Shak

I really couldn't give a shit if our managers are nice guys. You could argue that Ferguson, Mourinho and Wenger are all tossers, but I'm sure the fans of their clubs really don't give a shit. Roeder was the alledged nice guy, I'd rather a succesful tosser take over than sit through another Roeder.

Looked to me like he was dropped because we bought Duff to play in his place, for some reason. Then his attitude began to stink, and understandably so tbh.

Finding a way to keep this lad at the club this summer should be one of the first orders of business for our new manager, be it Big Sam or otherwise. It's the one real aspect of Roeder's reign that I'll look back on with true disdain, how he's let Zoggy go from our brightest young talent at the club this time last year to a guy who can't get a game for love nor money as the season ends, to the point that he's just an afterthought in most fans minds, one who will be likely sold for a relative pittance in the summer. You can argue about his alledged attitude problem all you want, but the treatement he has recieved has been appaling. Our best player last season, he gets replaced by a largely past it signing who has played absolutely useless all season only to be given chance after chance in the team while Roeder peddles us some crap about how important it is to look after our young players and not overplay them, while at the same time playing Milner week in week out. His situation is very similiar to that of Milner last season, who was widely expected to leave and most fans weren't arsed. Only a combination of Doug Ellis and Boro between them managed to contrive to keep him at the club, where he's blossomed this season and is now one of our key players. We won't get so lucky this summer, teams will want N'Zogbia. Our new manager needs to come in and tell him he's going nowhere.

As is the case with most succesful teams these days, Allardyce likes to play a formation that is very flexible depending on the opposition and how the game is going. 4-5-1 could work for us with Owen up front, but only if we get a group of players capable of playing really good football. If we play long ball with Owen as he lone striker we'll obviously fail. We'd need someone like Kaka or Tevez to make it work tbh, someone who always provides an option for his defenders or midfielders to avoid them hoofing it long. Dyer is the closest we have to that player at the moment, so we'd need an upgrade. But Milner, Parker, Dyer, Emre, Duff and possibly even Martins are players that would benefit from a switch to 4-5-1. Not going to happen, but theoretically swap Owen for Berbatov and we'd be looking like a prime candidate for 4-5-1. Gonna be interesting to see what happens if Sam gets the job.

"Would you like a pat on the back James?" Who the fuck offers to pat someone on the back?

Not so sure about him. Of course, he's got a very impressive CV. But, he has spent shitlot of money at Chelsea, I don't think we could afford that, atm. Also, his last year has been very disappointing.

Anyone else find it unusual that Beni McCarthy's family haven't moved to Blackburn? Sounds like he's very unhappy there. And Carr's a twat, get him sold and replaced.

I'm attending the game, so we'll definitely lose. Always have done beforehand. Hope we win though, of course.

'Time To Roll The Dyce'

Bolton's is nice. Simple but effective. Arsenal's is nice too, that Liverpool top is horrendous though.

Liverpool I think. Correct, I believe. And the notion that people in Ireland support Celtic is toshtastic, at least these days. Everyone is Man U, Liverpool or Arsenal. I know about 3 or 4 people who support anyone outside those clubs. Was in Dublin last weekend and must have seen about three or four cunts walking around in Sunderland jerseys, really has me worried.

yeah, well done Glenn, you clueless c***. You're a year too late, and not capable of the job, but well done. Its like a teacher saying well done to a retarded kid who has just managed to understand that 1+1 = 2 a year after his classmates started learning pythagoras and calculus. Not really, to be fair. Well, LITERALLY, its like saying well done to a stupid, crap, useless, worthless manager, who has realised a year too late soemthing that pretty much everyone else in the country knew ages ago. But you get tmonkey's point. I do, yeah. God damn monkeys, always sticking up for each other.

yeah, well done Glenn, you clueless c***. You're a year too late, and not capable of the job, but well done. Its like a teacher saying well done to a retarded kid who has just managed to understand that 1+1 = 2 a year after his classmates started learning pythagoras and calculus. Not really, to be fair.

We need a striker, one of them. And not a big money player, just someone who offers us something different from Owen and Martins. Should be affordable at a reasonable price. Shola will do as 4th choice. The big money has to be spent on a CM, a playmaker who can make us tick through the middle and get some goals as well.

I entered this thread with the intention of buying the shirt when I'm over for the match this weekend. Five pages later and I won't be. It's very close to being a nice jersey, but there's something a bit wonky about it. Can't put my finger on it, but it's something.

http://games.atari.com/playgames/monopoly/lobby.jsp

Owen is very good at holding the ball up if you get it into his feet, but if we did resort to long balls I agree we'd fail.

