OzzieMandias

Well, I'd still have O'Neill, Hitzfeld, Allardyce, Hiddink, van Gaal, Ranieri or Eriksson rather than Roeder. Maybe even Paul le Guen.

It's probably better for everyone to have them safely back in their indigenous habitat and not making a nuisance of themselves to the public at large.

The rest of the sentence is pretty silly too: "we will return to a season where European football is guaranteed." Return! Guaranteed! When was European football ever fucking guaranteed at this club?

Exactly. Sad to say, he was suited to the level we had already been dragged to.

Hearts, FFS! mackems.gif

So they should vocally support a shite performance, thus validating it?? Do you think booing during the game is more likely to improve their performance or is it more likely they are going to start to feel the pressure, try to force things and make more mistakes/give away possesion? They should be good enough to tonk Andorra, whatever the circumstances.

Can't really comment without actually seeing some stats.

Anyone got a link to these "facts" about Roeder and his predecessors?

Maybe we're sort of getting a result here: three points secured but pathetic performance hastens exit of McLaren, while Gerrard shows the next manager why he should be in central midfield and Lampard on the bench.

Somewhere between "quite" and "very".

After Marcelino, Viana and Luque, I don't think Newcastle United and players from the Iberian peninsula make a very good match.

Rat negotiates departure from sinking ship: http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,,2043703,00.html

NE5. :downtown: Aye, but he can't afford it.

Re player development, SOMETHING must have been getting done right pre the current board or Keegan wouldn't have been able to build his squad with the homegrown character of players such as Steve Watson, Robbie Elliott, and Lee Clark. And we're still producing lots of players. It's just that most of them are only good enough to play in Scotland or the Championship.

Activity in the transfer window will be an improvement on the last two or three, as Shepherd will find some money. But though some problem positions will be addressed, it'll still look pretty inadequate, really, and there'll be loads more arguments on here about whether we were wiser to spend the money available on this position or that. Michael Owen will play for us and have an OK but not awesome season. This will be spun as him needing to play in a better team to get back to his best, and we'll end up having to sell him to Liverpool at some atrocious loss in summer 2008. Tension will continue to simmer between Shepherd and the Halls, and this is the biggie, for me, as I don't believe it can carry on for another year without something coming to a head. There are only three possible outcomes, as far as I can see. In order of likelihood: 1) Shepherd will buy out the Halls and NUFC will become a private family business. He'd have to borrow tens of millions to do it, and the club would then be saddled with paying it this back. 2) Belgravia will better Shepherd's offer and manage to take control of the club. After that, who knows? Best-case scenario is that they bring enough investment to improve the squad and enough sense to get a better quality manager. Worst-case? It'd be a bit like Shepherd without Shepherd – poor personnel decisions and not enough investment in the club to get out of the mire of mediocrity. 3) Some rearrangement of the major shareholdings that sees the exit of the Halls but the arrival of one or two other big shareholders. I think this is unlikely – who'd want to get into bed with Shepherd?

The Partizan game was one of the most important of the decade. It was absolutely essential that we win it and bag the resulting CL cash if we were to carry on progressing as a club. Meanwhile, the season just finished had been marked by a constant feeling that we were over-achieving, doing better than we should have – until the 2-6 to Manchester United, and the sense that a young, inexperienced squad had been "found out". You can try to pretend that signings in the January window somehow make up for the lack of them that summer, but the fact was that by the end of the season the squad was seriously reduced in confidence. It needed some reinforcement, something to lift the spirits. Instead we got only the divisive signing of Lee Bowyer on the cheap. There are times when it makes sense to speculate to accumulate, and times when it does not. I'd argue that the summer of 2003 was an example of the former, while the summer of 2005 was a stupid time to spunk £30 million. Circumstances change. Yes, Shepherd finding a way of investing in the squad might not have resulted in a win against Partizan. But the course of action taken didn't either. And at this point all of Bobby Robson's good work was unravelled and our current decline began. It's not a double standard. Sometimes it's necessary to take risks, at other times it's necessary to be cautious. On some crucial occasions, Shepherd has picked the wrong times to make risks, and the wrong times to be cautious – if awarding an £8.5 million dividend to shareholders can be described as "caution", that is.

Some of on here might be sure that Roeder will still be here in August (I think he probably will be too), but it doesn't sound like he himself is sure at all. This interview reads like the outburst of a man feeling the pressure – not quite a KK "love it, just love it" moment, but heading in that direction, even though there's nothing to play for but the vague hope of Inter-Toto qualification. His job's on the line. This in contrast to this week's PR push about scouting efforts, intended to mollify our concerns about the squad in general and the defence in particular.

Roeder is losing the plot. He sounds close to snapping.

It's great that HTL never slags off other posters.

Brilliant.

You are confusing me with Freddie Shepherd and Douglas Hall.

So we start the game with two right-footers on the left, and both Lampard and Gerrard in the middle. Same old bollocks of players being "too good" to be left on the bench, and so we have individuals out of position instead of a team where players are playing their usual game.

There's a history to that, though, given that in past, if we fell behind, we'd start just running round and impressing everyone with our passion but adhering to no game plan. I used to be impressed by the way that the German team, if they conceded a goal, just settled back into their system and started working forward again. We always just seemed to charge at everything, in similar situations, and eventually emerge as the heroic losers. When England were at their best under Eriksson it was because they'd finally mastered the ability to keep cool and stick to a plan. When they were at their worst, on the other hand, it was because they'd forgotten how to ramp it up a notch or two when necessary. The ideal England coach would get them to start putting the two things together.

The shameful truth. It's a joke that the best we can come up with is a mediocre, mid-table second-rater like McLaren. I wonder when this will ever change? European coaching seems to have got ahead of England’s both technically and philosophically at some point, right about the time the Premiership had enough money to hire the best wherever they came from – which wasn't England. Now all the best jobs are occupied by successful foreigners and no English managers are learning enough to make the very top level. Or that's how it seems. Not that I'd mind one tiny little bit if Newcastle were also managed by a successful foreigner. And if England absolutely HAS to have an English manager, then it really should be Allardyce. He's the only credible candidate.

Yeah, I think that sometimes too, that England are like the Newcastle of international teams. The atmosphere is really weird around this forthcoming Israel game, everyone's putting on a brave face while obviously fearing the worst. I want us to tonk them, but if we don't, if we get beaten, the silver lining is that it should get shot of McLaren sooner rather than later, because he's got about as much chance of leading England to a cup as Roeder has of qualifying for the Champions League.