TRon

8 points is massive like.

Well that'll do.

Just need to keep our heads here.

Goal difference building nicely as well.

Handily for us they are taking turns to drop points meaning we are gradually creeping away from both rivals

We only need to avoid making any major gaffes and we should be able to close out a win comfortably here. Who gives a shit if we play pretty football when all's said and done?

Can anyone who's seen Best confirm that he's got a bit of pace? I've not seen him live yet but I couldn't see much evidence of it on his youtube video. Looks a bit Shola in his running, should be fast but instead prefers to looklike he is wading through treacle. That's a pretty novel way to exploit your pace.

Can anyone who's seen Best confirm that he's got a bit of pace? I've not seen him live yet but I couldn't see much evidence of it on his youtube video.

We could have gone 4-5-1 with Ryan Taylor coming in wide right maybe, but I think we would still struggle to get much cohesion with a midfield consisting of players like Nolan Smith and Taylor. Doubt it willl make much difference, we might scrape an ugly win whichever line up we go with. I think the key is Guthrie putting in a decent shift out wide.

no doubt everton and spurs could say the same about us re traqnsfer targets and offering stupid wages. Not really as we aren't a historically small club attempting to punch above our weight. We are a historically big club that theoretically should be able to compete with the best in England but due to incompetent management has ended up in the 2nd tier of English football.

Portsmouth are an abomination of a club and in all honesty it's great to see them paying the price for their arrogance. When Keegan was manager here I recall they quite often pinched our transfer targets by offering stupid wages far beyond their means as a poorly supported football club. Even funnier that Harry Redknapp's signings have probably sunk them after the way he fucked us about when he was there.

Bridge has done the right thing. He's not as important as Terry to the national team so what is the point in compromising himself for a relatively worthless position? He has a son to maintain from the same woman who got knocked up by his best mate who was savvy enough to pay for an abortion. Not an easy place to be despite the short-sighted views of the average punter.

This sort of appointment is exactly why I always argue that it's pointless getting rid of relatively inexpensive managers who have been successful if all you have to replace them are big names who may well do a lot worse. McLaren had Stewart Downing at boro, picked him for England, then dropped him at the first sign of media pressure. If Chris Hughton is derided at Newcastle for being a coach, then what was McLaren when he made his name? Alex Ferguson's gofer would probably be the best description yet this tool managed England due to the lack of genuine managerial talent in this country.

What would be funny in a black humour sort of way, would be if we released Hughton and hired a big name manager like Steve Bruce who spent millions on achieving shite results a la Mackem bastards. While Hughton got hired by a Championship club and got promotion again. You have to admit, there's a chance it could happen seeing as bar maybe half a dozen managers, most big name managers have no more clue than Mike Ashley.

It will be interesting to see how Hughton fares in the premier next season with his own squad which he has moulded and prepared rather than someone else's misfiring left overs. If he does as badly as many people seem to think then he will deserve to be judged on it. Sneering at his efforts when he was cast into the job with a club in turmoil last season isn't really being objective.

Which teacher did you prefer at school? The teacher who let you did whatever you want & never even attempted to discipline people or the teacher who told you to shut up & get on with your work? Whilst I don't necessarily want a disciplinarian manager (we've tried that with Souness), I do want a manager who knows what they're doing and who has enough respect from the players that when they're told to do something, they do it instead of forming a committee to decide among themselves what to do. I don't really care what the players want, some of the more senior players have woeful fitness levels that don't seem to be being addressed, we still have players making the most fundamental errors during games (not bothering to look up before passing), too many players still have less movement than a traffic cone. These are really basic parts of the game that haven't been addressed since last season and don't look like they'll ever be addressed by Hughton because he's too willing to let the players get away with doing the absolute minimum necessary. I have no problems with Hughton as a coach and will congratulate him for his efforts to get us promoted at the end of the season, but I want a manager next season, not a friendly coach. I agree, while i think he's a nice enough bloke and has done a decent job, we desperately need a decent manager next season IF we go up. What people should realise is this league is nowhere near as good as people thought it was when we first got relegated last year. Lets be honest...it's shite. Yet even against a lot of teams we've struggled at times. I honestly believe that with a good manager in charge we would have seriously pissed this league (record points and all that). I'm not saying that he's done a bad job or anything, it's just that against better opposition we/he would be found out in a big way. And if we are honest with ourselves some teams have realised how to play against us(Leicester/Swansea for example) and when that happens we/he don't/doesn't have a plan b/c/d. If it's that shite how come West Brom with all their lovely football got dumped on the seat of their pants by Bristol City yesterday? It's easy to take results for granted when you are top of the league but I'll bet boro with their quality manager wouldn't mind "fluking" their way to ugly wins like us.

