tmonkey

:PMT:

Point of the post is if we get enough points to stay up, we'll stay up. The wider point being made is that if something is a thing, then it is indeed a thing.

And a surefire way to make sure you go down Pack in playing Champ Manager Thank you for that life changing advice. Incase you havent understood where im coming from, in my eyes hes a manager who has consistently built his sides from the back, making them solid and difficult to beat, someone interested in managing in the Premiership, available, and hed most likely know a few South American players going around for cheap come next Jan when were strapped for cash and struggling to attract players. Now please explain why appointing Cuper would be a "surefire" way to take us down, and also why me having the opinion that hes a decent and underrated manager is somehow related to a computer game? Or are you going to stick to the one line "factual" retorts followed by a uniquely original and witty comment that only someone of your intellect can come up with?

Svenn is f***ing exactly what we need. Hell organise us thoroughly because thats what hes all about. Based on his previous jobs, hed setup "proper" training and coaching regimes, backroom staff, scouting networks, etc. Hes not a great manager, and hes failed miserably at Lazio and England after some initial success, but in both cases that was mainly because he became too spoilt for choice, became too unwilling to drop the big names (eg Beckham, Lamps + Gerrard). Who gives a shit about those faults? Those faults are only a problem to worry about if youre a big "playa", expected to win the big trophies with a squad full of big names and top class players - f*** that, we have no big stars, we dont expect to win anything, we just need a manager able to organise, coach and train our players effectively, someone to have us playing with an iota of clue about positioning, movement and tactics. Svenn has shown hes able to do that, and thats all we need, f*** everything else.

Hector Cuper. Proven CV of building CL sides as well as keeping a near-certain relegated side up. Knows the Italian, Spanish, and South American markets well, unlike our current and previous managers, one of whom used pre-season friendlies to scout world famous footballers, the other who had to ask his mates whether a player was any good whilst negotiating a contract. Unfortunately, hes foreign.

why wouldnt we go down? have you seen us this season? Because we have too good a players to go down, class always prevails, like Everton last season. I'm pretty sure West Ham fans were saying the same thing... Boro as well. FA Cup Final + Carling Cup Final + relegation, all in the same season. Lost out on the cups, so it was all for nothing. We will definately not win in any cup competition - we arent good in Europe, weve merely scraped through against pub/reserve sides or average opposition, ie Fener, whilst as soon as we meet a half decent and organised side, especially away from home, were going out instantly.

Zog, Emre, Milner, Parker, Duff, Martins, Luque, Nobby. Plenty of good players there, very good players when on form, but playing shit because theres no movement, organisation or drilling, on top of the shit tactics, motivation, coaching, selection, etc. Fault lies with the shiite manager, but more so with the shiite chairman for whom only shiite managers want to work.

Decent performances from two weakened sides.

Sell for that money and get Appiah or Diop. Ideally wed keep him as a squad midfielder, quality player on his day and has been consistently good for us this season - end product or not.

Drogba is an annoying fanny. Diving all over the place. Hes got the frame to be a footballing bulldozer, but plays the game like a ballerina.

Noone bothered about it?

Shephard and Hall are fleecing the club, and so might any new owners - but, being honest, I really wouldnt care about that, as long as there was success to go along with it, ie if they appointed a good manager and let the manager handle the footballing side of the club. Even if Belgravia were looking to make a fast buck out of us, as long as they appoint a good manager, who cares? Weve got the resources to be top 4 whilst also being fleeced, in fact the current board are doing just that but without the footballing success, and since next season will see more funds being available due to the new TV deals (maybe thats why theyre interested in taking us over?), if someone wants to come and make a quick buck out of us, then so be it - just set the club up competently, give us a good manager or DOF, and let him run the footballing side of the club. Thats all we need, yet our current board cannot deliver it because of gross mismanagement and incompetence.

I work with about 6-7 colleagues who are West Ham fans, most of them season ticket holders. Ive asked all of them at different times why it was that Roeder took them down with the squad that they had, and amongst the differing reasons, one factor was always mentioned - West Ham had a severe lack of striking depth that season, and although they had a weak defence, they had always relied on getting goals regularly to compensate for that. An injury or two, as well as personal fallouts (Di Canio?), meant that they had no options up front, resulting in missed chances in games that could/should have been won, and thats the main reason they went down because it was happening every week. Looking pretty familiar.

A month, maybe 6-8 weeks at a push. Hell look good coming off the bench for the first game or two, after that he'll be spending the next few weeks building up match fitness and playing slightly above average, hell maybe rip a shiite team or two apart during that period, and then hell pick up another injury. Ie, the usual.

Charlton are like us, but with inferior individual players. Therefore, an easy win, 2-0 to us. Ameobi and a midfielder to get the goals.

I think his career will mirror that of Cantona's. Absolute class in the Premiership, but too easily shut out, quiet, and temperamental at a higher level. Saying this, I would bag Rooney in with Tevez and Robinho as young forwards who only have to improve two or three aspects of their game to be undoubtedly world class. Worrying thing for Rooney is that imo, hes the exact same player he was when he first burst onto the stage two years ago. Hasnt improved as expected, although theres ample time, its still worrying.

What has Roeder ever done to indicate hed make a good Director of Football? His organisational skills seem to be non existent - just look at the farce that was last summer.

I like Curbs, think hes potentially a good manager, not great or top level, but potentially the same level as Martin Jol or Hughes for example. As Jol (poster) says, noone knows how good or bad he is, its impossible to tell from his career because Charlton have never had the finances to take any kind of step up, and yet hes achieved moderate success without turning Charlton into an ugly, fighting, spitting, scrapping team that the likes of Allardyce, Hughes, Bruce, Moyes, Kinnear, etc, have done at various points of their career. However, we need to look at what type of club we are before making any appointment. We need European football to sustain our finances, everyone knows this, even our incompetent chairman knows this and has us entering crap like the Intertoto because we have to. Therefore, why continually appoint managers with either shiite or nil records in Europe? Its quite simply bind bogglingly daft. The new man will come in, and hell instantly be asked to qualify for Europe, and then after that, plan/manage/control a double-headed campaign where the team has to deal with a completely different ball game (Europe) as well as doing well domestically. Why give that job to someone with no success there, no track record, nothing to measure their capability of handling such a secondary tough task on top of what is an already tough primary task (doing well domestically)? Therefore, although Curbishley may well be a good manager or might be a shiite one, we need to be looking for someone with a significantly stronger CV if we want as best a guarantee as possible of stopping this filthy rot that has set itself within the club. And I dont think for a second we cant get a manager like that. Im betting we could have someone like Hector Cuper, Van Gaal, Svenn Goran, etc, here tomorrow if we wanted, managers with impressive CVs in that theyve achieved some top level success, but too sporadic from the viewpoint of a CL elite club. But knowing Fat Fred, we wont bother with that lot. Maybe its because theyre foreign, who knows.

The SWP of City shits on Lennon as he currently is. Tremendous 15+ winger in the Premiership, capable of scoring goals from nothing, great shooting and dribbling, a one man army who performed against every level of opposition, from the top teams to the shiite ones, and a relatively creative team player to boot. Hes lost all of that though, disasterous move for his footballing development going to Chelsea. Lennon right now is obviously more effective, though imo he hasnt reached anything like the level SWP did for City, certainly hasnt shown it in big games as of yet. For us, I would go for SWP, mainly because hes a very worthwhile gamble who although might be the inferior player, is far more tailored to our needs. Right now, for our current team, we need goals from midfield. Wed be better off getting a winger who looks to score or get into different attacking positions (SWP) as well as being able to supply from the wing, rather than just one who's game revolves entirely around beating his man and putting lots of crosses into the box (Lennon).

Wasnt 3/4 to be fair, I think about half wanted him, a quarter were passive and unsure, whilst the last quarter were vehemently against his appointment.

