alpal78

Well done for another rubbish thread Mourinho might not be the best around (doubt anyone can confidently claim he is), but he is definitely one of the best. All this bout money is bollocks, is as if the other teams challenging for the premiership and CL don't spend loads of money. Mourinho won the title with Chelsea after they splashed out on the likes of Rooney, Ronaldo...etc and it's not like Barcelona, the previous CL champ did not spend bucketful themselves. If you ignore the buying price, the value of the Man Utd, Liverpool and to a lesser extend Arsenal teams when compared to the Chelsea team that beat them all to the title would be very close, and that's what counts, the quality fo the players available to each managers not the price of purchase (we all know that teams jack up the price by a good few millions when it involves Chelsea). Fergie was given more time to develop his team, which is why he could afford to buy the best young talent around at a cheaper price and wait for them to fulfill their potential. Roman gives Mourinho no breathing space, he wants instant success both domestically and in Europe which is why Chelsea had to buy ready made players who are consequently more expensive. As for him not doing too well this season (f*** me, they've won one and are still in the running for another 3 titles), most suspect that Ballack and Sheva were largely Roman's buy. Whilst one could argue that both are world class players, their purchase forced Mourinho to change his favourite 4-3-3 which he's used bloody effectively in the past 2 seasons to a 4-4-2 and changing formations and personnel would naturally affect their performance to a certain extend. As for what Mourinho has done for Chelsea, there have been quite a few times when his subs and change of tactics got Chelsea to come from behind and win. Saying let's disregard what he has done Porto or put it down to luck is just bullshit. If you disregard all his previous successes and chose to focus only on one or two decisions that went wrong, then you are selectively choosing the info to fit your conclusion which quite frankly is what Vic is doing. Take away all Marodona's achievement and focus on his seasons post the drug problems and you'd say he is an no use addict as opposed to a world class player, one of the best.

Not really mate, once the transfer window opens, he'll go on bout we will be getting three top players by next week and then present us with the likes of Sibi and Bernard. As soon as the window slams shut, he'll then say that he does not want to be judged till he gets his own squad of players!

Do rationalize that for me mate, coz I just don't see where you're coming from. One can't mention injury as a reason for poor performances and yet not be seen to use it as an excuse. Roeder does exactly what Souness does, only diff is instead of saying "we are doing badly coz we have so many injuries...yaba yaba", Roeder says "I'm not using injuries as an excuse BUT, we have the whole first team out....yaba yaba" almost everytime we lose. Adding a prefix of "I'm not using injuries as an excuse" does not make it less of an excuse. The worst part of it all is that he is lying through his teeth coz one of the first things he promised us fans when he took over was that he would never use injruies as an excuse, and that we would always soldier on regardless of injuries. He stuck to his words when thing were going fine during the honeymoon period but now that we're losing games (we're not supposed to I might add), we're hearing the same crap from him week in week out.

I see your point but I think the players you named above have attracted quite a lot of criticism from at least some portion of the Toon faithful whereas the above three have not had many critics.

It goes without saying that fans often display a tinge of bias in assessing their own players, but at times this leads to massively over rating our own players. Answer the poll above and your reasons why you think that particular player is over rated?

The only player yesterday who looked to be driving us forward, good to see him beating his man, but final ball was dissapointing partly coz he must be rusty and patrtly coz our strikers were just not making any runs. Didn't help that thanks to Roeder's brilliant tactics, we didn't to play with any wingers in the last 20 minutes either. Their players must have been shitting in their pants every time Parker or Sibierski tried to find room on the wing.

You'll get both goalkeepers kicking the ball againt the strikers of the opposing team to rake the points for both sides then, in a not so secret devious arrangement sort of way!

They actually tried a slightly different version of this in Malaysia. In the event of a draw, it goes to penalties where the winning team gets 2 points overall and the loosing team still gets 1 point for the original draw. I actually think that it's fair and might actually be a good idea to solve England's penalty woes in internationals. The drawback is off couse that it gives the away team even more incentive to hold out for a draw and nick the extra point by winning the penalties and I suspect just like in Malaysia, the novelty will wear off soon after.

Sigh, another thread spoilt by NE5, Thanks mate!

I thought it was a blatant dive. Thought Barca were unlucky not to get two penalties too, one for someone clattering Ronaldinho and the other for a trip on Messi. bah, I'm just pleased that they didn't win. All the lavish praises of their attacking trio begining to get to me (you'd think they have 3 Maradonas on top form playing for them) Well they do have possibly the best player in the world, the most talented young player in world (no doubt in my mind) who is possibly the best talent Argentina have produced since Maradona and one of the top 3 strikers in the world so somehow I think the praise is due. I can agree that individually, they have a super super strikeforce, but as a team, they have not always clicked (especially of late). That's what irritates me, it's like the press can't see that they are not playing well and are just blinded by their individual ability.

I thought it was a blatant dive. Thought Barca were unlucky not to get two penalties too, one for someone clattering Ronaldinho and the other for a trip on Messi. bah, I'm just pleased that they didn't win. All the lavish praises of their attacking trio begining to get to me (you'd think they have 3 Maradonas on top form playing for them)

Too much jealousy on this board. The only instance I'd agree to cap wages is if that actually brings the price of the tickets down but clubs won't do that knowing full well that demand for tickets are inelastic. I say let market forces decide. For every successful football player, there are thousands more who did not make it as pros and are earning pittance,

Can't believe how self-congratulatory you're being over a straw man argument, but there you go. To be honest, don't even need straw man's argument for this, the evidence if there for all to see, it's pretty self evident except for the deluded few (including the 'fan' who took off my banner at St James coz he didn't want a Gorman managing us.

