Mick

Good reply, I was looking to see if you'd bite.

Typical mackem.

At least we'll not have people calling for him to be appointed full time.

Agreed, he must start against West Brom and Kinnear needs to get the whole selection right or we will be in trouble, it's a must win game.

It was even more stupid if it was to protect Barton, the longer we have him warming up, the more stick he'll get. It will be better all around if we just stick him on and see how it goes and he'll have to handle whatever comes his way.

I wasn't impressed either, I think we'll have a better idea in a couple of weeks. It was boiling my piss that we were playing a game with 10 men by choice by trying to keep Butt of all people on the pitch.

He's only had Barton for 1 game, I hope you're proven wrong by him.

The other option was to stick with a coach who was way out of his depth.

Agreed.

The first 10 games under Keegan saw us leak 21 goals.

1-5 against Birmingham.

This isn't the worst and smallest squad we've had since 1992, it's not even the worst or smallest squad we've had in the last 5 years, I posted this a couple of weeks ago. Before Ashley arrived we'd already decided that certain players were not getting new contracts. Bramble, Pav, Moore, Bernard, Gooch, Babayaro and Sibierski were already going. We also got rid of first teamers in Parker, Nobby and Dyer in the first summer transfer window, we've since got rid of Rozenhal, Emre, Faye and Milner. We've brought in Viduka who is never fit enough and as I've highlighted Rozenhal so I'll have to mention that he was also brought in, Barton, Geremi, Smith (spit), Cacapa, Enrique, Faye, Beye, Gutierrez, Guthrie, Bassong, Coloccini and Gonzalez. I'd rather have the players that we brought in than the ones we let go, Nobby, Faye and Milner were worth keeping, the others were not. As for lack of squad depth, we've got rid of 14 players who could be classed as first team squad players and we had already told 7 of those 14 that they were going before Ashley arrived, we've brought in 15 players who could be classed as squad players. Even if we include the 7 who were already going we have added 1 to our squad, take out the 7 and we're 8 better off.

They weren't spineless against Everton and Man City.

Of course he could have said something, he's done it before when walking out of the club and he was brought back under Sir John. Keegan wasn't the only person who said that we couldn't compete with Chelsea, Mort said axactly the same thing and backed Keegan. Keegan could easily done something different to option a or b.

If they had sacked him for that then they would have deserved all of the shit which has been thrown at them recently, as it is, I don't know how much shit they deserve to have thrown at them.

Personally I don't think Keegan would have lost yesterday but if he had come out when he resigned and said that he hadn't been backed in the transfer market but was staying for the sake of the fans then I think he would have been supported by most of the fans, that's just my opinion, I would have supported him under those conditions.

We're not in a position to bring in a better manager until the club ownership changes, bringing in somebody else now would mean he would have to go through the same learning process and we'd possible end up bringing in a 4th manager if the club was sold.

I haven't attacked him, I just think he's played his part in what has and is going on, just like all of the others involved.

I think most of us can see that, they've all had a part to play in this and as yet none of us know for sure what exactly has gone on.

This is like Groundhog Day, I'm defending the second new manager in a row, how long did it take Keegan to get his first win? I'm sure it was something like 10 games before we actually won one and at one time we had scored 6 goals and let in 20. It took us 4 games to score a goal and in that time we'd let in 9. Both Keegan and Kinnear came to the club not knowing much about the players they would be working with other than reputation and like Keegan, Kinnear with pick the players he knows about while he works with the others and gets to know them, then he'll be able to pick players on what he can see. I'm not saying he's as good as Keegan but it will still take him time until he settles in, if he actually does.

Sorry, I knew I shouldn't mention him, I must admit I honestly forgot all about him until some point today when I was thinking about who was still injured.

I'm sure Dyer left after Smith arrived but I'm not going to check.

I thought Dyer went after we'd bought Smith.

Only because we robbed Villa when we took £12 million off them for Milner and we robbed Mallorca when we took Jonas for nothing, add to that the money we have stolen off West Ham for Dyer. How much is that worth and how long is it since we've had 3 such deals in our favour. If we'd kept Milner and paid the asking price for Jonas we'd have had a net spend of something like £25 million and most people would have been happy that we'd spent that much. If we'd kept Dyer in the previous summer window we'd have had a net spend them of £17 million, going off the figure of £9 million mentioned by Allardyce.

That's not the point, Chimbonda had a field day going forwards.