STM

I like Viduka's style and ability to hold up the ball, he's the sort of player that you would build a team around. However, he is a crock and when you see the club making smart signings such as Guthrie, Bassong and Jonas for next to nothing it's not hard to see why we want rid.

Aye, should warm that bench nicely whilst Nicky struts his stuff. If Kinnear was in charge i'd put my life on it. But fortunately he isn't Nicky was captain against West Brom though wasn't he? I'm fairly confident that Kinnear had already picked that team and told Hughton to play it for him. Remember at that point, Kinnear thought he was going to be back doing training within a week. I still think Kinnear will be picking the side from his sick bed. Hughton won't want to do much different from Kinnear for a number of reasons.

I see this as very similar to the Villa and City games earlier on in the season. They are two good sides which we picked up points from because we really showed alot of commitment. Everton have players missing and we have key ones back, so we are in decent shape.

i think lars Jacobsen would cover for hibbert. He haven´t really played for them since he arrived in the summer! difficult to say if he is better than hibbert, thinking of his rutine! As much as i think Hibbert is a decent right back, i think Gutierrez would have given him a really hard afteroon. Therefore if Jacobson is of a similar standard, the same should apply.

Only really bothered about Arteta, we don't defend set pieces with conviction. I think we cause them problems at STP regardless of their back four.

Brilliant news, Cahill is always a thorn in our side and Nicky Butt would be the man given the responsibility to "look after" him. Hopefully Gutierrez will give there make-shift right back a torrid time.

Jonas isn't a central midfielder and the position you have him is centre midfield. Although, i like the idea of the front three.

nowt to say then ? Just joking man, I'm pretty bored, we all know spending money improves your chances of doing well, but it's not a given, you need the right manager, the right scouts and the right amount of money but you can do well without spending massive amount if you have the right manager e.g. Moyes and Everton. on the other hand, if you are lucky enough to get a decent manager, and it IS a lottery, and don't back him, he'll be off. Like Moyes, unless Everton are taken over or it all suddenly goes tits up for him. When you say "do well", how well do YOU want to do ? It's a lottery getting a good manager? No it's a skill, not an easy one but it is definately a skill. is it now ? We'll see how easily Arsenal replace Wenger and ManU replace Ferguson. Or Everton replace Moyes .......... Even a "good manager" isn't necessarily the "right manager", which I suppose adds credence to NE5's "lottery" theory. Bit simplistic on the whole though, as usual. you mean "realistic", as usual. Which also, as usual, too many people fail to grasp. were you happy with the kinnear appointment ? hey getting a good manager is a lottery right,surely theres as much chance getting a s*** one to turn out good results as there is a good one turning out bad to your thinking or maybe you are piffling again in anattempt to detect any criticism from the your beloved fred ? (conversly it must work with players aswell...shevchenko,veron,woodgate at real,keane at liverpool......good players who didn't do it so surely it means it's pointless spending big as these players prove it works) i'll stop you in your tracks........."back your manager"............what with ? where was the money going to come from......at this point you mention the debt of others and as always i mention the debt of the top 4 is different to ours as they are making money aside from those with sugar daddies where as we have consistently made losses (not a good scenario when begging to the banks with few assets left to hock). look at the other clubs who,like us have lived beyond their means,they are all cutting right back and ask yourself what liverpools or arsenals spending would be like if they missed out on the champs league for 3 or 4 years ? often on here you have alluded to others having thir heads in the sand but it is clear the one one doing an ostrich is yourself in relation to the position fred left us in. silly. Especially when there are still people hell bent on defending Ashley to the bitter end, and I mean bitter end = relegation and with little chance of coming back. Pleased for you that you still appear to write off all those european qualifications and champions league appearances and the manner in which they were achieved. Still, nobody is "embarrassing us" any more, right ? BORING ! we've covered the euro qualifications to death as that has little to do with the position we were in spring 2007. defending ashley to the bitter end......like you defending fred ? i never mentioned being embarassed by fred's utterences. nice to see you keep your head in the sand re our position when fred left. you mentioned Shepherd, not me, with a silly childish comment. Yep, I will "defend" anybody who gave me the only 15 years out of 45 that tried to compete at the levels this club should always compete at, and thus gave me the best most consistent and highest league positions as a result. As I've said before. Freddy was not in charge for 15 years

