magorific

The question to be answered is whether any other Premier League manager would have been happy to be landed with two mediocre players they didn't want - and in the absence of other signings - on deadline day. If you think the answer to that is "none", then Keegan being a serial quitter is neither here nor there.

Kinnear is a grade a c***, let's hope he gets aids F***ing pathetic

Man U are No 1 - in both quality and quantity. West Ham always travel too. Liverpool have numbers but make nowhere near as much noise. Chelsea have been piss poor since the glory-hunters joined their bandwagon.

Yet another downplaying of Acuna though. What is it with these journos? He came in cheap, did a decent job, rarely let us down and got some important goals. Not bad for a cheap DM. I'd have had him at his peak over some centre mids we've seen in recent times. Agree re Acuna. I'll never forget how he and Jamie McClen got the better of Vieira and co in Arsenal's midfield at SJP. Dunno how many times we are gonna hear about Jonas being paralysed though. Must be the fourth time I've read that.

Got 5 out of 10 in the Daily Mail. Beyond belief, even by their standards.

Agreed. But stand by for some idiot to shoot you down...

So it wasn't great to watch? It wasnt aesthetically brilliant, no. Not a thing of beauty? Nope not in my opinion. "brilliant" being the operative word here, mind. i wouldnt describe Nayims goal as a thing of beauty, nor Pedro Mendez strike against Man U as a thing of beauty, i wouldnt even describe Ronaldihno gaols against england as a thing of beauty, I'd put bentleys goal in with those. Lampards goal agaisnt Hull was much better. Do you play football regularly? Not a trick question, just interested to know, as I'd argue - from my experience of playing the game - that what Bentley did was more difficult than what Lampard did. The ball was rolling towards Lampard (always easier to make a good connection that way) and was begging for him to attempt what he did. I also thought the keeper might have had a better stab at getting to it. Fair play to Lampard though, it was still a great goal. I do actually yes, thats why i said "technically brilliant, aesthetically not brilliant" But in my opinion Lampards was better, easy on the eye, delicate and precise with his wrong foot. Bentley had an element of hit and hope about it and it swerved like f*** in the air. Not the best looking goal. I make a point, you resort to taking a pop with a smiley. Ho hum. Easy now, to be fair to me, you were arguing a point i wasnt making. Just becasue a goal is arguably harder to do, doesnt make it the best. Take Laurent Roberts wierd flick agaisnt Fulham (?) technically through the roof, aesthetically not - ergo not the best goal. Now take Catonas chip agaisnt Scum (?) again, techincally no way near as difficult as what Robert did, but id argue was a better goal. You see my point? Perfectly. It's the patronising way you made it that I struggle to understand. You were arguing a point i wasnt making. Apologies anyway. No worries. There's nowt wrong in agreeing to differ.

So it wasn't great to watch? It wasnt aesthetically brilliant, no. Not a thing of beauty? Nope not in my opinion. "brilliant" being the operative word here, mind. i wouldnt describe Nayims goal as a thing of beauty, nor Pedro Mendez strike against Man U as a thing of beauty, i wouldnt even describe Ronaldihno gaols against england as a thing of beauty, I'd put bentleys goal in with those. Lampards goal agaisnt Hull was much better. Do you play football regularly? Not a trick question, just interested to know, as I'd argue - from my experience of playing the game - that what Bentley did was more difficult than what Lampard did. The ball was rolling towards Lampard (always easier to make a good connection that way) and was begging for him to attempt what he did. I also thought the keeper might have had a better stab at getting to it. Fair play to Lampard though, it was still a great goal. I do actually yes, thats why i said "technically brilliant, aesthetically not brilliant" But in my opinion Lampards was better, easy on the eye, delicate and precise with his wrong foot. Bentley had an element of hit and hope about it and it swerved like f*** in the air. Not the best looking goal. I make a point, you resort to taking a pop with a smiley. Ho hum. Easy now, to be fair to me, you were arguing a point i wasnt making. Just becasue a goal is arguably harder to do, doesnt make it the best. Take Laurent Roberts wierd flick agaisnt Fulham (?) technically through the roof, aesthetically not - ergo not the best goal. Now take Catonas chip agaisnt Scum (?) again, techincally no way near as difficult as what Robert did, but id argue was a better goal. You see my point? Perfectly. It's the patronising way you made it that I struggle to understand.