Isn't he generally unhappy wherever he goes though? Great ability, but his tendency to fall out of favour worries me.

Milner on the left and Martins drifting in from the right tbh. Seriously though, I'd be excited to see what Milner could do in this system. Free him of defensive responsibility and he could really breakout. Look at how Ronaldo has done at Man U now that he's not really playing as an orthodox right winger. Obviously, Milner is no Ronaldo. But the theory in how much he could improve is the same as they're both wingers who like to run at people and have a shot.

At the start of last season against Arseanl at Highbury we went with a 4-5-1 I recall and looked very sharp with Dyer on the right and Jenas, Emre and Parker as our 3 CM's. Loathe Jenas as I do, he was very good at getting forward which allowed Parker and Emre to be a solid pairing in the middle and we were looking very good that day until the ridiculous sending off.

Mikel just has one of those faces you'd love to punch, he looks like a right wanker.

He's added a stone of muscle don't ya know. He wouldn't be a lone striker though, is the point. It'd work as long as we gave our wingers very little defensive responsibility, like Barca do. Saviola has less presence than Owen, but as he wasn't marooned up front and isolated he was very effective for Barca there when played this year.

Wouldn't say it was a bad miss though, tough chance.

Could have been twice as long tbh, I'd paragraphs about Allardyce planned as well as comparing different style of the formation. Thought it might be a bit much for the likes of Jon though.

Been thinking this for a long time, and with Owen hopefully ready to go for next season I really think it would be for the best. As organised as teams have become at the back these days, a basic 4-4-2 is generally pretty easy to shut down. Teams need to be more flexible going forward if they're to cause problems consistently, and 4-4-2 is just a bit too rigid for me. Building a team to play 4-4-2 with the players we've currently got is going to take near total overhaul. - Martins and Owen may be successful as a partnership, but I'd be truly shocked if they were. One of your strikers must be the link man, who drops deep and gets on the ball. Owen would be wasted in this role, while Martins isn't technically good enough on the ball. - Dyer isn't a orthodox winger, and Duff I don't believe will ever be effective again playing as deep as a 4-4-2 makes him as he's lost the ability to beat two or three men at a time. - Parker, Butt, Emre, Sidwell (if he joins). Pick me an effective partnership from those four. It's not possible. Of the players we have in midfield, only Milner really fits a 4-4-2 (To save me going on an angry tangent, I'm excluding N'Zogbia from this, as he's on his way in the summer tbh). Even still, Milner would be even more suited to being one of the wingers in a 4-3-3, particularly if his crossing and shooting continues to improve as it has this year. Switching to a 4-3-3/4-5-1 would immediately help a lot of our problems in center midfield. Any two of the four I've mentioned above would be well suited to playing in a 4-3-3, as two of the CM's generally form an engine room and aren't really expected to get beyond the front men. Essien and Makelele at Chelsea or Xavi and Iniesta are good examples of this. As poorly suited to playing together as they are at the moment, I actually believe Parker and Emre could work here. Emre is born to play in a 3 man center midfield IMO, as he doesn't track back well enough to be a top DM, while he doesn't get forward enough to be an AM. But he's a neat little player who would really flourish playing balls from deeper if he had a genuine target drifting round in space in front of the opposition back 4. Duff, Milner and Dyer would be quite well suited to playing as wingers in the system, as playing further forward would allow them to get at the full-backs 1 on 1 more often. Owen would be the central striker, obviously, and I think he'd be suited to it as long as we added some players at the back with at least some degree of quality on the ball. If we resort to hoofing long balls at Owen all day we're fucked, no question. But we'd be looking to get the ball to our wingers moreso than Owen when building attacks. Obviously, for this to work we badly need a playmaker, someone to be our Deco. Dyer could play the role at a push, but he's not reliable due to injury and doesn't pick his momenst breaking forward very well either. I think he'd be better as an option on the wing anyway. We'd also need to invest in full-backs, particularly on the left, as they'd have to have quality on the ball so they can find our wingers/playmaker or else we'll end up belting long balls all day. Solano could get away with it for another year I reckon, but a LB and CB to play with Taylor are essential. The potential odd man out would be Martins, but I'd think he would have at least a shot of playing as one of our "wingers". In the 4-3-3 your wingers can drift inside ala Messi or Joe Cole. Even Rooney has been used as one of the wingers along with Ronaldo at Man U. As long as one of your wingers gives a genuine threat of width, which Milner can do, then the other can play a bit more tucked in. So I'd think Martins could have a shot at playing on the right with Milner on the left, just off Owen. Thoughts?