Cronky

Aberdeen's all seater stadium was some years before Coventry's.

Managing to stop the opposition from getting the ball isn't quite the same as having control of the ball. He often seems to have difficulty in moving the ball on quickly and the whole momentum of the attack gets broken up.

The fact that none of the big four were interested at £9 million says it all. He's actually not nearly as good as his reputation suggests. No-one is silly enough to buy him, so the question is academic.

I thought Martins looked really out of place wide right. He managed to get involved, but didn't have a clue what to do with the ball. We either play him up front or not at all. Our passing didn't look creative or confident enough through the midfield. Barton in place of Butt would make a difference there. I'd quite fancy Smith, Geremi and Barton as a midfield trio. You sense that Allardyce would really like a 4-3-3, but is struggling to square that with the knowledge that Owen and Martins are suited to that style. Zoggy didn't look sound enough defensively to be a full back. They ended up with loads of space down our left side.

Re Baines and Enrique - it looks like Sam likes big defenders. He looks at the game very scientifically, and knows that, however prettily you can play in midfield, a large percentage of goals are scored via set pieces. As he said after the Hull game, you can dominate for 90 minutes and then lose because of defenders failing to get their heads to one free kick.

I think in most cases like this, the two clubs and the player reach some sort of compromise. Ashley may be in a similar position to Alan Sugar when he took over Spurs. All of a sudden he comes across as payments that in normal business life, he'd have defined as corrupt. In Sugar's case, it was Brian Clough asking for a bung to allow a transfer to go through. Football is a different world, and Ashley will need to adjust to some extent.

This question of a loyalty bonus may be the explanation. I doubt whether we'd have suddenly jacked the price up at the last minute, for no reasons other than trying to screw West Ham for more money. As with Barton, it sounds like this issue of a bonus arose at the last minute, with the usual argument about who should pay it, or whether it should be paid at all. It seems to happen with other transfers (eg Ferguson) It looks to me like we've treated Dyer well over this. We've respected his wish to move, and possibly accepted the fact that he may have been tapped up by West Ham. If he then demands this money, you can well imagine Ashley saying that West Ham should pay it or the deal's off. He seems to make decisions quickly, and assuming they said no, he then pulled out.

Normally the fee gets agreed before the player has the medical, so something peculiar has happened. Ashley over-ruling Mort may be one explanation, but on the other hand it's the sort of obvious thing that a journalist might invent if they didn't have a clue what was going on. With the Chairman not being the owner, it leaves us open to that sort of rumour. Equally possible is West Ham changing the goalposts. If they believed that we needed the money in order to buy Smith, when Smith's transfer needed completion they may have decided to try and get one over on us on one or two details. It's the sort of minor rip-off that happens in football. With all that money in reserve, Ashley doesn't have to put up with that sort of thing, and pulls out.

I'd agree with this, but I think it's more down to a lack of confidence than a lack of ability. He probably needs to drop down a level to find his feet and progress from there. At the moment, he doesn't really look like he wants the ball and he's not imposing himself as much as he could.

Well, this is the usual line of argument. From a financial point of view, it may be important to the Board, and it's a boost to the club's fans, in that it gives the mid-table teams something to aim for. But I'm sceptical about whether it really does attract the top players. If they're not going for the big four, then they seem to end up with the big clubs who pay the most and who stand most chance of getting into the Champions League the following year - Spurs, West Ham, Villa and ourselves. I can't envisage that many players are falling over themselves to play UEFA cup football with Everton and Bolton. The managers themselves (and not just in this country) show what they really think by fielding under-strength teams. In fact, we even had a manager last year (Steve Coppell) who was hoping his team wouldn't qualify.

For me, it's the Champions League that counts. I can do without the UEFA cup, which strikes me as quite a hard slog for the chance of winning a second-tier competition. The winner is forgotten within a year. I'd like to know what the players think of the UEFA cup. It must be very disruptive, with all these long flights to Eastern Europe etc. I can't see that the likes of playing Skonko Riga really improves them as players.

no coincidence you only name premiership defenders from Chelsea, who play so deep you don't exactly need to be quick evra 26 heinze 29 vidic 26 brown 27 ferdinand 28 ben haim 25 carvalho 29 terry 27 agger 23 aurelio 27 toure 26 eboue 24 chimbonda 27 king 27 meite 27 samuel 26 yobo 27 lescott 25 shorey 26 bouma 28 huth 23 pogatetz 24 woodgate 27 rozehnal 27 What strikes me about that list is they're nearly all in their late 20's, and the very youngest is 23. It's asking a lot of Taylor at 21 to do a job for us at the top level in the Premiership, and you can see why Allardyce is looking for experience.

Naa, I fancy a change. I want the mean machine. Instead of getting beat 6-2 by Man U and 5-0 by Chelsea I want to see us kick them off the park and have Mourinho and Fergie complaining how unfair it all is. Just for one season anyway.

With a couple of experienced defenders and Smith coming in, we're beginning to look a bit more solid, so yes, I'm happy with the way things are going. Solid comes before spectacular. I don't think that Allardyce putting pressure on the Board to come up with money is a sign that they've fallen out and he's about to go. Quite the opposite, in fact. Allardyce knows that the very last thing the Board want to do is try and find a new manager, and so he can afford to be a bit challenging in his statements. Benitez is doing the same thing to the new people at Liverpool.

