tmonkey

Fish, chips and peas, but taken to another dimension with Tartare sauce and 2 slices of lemon.

Quality striker when he's in the mood, but don't think he'd work up front on his own (assuming Ben Arfa plays behind him). Doesn't have the legs/work rate for that isolated role, and most likely needs someone to do the legwork for him, as at Spurs he had Keane and at ManU he's had Rooney to do that. Lack of pace specifically is an issue, if we have a relatively slowish striker up front then team will just push up on us. But even at 30, large wages, a transfer fee we'd almost certainly loose (he'll be worth £0 probably when he's 33), and the risk incompatability with this new team we're forming, I would much rather him than a donkey like Adebayor.

Allardyce is a moron, Smith is a terrible player, ergo, Allardyce loves Smith. Allardyce is also a master at rejuvinating the careers of old, washed up players. And they don't come any more washed up than Alan Smith. It'd be like Michelangelo being commissioned to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chappel, or Tom Cruise being assigning his team an impossible mission in Mission Impossible - it's the challenge of a lifetime.

Did Douglas know anything at all about Marveaux? If not then I'd doubt the credibility/reliability of his source. Might just be a secretary at St James' he's slept with (think that's what Martin Jol on here has for his Spurs ITK source?).

Simpson definitely needs to be replaced in the first team. Personally can't stand to see a fullback back off as much as he does when someone runs at him, it's pretty disgraceful as it gives the opposition player the freedom to do what they want, something which visibly cost us a good number of goals last season. The only area where he's good defensively is intercepting a pass, even if it's last ditch - but once the opposition winger has the ball at his feet, all bets are off. He's rubbish coming forward too, and is one of the primary reasons why most of our play came down the left flank last season. When you combine this with his (at times) gash defending, I'd say it's pretty much a priority to get a replacement in, and it probably explains why he was loaned out to a Championship side last season, as he still looks a Championship standard fullback imo. The only upside is that at 24 he's still relatively "young" for a defender and may have room for improvement given that last season was his first full top flight season as a starter. But then we've all heard that "potential" line numerous times for various young/learning/inexperienced-despite-being-nearly-mid-20's players in the past, and very few of them have actually improved or show any signs of doing so (Bramble, Jenas, S.Taylor, Williamson, etc).

Probably runs deeper than that and goes all the way back to Big Dunc. Regarding the Big Dunc signing, they must have felt towards us how we've felt this year towards Liverpool re: the Andy Carroll sale (and purported Jonas/Enrique interest). The Emre/Parker/Gosling signings would just be a continuation of that, albeit over a long period.

As awesome as his play was against Everton, it's also pretty nerve wracking looking back on his style of dribbling. Arfa sucks players in and beats them by just about getting to the ball first most of the time (and at pace), so every other dribble seems to involve a near head on collision. He'll need alot of protection from our players to ensure the ref clamps down on anyone going in hard for his legs and not the ball, and at the same time will probably have to start diving a bit when he senses a dirty b****** with rage eyes coming at him.

http://www.kumb.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=132643&st=0&sk=t&sd=a Reminds me of this forum when we signed Owen. I'll throw my hat into the ring and say that he'll be an initial success, but they'll turn on him come the end of this season and he starts struggling for fitness around Feb/March.

Pretty bad sale given that Nolan was effectively a combination of Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Ghandi, Winston Churchill, Julius Cesar, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandella, Napoleon, Salah ad Din, Joan of Arc, Ghenghis Khan, Albert Einstein, and Jabba the Hut in the dressing room. He was like the female pre-cog in Minority Report. Without him the other two pre-cogs (Smith and Barton) are useless, as he was the brains of the operation, the hive mind they fed off. Now we have no hope without Nolan to guide the way and show the other players how to do things like stay fit - a true leader by example he was. What are our players to do now? They will be lost. They won't know how to kick a ball. It's impossible for them to function - the hive mind has gone.

What does Mark Douglas know though (other than how to string people along with cryptic tweets?) Is he the new Alan Oliver in terms of having direct access to our transfer going ons, or is he just making this stuff up to sell his papers? IIRC he was supposed to give us big news about Zog on Sunday.

Have to profess, however unrealistic/naive this is in terms of actually happening, I do feel a modicum of pity at the thought of an innocent, sheltered real life Alan Smith deciding to finally take the plunge and browse N-O and other NUFC messageboards to find out what the fans think of him and his time here before he moves down to the Championship (or below). Can imagine it'd be pretty devestating for someone who probably thinks he's still a decent player to find a wall of agreement between everyone that he's basically a waste of oxygen. And not even in a "he's s*** be we love him as he's our Ameobi" kind of way. Even in the Owen thread the viscious hatred for Little Mickey is tempered with some agreement that he was pretty decent for us during his time under Keegan. With Smith there's just absolutely nothing positive other than a prospective party being planned if/when he does leave the club.

