tmonkey

This thread is spot on. Portsmouth are the standard for judging the best player in the world. Play well against them, and youre in the footballing hall of fame for sure.

Gutted about Woodgate. Never wanted to see him go, so close to resigning him, and now we have to put up with more poor to average defending in the meantime whilst we can only hope we sign someone as good as Woody. Enrique looks dodgey to me. Decent player all round, but he looks like he has no recovery pace at all, and seems to be running around with heavy weights in his boots - to put simply, he has poor acceleration and is slow off the mark. I think hes a liability waiting to get exposed, as soon as he comes up against a right winger with pace hes going to struggle. Almost like a fullback version of Milner. Hes going to need to be a good footballer, good positionally, and have consistency in his game, to compensate for a lack of what is a pretty vital attribute in that area of the pitch.

Man of that match in my opinion, he had a fantastic game. He had a good game, no more. Unless youre lowering expectations immensely and judging from there - like telling a special needs kid hes done brilliantly when hes spelt his name out correctly. And is judging Smith up front against Arsenal wise in the first place? How many other centrebacks in the Premiership would he be able to bully like he did Arsenal?

Cameron Jerome would be a good acquisition.

Yay lets watch the BBC pundits wanking over Anelka, the player our chairman didnt want to sign because someone "better" was available for double the price!! Apologies about the bitterness

Need to get a real forward in. Smith can do a job, but its hard to get that £6m price tag out of the system, as it was hard for others to ignore the £10m and "Spanish international" tags for Luque. Sibierski did a job for us last season, but was never good enough to play regularly - and weve spent £6m on someone who isnt a significant improvement. If we can get £6m back, do so, because Smith isnt here to sit on the bench - is "keep as backup" an option we have? He wouldnt have left ManU if he was happy to be sitting on the bench, which is where he needs to be if we want to be top 6.

Got out before the s*** really hit the fan. Mort saying the club was in financial crisis ties in with the Halls being desperate to sell, Shepherd supposedly seeking a consortium to buy the club, and Ashley needing to pay off the £100m debt (which could well have had huge interest/securities taken out against it for all we know that far outweighed any benefits from the new TV deal - with that future income having already been spent?). Its amusing how, when it comes to Shepherd, everyone else is lying. Robson says he was undermined? Hes a liar. Souness says he was undermined? Hes a liar. Mort says the club was in huge financial trouble? Obvious liar. But I agree with some of that. Souness is a liar. When he implied that Owen was his signing, he lied at the time, because as manager of Newcastle United hes not going to openly say "Owen is not my signing", is he? Part and parcel of the game is to lie to the media to pass over any matters of conflict or disagreement. Everyone knew Mourinho was being undermined by Abramovich, yet he publicly stated there was no problem at all - a lie. No doubt the compensation package involved Souness not being allowed to speak about what happened, which is why hes come out now when Shepherd has gone. Anyway, we went backwards massively since Shepherd took over as chairman and the previous chairman and another board member or two had left. Thats all I'll remember him for. Success during the Robson years was in spite of Shepherd, not because of him, although he can take as much credit as he wants for making the appointment, but it didnt take too long for him to tear that success apart through his own negligence and incompetence, having no idea at all how to phase Robson out and make moves to replace him (plain and simple incompetence, maybe a manual on staff replacement procedures would have helped?). And he made a killing too, declaring millions in dividends when the club was in huge debt that we now know for a fact was unsustainable, the warehouse scam (directors tend to get replaced for things like that in every business sector, unfortunately for us the directors here also happened to be major shareholders and could do whatever he wanted, so all those thousands of little shareholders couldnt do a thing), and the various other dodgey personal dealings done through the club. Good luck to him though. Was quite clearly a nice bloke outside of the cringe-worthy comments (fans want Hitzefld? oh noes, must be a betting scam ), filling his own pockets, lying to the fans, and making s*** footballing decisions (to be fair, most of us wouldnt think twice about benefitting personally from the company we work for if we could), and clearly wanted us to do well on the pitch and had the ambition to go out and sign big name players - just a shame he wasnt very good at any of that and his footballing knowledge was piss poor. Men in suit making footballing decisions and all that.

Bolton didnt even have any wingers for Pete's sake. Certainly noone half decent on that side of the flank, and whoever it was didnt stick to their task. In fact, Bolton had noone good on the pitch in an attacking sense, which is probably why Carr had another "decent" game. If we played a shit team with no wingers that camped in their own half for most of the game week in week out at home, Enrique and Carr would be adequate for a top 6 push because they would never really be tested defensively.