Well, they looked like kids playing against experienced professionals, for the most part. Carroll won a lot in the air. Lua Lua looked tricky and quite composed - he seemed to have a better football brain than his older brother. Edgar did well. The others made an effort, but couldn't make any impact. Usual picture for youngsters of being too easily muscled off the ball, and not choosing the right options. A 15 year old Dutch lad came on at the end, and nearly scored. He's got to be the youngest player ever to play for us, surely.

According to someone on another board Allardyce also said: "by the end of today I think a deal will be done for Dyer and that'll solve both our and his problems - Dyer will be closer to his family and I will have that money to spend in the market tomorrow on defenders" Any truth in this or has it been twisted to wind people up? It would be quite an odd contradiction to say that "there's been no problem with money being made available", and then say "now we've sold Dyer I've finally got some money!!" Especially in the same interview He said he was going to use the Dyer money to get his replacement, not to buy defenders. It sounded like the defence was being taken care of by another budget, so to speak.

Not the most enjoyable of games. I thought Lua Lua jnr. looked promising. Edgar looked to have filled out a bit, and he looked the pick of the defence. The slightly older players didn't show much maturity, and it was hard to distinguish them from the Academy lads. I'm thinking of Zoggy and Pattison here, who were both poor.

I'm sceptical about the 'family reasons' bit. He seemed prepared to play for Allardyce, and then the pre-season friendlies started, where he got booed. I'm not saying the family problems don't exist, but the booing was probably enough to tip him from the decision to stick with us, to the decision to bail out. But overall, I'd have liked him to have stayed. In all probability, the best seasons of his career are about to begin.

I think the situation is similar to that of Benitez at Liverpool. The manager wants to put pressure on the new owners to spend big, in a situation where he's not really sure of exactly how much money there is to spend. It doesn't mean that money wouldn't, in practice, be available for the right player. The press are looking at those quotes from Allardyce, seen that not much has been spent over the last month, put two and two together and declared (as with Benitez) that the manager and board have fallen out. Of course, it's always a possibility that Allardyce might want to sell Martins to make room for another striker coming in. Martins doesn't offer us much that Owen doesn't, and the likes of Gudjohnsen would offer us something different.

I don't necessarily agree that he would have paid the Halls less than their shares were worth. I'm not sure how you can say that with confidence. He probably would have put the club further into debt though, yes. He said that he wouldn't sell no matter what the offer. That was probably just bravado and defiance. You consider this an actual tactic to get the Halls to sell their shares to him at a cut price? Shepherd would have to be even less bright than I thought to think that this would have any effect. I genuinely don't think he tried to 'shaft' the Halls. He might have tried to take advantage of a situation of them wanting to sell but who wouldn't? Point 1 - The Halls had made it clear they wanted to sell earlier on in the season, and that led to the negotiations with Belgravia and Polygon. Shepherd had ample time and opportunity to put an alternative offer together. The fact that he didn't means he couldn't match the offers the Halls were getting elsewhere. Point 2 - Whether it was wise or not, Freddie was hoping that he had the Halls over a barrel. He thought that if he gave the message that he wouldn't sell no matter what, that would put off any alternative buyers, as they wouldn't be able to get the 75% without his co-operation. He thought that the Halls would then be forced to deal with him on his own terms, and it had every sign of working. Ashley's ability to pay cash and railroad things through changed all that. Point 3 - Whether you call it shafting the Halls, or taking advantage of the position the Halls were in, business is business. He has no right to cry foul when he was being just as crafty himself.

Good post. Yes, Freddie wanted to take the club into his own private ownership, but the only way he could have done that was by a combination of plunging the club deeper into debt, and paying the Halls less than their shares were worth. That wouldn't have been right for the club, or fair on the Halls. But in order to try and get his own way, he declared that he wouldn't sell no matter what the offer - in other words, he was telling the Halls that if they wanted to sell, it would have to be to him. Totally selfish. It's complete nonsense to say he was stabbed in the back. He was trying to shaft the Halls, and ended up getting shafted himself.

Carr looked half a stone lighter, much more positive and sharp. He really looked up for it.

I'm surprised to hear you say that. I think he's got quite a good change of pace, like many players with that short, quick stride pattern. If we blood one youngster this season, it's got to be him. But overall, memo to Ashley - If Allardyce can get a performance like that out of that bunch of players, think what he could do if you give him some reinforcements.

He produced some good moments, but overall the team didn't benefit from his signing. Failure.

Carr looked a lot sharper, mentally and physically. It looks like he's one player who's benefitting from Allardyce's fitness regime. What a good player Troisi is. He always looked like he wanted the ball, and tried to use it positively. Didn't always make the best decision of course, but that'll come in time. Apart from inexperience, I couldn't really spot a weakness. Zoggy looked good when things opened up in the second half, and he had space to run into with the ball. In the first half, when things were a bit tighter, he disappeared. I don't think he's going to make it in that centre mid position ultimately. I really enjoyed the game. It was nice to see the youngsters relax and give a good account of themselves against much more experienced opposition. You could tell it was getting to the Juve players at the end - being held quite comfortably by a bunch of kids.