tmonkey

As soon as Butt and Duff get involved in the play...

The Viduka Owen partnership looks awful. Slow, static, absolutely no linkup play, no willingness from either of them to run down the flanks.

What a recovery from Gutierrez!

Why cant Taylor have hit his free kick just like he hit that corner?

Duff, Viduka, Butt. Over the hill players who need to be offloaded when the chance arises.

Viduka is playing shit.

Right back will just have jumped up a few slots on Kinnear's shopping list.

Beye being stretchered off.

Oh fucking hell Butt.

Taylor is a cunt of the highest order. Fuck sake.

Can see a goal for Wigan coming by exploition Zog's lack of positional defensive. His crossing is so shit. We're most likely gonig to concede a goal due to a Zog mistake or lapse in defensive concentration at left back.

Good closing down from Gutierrez, leads to a chance, although a difficult one.

He's going to score one soon.

2nd time Owen has wasted being through on goal.

He really was immense for us though. Rare to get a defender who can win a ball so slickly and consistently without having to use sheer strength or aggressive/rough tackling. IMO if he didn't have the injury problems, he'd be up there with the Baresi's and Cannavarro's in terms of being a legendary defender at all levels in the game. At the same time though, if he wasn't injury prone we'd never have signed him in the first place as he'd have gone straight to a CL elite team for silly money ala Rio Ferdinand.

The trouble with that is if one of them does manage to get it over the bar, they'll insist on having a clause in their contract that states scoring a brace against Stoke at home will automatically require all the club's fans to instantly declare them to be the best striker in the land since sliced bread. Who the f*** is this Sliced Bread you're talking about? Bread, otherwise known as Breado or Breedo, often affectionally called Peado. Scored three hundred and twelve elderly women during his playing time and assisted nearly half that number in ball boys.

The trouble with that is if one of them does manage to get it over the bar, they'll insist on having a clause in their contract that states scoring a brace against Stoke at home will automatically require all the club's fans to instantly declare them to be the best striker in the land since sliced bread.

Barca would really piss on the Spanish League for years to come if they pulled that off. Dream transfer for them. We should bid for Gudjohnsen if this occurs in my opinon. Barca would have a ton of top class strikers if this goes off. Nah, we really shouldn't.. We'd need to scout him in pre-season friendlies to make sure he's good enough. Even if he's signed for another club before we've had the chance to consider scouting him, it'd still be wise to scout him then ponder about making a move - better safe then sorry.

Isn't he more likely to get into the England squad being a top four squad player than he is playing regularly for us and having games where he is anonymous because the service he needs isn't there? If I were in his shoes, I'd much rather be playing 25 games a year with someone like Carrick/Scholes/Fabregas/Deco/etc threading me through balls, rather then playing 50 games chasing dead end through balls from someone like Butt. And if I had confidence in my abilities, I'd think that if I went to a club capable of providing me with better service, I'd force my way into the first team by making good use of that service, i.e. scoring more goals. It's difficult to see any of the top four wanting him now that Rafa has said no, but then Owen is on a free which puts things in a different light altogether as that lack of desire from the top four could so very easily change. E.g. Liverpool cashing in on Robbie Keane and picking up Owen on a free, or ManU deciding not to sign Tevez for £30mill and getting Owen in as their new Solskjaer/Sheringham type squad forward, and so forth. His wages on the face of it might be a problem for a top four club, but then who says Owen isn't willing to take a considerable pay cut to join a side with infinitely more chances of winning trophies than us? Ignoring the fact that he'd be looking at CL and trophy bonuses. Added to which, I'm pretty certain that back when we signed him and put the 100k offer on the table, Liverpool weren't offering anything like that at the time, yet his first option would have been to sign for Liverpool and not us. Therefore, working backwards, he probably viewed the choice between the "CL clubs including Liverpool vs Newcastle" as "chance of success plus decent wages vs very high wages", which is probably why we managed to tempt him in the first place. With respect to first team football for the England squad, if he had wanted guaranteed first team football, he'd never have rule us out like he did back when we were first sniffing around. Hence, if he has that same choice again at the end of the season, he'd surely go for that chance of success even if it means taking a significant paycut in terms of basic salary.

Barca would really piss on the Spanish League for years to come if they pulled that off. Dream transfer for them.

Did his knee last season and was out for 6 months iirc. Pretty sure he was injured for most of the summer too, when he was writing columns for the BBC. Not the first, nor the last, footballer to suffer a big drop in form after such a serious injury. Hope it's not permanent, he has the talent to be amongst the best in the Premiership, and was the real star a year and a half ago when Dunne and Richards were the in-form central defence partnership in the Premiership.

Could be partnering Coloccini for the next 5-8 years too.

Xsico has looked shit in the few appearances hes made. Would be worth loaning him out to a side in the Championship imo so he can get used to a different style and pace of play.

Liverpool's away kit is practically pointless with that much red in it.

We're shit without Martins. Not that I'm watching the game