So it wasn't great to watch? It wasnt aesthetically brilliant, no. Not a thing of beauty? Nope not in my opinion. "brilliant" being the operative word here, mind. i wouldnt describe Nayims goal as a thing of beauty, nor Pedro Mendez strike against Man U as a thing of beauty, i wouldnt even describe Ronaldihno gaols against england as a thing of beauty, I'd put bentleys goal in with those. Lampards goal agaisnt Hull was much better. Do you play football regularly? Not a trick question, just interested to know, as I'd argue - from my experience of playing the game - that what Bentley did was more difficult than what Lampard did. The ball was rolling towards Lampard (always easier to make a good connection that way) and was begging for him to attempt what he did. I also thought the keeper might have had a better stab at getting to it. Fair play to Lampard though, it was still a great goal. I do actually yes, thats why i said "technically brilliant, aesthetically not brilliant" But in my opinion Lampards was better, easy on the eye, delicate and precise with his wrong foot. Bentley had an element of hit and hope about it and it swerved like f*** in the air. Not the best looking goal. I make a point, you resort to taking a pop with a smiley. Ho hum.

So it wasn't great to watch? It wasnt aesthetically brilliant, no. Not a thing of beauty? Nope not in my opinion. "brilliant" being the operative word here, mind. i wouldnt describe Nayims goal as a thing of beauty, nor Pedro Mendez strike against Man U as a thing of beauty, i wouldnt even describe Ronaldihno gaols against england as a thing of beauty, I'd put bentleys goal in with those. Lampards goal agaisnt Hull was much better. Do you play football regularly? Not a trick question, just interested to know, as I'd argue - from my experience of playing the game - that what Bentley did was more difficult than what Lampard did. The ball was rolling towards Lampard (always easier to make a good connection that way) and was begging for him to attempt what he did. I also thought the keeper might have had a better stab at getting to it. Fair play to Lampard though, it was still a great goal.

So it wasn't great to watch? It wasnt aesthetically brilliant, no. Not a thing of beauty?

So it wasn't great to watch?

I would think a 5 to 6 place improvement was possible before Keegan threw his toys out of the pram. Possibly but isn't the whole point of this wonderful structure to build a squad and club which achieves its target regardless of managerial comings and goings? Oh FFS. Honestly NJS. "Managerial comings and goings" is a ridiculous bit of semantic play to try and apply to this situation just to beat up on the "structure". Unless you genuinely believe the spirit and intent of such a structure is one that would be immune from ill effects even if it changed managers every two weeks. Which of course it isn't. No structure is. Just as no structure is equipped to handle the shitstorm of a cult icon manager walking out in a huff at the end of a summer transfer window. DoF or not we'd be in the same shape right now. So you're saying KK would have walked away at the end of August if he HAD been able to pursue the players HE wanted? No. You utterly fail at reading comprehension. edit: ok that's mean. But my entire post had nothing to do with the "why's" of Keegan leaving, only the effects that it had on the club; that it's not the point of any structure, DOF enabled or not, to deal with that kind of blow and maintain expectation/achivement. Pointing it out as though it's an inherent flaw is ridiculous. I was simply asking a question. Your patronising patter in response not only smacks of someone with his head up his arse, but fails to address the notion (naive as it may appear to a man of your obvious intellect) that the fact that Keegan left might just expose our DOF structure (as was, now that TJ has also walked out) as flawed. Sorry, but what you think of me doesn't change the fact you missed the point of my post by about 3000 miles and instead responded with an NE5ish bit of questioning that amounted to putting words in my mouth. I don't react well to that. Clearly, otherwise you'd have answered my subsequent point.

