tmonkey

Cameroon can f*** off, in five years time he qualifies for us! Not sure if it's been posted anywhere else, but from .com: Utterly strange this, as he's already played 2 games for the French U21's. On the face of it, this is great news as it could improve our chances of keeping him given that if he wanted ambitions of playing for France he'd almost certainly have to leave this summer whereas he'd probably walk into the Cameroon lineup even if playing in the Championship, but at the same time, if he's ambitious then this may not make a difference.

Thought he was pretty decent yesterday. Hope he leaves though. His failings are far too great to be worth persevering with.

It's the s*** bastards who have been shown up at Premiership level who are committing themselves to us. Next in line will probably be Ameobi, followed by Smith. If it's Bassong, Martins, Guthrie, Beye or Jonas, then it'll be good news. Duff should be alright in the Championship, but even at a 50% wage cut, £35k per week will be alot to pay him given his limitations. He's no longer a winger who'll create goals, forget that Duff from eons ago and likewise I'd not assume playing at a lower level will see him return to being a player who could tear teams apart down the flanks. He should be viewed as a tidy squad player who can fill in at left back and do a decent job on the left wing, a player who won't create much nor turn defensive situations into attacking ones (like e.g. Jonas does), but he won't lose the ball easily and he does run up and down the flank to a moderate degree. Personally don't think that's worth £35k per week, a 50% wage cut that you'd assume he'd never accept. There are probably a good number of kids playing for the CL youth/reserve teams in the UK and around Europe who are better than him, some of whom wont make the grade at these big clubs and are on a pittance compared to that wage.

Because we're a club that would rather stick with an experienced model pro like Nicky Butt. Even though the cunt provides no defensive cover whatsoever other than a slide tackle every two games. Would like to have seen Coloccini in midfield in front of the defence, and Jonas through the middle to make forward runs from deep. There'd at least have been some defensive protection and legs in there. But this wasn't the time to try something new...supposedly. Shearer was either ignorant to our midfield failings, or thought it a case of better the devil you know.

Positive: Dropping Owen. Trying different formations (to an extent). Big Negative: Failing to change the Butt/Nolan central midfield partnership, which imo has taken us down (awful against Fulham/Villa, allowing them to pressurise us to the extent that they created chances to score). Every man and his dog, even blind men with blind dogs (where the dogs themselves are also blind) could see just how awful that partnership was. "No legs" doesn't being to describe their performance levels. Yet Shearer stuck with it, despite having "alternatives" on paper. For example, why not try Jonas in central midfield? Keegan did that with Owen last season, and along with dropping the wasters like Duff/Smith, he played a team that best compensated for our terrible weaknesses. Shearer did nothing of the sort in his eight games, and in fact made the more predictable/disappointing decision of dropping Jonas because of no end product - something which has baffled me because the replacement not only had no 'end product', but no 'beginning product' too. I'd agree with Kasper in that there are nagging doubts for me, although I'd like to see him have a real go at the job before making a judgement on him.

Disagree with your point completely. He was woeful by that time, back pocketed to an embarassing extent almost every week by bigger, stronger, younger, faster Premiership centrebacks with more legs in them, and imo one of the reasons why we've gone down 3 years later is that we've continued this backwards mentality of pandering to players way past their useful life based on a combination of sentiment and past reputation. Had we done the right thing, the thing that Alex Ferguson does at Old Trafford, or Wenger at the Emirates, or Rafa at Anfield, had we moved an aging striker no longer fit for regular Premiership football on and replaced him with a suitable, younger alternative based on ability, attributes, good scouting and some common sense, we'd not be in the mess we are today. So you're saying, if we'd sold Shearer circa 2003 - we wouldn't be relegated in 2009? Yes and No. I think the last sentance should read "we may not have been in the mess we are today". What I'm basically saying is that had we run the club properly like the top clubs do, and had adequate scouting and transfer systems/policies in place, we may not have started that long slide which started around 03/04. For example, would we have suffered the way we have done in the past half decade had we signed Eto'o in 2003/4? Or Anelka at that time? I appreciate that it's easy to read that question and think "how daft is that?" because it sounds it right now given the large gaps in time and the assumptions involved of who we might or might not have signed. But going back on these very forums at the time (I think - might have been others), there were some of us who felt we were being small-time in our ambitions and the way we were failing to maintain to essentially "modernise" along with the other clubs at the top of the table. The top clubs would have moved a player like Shearer on, or made him backup, when it was evident that his body was giving way. That's what Ferguson is well known for doing, and ruthlessly so, and when you look at them now, on the verge of winning every major trophy available (and some of those trophies they're competing for as defending Champions), it goes without saying that it's a policy you need to adopt in order to maintain success. And we were a top club at that time. We had the ability to sign a good replacement, we had the options, but we said "fuck off" to them because we had our Big Al. Even though, reading between the lines, our then manager Sir Bobby wanted to replace him. We failed to move forward at a time when we had the chance to. No, being relegated isn't a direct consequence of that, relegation itself could have been avoided by not selling good players and signing dross, but the slide from a top club started at that time, and one of the major contributors (along with other factors that aren't relevant to this thread) to that slide was the failure to replace a player who the team was build around, yet was no longer physically up to the standards required.