nowt to say then ? Just joking man, I'm pretty bored, we all know spending money improves your chances of doing well, but it's not a given, you need the right manager, the right scouts and the right amount of money but you can do well without spending massive amount if you have the right manager e.g. Moyes and Everton. on the other hand, if you are lucky enough to get a decent manager, and it IS a lottery, and don't back him, he'll be off. Like Moyes, unless Everton are taken over or it all suddenly goes tits up for him. When you say "do well", how well do YOU want to do ? It's a lottery getting a good manager? No it's a skill, not an easy one but it is definately a skill. is it now ? We'll see how easily Arsenal replace Wenger and ManU replace Ferguson. Or Everton replace Moyes .......... Even a "good manager" isn't necessarily the "right manager", which I suppose adds credence to NE5's "lottery" theory. Bit simplistic on the whole though, as usual. you mean "realistic", as usual. Which also, as usual, too many people fail to grasp. were you happy with the kinnear appointment ? hey getting a good manager is a lottery right,surely theres as much chance getting a s*** one to turn out good results as there is a good one turning out bad to your thinking or maybe you are piffling again in anattempt to detect any criticism from the your beloved fred ? (conversly it must work with players aswell...shevchenko,veron,woodgate at real,keane at liverpool......good players who didn't do it so surely it means it's pointless spending big as these players prove it works) i'll stop you in your tracks........."back your manager"............what with ? where was the money going to come from......at this point you mention the debt of others and as always i mention the debt of the top 4 is different to ours as they are making money aside from those with sugar daddies where as we have consistently made losses (not a good scenario when begging to the banks with few assets left to hock). look at the other clubs who,like us have lived beyond their means,they are all cutting right back and ask yourself what liverpools or arsenals spending would be like if they missed out on the champs league for 3 or 4 years ? often on here you have alluded to others having thir heads in the sand but it is clear the one one doing an ostrich is yourself in relation to the position fred left us in. silly. Especially when there are still people hell bent on defending Ashley to the bitter end, and I mean bitter end = relegation and with little chance of coming back. Pleased for you that you still appear to write off all those european qualifications and champions league appearances and the manner in which they were achieved. Still, nobody is "embarrassing us" any more, right ? Why have you ignored every question he has asked, yet still replied to his post? That's just rude.

It's through sponsorship. That's ok then. I can imagine it would go above the gallowgate TBH.

I have no moral objections but it does seem like we could spend that money elsewhere.

BTW Martinez would be a great move. The sort of move we could only dream of.

Yes we are but i worry that the hierarchy at our club doesn't have a clue on footballing matters. Poyet or some other Spurs/Cockney related manager, would be the most likely outcome. Redknapp? If he wasn't at Spuds he's precisely the manager we would/did go for.

I remember when Birmingham said that they approached Lippi to become their manager, i choked on my cornflakes that morning i tell you. Shearer would be a masterstroke, the sheer aura of signing him would lift the club and to safety this season and he would have time to see the players in perfect time for the summer. However, the relationship between the owners would be a disaster.

Yes we are but i worry that the hierarchy at our club doesn't have a clue on footballing matters. Poyet or some other Spurs/Cockney related manager, would be the most likely outcome.

You reckon it's so set in stone that we will go for someone new? Ashley and Co will probably give it a couple of weeks and hope he gets better TBH.

What about heart bypass don't you understand? The part where i missed that thread, clever fuck You would have thought a topic as important as that would have stayed top of the pile.

Preston boss. Ironically i would have the current Preston boss in, if we are looking to build for the future, who happened to be Moyes right hand man... Irvine.

