tmonkey

It's not about "service" with him. We know he's s*** at making good runs, he's s*** at using his pace effectively, his composure is s*** when he only has the keeper to beat, his first touch consistency is s*** - so on and so forth. Having established that he's not Craig Bellamy, how about looking at what he is good at? He's at his most dangerous imo when he's 10 to 20 yards out from goal and he still has the opposition centrebacks in front of him. It's here that his ability to turn in or out pretty sharply, and then get a shot off with either foot, has caused plenty of good centrebacks problems. Irrespective of the reasons as to why he's not done this often enough for us down the years, he has the ability to create goals for himself against Premiership defences, which would surely make him a valuable to have for e.g. mid table sides. On top of this ability, he has a good leap, a half decent header on him, as well as the ability to score from outside the box. I'd say that overall, if last season's injury problems are temporary, he'll be a decent 15 goal striker for plenty of the teams in the Premiership. Someone like Fulham would be ideal for him.

Similar thing happened before with Kluivert and Bellamy looking a pretty promising partnership, only for a legless Shearer to walk straight back into the team and ensure that partnership never saw daylight. Keep finding myself looking back and shaking my head in disbelief at just what we've done here in the past half decade or so. Players long past their best not only not being moved on, but actually gauranteed a first team spot with the team even being built around them in some cases. "Inferior" teammates not being given a fair run in the team even when they've earnt it, how pathetic is that? "Troublemakers" treated like garbage, pissed off, dropped or played out of position for the aforementioned has-beens, then sold without any hesitation when they've lashed out - even though these players were our only source of creativity, or pace, or flair. don't fall for it folks...the bellamy kluivert partnership looked good on paper. never worked on the pitch.. as for troublemakers etc i can name plenty who have played out of position when needed and it's strange that that troublemaker didn't whinge when played out of position at his previous clubs, his international club or at liverpool.....strange that ? What am I, a spin doctor or something? There's nothing to "fall for" here, it's just an opinion, not a bag of tricks or a web of lies. Re: The Bellamy Kluivert partnership, it was hardly given a chance to "not work". IIRC we had around two or three starts with them partnering each other, the Villa game where Shearer was dropped (can't remember if both scored) and the Palace game some months later, a game in which they bagged a goal each iirc away and linked up better then all the alternatives at the time. That was the one game where their performances together should have seen them keep their places (and I remember Bellamy hinting at this in his post-match interview), because until that point Shearer had been dogshit before injury allowed those two to be played together. Instead, Shearer came back after missing 11 or so games and unjustifiably walked straight back into the team. Not sure therefore how you can say it "never worked on the pitch". As for the "trouble makers", what will naming people who've happily played out of position truly achieve? Does it negate the fact that certain managers have pissed off talented individuals by dropping them for, or playing them out of position for, inferior players who simply aren't performing or are quite simply shit, to the detriment of the team? There's a sense of deep injustice in that situation that I doubt you'll find in many of the situations where players are happy to play out of position. N'Zogbia for example spent years playing second fiddle to an inferior player, constantly dropped whenever, in the eyes of the manager, the "superior" Duff was fit (what is it, 2 goals and 2/3 assists in the Premiership in amongst the buckload of useless performances during his 3 years so far?). That's not the same as Owen playing in midfield because he'd been hopeless up front, or playing wide in attack for Madrid because Ronaldo was the considerably better/more talented striker.

Looks like what I'd imagine a young Drogba to be from his Youtube clips (playing style and not hair/skin colour).

Similar thing happened before with Kluivert and Bellamy looking a pretty promising partnership, only for a legless Shearer to walk straight back into the team and ensure that partnership never saw daylight. Keep finding myself looking back and shaking my head in disbelief at just what we've done here in the past half decade or so. Players long past their best not only not being moved on, but actually gauranteed a first team spot with the team even being built around them in some cases. "Inferior" teammates not being given a fair run in the team even when they've earnt it, how pathetic is that? "Troublemakers" treated like garbage, pissed off, dropped or played out of position for the aforementioned has-beens, then sold without any hesitation when they've lashed out - even though these players were our only source of creativity, or pace, or flair.

