tmonkey

unbelievable. I will leave macbeth - and maybe his monkey - to explain that Carr cost a lot less money and maybe he felt at that time he needed to watch the books. I wait for you to post in future criticising the club for overspending. As classic a case of "damned if they do damned if they don't" as it would be possible to find. And for the record, I would have liked Miguel, I think he is one of the best right backs going. No money for Miguel, yet we had 25mill to spare to sign Rooney that same summer? Care to explain that, bearing in mind that Sir Bobby wanted us to buy Miguel for 5/6mill before Euro 2004 - which Shephard refused - and the 25mill Rooney bid was made after Euro 2004? Sir Bobby wanted Miguel at a time when Shephard had a huge amount of cash tucked away, yet Shephard denied Sir Bobby those funds because he had other plans for that money, ie a mammoth bid for Rooney later on (and eventually, Owen when Souness wanted Anelka). did Bobby Robson also want Rooney ? I would be staggered if he didn't. I will allow macbeth and his monkey - again - to explain the importance of financial restraint to you, and while following their policy made Carr the player we got and not Miguel. They should be pleased that we did this. I'm not even going to comment on preferring Anelka to Owen, its nothing other than mind blowing stupidity. Scroll up a bit and see my post again, I edited it straight away to make it clearer - once you do, youll realise youve entirely missed the point of it with regards to your first question. As for asking me again, its been answered in that post - we werent in a tight financial situation, there was tons of money to spend, the difference is that Robson wanted to spend it on several good players, whilst Shephard wanted to sign several budget players and splash the cash on one big summer signing. Whether he was correct to do so or not (hindsight shows he was badly mistaken) is irrelevant - its all about Shephard refusing to back his managers with regards to who they want, forcing their hand by holding back funds and eliminating those preferred players, and eventually/submissively getting approval for whoever it is that he (Shephard) wants.

unbelievable. I will leave macbeth - and maybe his monkey - to explain that Carr cost a lot less money and maybe he felt at that time he needed to watch the books. I wait for you to post in future criticising the club for overspending. As classic a case of "damned if they do damned if they don't" as it would be possible to find. And for the record, I would have liked Miguel, I think he is one of the best right backs going. No money for Miguel, yet we had 25mill to spare to sign Rooney that same summer? Care to explain that, bearing in mind that Sir Bobby wanted us to buy Miguel for 5/6mill before Euro 2004 - which Shephard refused - and the 25mill Rooney bid was made after Euro 2004? If you missed the implication of this question, its all about timing - Sir Bobby wanted Miguel at a time when Shephard had a huge amount of cash tucked away, yet Shephard denied Sir Bobby those funds because Shephard had other plans for that money, ie a mammoth bid for Rooney later on. Sir Bobby wasnt to know about the Rooney interest until either just before, or during, the bid was made several months later. So put simply, Shephard manipulates the amount available to managers for whoever it is they want to spend, but spends big on players he wants once his managers' primary targets are all denied because of "lack of funds". Not that you care, youre more interested in defending Shephard than debating the actual issues.

Example: Sir Bobby wanting Miguel, Shephard wanting Carr. Bids made for Miguel are below valutaion and rejected, bids made for Carr accepted, Sir Bobby agrees that its better to have Carr than noone, Shephard's statement of "I don't interfere with transfers and it is ludicrous to suggest that I bring in the players or make signings without the manager being involved" holds. Fact is though hes still indirectly forcing the manager to buy who he sees as the better option. Probably done this countless times - another example which I suspect is the Owen signing. Souness wanted Anelka all summer, whilst we know for a fact Shephad wanted to land an England international striker to replace Shearer because of the Rooney bids - so what happens? Anelka deal dies because we dont want to match their 8mill valuation, Owen gets signed for 16mill. And as Invicta Toon says, he doesnt mention anything about selling players, which we know hes done behind his manager's back - but even if he did, hed still say the managers were "involved", because theyd have been told about the sale. Doesnt talk about players he hasnt sold either - namely, a certain Shearer who the chairman refused to sell when the manager wanted to. I guess in Shephard's eyes, thats not "interferring" either.