berbatov's movement is excellent tho, always buzzing about, drifting wide and making mazy dribbles in and around the area. this helps him brings others into the game far more than viduka can nowadays. with berbatov it's "i'm going to bring the ball to you" with viduka it's "you're gonna have to come over here to get the ball". fitter and scores more too, and while viduka-owen never really looks like a good partnership i'm pretty sure berbatov would be an excellent partner for owen or martins. No doubt I'd rather have Berbatov, Vids is getting on. He's still total class though and just calling him "lazy" is bloody stupid imo. Same people who slag him off will slag off Smith for being s****. You can't have it both ways without paying incredible amounts of money. Hes lazy without really being class imo. He does have the ability to create his own goals, some tremendous bouts of close control at times, but he's the type of forward who tries that five or six times and pulls it off once, which basically equates to a handful of goals a season through playing that way (judging by our current side). In between, hes frequently dominated in the air, hes slow with little movement, and hes frustratingly snail-like at releasing the ball (like Parker, a fair few moves broken down because of this). Hes the type of forward that a lower mid table side would accomodate, and if given a whole season he'll certainly score his fair share of goals. But his weaknesses are pretty debilitating to the team's potency and general all round play. And thats probably why, despite having a good season last year and being one of the higher goalscorers in the league, none of the successful clubs were interested in him even though he was on a Bosman. On top of all this, hes been frequently injured and will be 33 next year. If im honest, I think hes a better forward individually than any of our other forwards at the moment, and I am being harsh by highlighting his weaknesses - all players have some bar the truly class ones. But the biggest, single problem I have with him is that in the current squad, there simply isnt a good partner for him, even without watching all of the possible combinations im absolutely certain of this (and hes played with practically all of our other strikers up front at various points, and on his own too, yet none any of them have looked a decent partnership, irrespective of excuses like a poor midfield). To get the best of Viduka, we need a Bellamy type forward to provide pace, width, and direct running in behind the defence, to stretch the opposition and allow Viduka to play inside the box with the ball at feet, which is what his game is all about. But hes a 32 year old crock, building a team around him just isnt feasible for me, and getting that forward in to suit Viduka would be a bigger ask imo than buying a creative, even if slow, forward who someone like Martins or Owen could play off (and for the reasons mentioned previously, Viduka isnt that creative player).

We need a replacement for Butt for next season. Hes already started too many games this term, hes not doing a good enough job in front of the defence, his passing is somehow getting worse, and centrebacks like Faye and Rozehnal in their brief appearances in the same position have already looked considerably better than Butt. I would love it if we could get Carrick in to replace Butt. He's struggling for form at ManU, and although hes not a £15mill player per se, hes the sort of reliable defensive midfielder who you can build a very good team around because hes a consistently good passer of the ball on top of having a good engine, physique, etc. Spurs have struggled to replace him, and when he was in the side they were pushing for a top 4 team. If we've got the money, make a move. Its not entirely sentimental either, its hard to find a solid defensive midfielder who is good at starting moves off, and thats what Carrick is. Maybe thats a bit of a pipedream, but its far from impossible and would be a very, very good start to spending Ashley's money.

Out: Owen - overrated, abysmal when hes not scoring, injury prone, huge wages, disliked Keegan previously. Viduka - lazy crock who is reaching the end of his career. Moderately talented, but the type of talent that only sees flashes of brilliance in every 5 attempts, which is why he was playing for Middlesboro at his peak. Emre - angry midget crock who goes down every time he gets challenged. Milner - winger with no pace and not enough crossing or technical abiilty to compensate. Duff - winger who is scared to take players on and like Owen can go through games doing literally nothing yet avoiding heavy criticism because of his previous reputation. Ameobi - shit. Carr - shit. Stay: Taylor - strong and good in the air, at the very least will make a handy squad centreback. Cacapa - composed and classy, type of defender who starts alot of moves off. N'Zogbia - potential to be a beast of a midfielder. Just needs to learn to play more of a team game first. Martins - possibly. Martins is a confidence player. Keegan might be handy in that department. Smith - I think he'll be kept in the squad as a David Batty equivalent. Might not be a good footballer, but a handy aggressive player to have for specific games. Beye & Faye - naturally because theyre good defenders.

Fucking shame we didnt sign Signori. Great left foot, great finisher and natural ability, could have been a big player for us in the same way Zola was for Chelsea - the Premiership at the time was easy pickings for technical players because of its open nature, a fair few Serie A forwards came over and made big impacts at that time.

We were mullered by Monaco in the UEFA Cup. Doesnt disprove what youve just said, because iirc we had no strikers fit for the game and Lee/Beardo had to play up front whilst this was at a time when Gillespie was still out and hence the team was struggling due to an imbalance and a lack of depth. Im only mentioning it because its an example of how average our backline was, which is supposedly a myth.

Hes a midget. What do you expect?

I meant to vote overjoyed, clicked on gutted, and had already pressed submit by the time I realised the mouse had just checked the wrong option. http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:opPdEwqCq_bf9M:http://www.womenstand.com/cnb/shop/the-womens-stand%3FimageID%3D5931%26op%3DimgLib-viewImage

Milner played a bit in central midfield for Leeds iirc. Should be able to do a decent job there.