Did magnificently well to turn Madrid over two legs. Bayern will go far in the CL under his guidance, won't be surprise if they actually win it. Can't believe so many Toon fans wanted O'Neil over Hitzfeld, laughable really mackems.gif

Rubbish! To be awarded as the world's best player as many has suggested, a player must possess the skills (yes for Ronaldo), can win a game individually (which Ronaldo can) AND display an acceptable level of fairplay (big NO NO for Ronaldo). Until he changes this third part of his game, he does not deserve any award. Personally never rated Ronaldinho as the world's best player myself, my fav has always been Zidane and apart from the provoked headbutt and stomped in the WC, he has been mostly examplary and at the very least I've not seen him dive in the penalty box when there is absolutely no contact (which Ronaldo does every now and then).

Does not deserve any award much less the World's Footballer of the Year Award till he cuts out cheating and diving from his armoury of skills. Would be an embarassment to make mark him as an example for the school kids.

General question and disregard your loyalty to the Toon, when would you accept a "penalty" as a legit one

Given Joe Cole's injury and SWP poor display against Spain, should McClaren swallow his pride and call back Beckham?

This must be why Roeder has kept his powder dry in the Jan transfer window, so he can afford to offer a two year extension to Sibi. More bullshit transfer talk from Roeder. Souness' whinings and moanings bout the injuries are beginning to sound better than Roeder's lies.

Robert was part of what made us a better side, he was a catalyst along with Bellamy for moving us from medicority to a top 6 side. Luque is a w*anker. You're posting shite. and you're posting your usual shite that its getting boring. At least Gemmill is consistent coz he was against both Robert and Luque based on the same reasoning that they don't put in effort defensively. You are just giving a hypocritical view of things. Although I personally go for Robert, there's no doubt that Luque was Robert without being given the oppportunity to play, if you think Luque has an attittude problem coz he looks lazy, then the same can/should be said for Robert.

Bluf we agree on many things even on issues when were clearly in the minority (like Hargreaves being a super player even before others jumped onto the bandwagon), but I suspect we'll never agree on Beckham. I can accept that he is overated by some, but you seriously telling me, that the likes of Jenas and Phil Neville is better than him in the England squad. If so, I'm sorry but you're talking bollocks mate. Beckham might not deserve to be in the first team, but to leave him out of the squad all together was clearly McClaren tryin to flex his 'I'm not Sven' muscles and I don't think I'll ever think otherwise.

TBH, I'm surprised so many went for Solano. maybe its just because we are so used to the crap also know as Carr (Solano is obviously a big improvement). I thought besides the cross for Sibi, he offered very little support to Dyer and contributed almost zilch to our attack. When he did try and overlap, he was caught out of position a few times and was slow in getting back, leaving teh Man Utd left wing free. Having said that, his clearence off teh line was obviously superb stuff! I still went for Milner though for a consistent overall game, a stunner of a goal and an assist (well sort of).

Another one of those knee jerk reactions in my mind. The man says something nice about us and we have people already smittened. Good manager no doubt, but huge part of his succes (including the treble) is down to the golden generation of Scholes, Giggsy, Becks and Neville. Mourinho gives lots of credit to opposing teams and is the only manager I know who will walk onto thr field to congratulate opposing player after a game, yet never gets the credit that Fergie does. In terms of neutrality, Fergie is a c***, has always defended Ronaldo's diving antics, recently when Ronaldo dived for a penalty, Fergie even said that he had to dive coz otherwise he would have been whacked by the keeper.....what a load of bollocks. Best manager in the Premiership to me is still Wenger though he is equally biased in his match assessments.

Well said. People may hate Luque beyond belief, but he at least knows how to play out on the left giving us some semblance of balance and would allow us to restore Emre and Butt in the centre which was the combination that was winning us games in the first place. It will be in excusable if he's left out again whilst Parker is shoe horned into midfield and Emre forced to play left wing again to accomodate not only Parker but to keep Luque out of the team at all costs. Put the team first please Roeder. Good post by Skeletor and Ohmelads. We are losing two players by playing Emre on the left and Parker as the AM, yet the Luque haters would rather the team suffers than give Luque a chance.

This is probably one of those rare times that I'll agreewith HTL and disagree with HTT. I just can't see how the Pirouting is of any merit or benefit to the team. Parker's swirl and turn is sideways unlike Zidane's who uses them to beat a player. In effect, it's just wasting time and as good as passing backwards, which in a way can also be seen as "keeping possession", yet hated unanimously by all fans alike. Parker slows down our attack and I don't buy the argument that he does the pirouting when there are no options. With fast players like Martins and Dyer and intelligent players like Solano around, there are always options available, it's just that Parker doesn't see these options. I do agree with HTT though that Parker is better than Butt as a DM, the problem is Roeder does not want to play him in that role which makes that comparison moot. If I had to sell one between Parker and Emre, and assuming we get the same amount of offers for both, I'd sell Parker first. Its not difficult to find an aggressive defebsive midfielder, most midtable teams have them, but only the top teams have a playmaker who can dribble in the final third, we have that in Emre. But knowing Newcastle, Parker's English and plays in typical British style, so its Emre who will go first.