Cronky

Well said, and I think we have the right lad for the job.

Bellamy would no go within 10 yards of Barton.

I don't think it very astute at all, it is a lot easier as they have more situations where it wont make a such a negative impact having inexperienced players playing. It's easier to blood young players when the team is doing well, for sure, but there's still some pressure around that decision. Both managers are prepared to take the unpopular but correct decision of getting rid of a big name player just before the real decline sets in eg Henry, Van Nistelrooy, Cantona. Fans don't always recognise when that time has come, and if there's a dip in the team's performance as a result of rebuilding - even if it's from 1st to 3rd, they often blame the manager. The time when Ferguson really showed his nerve was when he pitched in the young players at the start of the 1995-96 season. Everyone started saying he didn't know what he was doing, but he was proved right in the end, to our cost unfortunately. Well there's a few of those, so I think that danger is a bit more significant than you're saying. I think Jenas was affected in that way. The bigger problem though for managers of Premiership clubs - especially ones like ours where the expectations are still quite high - is how you give young players the experience they need for the long-term, without weakening the side too much in the short term. A lot of young players now seem to have to gain their experience on loan, or even through being transferred to other clubs and then working their way back up. It often takes a bit of nerve on the part of a manager, because building for the future often means axing one of the fans' old favourites and then seeing performances dip in the short-term. Wenger and Ferguson are very astute in the way they do this, but I suppose it's a lot easier when you're at the top of the league rather than near the bottom. it's the bit in bold i have a problem with - we're shite, at best average, i just don't see how giving someone like lua lua or ranger a shot is gonna hurt a fucking thing obviously i'm not talking about replacing the whole team with reserves but where we patently have a problem with "senior" players under performing and the window is closed/owner won't spend then go for it i say Well I don't agree that we're so bad that things can't get worse. We're probably in the most difficult situation of all for pitching in youngsters - at risk of relegation but by no means desperate. Lua Lua I feel confident about. He's already got first team experience and looked very composed. He got himself involved right away. Striker is a more difficult role and more needing of experience, so whilst you could pitch Ranger in if you're desperate, I think he could sink without trace. A few years ago, when there was only two points for a win and fewer European places, I think more teams ended up in mid-table safety, with nothing to chase and nothing to fear. In that situation, it was far more easy to take chances with young players.

Yes. Definitely. I think it'd cost more than £5 million though.

Well there's a few of those, so I think that danger is a bit more significant than you're saying. I think Jenas was affected in that way. The bigger problem though for managers of Premiership clubs - especially ones like ours where the expectations are still quite high - is how you give young players the experience they need for the long-term, without weakening the side too much in the short term. A lot of young players now seem to have to gain their experience on loan, or even through being transferred to other clubs and then working their way back up. It often takes a bit of nerve on the part of a manager, because building for the future often means axing one of the fans' old favourites and then seeing performances dip in the short-term. Wenger and Ferguson are very astute in the way they do this, but I suppose it's a lot easier when you're at the top of the league rather than near the bottom.

I think he'd be a great little player to bring on from the bench, particularly if we're chasing the game. He's probably not ready to start, but he looks very confident to me, and he wouldn't freeze, which is the main worry about young players. I just hope that, with all the turmoil at the club, his contract is sorted out. I worry that someone's going to steal him away. Above all the players at this club, he's the one that I'd be most sorry to see leave.