It's the fact that we gambled everything on Owen that's made his failure here worse for me. We spent £17m of money we didn't have and paid wages no club outside the CL should be able to afford (without a sugar daddy at least). We had him down as the Shearer replacement, the next player the team would be built around and who on account of his ability/calibre, would drag or carry the team from being shit to decent, from decent to good, from good to very good, etc. He was meant to be our talismanic player, and we didn't think twice about passing up opportunities to sign the likes of Anelka and Torres because he was available. So to end up with a player who has been dogshit up front, slow, weak, diminishing sharpness and finishing prowess, constantly injured, etc etc, has been a major kick in the balls, and without a doubt a contibuting factor to our eventual relegation - we couldn't even ship the guy out for cheap because of his wages, so had no choice but to stick it out with this frail has-been. We even made the guy captain because of his status, a huge mistake in hindsight (thought it was a good idea at the time, as did many of us - how wrong we were). With Luque, Marcelino, Boumsong, etc, although the money wasted was significant and the actual return in comparison to Owen was worse, the expectations, the risks taken, and the sacrifices made weren't anything like as significant as they were with Owen. We never gambled our future on any of these players. So them being worse individually when compared to Owen's tenure here doesn't really bare significance to how Owen's failure has affected the club. So I'd agree with the viewpoint that Owen is the worst signing in the club's recent history. We'd not have been relegated had we spent that money on someone else - anyone else (even a second Martins) - because even if they had turned out to be shit, we'd have moved them on and replaced them before things got as bad as they did, something we could never do with Owen.

He undermined Robson on numerous occasions. Carrick, Miguel, Beattie, Robson wanted players like that, but Shepherd knew better so we ended up with the Butts and Carrs of this world. Did the same with Souness too. Maybe Shearer would be too big a character for Shepherd to undermine. But that's only considering direct undermining of the manager - with Shepherd, it seemed to be a manipulative undermining. Bid low for the player the manager wants, knowing that the clubs won't accept those bids, and hey presto, the manager doesn't get the players he wants. It's then a case of presenting the players that Shepherd and his advisors/agents want (or in other words, would gain economic benefits from when purchased) as the only real options, which essentially forces the manager to agree to the signing.

Yes, purchasing a company means you purchase all the assets and liabilities of that company - since NUFC owes £110m to Ashley's company (St James' Holdings Ltd or whatever its called), that debt will be attached to NUFC when ownership changes hands. He spent £238m on purchasing all the shares from Hall/Shepherd/etc, and then paid off around £100m of the long-term debts that needed instant settlement. The club's valuation of £238m has now plummeted to £100m, so he'll be making a loss of £138m if he sells at this price. Ouch. On the face of it, you'd think that if we managed to get rid of all of our earners on more than e.g. 10k per week, bar around 5-6 first teamers, and therefore were looking at a £20m loss by the end of next season, if he were to finance that loss and then add another £20m to spend on players, the total loss for next season would be £40m only. And hence, if the club managed to get back into the Premiership, the valuation would rise significantly, e.g. £200m, which means if that should he sell at that point, he'd effectively be making a signficantly smaller loss (£38m + £40m = £78). So why's he wanting out now? Most likely because he thinks we won't be getting out of the Championship next year and/or those (shit) player salaries are going to be impossible to manage this year.

'Someone' http://soccernet-assets.espn.go.com/design05/DJ/20070502/shepherd_meg.jpg

A bit of half hearted flag waving from the Chelsea fans about to win the FA Cup.

Lampard

Stunning strike that from Malouda.

Butterfingers from Howard.

Quality header from Drogba.

£17m down the drain with no money to be recouped and you'd expect high interest payments on top of that £17m (probably more like £20-22m overall when including the cost of financing), £100-120k per week wasted for 3 years (think the FA paid a year's wages?), probably only a small boost in merchandising revenue after signing him to compensate, bonuses no doubt paid on top of those wages, no longer an international player, etc etc etc. All we've had in return was a half decent 3-4 month spell in midfield. But oh noes, that's not his "fault" - it's the team's fault, they don't take defenders away from Owen and give him service from 2 yards out with the keeper tied up on the sidelines and being gang banged by our creative midfielders, it's the fault of Lady Luck, with her Owen-homing injury-causing harpoons that for no reason targetted poor little Mickey when he would have never picked up those injuries otherwise, it's the fault of Capello, a facist dictator like his father Mussolini who in his rage decided to exorcise the Holy one named Little Mickey from the national team, it's the fault of the fans who never backed him and thought he was an overrated has-been, people who cursed the club with their voodoo dolls created out of bitter, jealous, anti-Owen words and letters posted on evil message boards - in fact, it's everyone and everything's fault other than poor little Mickey's shitness, or rather Mickey's goodness and the team's shitness. In fact, if Global Warming had not caused the sun to be higher in the sky in July of 2006, Owen would never have tripped up over his own shadow and ripped his knee apart like he did. If you take Gravity out of the sitation where Owen had a one-on-one against Pomey last month, the ball would have flown into the net - clearly Gravity denied him. It's ridiculous to blame Owen for his form when thinks like Gravity, Global Warming and a PMT'ing Lady Luck are out to get him. Glad to see the mercenary c*** f*** off.