Assuming this isnt bollocks, if the sole aim for Chelsea is to get him adjusted to the Premiership at another club that poses no threat to them, why wouldnt they send him across the road to someone like Fulham or Charlton? From Shevchenko's point of view, it would surely be easier for him too. We're bigger than those clubs, yes, but we're at the foot of the table and at the other end of the country - not much benefit for him for such a short period of time.

Gerrard had a great 15 minutes in the CL Final, Ronaldinho had a great season. Both won titles, but Ronaldinho was without a doubt the significantly better player that season.

Zidane won it twice with Juventus. To be fair to FIFA, its not their fault that the likes of Rivaldo, Ronaldo, Zidane, Ronaldinho, have played and peaked for probably the two biggest clubs in club football. All of those winners that I can see from the past decade deserved it, its some of the runner-ups who have been pretty undeserving of being there.

It would be an utter joke if Henry got World Player of the Year based on his previous/current season, and an even bigger joke if he got the award as a sympathy vote in terms of him not winning it in the past - which is essentially what Wenger wants. Henry's chance to win it was a few years ago when his form was shit hot, and its purely his fault for not winning it - how could anyone give him the award when he regularly choked in big games back then? In the CL and for France, he regularly went missing, doing **** all far too often. Now its way too late, unless he goes back to the hungry player he used to be, driving at defences with the ball regularly, instead of the good, but far less dangerous, player hes turned into.

Would definately want us to go for him, but only if we get some defenders in too. We need goals from midfield, and by that I dont mean that we need technically-shit-goalscoring central midfielders like Cahill or Nolan. We need more goals coming from the wide positions, because right now there is virtually none. An on form SWP is worth at least 10 goals, we saw that at City. We also need pace on the right wing. Dyer doesnt want to play there, nor is he truly suited to play there, and hes far better utilised in the centre where he can get on the ball more. Milner and Nobby are relatively slow, Duff is shit at this point in time and his pace is deceptively moderate - not fast at all anymore - so we could do with a good, pacey player out on that flank. SWP fits that bill perfectly. Itd be ideal if we got rid of both Duff and Luque to finance a move for SWP. Kill a few birds with one stone - get pace, goals, Nobby's first team replacement, and get rid of underperforming players with big reputations and even bigger salaries. Zog on the left, SWP on the right, and Milner as backup to either of them, with the likes of Dyer/Emre being able to fill in if need be.

Henry is living off reputation at the moment imo, hasnt played anything like as well as he can for a long while. Seems to have lost alot of hunger/motivation.

Best friend of player says he wouldnt swap said player for the best player in the world. Not a big shock, is it. Ronaldinho's form has always been better than Gerrards. It is right now, it was last season, and it was the season before. Hes a better player, regardless of whether hes over hyped or not, and is still scoring shedloads despite being "off form" and looking half the player he was a while ago. And of course theres a level of adaptability involved. Ronaldinho probably wouldnt do well at Pool because hed be in the wrong team surrounded by the wrong players to make best use of his abilities.

No different to Owen in that its silly to either spend huge amounts on, or pay huge amounts to, a crock who only plays a handful of games a season.

Hes a good footballer, no doubt about it, and his impact in the side is pretty big. Players like Emre, Martins and Nobby seem to have come to life with him in the team. However, the main problems his "detractors" have had with him have always been: 1) His injury proneness 2) His atttitude 3) His high wages 4) His lack of end product As of yet, its impossible to say which of those have changed until hes been playing for a few months (wages obviously wont). Hes made similar impacts when returning from injury in the past, although right now that impact is greater because we have more technical footballers who are getting alot more joy with him in the team, but its never lasted more than a few games in when he has returned from these lengthy spells on the sideline. So its not worth cashing in our chips too early. Although I hope to God he stays fit.

When talented youngsters go through a dip in form after initially exploding onto the scene, they tend to struggle a bit with end product, or tend not to shine as much as they did previously. The rest of their game is OK - theyre just not excelling like they initially did. C.Ronaldo and Reyes (iirc) are good examples of that, when they first played they were brilliant in the first few months, then went through a lengthy period of not being anything like as spectacular, but they were still playing relatively decently. This doesnt seem to be the case with Zog. Zog isnt just failing to rip into lesser teams like he was doing last season - hes struggling badly to do the basics. His touch is often poor, his passing wayward, hes showing an inability to dribble confidently, his awareness of players around him seems to be alot worse than it was last season, and he cant even get anywhere near having the position to produce an assist or goal, let alone producing the end product itself. This shouldnt be happening. No doubt Zog should be able to get back to his previous form with a run of games, but questions do need to be pointed at either the player or the management team for him going backwards at an alarming rate. It should not be the case that a youngster who does extremely well in his "breakthrough" season ends up looking worse than Bambi on ice within the space of a few months.