I would think a 5 to 6 place improvement was possible before Keegan threw his toys out of the pram. Possibly but isn't the whole point of this wonderful structure to build a squad and club which achieves its target regardless of managerial comings and goings? Oh FFS. Honestly NJS. "Managerial comings and goings" is a ridiculous bit of semantic play to try and apply to this situation just to beat up on the "structure". Unless you genuinely believe the spirit and intent of such a structure is one that would be immune from ill effects even if it changed managers every two weeks. Which of course it isn't. No structure is. Just as no structure is equipped to handle the shitstorm of a cult icon manager walking out in a huff at the end of a summer transfer window. DoF or not we'd be in the same shape right now. So you're saying KK would have walked away at the end of August if he HAD been able to pursue the players HE wanted? No. You utterly fail at reading comprehension. edit: ok that's mean. But my entire post had nothing to do with the "why's" of Keegan leaving, only the effects that it had on the club; that it's not the point of any structure, DOF enabled or not, to deal with that kind of blow and maintain expectation/achivement. Pointing it out as though it's an inherent flaw is ridiculous. I was simply asking a question. Your patronising patter in response not only smacks of someone with his head up his arse, but fails to address the notion (naive as it may appear to a man of your obvious intellect) that the fact that Keegan left might just expose our DOF structure (as was, now that TJ has also walked out) as flawed.

I would think a 5 to 6 place improvement was possible before Keegan threw his toys out of the pram. Possibly but isn't the whole point of this wonderful structure to build a squad and club which achieves its target regardless of managerial comings and goings? Oh FFS. Honestly NJS. "Managerial comings and goings" is a ridiculous bit of semantic play to try and apply to this situation just to beat up on the "structure". Unless you genuinely believe the spirit and intent of such a structure is one that would be immune from ill effects even if it changed managers every two weeks. Which of course it isn't. No structure is. Just as no structure is equipped to handle the shitstorm of a cult icon manager walking out in a huff at the end of a summer transfer window. DoF or not we'd be in the same shape right now. So you're saying KK would have walked away at the end of August if he HAD been able to pursue the players HE wanted?

Everything going for him except pace

In the absence of hard evidence the best any of us can do is make our minds up based on any available facts, plus previous experience of the parties involved, and being human in nature, also clouded no doubt by personal prejudice. Simple fact is I have previous experience of KK going back over 3 decades - I admire him and trust him. I have very little knowledge of Mike Ashley prior to his actions at NUFC, which largely haven't impressed me (partly due to recent events, but also due to less net transfer market spend in 3 windows than the mackems paid for a dodgy keeper) I have knowledge of Dennis Wise going back over several years which leads me to strongly suspect he is a c*** - who's side do you think I'm likely to be sympathetic to? No, actually, in the lack of hard evidence, the best any of us can do is keep some kind of open mind about how to aportion blame. Unfortunately this involves recognizing that Keegan may have acted in his own self-interest, perhaps to the detriment of the club. True. He should have just suffered in silence and waited for Xisco to start scoring the goals to make up for the sale of Michael Owen in January. Saying nowt and maintaining the status quo as was would have been so much better for the club....

Nail on the head. Who do the idiots found us our best signings of the summer? FFS man, Keegans way too loved in these parts. Coloccini was hardly a "find". I'm not saying he's shite, just that he was already well known and often linked with a move to England. Jonas could be a decent legacy of Jimenez, but one decent find doesn't make the guy a transfer guru.

To play devil's advocate, he contributed more at the back end of last season than Duff has in two and a bit years.

Totally agree. I said at the time Beattie would've been the better buy and stand by it. Well, they're a similar build....

According to JK in tonight's Chron, Viduka looks like he needs an op which will rule him out for 6 months....

Agreed. On the pitch, I've seen us in far worse states. The 1988/89 season was grim beyond belief, the play-off final was a nightmare, the season after that was pretty bad (I got nicked away at Hull) and I've never felt more worried than watching us lose 3-0 at Barnsley (it could have been 15-0) under Ossie. But there was still a magic about matchdays back then that made it all so worthwhile.