not many are saying we should or could buy him, many are saying that given the choice in the summer of playing keane or ranger , they'd play keane. In the outlandish scenario he would agree to drop his wages to the level of the rest of the squad I'm still not convinced it would be a good idea. As others have repeatedly pointed out, buying players who have had their best days with other clubs hasn't been a successful policy for us. Ashley's policy of steering clear of these sort of deals will be better for us long term I feel. Not that I don't rate Robbie Keane but he is usually way over-valued and being quite slow he is absolutely the wrong player for us.

If we are just fantasising about dream scenarios, I'd like to buy Torres from Liverpool for around £2m and a princely wage of around 22k. Ideally after scoring against the scousers he'd race to the the Kop end lifting his shirt to reveal an "UP YOURS BIN-DIPPERS" vest on his debut.

Yes.

anyone else think this sounded a lot like a Michael Owen transfer? I'll level with you I'm a huge fan of Robbie Keane and have been suggesting to mates and alike before we signed Owen that we tried to sign him when spurs had 47 striking options, could have probably got him for about £7-£8m at the time and got away with paying him about £40k a week. My biggest worry is we end up with Michael Owen again in the summer, and as ridiculous as that might sound, I wouldn't write it off straight away. Not really - Keane is a far more 'technical' player who doesn't/didn't rely on pace in the way Owen did. Not necessarily saying I'd buy Keane mind you. His passing is far better than Owen's plus he's stronger on the ball too. Like I said, we'd be better off sticking with Nile Ranger.

anyone else think this sounded a lot like a Michael Owen transfer? I'll level with you I'm a huge fan of Robbie Keane and have been suggesting to mates and alike before we signed Owen that we tried to sign him when spurs had 47 striking options, could have probably got him for about £7-£8m at the time and got away with paying him about £40k a week. My biggest worry is we end up with Michael Owen again in the summer, and as ridiculous as that might sound, I wouldn't write it off straight away. This is exactly where I'm coming from, which is why I said I'd rather start Nile Ranger. nile ranger is nowhere near the player keane is, hes not scoring often at championship level how is he going to score at prem level on a regular basis like keane would if we got him TBF, at least Owen is sitting on a higher class bench to be a highly paid useless sub, whereas Keane has had to fuck off to Celtic to become second best in a two horse race.

anyone else think this sounded a lot like a Michael Owen transfer? I'll level with you I'm a huge fan of Robbie Keane and have been suggesting to mates and alike before we signed Owen that we tried to sign him when spurs had 47 striking options, could have probably got him for about £7-£8m at the time and got away with paying him about £40k a week. My biggest worry is we end up with Michael Owen again in the summer, and as ridiculous as that might sound, I wouldn't write it off straight away. This is exactly where I'm coming from, which is why I said I'd rather start Nile Ranger.

If the fee was say £4m and his wages were £20k a week, I'd take Keane on a 3 year deal. He's the kind of player that would still be effective when his legs are gone, can read the game well and is pretty skillful. Captain material too. Wouldn't care too much if we missed out on him for that money either though. I'd rather start Nile Ranger next season. We have enough tired old bastards with no legs to shift without adding another one.

Not really. He's always been a decent finisher, just it's being recognised by a decent England manager for a change.

Having read the Realistic transfer targets January 2010 thread where some posters are seriously considering spending millions on signing Robbie Keane all I will say is thank God for Ashley's policy of only signing players under 26.