Wow. I didn't know you knew "Owen-speak," bobyule. Amazing talent you've got there, to know what someone you've likely never met is really saying. But seriously, he said they were in negotiations, but "the club never got back to us" which implies that Owen and his representatives returned a counter-offer, essentially. The club offered him something, he tweaked it/outright changed some things (who knows what it was, maybe a 3 yr contract to a 4 or something...maybe 100k to 105k...maybe something as inane as an altered 'marketing appearances' clause -- no way to know) and the club never replied to that negotiation. That is slightly different than flat turning it down. I'd be surprised if any of the "big name" players at any club sign the very first thing the club offers. It's always negotiations (on both sides). Well the club made a public statement that they had made an offer to Owen that was more favourable than his current contract. He obviously didn't accept it. Your scenario that the two parties were close to an agreement and it would only have taken a bit of 'tweaking' for Owen to sign is wishful thinking, I suspect. The simplest explanation is that Owen is waiting to see if he gets any better offers from bigger clubs. He's got nothing to lose by doing that, after all. My real point is that they were in negotiations, which is different than turning a contract down outright. Negotiations implies "I'm willing to sign, I just don't like parts X, Y, and maybe Z" rather than turning a contract down which is "take this job and shove it, I ain't workin here no more." (to utilize a bad country-western song someone at my workplace seems to love) I didn't even say they were "close" to an agreement -- it may have been a tweak, it may have been an outright change, I don't know. More to the point, neither do you nor anyone else who is not Owen, his agent, or the people on the club's end. The club's opinion was that Owen's contract was more favourable, and it was offered in late August -- when the mess with Keegan (the "hysteria" as Owen called it Sat.) came to a head. We don't know Owen's opinion on any part/clause of the contract. We don't even know how long he had to consider it before Keegan resigned and the club went to hell again. I don't think we can really know what is going on with Owen, except that he says that the CLUB is not negotiating at this point. I suppose I get annoyed over this issue, because I really don't know what people expect of the club. He's already on very generous wages which he wouldn't get elsewhere, and the club offered him an improvement. If he's not accepted it, then it boils down to how much he wants to move to another club. If people are expecting the club to offer him a really large increase on his current salary in order to overcome his desire to move elsewhere, then that's crazy. We've made that mistake before, and besides, it's a team game and there has to be some kind of wage structure based on merit.

The way I see it, we've got two target men in Viduka and Shola, and two finishers in Martins and Owen. The logical thing is to play one of each, and bring the others on as subs. Current injuries mean we have to make do and mend at the moment, of course. Personally, I find the target man choice much easier, because Viduka struggles to compete physically these days. Whether you start with Martins or Owen is tricky. Martins does have his shockers sometimes, but I'd go with him because two slow strikers are relatively easy to defend against. Whether you sub Martins or Owen is a decision I'd avoid by not playing them together if at all possible.

Wow. I didn't know you knew "Owen-speak," bobyule. Amazing talent you've got there, to know what someone you've likely never met is really saying. But seriously, he said they were in negotiations, but "the club never got back to us" which implies that Owen and his representatives returned a counter-offer, essentially. The club offered him something, he tweaked it/outright changed some things (who knows what it was, maybe a 3 yr contract to a 4 or something...maybe 100k to 105k...maybe something as inane as an altered 'marketing appearances' clause -- no way to know) and the club never replied to that negotiation. That is slightly different than flat turning it down. I'd be surprised if any of the "big name" players at any club sign the very first thing the club offers. It's always negotiations (on both sides). Well the club made a public statement that they had made an offer to Owen that was more favourable than his current contract. He obviously didn't accept it. Your scenario that the two parties were close to an agreement and it would only have taken a bit of 'tweaking' for Owen to sign is wishful thinking, I suspect. The simplest explanation is that Owen is waiting to see if he gets any better offers from bigger clubs. He's got nothing to lose by doing that, after all.

'I had talks with the club five or six months ago' is Owen-speak for 'I turned down their offer five or six months ago'.

Fear has been an intermittent problem for the last four years. Whether or not you define us as a big club, there's big club pressure.

Just to make people feel worse, after Souness was sacked, Ragnick was chasing after the Newcastle job.

This puzzles me, because as far as I know he's back from injury and apart from 45 minutes, hasn't even figured for the reserves. I wonder whether JK is keeping him under wraps, because he'll turn 18 this week and presumably the club will seek to tie him to a full professional contract. Maybe he's worried that the likes of Wenger will steal him from under our noses. Just a thought.