Krul can have all the cup games. Best solution all around imo. Not sure. We're probably talking about what, 3-4 league cup games tops and another 3-4 FA Cup games, spread over roughly 7 months? What has Harper done in the 5 months since Given's departure to nail a first team spot in the team? If Krul is capable of performing like he did against Palermo to a consistent level, he could well be the better keeper. A season in the Championship could be the making of him, and would boost our promotion hopes considerably if he turned out to be a better keeper than the complacent Harper.

Enrique £5m Coloccini £7m Bassong £14m - Good first season overall, lots of promise, has everything in his locker to become a top class defender. Beye £4m - Solid and experienced no-nonsense defender, although 31 he's kept himself well so has a good few years left in him. Jonas £9m - Argentinian international. Barton £3m - Someone willing to take the gamble on what is still a decent central midfielder. Possibly a newly promoted side. Martins £10m - Worth a fair chunk of money given his attributes, age, decent goalscoring record, ability to score out of nothing. Smith £3m Nolan £3m Butt £0.5m - Will be viewed as an experienced battler who'll benefit one of the newly promoted or relegation threatened sides. Assuming none of them have actually seen him play for us. Duff £3m Geremi £1m - Someone will pay a mill for him given his experience and previous clubs, still only 30 too.

Harper has shown us one thing - he's definitely not the long term solution. Although some keepers are good well into their late 30's, hoping Harper will be one of these everlasting late bloomers is mere sentiment imo, and not based on actual performance levels. Unless Krul is dogshit in training, if he isn't given a run in the team, then we won't actually know if he's any good. For too long we've been a club that has pandered to experienced/senior players who are hardly top class, rarely giving youth a chance. Even those youngsters that we have established and developed in recent times, the likes of Taylor and N'Zogbia, were only given their debuts and a run in the team due to injuries (and paper thin squads) forcing the manager to play them. Had they not been so lucky, had circumstances not favoured them, we'd probably have let them rot in the reserves.

Quite likely. Arsenal should be better next year, with Arshavin being available for Europe, and they've had bad luck with injuries too, so if that sorts itself out then they'll be much stronger. Liverpool also, given that Torres was injured for a sizeable chunk of the season. Having said that, I don't think it's impossible for Madrid to bounce back up to being competitive again pretty quickly, although that would depend on them making some big waves in the transfer market. Which is certainly not impossible for them, as they've done it in the past several times, with Figo and Zidane being the most recent (if Ronaldo is still desperate to go there, then there'll be a good possibility it'll happen). There's also the Valencia everything-must-go sale that could see some Spanish sides picking up some top stars, although at the same time Premiership clubs (namely Liverpool) could similarly benefit. And although they're not given much thought at the moment, I'd also expect Inter to be slightly stronger next year, given that this was Mourinho's first season there - and in all honesty, I thought they were the better team than ManU over the two legs, but just lacked that cutting edge which ManU had, hence why they were knocked out. Will be an interesting summer in terms of seeing who goes where and who strengthens the most. Especially with Man City's wealth in the picture (hope they crash and burn in the transfer market though).

Also represented in the last 5 finals, and three of four semi-finalists for the last three seasons. Barca, AC Milan and PSV are the only non-English sides to have knocked out an English club in those last three seasons. Barca's sweet, sweet victory last night and their semi win against Chelsea were the only times an English side has been beaten by a continental side since the 2007 final, I believe. Barca and Milan are the only non-English sides to have appeared in the final since 2004. That's pretty dominant. How much of that is down to timing and circumstances with respect to the other major competitors though? Real Madrid are going through a rebuilding period (and even though they're s*** at the moment, the best player in the Premiership playing for the biggest club in the Premiership is desperate to sign for them), a result of their constant chopping and changing and undermining of their managers since Del Bosque. Milan and Juve were hit hard by the match fixing scandals, which has propelled Inter to champions when they never had the team to be that in the first place. Both are also in the process of rebuilding their teams. That's three clubs who would normally be looking to challenge for the CL, and would provide strong competition for the top Premiership sides, yet for different reasons unrelated to the emergence of Premiership clubs, they aren't able to do so at this point in time. These three clubs are giants in the game, and will always attract the best players, so it's surely only a matter of time before they get back to their previous standards. Arsenal's & until this season Liverpool haven't been able to really challenge for the PL. They've handled all foreign sides before them except PSV. But they've not hit the lows Madrid, Milan and Juve have recently. Not being able to challenge for the PL doesn't mean they've hit a sizeable slump. Maybe the arguement could be made that these clubs aren't recovering as fast as you'd expect them to (or used to) because Premiership clubs are now signing the players that these clubs would normally have signed first? Difficult to tell right now though.

