us as fans because we think "fuck you, you get paid in a week what we get in a year, just man up") they'll be off and they have probably sussed that Pardew is a very limited manager who may not develop them to their peak as footballers. This isn't the right situation for someone who has the issues that I suspect consume him.