Scribble

The thing about the west ham relegation, is that they had injuries to their strikers and the board wouldn't sanction a purchase of any replacements.

Also a bit harsh on roeder comparing him to souness. Souness' injury crisis was nowhere near as bad as this season's. Plus, Souness did spend hugely in the summer before his sacking, Glen had the leftovers, and the misfits to weed out and despite sometimes taking a ponderously long time in the market, seems to want to only buy players that will fit in. (reinds me of when bobby took over he had a season of skimping until he could reduce the wage bill - not saying Glen will be as good as Sir Bob btw). The spirit here is getting better and I'd like to see what he can do with a full squad. IMO he's better than Souness simply due to his refusal to say we're knackered if so and so is injured, or the priceless - 'you don't win anything with 11 james milners'. Not sure how good he'll be, but so far its worth waiting to find out imo.

Bloody Hell! :roll: By "panic buy", he's refering I guess to the clubs acquisitions in previous jan windows (ie under souness). I for one would rather him invest in a player that will improve the squad long-term rather than buy someone like Amdy Faye. And why do some numptys solely blame the manager? He gives the list of targets to the chairman and who then goes out and gets them. But he can only do that when he knows how much cash he has to spend and who is available. I know we need bodies in but come on, it is only the first week of Jan and no one wants to release their decent players until the summer, if at all. Brilliant thread, you either have been drinking or have the patience of a 4 year old.

Shay is far better than Harper now. There was a time when there wasn't too much in it but due to all the games Given has played he is a class above our number 2. No way should we sell him, if anyone has to make way for Krul it will be Harper.

The Times today also mentioned that we are looking at signing James Beattie. I think he would be good if available on the cheap (providing he can get his form back from a season or two ago of course). In the same paper, Given has also urged Roeder to sign players soon, preferably this week to avoid them being cup-tied at the weekend.

This is one of those games that the toon can surprise us in. I'll be there praying for a win, but tbh I can see a plucky performance (ala chelsea in the cup), resulting in a narrow defeat but with plenty of what-could-have-been incidents. buggers bluecry.gif

Sounds all well and good him sayin he couldn't leave Brimingham to come to his 'home town club' showing loyalty, but does anyone think he would even have thought about it for a second if it was Manchester United instead of us? He'd have been off like a shot IMO, citing "You can't turn down the likes of Man Utd, such an honour as an ex-player, blah-de-blah".

Do you write the surrealist spam that keeps appearing in my email Inbox?

Good points ArtyH.

12TH DEC You are like John Terry. You are a leader. You take no shit and people respect you. Everyone around you thinks you're great and always says good things about you to other people. Even the people that hate you, actually really love you and are just jealous that you don't hang out with them. Keep it up.

After the incident in the middle of the gallowgate with the 'response team' bloke trying to get someone out there was another near to where I was in the corner. Some lads behind me were chanting sack the board, shepherd out and this mentally unhinged/overly aggressive bloke took exception to it and started to hurl abuse 'get behind the team', then walked up the steps to confront/pick a fight. I was sure the bloke had a young lad with him too (nice example to set). Even under Souness the atmosphere wasn't as ugly (more deep gloom than anything), and a lad sat directly in front of me took his little lass out sharpish to avoid any bother. One thing I did notice, no bloody stewards anywhere to be seen, bloody vanished.

Harper Taylor Bramble Moore Ramage Milner Parker Duff Rossi Sibierski Luque Bench: Krul Carr or Babayaro Solano Butt N'Zogbia Not a cat in hell's chance of this though, it'll be 4-4-2 and luque on bench with sibi and rossi up front, could be butt and parker in the middle though. I'd also expect carr and baba to start if able. Anyone know if Moore is ok? He looked like he had a groin strain or something last night near the end.

Shepherd's had several chances - if a manager doesn't bring success he fires them, so the same rationale should apply to him. In all honesty, I think the club has gone stale under his direction, we need a new board, one which will do their damndest to modernise this club in the way things are run. None of this local lad, geordie pre-requisite shite. Just a board that will give whichever maanger appointed the stability, funds, and backing to do their job without interefering and look to improve the structure of the club for success not cronyism. Case in point, Roeder having to persuade shepherd tofork out for pro-zone (or whatever its actually called), to monitor player performance! That kind of thing should already be in place, and the club should be looking at other sports to see what areas we can improve on instead of resting on imaginary laurels (or what's known as 'keeping our powder dry'), that is the kind of things Chelsea, Man Utd, and Bolton are doing to improve performance, looking at the techology used in the NFL among other places. The one minor bright side to our ridiculous league position is it may panic shepherd (hell, it panics me!) into selling as he'd lose a lot more if we went down.

Good film that

A bit disapointing and smacks of desperation. I think he's going to be used as Shola's backup.

A cancer on the arse of football.

That is mental Name, shame and give them special dunce avatar! :winking: