Mick

Shepherd said his time would be up if he got the next managerial appointment wrong (Roeder). I'm happy to hold him to that if Glenn goes. More importantly, NE5 also said that Shepherd should go if he got this one wrong.

We'll never really know, the Martins transfer only kicked in once Milan brought two new forwards in and Martins started to say that he wanted away because of a lack of first team opportunities.

Roeder and Woodgate seem to have two differing versions of events, one we didn't speak and one we did. It was well publicised that Woodgate was travelling up to see us after speaking to Boro although that could be bullshit, woodgate saying that we did speak suggests that maybe him and the press were right, it's a strange one as I can't see any reason for Roeder to tell porkies but the same could be said of Woodgate, why would he tell lies about it? I can't see how Martins was first choice, we started scouting Kuyt in April at the latest but didn't even start looking at Martins until the season was almost upon us, we'll never know.

I have no idea who these players are that he missed out on, one would appear to be Woodgate but that one is understandable considering his injury record, Kuyt was another. Viduka must have been one of these players, we were quite happy to off-load Milner until a last minute deal for Viduka fell through, if he wanted Viduka then why wait until the transfer window was about to close before doing something about it? I don't know who the others are. What does piss me off about Woodgate is that Roeder has mentioned his injuries over the last couple of days as a reason for not bringing him here, that’s bullshit. I'm sure Roeder knew about the injuries before speaking to him, I'm sure they didn't just come up out of the blue during some random conversation, if Roeder was so bothered about Woodgate having a poor injury record then why bother talking to him at all? As for being meticulous, he took it to an extreme with Kuyt, I'm not too concerned that we didn't get him as Martins has made more of an impact than him this season. Why he scouted him from April and still had to scout him the day after he'd agreed so sign for Liverpool is crazy and smacks as a lack of faith in his own ability to make a judgement on a player. Not making rash decisions is one thing but dithering is another, we would have been right in the shit this season if it wasn't for Martins making it known that he wanted to leave Milan because of a lack of opportunity. If we are going to bring in a Director of Football then we should be looking at somebody who has been involved with a club who is seen as using best practice, not somebody who has never been involved at the highest level, somebody who has struggled at everything he's done. Roeder has not managed in the Premiership for 3 seasons in total yet, he does have experience with working for the FA, at least I think he does, that's no great claim to fame, Howard Wilkinson worked for the FA for years and hardly set the world on fire when he went back to club football.

Roeder was only working at the Academy for 6 months before taking over the first team, he hardly transformed the place in that time, I have no idea who he brought in but I don't think it was any of the kids that came through this year. I remember his when he first became caretaker, he said something along the lines of the kids not being good enough to come through, I can't remember if he was referring to them and this season or them not being good enough at all. As for his transfers, I don't think he knows what he's doing, his transfer activity is like his team selection, he hasn't got the balls to make a decision so seems to lose players. He's either losing out on players or he was chasing Sibierski, Rossi and Bernard for a long time which I doubt. Personally, I don't want Roeder having anything to do with structuring the club, his experience as Gillingham, Watford and West Ham hardly qualify him for that.

What makes Roeder a good candidate for director of football?

Watching Newcastle is a bit like going to the bar and having a pint put in a glass and only getting a half out.

Roeder isn't the problem, he's just a symptom. if we have a symptom i hope shepherd has the cure A bullet to the head?

Do me a favour.

I can't see the point in sacking him, we'll just end up with another mistake unless somebody comes knocking on our door like Sir Bobby.

I would agree that he did a not too bad job last season, we should have said thanks, now get back to working with the kids.

I don't see how Leeds struggling makes our situation any better.

Roeder is as bad a manager as Souness was while here, we're as bad as we were under him but without the player/manager fall-outs.

Roeder isn't the problem, he's just a symptom.

In response to the thread title, not good enough, any of them. Are the people defending him the same ones who defended Souness? Roeder has only one thing going for him to make him that little bit better, he's not a horrible bastard, the rest is much of the same.

am i the only one to think (and i'm nearing forty) that it was "pick up your stick"?....pick up a step does make more sense. It's "go pick up the stride", not 'pick up a step' That's not what I remember, I remember "pick up a step." Maybe we were all singing different words.

we were unlucky because we had s*** and incompetent manager That had nothing to do with luck.

Shola isn't good enough to be first choice, he's more than good enough to be cover.

Is that Mick and NE5 in the middle shaking hands? Not a chance, they wouldn't let him out long enough to attend.

Exactly, that's one of the reasons I laugh when people thinks that he burns £20 notes, they are just fakes he does on his PC.

Dyer can play CM, he did it well enough before JJ arrived. Dyer played in the right of centre with Nobby on the wing.

That was Pipkin. what sort of name is that? I think his mother is Jewish, it's her fathers name.

I'm surprised people are talking about Woodgate and pace, I never thought he had any, he was a brilliant reader of the game which more than made up for it.

If we lose to 'Boro after they played 120 minutes on Tuesday and we had no midweek game then it will be nothing short of disgraceful. We should beat them, but it will probably only be by the odd goal. Will be interesting to see if Woodgate plays after playing the whole of the WBA game, as Southgate has previously only tried to use him in one game per week in order to stop him breaking down. Wonder what the odds are on him going off injured if he plays? He is back at SJP, after all, would only be keeping with previous form if he got crocked. I can imagine the excuse already, we were rusty because we didn't have a midweek game.