8 goals in 14 matches (4 of them on as a sub), I'm not complaining. That's understandable. I still feel that our team play suffers when he's on the pitch in a 4-4-2. When he scores it's awesome great, but when he doesn't, we play like we've got 10 men on the pitch. You are one of the people I was referring to, and if you can't post without telling someone to 'piss off' then I suggest you don't post at all until you have something sensible to say - your comments about Owen could be directed to almost ANY player with ANY club in the Prem...are you saying that the likes of Robinho are overpaid..?? IFs & ANDs about 4-3-3, 4.4.2 etc are just smokescreens ; Owen kept the club up last year - LIVE WITH IT or try to dream up another excuse .. As I said, I hope he goes, then you can have the pleasure of watching Championship football next season - it might open your eyes as to what class players really are. I'd agree with Apisith here, in that this is an issue that can really hurt us, in the same way as happened when we kept Shearer as an automatic choice long after he should have been treated as a squad player. Yes, Owen will score goals, but his entire game is based around stealing into goalscoring positions. He doesn't contribute much else, and if we're under the cosh and not creating much, then he disappears. Martins, with his pace, can keep the opposition defending deep - something Owen can no longer do. There's also the possibility, with his physical presence, that he'll get you a goal out of nothing or create something for someone else on the break. In football terms, the fact that he's the one getting subbed when we're trying to hang on to a lead makes no sense. I also think that Owen and Martins don't work as a combination because there's no-one to drop deep or hold the ball up. Re-visiting last season's 4-3-3 with Viduka or Shola is probably a better option if both Owen and Martin are to stay in the side. It's just a matter of taking an objective look at what Owen is actually offering the side and how it compares with the other options. I mean, we've seen that we can score goals without him as well as with him.

Love the Nile Ranger shirt, but I'm too old to wear t-shirts with messages on them. Shame.

had it on his MySpace page. Thanks. That still leaves a few questions, but I'll stop there.

Excuse this old git intruding, but I have to ask - where does this 'Str88888888888 like a banana' come from? I can't work out whether it's a surreal invention of someone on this forum, or whether it has any wider cultural significance. Don't laugh. You'll be old too one day.

He should never have been made captain. It's difficult enough captaining a team from the striker's position, but he doesn't seem to have leadership qualities as a personality anyway, and of course he's not committed to the club at the moment. Trouble is, stripping him of the captaincy is a different matter from not giving him the job in the first place.

Which ones? I was thinking Man City, West Brom (first half) and Villa. So three home games basically. I don't think his good performances have been confined to those three games. I think he's played well throughout. If it wasn't for the pressure to play Owen, I don't think he'd have been dropped for the Chelsea game. Whatever the formation, we need someone up front who can hold on to the ball.

I think Shola and Viduka are fairly interchangeable, unsurprisingly I'd rather have the latter in the first 11 though. Yes, they fulfil pretty much the same role. I'd prefer Shola though, because I think a good, physical centre back can completely blot Viduka out of a game.

Which ones? I was thinking Man City, West Brom (first half) and Villa.

It sounded like he got a little bit of stick when he missed a chance a few minutes before. That may have prompted the 'ssh' gesture. Doesn't put him in the right, I know, but makes it more understandable.

Just going by the 60 minute highlights on Sky - Very disappointing result, because although Stoke are dangerous at set pieces, in open play they looked the poorest side I've seen in the Premiership this season. The longer the game went on, the more we seemed to struggle to hold on to the ball. The injury to Guthrie didn't help - after that, the midfield looked a bit of a mess, but with Butt and Barton both out, Kinnear wasn't flush with options. However, it's also a problem that neither Owen nor Martins are great at holding the ball up. Tin hat time, but our best performances this season have come with Shola in the side.

Because the promoted sides aren't doing the decent thing and losing, we've got an unusual situation where more half the league is hovering within a few points of the drop zone, and it only takes one bad set of results to put you into the bottom three. Unless there's something going on behind the scenes, it seems a bit early for Blackburn to be pressing the panic button. Having said that, the idea that people are picking on ex-Man U players is more than a bit silly. That won't help his players at all.

Ince moaning. I'm surprised it took this long.