STM

You know what i love more than anything? The fact that i KNOW KK will be aiming for top 4 next season, regardless of whether he thinks the players are capable of it, he will make them believe they are and that is the key. If we fall short, so fuck, top 6 will do very nicely indeed.

Was he sat at the front of the gallowgate? Not sure mate, i seen him outside the ground.

He will sign IMO.

He's very quickly becoming a Solano esq foreigner, who we all love. An adopted geordie, in the making, for sure. We should have known he would be like this when someone asked; "How do you prenouce your surname?" Beye: "It's Beye, as in whitley bay"

Did anyone see the guy with the Keane mask who ammusingly brought an inflateable dog with him? Hilarous stuff. For that matter was anyone in Sam Jacks before the game? Funny as fuck.

Aye, and the usual shite is being spouted by their fans about how quiet SJP was. I don't know why they even bother with it ("it was deed quiet, the roof would have been off at the stadium of light") when it's so patently not the case. Best atmosphere there for years, I'd have said, and although I'm not a veteran of every ground in England, I'm sure there won't be many that routinely make a better noise than today. The booing of Chopra was astonishingly good. Made a thread a while back about Liverpools atmosphere (or lack of) and was saying the same thing. No matter how many people say "its not like it used to be", i will never be convinced that we have anything other than a top notch, consistant stadium when it comes to atmosphere.

Agree with all of this. With a few additions we could be bloody good next year.

I thought Taylor kept Jones very quiet. Didn't see the game but might that be because he was up there on his own? He might have had a better goalscoring tally this season if he'd been playing with another striker. Aye your right they had it easy because he was a lone striker but it still needs to be dealt with and Taylor never put a foot wrong.

Thought the support to day was on another level. We didn't play the best of games but i didn't here one negavtive word from our fans. Brilliant noise. Sunderlands fans are terrible BTW.

amazing atmosphere. never witnessed anything like it TBH.

where would investment and bad managemnet get you ? Whats that got to do with anything? Keegan IMO (and Morts clearly) is a good manager, therefore should be backed. There's two options, you either trust a manager or you don't. If you do, you back him. If you don't you sack him. However, of course, there are variables on how much you can afford to back him. backed with debt (can we get credit in todays environment and on what terms) or with what we generate ? I'm not quite sure what your getting at TBH. Obviously there is a question mark on whether the owner is prepared to through his money at it Abrahmovich style (which we can't really expect). If he does then what i've said applies. If not then they can only back KK with the money they have, but they should back him.

where would investment and bad managemnet get you ? Whats that got to do with anything? Keegan IMO (and Morts clearly) is a good manager, therefore should be backed. There's two options, you either trust a manager or you don't. If you do, you back him. If you don't you sack him. However, of course, there are variables on how much you can afford to back him.

In some ways i agree with Ne5 sentiment. I believe we have lost our ambition in recent years and seem to have forgotten what a bit of investment and good management can do for your fortunes. I always compare this to when Bobby came in. We'd almost all but lost our faith in the club getting anywhere near the top of the table again. Then all of a sudden, we had faith in our manager. His good management and the investment he was given propelled us into the top four. At a time when people claimed that the top four had a monopoly on the league (maybe not quite as much as now addmittedly). Again we have a manager who we would trust wholeheartedly. I'd bet my house the if Keegan was given 100m on five top class players we would be challenging for the top four. That might sound crazy but it isn't, we just seem to have forgotten what we are capable of. The question is whether we will fork out that money or whether we are wanting to do it over a period of a few years and build a squad like nearly every other club in the league are doing. I'd much prefer the club to splash the cash, mainly because i trust Keegan. However, i could completely understand why we wouldn't go down that route.

It seems to me that the club is planning in doing a bit of both. On the one hand making sure we have a top notch scouting network across europe, in order to not only raise the standard of our youth set up (zamblera etc) but young stars into the first team set up too (boussafa etc). On the other hand, keeping eye on what i would call current talent, which includes anything from mega star big names such as Henry and Deco, as well as your more do-able signings such Bentley. Using phrases such as "trophy signings", "big names" and "big money" is all theoretical and in fact nonsense. What we really want be concentrating on is getting talent and value for our money regardless of age, name, nationality or what team we are buying them off. If you offered me the chance of signing players such as Deco, Henry etc i'd snap your hand off (if their attitude was right) because i believe them to be highley talented footballers and would raise the bar of the players we intend to sign. However if you gave me a choice between Henry and Bentley, i'd pick Bentley because i believe he will benefit the club long term.

Terry is a world class player but like most world class players they have their critics. Rooney, Gerrard, Lampard have all come under scrutiny about how good they are in recent years. People always come out and say "he's not that good". Especially England captains. A few years ago i was banging on about how Ferdinand wasn't as good as people thought, i was wrong. Terry is a class defender and is better than Ledley King despite the fact that King is a crock an i think Kings class. I agree with the sentiment above however that Carvalho is somewhat of a unsung hero for them, very good player. The truth is all of them are good centre halves, were just nit picking TBH. As for signing King, i find that higley unlikely as he is their golden boy.

You know that song by green day "walking contradiction".

Have they talked about our game on soccer saturday yet?

I thought Kluivert was alreet TBH.

Would be ironic if Smith scored his first goal against the mackems and we had to rever him as a cult hero because of it.

Kevin Keegan interview coming up on SSN talks about Owen, apparently confident he will sign. Nothing new really but should be interesting.

I like him too, it was easy to dislike him as a player when playing for the opposition but that's all changed now. Yes because now he's the manager of the mackems that makes him really hard to hate!

Is yours this weekend like?

Shame your fans make absolutely no noise at home for premier league matches.

Aye i probably will tbh even though I'll be getting the train in. Not really built for the shenanigans that will be going on in the station should it kick off. I'm getting the train in like. Lets hope a dont push one of the cunts onto the tracks

As much as i hate him he's anotehr manager that's good for the game. Good honest approach to his management.