OzzieMandias

Newell seems like a right wanker to me, like.

Aye, but you'd still be desperately thinking of excuses for Fat Fred even if we dropped below Hartlepool.

I can't see properly out of my right eye. Just a great big blur. Something I was born with. No big problem really, but... One night, years ago, I was walking down the street and someone shot at me with an air gun from the top deck of a passing bus. The pellet hit me on the left side of the bridge of my nose. Nothing serious, just a small wound that bled for a while and healed up quickly leaving no scar. But it was about half an inch away from effectively rendering me blind. Shook me up good and proper, and I took a while to get over it. While it would have been nice to have been earning more money than I was back then, I don't supposed a larger wage packet would have meant the slightest difference to how I felt – let alone how I would have felt if the guy's aim had been slightly different.

Good post. I'd say, before backing a manager to the hilt, they need the intelligence to find the right one who's worth backing – and then back them the way Manure have backed Ferguson, or the Arse have let Wenger have it all his own way. It's not just about flashing a bit of transfer cash and going "Hey look, I'm backing the manager here!". (Particularly ridiculous as most of our managers get shown the door about five weeks after this happens.) The closest the current board has come to the right kind of appointment – out of five attempts – was Bobby Robson. Did they back him? Well, up to a point. He had the lowest average annual transfer spend of any Fat Fred appointment. If you read his Mail on Sunday column last week you'll find him "open-mouthed" with envy at the training facilities his mate Ferguson has at his command. "I looked down from the window in his office on several training pitches, all with undersoil heating. I counted 22 fitness bikes in the gym where the first-team squad can warm up together before training. By the pool, I spotted an underwater treadmill to aid the recovery of injured players. Alex said they had five full-time physios as well as academy coaches, fitness coaches and a club doctor... It became clear that Alex has built a dynasty at United not only by developing great players and building great teams, but also by having the foresight of how the club should be run for future generations of players." The people running our club, our "big club" with its huge resources, manifestly lack that kind of foresight. Though of course Bobby Robson was never going to be the right man to establish a dynasty and take the club into the future. He was simply too bloody old! I agree with the first bit, it was a good post by grass although I don't agree with it all. Re the bit in bold. What criteria do you recommend the Board use to determine who this right man is they should then back in the same way Arsenal's Board backed Wenger and before him Rioch, the same Board having appointed those 2 managers? Any criteria at all other than "has a couple of trophies on his CV" would be a start. They need to match a vision of what the playing side of the club could and should be and find a candidate who is capable of steering the club's development. An ability to develop young players as well as motivate experienced ones, good ideas about how the playing side of the club should be organised and run, the know-how to build and operate an effective scouting network and find the right non-playing staff. Obvious stuff, really. All the current shower have ever done is stumble from one crisis to the next. "Oh look! It's a few games into the season and we don't have a manager! Who can we get that isn't like the last one?" The point is that since Keegan nothing has been consolidated. Our "success" was always fragile and without foundation, as seen by the way we've touched the heights twice – and then twice watched things simply fall apart as soon as a key figure has left the club. Of course, visions of the club's future seem a bit misplaced now that the board's perennial short-termism has led us to the current position: floundering at the bottom of the table with a crap manager, piss-poor squad and mounting financial problems.

Link to the Bobby Robson column: http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/articles/columnists/columnists.html?in_article_id=414561&in_page_id=1951&in_author_id=353

Good post. I'd say, before backing a manager to the hilt, they need the intelligence to find the right one who's worth backing – and then back them the way Manure have backed Ferguson, or the Arse have let Wenger have it all his own way. It's not just about flashing a bit of transfer cash and going "Hey look, I'm backing the manager here!". (Particularly ridiculous as most of our managers get shown the door about five weeks after this happens.) The closest the current board has come to the right kind of appointment – out of five attempts – was Bobby Robson. Did they back him? Well, up to a point. He had the lowest average annual transfer spend of any Fat Fred appointment. If you read his Mail on Sunday column last week you'll find him "open-mouthed" with envy at the training facilities his mate Ferguson has at his command. "I looked down from the window in his office on several training pitches, all with undersoil heating. I counted 22 fitness bikes in the gym where the first-team squad can warm up together before training. By the pool, I spotted an underwater treadmill to aid the recovery of injured players. Alex said they had five full-time physios as well as academy coaches, fitness coaches and a club doctor... It became clear that Alex has built a dynasty at United not only by developing great players and building great teams, but also by having the foresight of how the club should be run for future generations of players." The people running our club, our "big club" with its huge resources, manifestly lack that kind of foresight. Though of course Bobby Robson was never going to be the right man to establish a dynasty and take the club into the future. He was simply too bloody old!