Disagree with your point completely. He was woeful by that time, back pocketed to an embarassing extent almost every week by bigger, stronger, younger, faster Premiership centrebacks with more legs in them, and imo one of the reasons why we've gone down 3 years later is that we've continued this backwards mentality of pandering to players way past their useful life based on a combination of sentiment and past reputation. Had we done the right thing, the thing that Alex Ferguson does at Old Trafford, or Wenger at the Emirates, or Rafa at Anfield, had we moved an aging striker no longer fit for regular Premiership football on and replaced him with a suitable, younger alternative based on ability, attributes, good scouting and some common sense, we'd not be in the mess we are today.

This. If we kept that lot, I think we'd jump straight back up. Martins, assuming he stays clear of injuries, will be scoring heavily against alot of the opposition we'll be up against. A defence of Beye, Taylor, Bassong and Enrique should be extremely strong for that standard. Bassong in particular would take the Championship by storm, he'd be like Vidic in that league. Unfortunately, Ashley beign a plank with no sense or foresight will mean those are the players that will most likely be sold. As per the OP, we'll probably have a midfield of Butt, Nolan, Smith, Duff, with Ameobi up front. Going to be absolutely abysmal. We'll be overrun in central midfield by practically every team in the Championship, with no ball retention or end product to show for it. Dare I say it, I think we'd be in with a chance of getting relegated to League 1 if we repeat the same mistakes we made in January, i.e. sell the few remnants of talent we have and replace with yet more cloggers.

Keegan has done nothing wrong. He walked for the right reasons, and was completely justified in doing so. It only put us in the shitter because of the utter stupidity of the board in their reaction to the mess they created.

He thinks he's being a cool kid, a normal bloke, in the way he's acting - shunning the limelight, disliking the "suits", being one of the common folk who dislikes attention and keeps things to himself. Doesn't realise he comes across as a right prat because he's lacking respect for the role he's occupying and the responsibilities that go with it. Ashley should have heeded Sir Bobby's advice from the day it was given, i.e. that he should act like an owner of a football club instead of ignoring his responsibilities.

Has been coming ever since we treated this guy like s***. http://tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:XOuLvcK-OoAuaM:http://members.fortunecity.com/sportlist/editorial/football/images/BobbyRobson2.jpg

Butt. Just not worth saying anything about this cunt.

Good sub imo, Nolan has been dogshit when it's mattered.

But the ball is bouncing really high!!!!!! Absolute joke.

Edgar isn't even bothering to try to catch up. What a cunt.

We should have been out and smothering that f***ing shot like their lives depended on it though. Instead they trotted out. Exactly what I was going to say. Fucking ridiculous the amount of time and space Villa had on the edge of the penalty box.

Fuck. Championship here we come.

His crossing is absolutely wank. Even if he gets it into the box, it's got no pace or whip on it, he seems to chip it in by slicing the ball from underneath - essentially it'd take a beast of a header to convert the "chance" into a goal.

Decent approach play from Nolan, but it's as though he has lead in his boots or something, seems to have no energy to do anything once he's in the box.

Nolan and Butt have been absolutely dogshit at protecting the back four. Frustrating as fuck.

Edgar is completely lost at right back.

Taylor leaving the ball, either daft defending or a bad call from Harper.

Carew waltzes past both Butt and Nolan.

Fucking hell we shoulda scored in that piece of play.

Close. Decent by Duff, but still a tame shot.