Wenger told Robert to come here. I think Wenger secretly wants to be our manager.

£3m is a ridiculous fee, certainly. £6m would be the minimum for me. Have to wonder why Stoke aren't in for him, with their Delap "corners" at every throw-in and big Jones up front, Nolan would be absolutely perfect for them and would be worth every penny, even at an inflated price. Also agree that it's far too big a risk to let him go at this point of the transfer window when we've not signed anyone. We need to bring in at least 2 attacking players plus seal the Cabaye transfer before looking to offload him.

I reckon some of the players hate Nolan. Reason being he's the type of twat we've all played with who always shouts at other people whenever a mistake is made, even if he's the one who made it ("why'd you pass the ball to my fucking feet at a reasoanble pace you cunt, didn't you see there was an opposition player 10 yards away from me??"), yet there's noone to give him an earful whenever he cocks up (which he does alot, especially when letting opposition midfielders drift by). Bound to have some players resent him. Same applies for Danny Simpson, who seems to be happy to give other people an earful and reacts aggressively whenever he's blamed for making a mistake. Hate twats like that, they try to make themselves look good by criticising others and effectively create a bullying environment on the pitch where certain players get picked on. It's just a facade to cover for their own shitness. It's not a coincidence that most top teams don't have twats like these in their lineups (Roy Keane maybe being an exception, even then he rarely shouted at his teammates like these twats do).

If they're South Americans with those dodgy agent ownership contracts it might make sense.

32 pages in a day. If he turns up without our permission that might well be their Ben Arfa thread. http://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=276180.0

He's only a slightly better version of Ameobi, with the same faults.

I have it the other way around. I.e. Messi is the primary weapon undoubtedly, but when he's stifled and constantly running into cul-de-sacs, it's usually Xavi and Iniesta who step up a gear and start dominating the opposition with their "carousel" play, which allows Messi to tone things down a bit, play a simpler passing game and then look to attack in more effective bursts. It's also what they do for Spain, without Messi in the side (though imagine if Messi did have Spanish nationality...well, no need to imagine, it'd just be Barcelona FC on the international stage). I'd also add that Xavi always shows up in these big games. First goal was entirely down to quality play from him, suprised at how little praise he got for it as it was intelligent play under pressure with 5 ManU players near him and his teammates all expecting a through ball (whilst being marked). Best "clutch" player in the world for me at present.

Gameiro. Gervinho looks a bit like an odd player in the same fashion as Tino. Probably better suited to a more free flowing side than ours.

To put things in perspective, Iniesta is basically a much better version of Scholes. And he's not even Barca's best midifelder...

Great player, neat technical ability and passing, intelligent footballer, highly consistent throughout his career, but definitely not on the same level as the likes of Xavi etc. As someone else has said, main problem is that he didn't have the ability/mobility/agility to run with the ball, or turn players and carry it, so was restricted to playing a very basic passing game at higher levels with goals being the deciding factor as to whether he'd have a "standout" game or not. I'd sum his career up as: Premiership: A great. CL: Decent to good player (usually only "good" when scoring a goal). Internationals: Poor. IMO he never actually played well no matter what position he played in. IIRC he had a few goals against Scotland or someone in one of the Euro's or Qualifiers, but aside from that he was usually anonymous and didn't look like the same player he was for ManU.

We should try Jonas at right back too for an epic fail version of Danny Alves.

And for leaving Hernandez on that long. Berbatov could have made such a difference. Based on what though? Why is it so hard to accept that there is literally nothing Fergie could have done to avoid ManU being fiddled around like a baby violin in a paedo ward? Berbatov would have been marked out of the game by Pique. Nani would have been shut out by Abidal, and if not, would have done sod all anyway as he's too wild/raw/inconsistent (hence why he's often behind Park and Valencia in the starting lineup). If Fergie had made his substitutions at half time, or 5 minutes after half time or 10 minutes....etc etc, Barcelona would still have run rings around them. There is nothing they could have done tactically to stop this side, other than to park the team bus in front of goal and play dirty like a Mourinho team would. Which Fergie tried a few years ago and got criticised heavily for when it failed.

Makes sense though. Carrick, Anderson, Park, Valencia, Nani, OAP versions of Giggs and Scholes, Fletcher, etc, that is actually a pretty mediocre selection if we're talking about the highest levels, especially with Giggs and Scholes on their last legs. Barely top 4 Premiership material imo, and has been carried in the league by the defence/strikers (hence why this title winning ManU side are generally considered to be a very weak one, usually they've been outplayed but somehow scraped a win). Up against one of the best midfields of the modern era, they never stood a chance.

Vidic is blowing my mind here with his analysis.