Forced out my arse. For over a year he received nothing but gushing praise for everything he or any of his appointments did (or in the vast majority of cases simply for the things they didn't do, or were only perceived to have done) by the vast majority of supporters. This was based initially on nothing more than his own claims of club salvation by paying off a debt which became due once he bought the club (which was coincidentally in his own best interests to do), and some pie in the sky notion of becoming the next Arsenal by trying out a managerial structure Arsenal don't employ, spending zero money on transfers, and basically hoping Dennis Wise will be the next Arsene Wenger. Then from January people bought more heavily into the sham because he brought onboard someone the fans trusted, someone who we knew would put the best interests of the club (not the business) first and foremost. Some people bought into it for 3 years up front. How do you expect people to react when that person then walks out after half a year at a potential financial loss to himself and knowing very well he'll be called a quitter? Just shrug and say oh well, it's obviously the fault of this person who we trust, not someone who we put blind faith in but has yet to deliver anything tangible at all, the system is what's important, bring on Gus? Of course people are going to get on SSN with banners, of course people are going protest, or course angry words are going to be spoken and written. But has there been any violence? Has there been any vandalism? Has there been any real trouble at all? No. Yet what does Ashley do at the very first spot of a complaint at his ownership? Does he even try to explain himself and win the supporters back? Does he f***. Completely out of character he gives up straight away. He cries about how big a footy fan he is even though noone knows who he supports, how he's just an ordinary bloke who wanted a bit of fun, and think of the children!!! He was going to plough loads of money into the team year after year honest he was... if only he'd be given the chance... but now sadly he's been forced into giving up his dream and will now have to sell up - well only if he can make a couple of hundred million pounds profit in just over a year like, that's only fair isn't, after all he's dramatically turned round the fortunes of the club by paying off some of a bank loan hasn't he. Wake up and smell the roses. Just like the people who believe they're actually buying something at 70% off, just like the people who rush to the never ending closing down sale, just like the people who bought Sports Direct shares when it floated. You've been had. Harsh but absolutely fair.

Which shows you choose to beleive the first of my 2 scenarios that i gave - whereas im probably a disciple of the second. You have just as much evidence as i do regarding what actually went on at the club - yet you have blindly backed one man deifintitely over the other with absolutely no knowledge of the truth. I have probably chosen to back the other man becasue i believed in what he had planned for the club and i saw that as being more important than the whims of a manager who's managerial record doesnt warrant such blind faith. You have chosen to back a manager purely and simply becasue of something he achieved 15 years ago for the club, and you believe that that is more imporant for the club in the long run. The difference between our beliefs is that one has already dramatically changed the future of the club for no good reason and the other hasnt. I am not backing KK purely and simply because of events of 15 years ago, I'm backing him because all the evidence (including some fed to national Sunday papers by Ashley's camp a week or two into this saga) is that Keegan didn't get players he was promised in the final days of the window, and was landed with Gonzalez and Xisco instead. Your final paragraph is just gibberish. Sunday papers? Each paper has its own view and version of the events. And if you say he didnt get the players he was promised - do you know the circumstances if which the players didnt join? Or are you assuming that Wise didnt fancy them and therefore didnt even bother going for them? Im not, my basis of belief is not becasue x undrmined y, or y stabbed z in the back, its that i value the long term plan which Ashley seemed to be pitching over any individual at the club. Supposing, things did go smoother - we could have had Deschamps, we could have had Terim we could even have had Zico by now, would that of been such a resounding disaster? To me, no. If Ashley allowed his director of football to overrule Deschamps, Terim or Zico on transfers, it would be a disaster, yes. So no decent retort then? Nice one. WTF? I am challenging the validity of Ashley's long-term plan. That's my retort. Where's yours? How is that a retort? All you've done is made an assumption and stated it as though its a feature of the structure and is part of the plan, which is quite fankly rubbish. Question for you - can you tell me the exact circumstances of Keegans departure steering clear of hear'say and what you read in the papers? Where did Wise undermine him? Why? How has he undermined him? etc... Do you have first hand view of the events?? Clearly (and I'm not referring to your tenuous grasp of grammar and spelling here) you don't know the meaning of the word retort. That aside, yes, I am making assumptions. An assumption based on the evidence as I see it - EXACTLY as you are doing re Ashley's supposed "masterplan". An interpretation of the evidence which is, quite fankly, rubbish. Haha, you pendantic sad b****** - thats the second/third person today who's pointed out poor english - whoopy-f***ing-doo, poor english on an internet message board - how wrong are my priorities, i best ring my mum and dad up and tell them they did a bad job. You still dont get it do you - you have a go at me for poor english (yes it did hit a sore point) and yet you fail to see the massive gap in your logic - ie the level of protests were justified based purely on assumptions from inconsistent evidence written in the newspapers, do you actually know the full circumstance in which Keegan didnt get the players he was promised or are you assuming that Wise wasnt interested from the start and had no intention of purchasing them? Thats the stick you're beating them with and you dont even know if its 100% true. My "assumptions" on Ashleys masterplan was that he was looking to invest in younger players from all around the globe for smaller wages with the aim of making them stars for the club, reducing the clubs inflated wage bills whilst not compromising the qulaity. I fail to see why that is an assumption? i dont need evididence - it WAS the way the club wanted to go - how you can deny that is beyond me. Firstly, re your English, boo fuckin' hoo. If you challenge someone on semantics (eg the meaning of "retort"), you're asking for trouble. Secondly, what were fans left to do other than make assumptions? Not a word came from Ashley and co to counter the obvious interpretation: that Keegan walked having been sold short by the board (Wise, Jimenez, whoever). The main difference between us is that I acknowledge I am making assumptions, whereas you somehow don't see that YOU are making an assumption in believing that Ashley's masterplan did NOT include the fundamental, fatal flaw of authorising his part-time director of football to overrule his manager on transfers.