Hmm interesting this. You really don't see how dumb this attitude makes you appear, do you? Hmm interesting this. You really don't see how dumb it is to confuse a factual description with "an attitude", do you?

But it's nothing to do with Roeder, Phil. He doesn't sign players or let them go, that's all done by FAT FRED!!!!! You might as well stop trying. It's clear you're never going to get this one right.

Well, Fat Fred certainly hasn't "guaranteed us Champions League football". Do you still have your Souness wallpaper Right now he doesn't even look like he can guarantee us Premiership football.

Well, Fat Fred certainly hasn't "guaranteed us Champions League football".

They is, is they? Whereas running around trying to put words into other people's mouths, cackling at your own "jokes", setting up straw man after straw man and spouting the same old irrelevant shite over and over and over again is what makes it so wonderful, right? If you're referring to "points" such as your remark about my Uncle Jim's parrot, it couldn't back Souness because it was dead. Like your brain. Tedious. I agree.

They is, is they? Whereas running around trying to put words into other people's mouths, cackling at your own "jokes", setting up straw man after straw man and spouting the same old irrelevant shite over and over and over again is what makes it so wonderful, right? If you're referring to "points" such as your remark about my Uncle Jim's parrot, it couldn't back Souness because it was dead. Like your brain.

Link?

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Exactly. We'd then have to hope that the Halls were the reason for every bad decision over the last ten years, and that an unfettered Fat Fred would suddenly acquire the acumen to appoint and back a manager capable of taking the club to something resembling its full potential.

I can't see any evidence that the absence of the Halls would mean FF would make better decisions, though there are undoubtedly goings-on at the club that we don't know about. Aye, but it doesn't stop you trying to make out you know everything that's going on, like. The reality is you don't know squat. Aye, me and everyone else. You'll notice that I'm happy to admit that. You perhaps don't notice that this cuts both ways.

What if he went through with the takeover with his personal cash? Just because he chairs the board doesn't mean he has to pump his own money into the club right? Did I misunderstand ur point? He's obviously worth a good few bob more than most of us, but I find it unlikely that FF has £37 million lying around. He's been building up his stake in the club by awarding himself dividends and then investing those dividends in buying more shares... until he got to the maximum shareholding you can legally have before launching a takeover. He might have a few million more to put towards buying out the Halls, but whatever he's got would have to be supplemented by borrowing – and the borrowing would have to be against the future performance of the club that he was using it to take over.

I can't see any evidence that the absence of the Halls would mean FF would make better decisions, though there are undoubtedly goings-on at the club that we don't know about.

He's going to borrow £37 million just because he's piqued at people expecting him to take responsibility for his mistakes? In what sense is it a good move? p.r. wise and it wouldn't be him borrowing the money, it would be Shepherd Offshore And the difference there is...? they don't confiscate your house/possessions if you default Great.

He's going to borrow £37 million just because he's piqued at people expecting him to take responsibility for his mistakes? In what sense is it a good move? p.r. wise and it wouldn't be him borrowing the money, it would be Shepherd Offshore And the difference there is...?

He's going to borrow £37 million just because he's piqued at people expecting him to take responsibility for his mistakes? In what sense is it a good move? who says he'll borrow £37mill ? That's the minimum he'd need to buy out the other shareholders. wouldn't be borrowing if he was leading a consortium Where's the suggestion that he's leading a consortium? You think he's going to find £37 million worth of investors who think he's the man to get us out of the trouble he himself has got us into in the first place?

He's going to borrow £37 million just because he's piqued at people expecting him to take responsibility for his mistakes? In what sense is it a good move? who says he'll borrow £37mill ? That's the minimum he'd need to buy out the other shareholders.

I remember Wenger pointing out that the 1998 Cup Final (and the future of K. Dogleash) would have looked very different if Shearer’s 64th minute strike had been maybe an inch different and not come back out off the inside of the post.

He's going to borrow £37 million just because he's piqued at people expecting him to take responsibility for his mistakes? In what sense is it a good move?