Also represented in the last 5 finals, and three of four semi-finalists for the last three seasons. Barca, AC Milan and PSV are the only non-English sides to have knocked out an English club in those last three seasons. Barca's sweet, sweet victory last night and their semi win against Chelsea were the only times an English side has been beaten by a continental side since the 2007 final, I believe. Barca and Milan are the only non-English sides to have appeared in the final since 2004. That's pretty dominant. How much of that is down to timing and circumstances with respect to the other major competitors though? Real Madrid are going through a rebuilding period (and even though they're s*** at the moment, the best player in the Premiership playing for the biggest club in the Premiership is desperate to sign for them), a result of their constant chopping and changing and undermining of their managers since Del Bosque. Milan and Juve were hit hard by the match fixing scandals, which has propelled Inter to champions when they never had the team to be that in the first place. Both are also in the process of rebuilding their teams. That's three clubs who would normally be looking to challenge for the CL, and would provide strong competition for the top Premiership sides, yet for different reasons unrelated to the emergence of Premiership clubs, they aren't able to do so at this point in time. These three clubs are giants in the game, and will always attract the best players, so it's surely only a matter of time before they get back to their previous standards. so does that mean you agree that english teams are dominating ? hey it's that circumstances thing that means nufc aren't in the champs league. They definitely are dominating. Barcelona from day one looked like being the only real competition to an all Premiership final, with Inter and Madrid being nowhere near good or settled enough to take these teams on. As stated though, not sure if this is just temporary (i.e. merely at a time when several of the biggest clubs are rebuilding) or an actual shift in power/dominance like we've seen in the past.

Also represented in the last 5 finals, and three of four semi-finalists for the last three seasons. Barca, AC Milan and PSV are the only non-English sides to have knocked out an English club in those last three seasons. Barca's sweet, sweet victory last night and their semi win against Chelsea were the only times an English side has been beaten by a continental side since the 2007 final, I believe. Barca and Milan are the only non-English sides to have appeared in the final since 2004. That's pretty dominant. How much of that is down to timing and coincidence with respect to the other major competitors though? Real Madrid are going through a rebuilding period (and even though they're s*** at the moment, the best player in the Premiership playing for the biggest club in the Premiership is desperate to sign for them), a result of their constant chopping and changing and undermining of their managers since Del Bosque. Milan and Juve were hit hard by the match fixing scandals, which has propelled Inter to champions when they never had the team to be that in the first place. Both are also in the process of rebuilding their teams. That's three clubs who would normally be looking to challenge for the CL, and would provide strong competition for the top Premiership sides, yet for different reasons unrelated to the emergence of Premiership clubs, they aren't able to do so at this point in time. These three clubs are giants in the game, and will always attract the best players, so it's surely only a matter of time before they get back to their previous standards.

Respectfully disagree. I'd say Gerrard is currently the only genuine class act in the England side. And Lampard surely? Agree with that. Both Lampard and Gerrard are gems at international level. Even as a unit, they've worked very well in central midfield for England, especially in the major tournaments. Neither have been shown up against the more technical sides as being limited in their abilities. I like the way they both maintain possession at that level, and when on the ball, show great touch and control under pressure, as well as that much needed hint of guile and trickery that you want your midfielders to have in order to be able to create space for others or even dribble past the opposition to work openins when the option is there. Their specialities of being able to shoot well from long range or hit long diagonal passes are very useful against international defences who lack intelligence and anticipation. The way they play at club level, i.e. being given the freedom to run into the penalty box at will, bears no impact on the way they play for England, as they're fully adjustable to any system given their abilities to float and manipulate the game with skill/reading.

Yep, thinking someone like Beckham, who's main strength is techniqle (can't spell, screw it), so can play for a long long time despite losing physical attributes. Better version of Paul Scholes.

Chelsea never dominated though. They sat back the entire game in their own half and made it difficult for Barca to score - Barca still dominated them, considerably so. ManU tried that today, a cowardly tactic given that Barca's defence was there for the taking, but after ten minutes were a goal down, so the plan backfired with strikers having to come on for midfielders, which in the end gave Barca the space to exploit the significant difference in ability/skill/technique.

Most of the ManU players had one though. Carrick stuck out for me, had a right stinker, lost the ball on numerous ocassions, caught in possession, drifted past like he wasn't there - never was a great player in the first place, but certainly not that bad. ManU were simply outclassed by a much, much better midfielder.