Hes a quality player and would be a great addition. But whats that? No end product? Only passing sideways? Runs forward and shoots off target? Thats what he did yesterday, and its what our central midfielders are currently being criticised for. Difference was that in a more organised team that had much better movement, the simple art of central midfield playmaking makes a big impact and helps a side dominate the play, getting the attacking players into good positions quickly. Buying Appiah isnt going to solve these problems for us.

Pretty sure we could have got good defenders in if we wanted to - Sorin, Campbell, Ayala, Trabelsi, etc etc. We passed up on all of them.

Anelka for this team. He was absolutely desperate to sign for us, looked clear to me that he delayed any moves till we had completed our striker search and signed Martins - if we had signed him we would have been that one "big" club that salvaged his shipwrecked career, the type of club hes been desperate to sign for ever since his Pool loan spell. And im certain hed have repaid us if we had. Martins however is the better forward, certainly from the strength of his CL performances for Inter, hes a bigger goal threat - but hes far more reliant on being in a good, functional team than Anelka is. His game is all about finishing moves off, whereas Anelka has far more variety to his game. The main pull for Anelka all along for me, apart from the likelihood that wed have been his last chance to play at a Premiership club that demands/expects European football, has been his ability to play on the flanks as well as a the main central forward. As soon as Owen returns, weve got a problem, because unless ive been watching a different Martins, he plays in the exact same central goal-poaching position as Owen, and itll be a big risk asking him, or even Owen, to play a different role. Weve missed the boat though, theres more fish in the sea but like Owen, Kuyt and Martins, I bet you none of them will be one tenth as desperate to play for us as Anelka clearly was.

NE5 clearly will never understand that it doesnt matter what the club was 20, 30, 40 years ago when it comes to judging the performance of Shephard as chairman. Its perfectly reasonable to say that us "younger" supporters should be greatful for what the club is today compared to what it was in the early 80s, but its completely illogical to then state that Shephard is doing a good job because of this comparison. For all it matters, we may have been a pub team with 2-3 "supporters" playing on a bit of grass in the 70s/80s. Irrelevant. Shephard needs to be judged on the job hes done with the resources he has had to work with and the position of the business he inherited. Hes done poorly from this viewpoint. What I cant understand is why NE5 refuses to acknowledge this. Its simple common sense, its 1+1=2 - no multi million dollar business judges performance of their current senior managers by comparing the business to when it was someones's market stall decades ago - but for whatever reason, for whatever agenda, NE5 is purposely ignoring this fundamental premise, obviously because its suits him to do so, and he will no doubt continue to do so, using as many side tracks and red herrings as possible and knocking down plenty of straw men in his quest.

Whole host of reasons: Inability to help struggling/low confidence players who need the help, trophy signing mentality, poor managerial appointments, failure to time things well, poor planning, bad luck, backwards training/coaching/fitness regimes and philosophies, poor scouting network, etc etc. A prime example is Luque. Although hes not young, he was still a supremely talented player who we ruined. He peaked for Deportivo playing as a hybrid left winger/forward in a 4-2-3-1 system, in a team that had good passing/movement and played on the deck - we signed him firstly because Souness' mate had told him he was one of the 3 best players in Spain (poor scouting network) and also because Souness wanted to switch to a similar system, he talked all summer of switching to a 4-3-3, which turned out to be bollocks (Poor managerial appointment). Come the final day of the transfer window, we signed players for a 4-4-2 system, mainly Owen (Trophy signing) meaning we signed Luque for no reason since hes not going to fit into a standard 4-4-2 (Poor planning). Luque then gets a nasty injury (Bad luck). He then comes back completely unfit (backwards training/coaching/fitness regimes and philosophies), plays poorly, gets shunted into the reserves (inability to help struggling/low confidence players who need the help), things go downhill from there, we end up with a pathetic excuse for a professional footballer. As Cumpy Grunt said, if I had a kid who had potential to be a Premiership standard professional footballer, I would keep him as far away from Newcastle United as possible. He can go there once hes on the downslope of his career and wants to pick up a fat wage or guarantee himself first team football based on past reputation.