Whats wrong with porno?

Dislike Cole. Weird and often dodgey defender who can be class at times defensively in some games, but other times he can be taken apart because of his defending style and strange balance. What annoys me the most is that he gets out of so many bad situations purely by diving. Beckham does the same - for example, playing himself into a bad area, then backs into the man and falls over, getting a free kick. Cole is a master at that, getting himself out of trouble by winning easy free kicks. I think the refs pity him beause he always makes a massive meal out of things, with his skinny/small frame and painful facial expressions.

Either Or imo. We should either - build a top class defence, and make do with the attacking players we have for now, with the theory being that we'll win more games by conceeding nothing and scoring the odd goal. This should take up our entire bulk of our transfer budget, meaning wed be looking at another stop-gap or loan deal to solve the shortage in numbers up front. or - get both decent defenders and a good forward. The bulk of the budget will go on the striker, and the rest on adequate defenders, with the aim being to improve the defence marginally and get someone in to help us score more than we will leak. I would prefer us going down the first route, ie investing in a quality defence and building on that until reinforcements for other positions can be purchased in subsequent seasons, but I dont see that ever happening. The current board have been happy with defenders like OBrien, Bramble, Dabizas, Carr etc, and itll stay that way no doubt, whilst theyve always wanted to splash big on centreforwards, so thats what theyll do in the next window - go for cheap defenders, buy a big name forward.

Cracker from Anelka. Quite simply a bad move not to sign him, and not just because of a good goal or two.

We could do with a linkup forward, someone who drops slightly deep and pulls the strings with some ability on the ball and good technique - weve seen what a huge difference it can make with Dyer playing that role, and last season Emre did a good job there in a few games. Gudjohnsen or JD Tomasson would be ideal for a few seasons. Maybe ask Tevez's owner if hes willing to sell him, might not cost too much due to his relatively shiite form, but hes enough of a presence at this point in time to improve our frontline to a significant degree sinces hes still linking up well with players - with much room for improvement in other departments once hes settled.

Luque. Theyve both been utterly shit for us for different reasons, but Luque can produce stunningly good crosses if he gets 3-4 attempts at them - no different to Beckham in that respect. Thats the only defining difference between two poor players at this point in time.

Wed have been hammered by Valencia in all fairness, as Marseille were (and they were a better side than us, stronger, faster, better technical ability, and more organised).

He certainly is at this point in time.

Bad decision not to let him have it immediately after the end of last season, pointless to have delayed it for nearly half a year.

Huntelaar is class, worth getting rid of Owen for him if we can land him whilst theres still the tiniest of chances. Apart from Given, Taylor, Martins and Zog, I wouldnt mind us selling any 2-3 players to land him if we needed to. The type of striker who'll bag 30 if hes given consistent service.

Dont realistically expect players like Martins, Tevez etc to perform for at least a season. Most young foreign players who come into the Premiership are going to have to learn the ropes all over again if theyve only ever played in completely different environments/cultures. Let them take their time in learning how the game is played in this country and the different ways they need to play in order to get the better of the opposition. Hence, I personally like to view them during this period in the same way as I would view a youngster coming up into the first team from the reserves in his "breakthrough" season - the difference between them and the youngsters (and hence the large transfer fees) being of course that theyve proven theyre exceptionally talented elsewhere, and that should see them being top players once they do learn our game. Martins will most likely never be world class, but in the Premiership I can see him being the next best thing once he finds his feet along with the rest of the team. In the same way Andy Cole was never world class, and could be frustrating ("Andy Cole Miss A Goal"), but consistently a dangerous player.

The problem with Moore is that when he goes for the ball, if the striker does anything remotely resembling a turn or half-turn, Moore gets either completely cut out of the picture as he ends up several yards behind the play, or has to resort to fouling. Decent defender, but too aggressive whilst being hampered by a lack of mobility, and simply isnt a good enough centreback for someone who is so slow, as opossed to centrebacks like Hyppia for example.