Mowen

Heskey. I honestly really enjoy watching him play, not because he's good by just because he's bound to make you laugh at some point be it through hilarious shitness or the (vary) rare moment of brilliance that surprises you. He's like the non NUFC Shola and he's great.

It makes sense that the average position feels instinctively below par to most people as its not fully representative of how we've done. Obviously nobody would bother to do it but to see where we are on a par basis would require taking every team's average finishing position and then ranking them - so whilst the average final position may be (for instance) 13th that may actually be the 8th best average. For what it's worth around about 8th place feels right to me.

not really...but then i think almost all people are twats so it's a hard standard to achieve. edit: for a football team i quite like them though - best we've had for a fair while it seems Hart always seems ok to me mind

Aye - as soon as the ref has called the foul in that position he has to send him off. Made up his own rules on the day based entirely on who we were playing. The strange thing is that the two penalties that we've been given vs Stoke and Man U is that both of them were a bit dubious. If the ref had rightly not given either then 5 months into the season then we would have had zero penalties given. He only gave the Stoke one because he'd given them the exact same soft penalty five minutes earlier. Both soft but both pens imo. If you push someone in the back they can't jump for the ball, defenders (almost) always get away with it but it's cheating really.

Name me another good candidate. Ashley Cole. He's a bellend. He's also been England's best player of the past decade. By some distance. Given that we seem to need to appoint a permanent England captain it has to be someone who's guaranteed to start if fit. The only four I can see who fit that criteria are Hart, Cole, Wilshire and Rooney. Looking at that list I almost want it to be Hart despite the obvious downside of his position.

I'm sure this has been mentioned elsewhere but weren't Bowyer and Woodgate removed from consideration for the England squad while awaiting trial?

. I may be wrong but I think it ended when the Eduardo ban (which was a dive) was overturned. Although if memory serves that was against Celtic in a CL qualifier so would have been the responsibility of UEFA instead? Either way I think they've been scared to try and implement anything since then.

I agree. Completely loved when he was here too. I don't understand this competition there seems to be on here whereby the majority seem desperate to prove that they hate our ex-players the most.

I love Shola, but I wish he'd stop ruining it for me by playing. He's far easier to admire when he's nowhere near the pitch.

I like the sound of the rule....but my concern would be it's ambiguous enough that all we'd hear would be boorish tv punditry cunts screaming "consistency" even more than we do at the moment. My own personal preference on a rule change would be the handball law. The intentional aspect makes it extremely hard to judge and the 'hands in an unnatural position' doesn't clarify it much. I'd like the rule to be that if a player was deemed to have gained an advantage from the ball hitting their hand then that's an offence. On another note, there seem to be a few that are so rarely applied I honestly don't even know if they're in the laws anymore, the worst of which has to be foul throws. I get called for them occasionally, occupational hazard at full back, but you see some games where at least 50% look foul. Can't remember the last time I saw one given. The others that spring to mind as never being enforced are the keeper having the ball for six seconds, the game not being extended for anything other than a penalty (always let them take a corner / free kick etc.) and encroachment at penalties (both for the keeper coming off the line and players from both teams entering the area). Can anyone (Paul) confirm if these are actually still all laws?

He didn't honestly get booed when he was coming on did he?

I live a short walk from the new den, I'll pop out and see what the drill is if anyone thinks it's worthwhile?

Tottenham & Man U double for a tenner. Add Charlton to it for a £6 treble. Add Chelsea and City to it for a £3 acca.

Nah, that's absolute bullshit. It would be for offside first.

new favourite thing of all time. the renaissance? this is better.

Seems like a strange example tbh. If Smith's still playing for an awful team a la Oxford in 4 years it won't prove his priorities were right just as it doesn't for Duberry. It might prove it's his best (or only) option. I'd love the fucker to leave early mind

Realistically though....no fucker would pay Smith anywhere near £30k a week I think he'd struggle to get half that to be honest, he'd go to a mid-table championship team at best and they surely wouldn't be able to afford much more than £10k. I can sympathise with the greedy angle but realistically I think he'd be taking a £2m+ paycut per year to play for a fairly shit championship team which probably wouldn't be that exciting when you've previously played in the champions league and got a few England caps under your belt. He should be looking to get some mental deal in China, Qatar or the like.

What's behind this kind of ludicrous mentality? Sense of entitlement. Think Liverpool, multiply by a thousand. I'm all for laughing at Madrid for this sort of reason but I can't help but think a team that has "more than a club" tattooed across their seats doing so is always going to be a bit stones in glass houses behaviour

You can say that about any player and any chairman in the world. think its more prominent at our club Once? have we ever been stubborn and rejected a ridiculous amount? spurs for one have. im sure no one in the top 6 has too, and I think we have a few players that are of far greater value than any other team out of the "top 6" We rejected £30million for Caroll Every player has their price. End of. i went off on one my main point is that I dont give a s*** about players saying that they are fully committed and want to play here for a number of years etc, cos carroll leaving f***ing hurt. if the club want to sell them, they're off so krul can say all he likes what should happen, is every player has a price that the club accepts. it should then be up to the player. its not It is then up to the player... Carroll agreed to go... If its not the case then why can't we shift Smith even when we don't want a fee? Only because teams won't pay his wages and he doesn't want a cut. If somebody's going for £15m + I think it's highly unlikely said transferee is going to be asked to take a wage cut unless there are special circumstances (e.g. Tevez). Unless they're being asked to move to a significantly weaker club they're basically always going to leave.

Whether or not he could develop it that far I don't know but he's shown enough glimpses of skill over the years that suggest to me he could play a Bellamy type role. Hard to say though as that player seemingly isn't wanted at Arsenal, it always looks to me like he's been told not to try tricks and they've died out over the years. Of course the alternative is that he's lost his confidence and can't pull them off anymore but we'll never know if he stays where he is imo.

I actually said this to someone the other day in the office, I wouldn't propose him as a signing for us at the moment for a wide number of reasons but I bet if we'd signed him instead of Cisse and looked to play him up front, on the last shoulder alongside Ba he'd come on hugely. His technique in terms of passing and shooting isn't great but he can dribble (or at least has shown he can before), has phenomenal pace, decent movement and would terrify defenders if given the licence to use it properly. Plus we've got Cabaye and Hatem who can't half pick a run. I'd be intrigued to see how he got on as the "main man" or at least a more main man than he currently is. I basically keep thinking back to that run against Liverpool (in the CL?), it was one of the most exciting pieces of play I've ever seen. With a bit more freedom I'd love to see if he has it in his locker to do it more often.

1-1 O'Brien was on the telly too.

You know, when someone goes away for a bit it's easy to forget just how fucking stupid they are.

Would Spurs sack him if he got a short jail term? I can't think of any precedent for it with managers but we didn't sack Barton, Arsenal didn't sack Adams, Gillingham didn't sack King, Rangers didn't sack Ferguson...

Definite attempted stamp, complete cunt, hopefully a lengthy ban awaits. Great pen mind.