TRon

I bet you like Nicky Butt because "he tries" dont you?? 'Triers' and 'fakers'....fucking hate them......Jonas was fucking shit tonight again...Love the way he looks astounded, gutted even, at being taken off......anyone who backs that weak-hearted cunt is deluded.....he's a LOSER.....and pure shit......in an shit league...... Fuck off man. He was one of the better players today, I don't know if you are being funny or are just plain blind.

We won despite Hughton today. The players didn't have a clue what was going on and in the end it was sheer tenacity and luck which got the points.

We play worse football than most of the sides in the Championship. Discuss. Not that impressed with them either. Its a bit of a battle anyway, bit frenetic so its not like a calm collected passing game. Enrique is the only player on our side who has been able to put his foot on the ball and use it. Jonas has threatened, but he fucks it up with his pass invariabley. It can be done, it just needs some confidence and technique.

Their centre halves have been wrestling our forwards blatantly in front of the ref all night. I give up tbh.

We play worse football than most of the sides in the Championship. Discuss.

Soul-destroying stuff.

So how does playing two defensive midfielders next to each other improve matters?

Seriously it's amazing how many managers pick the players first then work out where they are going to play afterwards.

No, he's playing Butt and Smith in the same midfield because they are both senior pros and it won't do to upset the main men.

Wish I shared other people's confidence in a result tonight. Sheffield might be shit, they might have injuries but the games against equally shit sides like Scunthorpe have taught me not to take anything for granted.

It would be better to bring in dedicated coaches obviously, but we are the football equivalent of a scrap dealer at the moment. It's difficult to look beyond hoofing our way to our next result so I'm taking it game by game.

Rooney is the in-between player. Has some of Drogba's strength and some of Torres finishing ability, but both those players lead the field in their respective positions and lightning pace. Rooney's a wonderful player but I think the other two are more out and out strikers, Rooney is more of a deep-lying forward.

Throw in Smith/Butt in the middle as well I think the midfield will be: Raylor, Guthrie, Nolan, Smith, Jonas. I don't think he'll play Ranger for some reason Won't Raylor be playing right back? Simpson will probably be at CB, although there's probably a good case for going with Kadar and Colo as the central defenders. Probably a bit too daring for Careful Chris methinks.

There's actually a desperate need for a show centred round the toon, I am quite often driving home and turn on Real Radio to listen to the three Legends but end up turning it off again because it's all Mackems and Smoggies 90% of the time. There must be more boro fans tune in to that than watch their fucking team. Gave this a go but it's poor quality atm. Hopefullyu it will improve, but the presenters need to talk football rather than their own escapades.

The senior playeres seem to be doing quite a lot of the managing, maybe they can chip in with the odd coaching session as well?

If you could (hypothetically) guarantee that back four I'd put my house on us for promotion. Coloccini's injury record is excellent and Taylor's a fairly robust lad so I think they'll play more than most. I think we're quite well covered at centre back, the wide areas are the problem.

I'd much rather have two box to box midfielders in the centre of midfield at this level. Plus what would you define as a creative midfielder? A classic number 10? Someone in the Riquelme mode? How many teams in the history of the Championship/Division 1/Division 2 have ever actually had such a player playing for them? I would say not many at all. At this level give me a Rob Lee (although unearting someone as good as Lee is quite a task) any day of the week. Don't we have two box to box midfielders in Smith and Nolan? I'd answer that myself but I don't want to run the risk of being accused of having a blatant agenda.

I think the ball would come back a little too quickly with that team. Not sure they'd be able to hold the ball up if they needed to. Canny on the break though but i think you need to able to do both. We've played Harewood and Carroll up front and they've failed to make the ball stick, Ranger has done this more effectively than anyone else playing as a lone striker, which he would be in this system. It looks like it could work in theory, until we see it in practice we'll never know. It would be good away from home I reckon, Loven, Ranger and Jonas would provide some good pace on the counter attack.

That's a fair point. We are desperate for decent wide players and IMO this will probably be the difference between going up or cementing our second class status for a long time. I refuse to speculate on possible signings while Ashley is owner though as he has consistently failed to follow up previous promises to invest in the transfer window. He is a lying fat bastard and this has been proven in court.

He's taking a massive gamble on getting automatic promotion without any significant investment in the playing squad. We have a lop-sided squad with no decent wide players. If we are still up with the leaders come January we will need to buy those wide players or get some in on loan, and then Ashley's second gamble will have to come off, hoping that Hughton can identify the right players to sign. It all should have been done in the summer but then Ashley's a master at reacting to situations rtaher than setting the agenda.

If we get a half decent fee for him there won't be many complaints.

We need Ranger in the team to hold the ball up and bring the midfielders into play, Carroll and Harewood have failed to do this when played together, but I think Carroll and Ranger have shown they can work as a pair. Forget reputations and go with what works.

I'm not going to slag hughton while we ars sitting at the top of the table, he doesn't really deserve that, but from this point onwards his performance will only come under far more intense scrutiny. Yes we have injuries but we still have a far stronger squad than most in this division on paper at least. There are no excuses if we see performances start to slide further.

Working together? Unity? We've essentially got a patsy manager the players can run rings around and owners who will use him as their f***ing puppet. Brilliant, great news, i'm ecstatic. Have you watched many games this season? We're top of the league because our players are the best of a s*** bunch. It's not because of any great managerial ability otherwise we would have actually turned up in the first half of a game in the last 5. It's not because the owner gives a flying f*** as he has made abundantly clear on a number of occasions. You think he's working for our good or working to squeeze as much cash as he can out the club whilst awaiting the best offer he can hope for and gambling on the hope of promotion. You see where we end up after January, when odds are our squad will be further depleted and fall to the level of those just below us in the Championship - it's been shown from the last 5 games that it only takes a few players to no longer be there (Taylor and Nolan could easily be sold in January) and we'd be totally f***ed. You think Hughton and Ashley will work together and bring in players of the same quality and reasonable value using their wealth of footballing knowledge and contacts? f***ing unbelievable. I have read these boards for a good few years and you've gone from one of the most sensible posters to a total parody of yourself. Whilst I often disagreed with what you said the fact it was well reasoned and interesting always made you one of the best posters on here, now you're so wrapped up in your desperate denialist contrarian outlook that every post makes me cringe. Got to agree with alot of that. Same here. bobyule was one of the more insighhtful posters but seems to have fallen into the trap of sticking to his guns when the facts fly in their face. The only good thing about this farce is that at least Ashley can no longer run the club in limbo under the pretence it's for sale. Not that I think it will make much difference to the operations as I expect him to invest fuck all in real terms with regard to the playing squad/.

All this does is confirm that Ashley has no affinity for the club or it's supporters and is indeed a Cockney wanker.