Two "come get me" pleas in two days, one managerial, the other assistant. Certainly throwing himself about after remaining tight lipped on the subject, which probably means he knows Ashley is going to spend big and hence he wants to be part of that, whereas previously he wasnt interested in the job because the finances were shiite and on the verge of collapse whilst the squad rehaul that was needed was massive (still is). Shearer as number 2 would be interesting, but Keegan is 56. He could easily be here for another 5 years if hes remotely successful. It needs to be remembered why Keegan left us in the first place - the change from Ltd to PLC and the resulting lack of expenditure was by far the biggest reason imo, not pressure (iirc Dalglish had to sell before he could buy, and the directors had requested players be sold, e.g. Ferdinand). Had that not taken place, Keegan may never have left, he had no reason to on the footballing side of things as we were second in the league at the time iirc, and he only needed to purchase a few defenders to take the team to the next level. Now that this situation has been completely reversed with Ashley delisting/buying the club outright and big money being available to spend without any need to sell, the club is back in the state that Keegan preferred - and thats probably why hes back. So would Shearer be patient and willing to sit in the quiet background secondary role as assistant for possibly half a decade, having to do everything according to King Kev, be in agreement with the players King Kev wants, agree with his selections and tactics, etc? Again, its hard to think of Shearer in that sort of role.

Its definately a gamble, but if weve got 60million to spend, Keegan only has to spend it half as well as hes done in the past, play a basic formation with the players looking to win (which hes always done), and we could easily shoot back up to challenging for a top 6 spot. The previous managers have made an utter mess of things by being cowardly in the transfer market, freezing or falling out with important players, playing players out of position, or using shit tactics that made the players look clueless. A simple job has now been compeltely exaggerated into an "impossible" job because of the incompetence of the last 3 managers - its really shouldnt have been as hard as it was, but these managers choose a path and stuck by it refusing to acknowledge their faults or changing things back to the basics, even though everyone else could see just how bad things were. No matter what Keegan's weaknesses are, hes not going to do any of those. He gets on with players, his teams play a formation that everyone knows, he sets his teams out to win, and he isnt afriad to bring in unproven but talented flair/attacking players if he can. Thats all we need right now to jump back up to being top 6, and its something that Keegan practically guarantees, more so than Houllier, Shearer, Deschamps, Ranieri, etc.

FYP - that is the exact quote for Kevin Keegan, according to the replay of Keegan's statement on 5 live half an hour ago.

Delighted. Passion. Motivation. Man Management. Attacking football. Big money to spend, and hes someone who has proven himself good at spending it. No doubt its a gamble, but hes not old in managerial terms. Hes only 56 - we got Sir Bobby when he was 66 iirc. Theres no reason why he should be finished. Our aim is to get back up to challenging for a top 6 spot, and hes someone who should certainly be able to do it.

From what weve briefly seen, hes in the same boat as Milner for me - one paced and relatively slow, which is an issue for a fullback or winger. He has to be a good footballer where it matters to compensate for that lack of pace, which for Enrique means he needs to be spot on with his positioning, reading of the game, and tackling. Contrast his lack of recovery pace/tackling with Beye for example to see how much of a difference that extra bit of mobility can make if positioning isnt spot on in the first place. Hopefully he'll improve with experience.

Keegan is a great man manager. He gets the best out of his players at club level because he trains with them every day, he gives them all a fair crack of the whip. We wont see good players being unfairly frozen out of played in shit positions, we wont get defensive tactics. Even if he is finished, hes still probably significantly better than the past 3 maangers weve had.

I wonder if anyone has ever tried putting 10 players on the line with the keeper in front of them? Would be worth trying if youre 4-0 up or something, just for a laugh.

Of course hes not going to accept any blame. He wasnt backed by his chairman, so why should he be blamed for the team being shit? I clearly remember those of us who werent entirely over the moon with the Owen signing at the time warning about the dangers of putting all our eggs in one basket, and doing so on a player with a proven track record of being a crock. Souness wanted to sign a very fit and reliable footballer as the fulcrum of the team, instead his chairman gave him a crock on which the team's fortunes were based - how can Souness be expected to openly say "yes, I fucked up" when key decisions were made out of his control? He did make some bad decisions, but would they have mattered had he been allowed to sign who he wanted? Ousting Bellamy would have been worthwhile had we signed Anelka, who is by far the superior player. Instead, the chairman did what he wanted to do, and like many of his decisions, put the club in the shitter as a result of it. Blame lies first and foremost with the man responsible for our current demise. Thats Shepherd. And it shouldnt be forgotten that it was Shepherd who appointed such a shit manager in the first place. And lets remember that Mourinho didnt quit as soon as he was undermined by Abramovich - like anyone with belief in themselves, he tried his best with the bad hand that was dealt to him. But arguing that Sounses has no class or self respect is just a red herring anyway, just another attempt to divert away from the FACT that we now know officially how and why we are in the shit position that we're in today - scrap metal salesman shouldnt be making footballing decisions, much less so than Marks & Spencer directors.

Wonder what rubbish NE5 and HTL will trot out now, after years of denying and arguing against the notion that Shepherd was undermining his managers by signing who he wanted.