Which shows you choose to beleive the first of my 2 scenarios that i gave - whereas im probably a disciple of the second. You have just as much evidence as i do regarding what actually went on at the club - yet you have blindly backed one man deifintitely over the other with absolutely no knowledge of the truth. I have probably chosen to back the other man becasue i believed in what he had planned for the club and i saw that as being more important than the whims of a manager who's managerial record doesnt warrant such blind faith. You have chosen to back a manager purely and simply becasue of something he achieved 15 years ago for the club, and you believe that that is more imporant for the club in the long run. The difference between our beliefs is that one has already dramatically changed the future of the club for no good reason and the other hasnt. I am not backing KK purely and simply because of events of 15 years ago, I'm backing him because all the evidence (including some fed to national Sunday papers by Ashley's camp a week or two into this saga) is that Keegan didn't get players he was promised in the final days of the window, and was landed with Gonzalez and Xisco instead. Your final paragraph is just gibberish. Sunday papers? Each paper has its own view and version of the events. And if you say he didnt get the players he was promised - do you know the circumstances if which the players didnt join? Or are you assuming that Wise didnt fancy them and therefore didnt even bother going for them? Im not, my basis of belief is not becasue x undrmined y, or y stabbed z in the back, its that i value the long term plan which Ashley seemed to be pitching over any individual at the club. Supposing, things did go smoother - we could have had Deschamps, we could have had Terim we could even have had Zico by now, would that of been such a resounding disaster? To me, no. If Ashley allowed his director of football to overrule Deschamps, Terim or Zico on transfers, it would be a disaster, yes. So no decent retort then? Nice one. WTF? I am challenging the validity of Ashley's long-term plan. That's my retort. Where's yours? How is that a retort? All you've done is made an assumption and stated it as though its a feature of the structure and is part of the plan, which is quite fankly rubbish. Question for you - can you tell me the exact circumstances of Keegans departure steering clear of hear'say and what you read in the papers? Where did Wise undermine him? Why? How has he undermined him? etc... Do you have first hand view of the events?? Clearly (and I'm not referring to your tenuous grasp of grammar and spelling here) you don't know the meaning of the word retort. That aside, yes, I am making assumptions. An assumption based on the evidence as I see it - EXACTLY as you are doing re Ashley's supposed "masterplan". An interpretation of the evidence which is, quite fankly, rubbish.