If Kinnear does sign a contract extention, he will be gone within 3 months of it and we will have another "transition" on our hands next season. I genuinely believe they will let his current deal run out and get someone else. My guess? Martin Jol.

nowt to say then ? Just joking man, I'm pretty bored, we all know spending money improves your chances of doing well, but it's not a given, you need the right manager, the right scouts and the right amount of money but you can do well without spending massive amount if you have the right manager e.g. Moyes and Everton. on the other hand, if you are lucky enough to get a decent manager, and it IS a lottery, and don't back him, he'll be off. Like Moyes, unless Everton are taken over or it all suddenly goes tits up for him. When you say "do well", how well do YOU want to do ? It's a lottery getting a good manager? No it's a skill, not an easy one but it is definately a skill. is it now ? We'll see how easily Arsenal replace Wenger and ManU replace Ferguson. Or Everton replace Moyes .......... Even a "good manager" isn't necessarily the "right manager", which I suppose adds credence to NE5's "lottery" theory. Bit simplistic on the whole though, as usual. Man U will appoint a good successor to Fergie because I bet right now Fergie is invovled in identifying him and monitoring them over a decent time span. not necessarily. But it depends what you mean by "decent". Didn't Chelsea think they appointed a worthy successor to Mourinho ? Two appointments later, and this is an owner who knows about football. I assume you mean Scolari and not Grant! Imo Abramovich is a names man, he wanted to build a team full of superstars, or at list a large number of star names. Hence his eternal pursuit of Sheva. In an ideal world Roman would have got Hiddink in last summer but couldn't for reasons to do with his relationship with the Russian FA, Scolari was the biggest name that he could get, iirc as many people had reservations on how well he would adapt as thought it was a great move. Man U on the other hand will have had a time span for Fergies departure for a couple of years (as soon as he breaks Liverpools record imo) and will have been planning for it accordingly. There will be dossiers on the likes of Hughes, Bruce, Moyes, Quierroz (sp) etc etc detailing every aspect they beleve to be necessary to carry on the success of the past decade. Scolari is also a World Cup Winner. You don't get anything better than that. it just proves that even the best looking CV makes it a lottery in respect that the best CV's will not succeed. Do you think the Glaziers will go looking for an up and coming tracksuit manager or a big world name ? It took them over almost 30 years to replace Matt Busby. TBF, there are alot of people who thought Scolari was risky and an equal amount that believe they should not have sacked him but i agree with the sentiment. Of course it's not easy but it's not a "lottery".

nowt to say then ? Just joking man, I'm pretty bored, we all know spending money improves your chances of doing well, but it's not a given, you need the right manager, the right scouts and the right amount of money but you can do well without spending massive amount if you have the right manager e.g. Moyes and Everton. on the other hand, if you are lucky enough to get a decent manager, and it IS a lottery, and don't back him, he'll be off. Like Moyes, unless Everton are taken over or it all suddenly goes tits up for him. When you say "do well", how well do YOU want to do ? It's a lottery getting a good manager? No it's a skill, not an easy one but it is definately a skill. is it now ? We'll see how easily Arsenal replace Wenger and ManU replace Ferguson. Or Everton replace Moyes .......... The difference being that Arsenal and Man U have to replace people who have built their clubs, with huge success. When hiring a manager, you need luck because noone is guarenteed success. However, you hire good managers and you get good results (in most cases), therefore the luckiness is minor. We hired Robson, we had success. We hired Souness, we fell on our arse. One was always going to be a good choice, where as one was never going to be.

nowt to say then ? Just joking man, I'm pretty bored, we all know spending money improves your chances of doing well, but it's not a given, you need the right manager, the right scouts and the right amount of money but you can do well without spending massive amount if you have the right manager e.g. Moyes and Everton. on the other hand, if you are lucky enough to get a decent manager, and it IS a lottery, and don't back him, he'll be off. Like Moyes, unless Everton are taken over or it all suddenly goes tits up for him. When you say "do well", how well do YOU want to do ? It's a lottery getting a good manager? No it's a skill, not an easy one but it is definately a skill.

I see this game as very similar to the Villa, City and Spurs games which we picked up points from. You could argue that Everton have a worse attack than those three. I noticed that there are only something like 6 teams who have lost fewer games at home than us this season.

In short because they are not good or intelligent enough. It annoys me when i see young english managers in the premiership because i think, who exactly has told them that they are good enough to do it? Most of the best football managers were average players, and some of the very best managers never had great footballing careers. I genuinely believe that alot of fans would make better managers than some ex footballers.

There are plenty of other young midfielders who i would go for before him, Morrison, Barnes and Larsson to name three.