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And no, no one is suggesting that relegation under Ashley will be excused by the shit that Shepherd left us with but if we remain in mid-table for the next few years and many people conclude that we would have done so anyway even if Shepherd had stayed, then what's the big fucking deal? If this is the case and I'm not saying it is, then our expectations with Ashley were high to begin with given the alternative scenario.

Look, dude, how else do you judge whether someone's reign is successful or not? If you don't consider what would have happened otherwise, what are you comparing the actual scenario to? Would the Glazers' reign be successful if all they ever did was get Man Utd in the CL? Of course not, and that's because in the old regime, they won a fuckload of titles. One of the key questions in the big board thread is whether people believe that Shepherd would have eventually got us back into the CL, and I have simply created a thread to explore this situation because the issue is important for reasons that I have already outlined and so that it doesn't get muddled up with the other issues in the other thread. This is important because it relates to what reasonable expectations we should have had for the Ashley regime and whether he's fulfilled some of those expectations, or not, as I believe many feel.

Crouch's contribution does not stop at goals. Find me another striker that is one-dimensional in the most favoured tactic in football who will earn as much as Owen is speculated to earn if he signs a new contract, and then we can talk. In a team where other players can carry the burden, Owen can be valuable. In a team like ours, we are carrying him. If we had a better team which is built around Owen, then that would be fine. But we don't. And I feel that one of the things that's stopping us from building a better team overall, regardless of whether it is built around Owen or not, is the presence of Owen at the club. By the way, my 'favourite' is not Oba. I'm considering what's best for the club. I just feel that Oba is sacrificed in each and every game so that Owen can stay on the pitch and the reasons that this shit happens doesn't have much to do with the players' contribution into each match. The reasons are more to do with who's captain, who's earning the most, who's the 'face' of the club, who needs to feel more 'wanted' rather than who has looked more likely to score, whose presence is needed more on the pitch and other football-related reasons. That is my main gripe. Edit: If, in a specific game, Oba has looked out of it, misfiring and generally under-performing, then the decision to take him off and leave Owen on (regardless of how Owen has performed) would be justifiable, in the least. If Owen's been fantastic, then the decision would be rightly lauded. But this hasn't been the case so far under Kinnear and wasn't even when KK was manager, and so each thread descends into a Martins v Owen debate because people are trying to understand why Oba's taken off and Owen's left on.

Of course it is/was a hypothetical 'future' but it is important to consider what could have been when you consider what is now. This thread is not irrelevant. How else are you supposed to judge whether what is is acceptable when you don't consider what could have been? If what could have been was titles galore and epic battles against the top sides in Europe, then we would definitely have something to lament about. If, however, the future was bleak then the situation now becomes more palatable and acceptable in the short-term. There was an opportunity cost of replacing Ashley with Shepherd and I am interested to hear people's views on what that is, and whether what's happened in the past couple of seasons is below the 'expected' returns (in terms of league tables, points, general performance) that a continuation of the Shepherd-led era would have garnered us.

Bear in mind that Allardyce would have probably signed a few more players in the summer but couldn't because Mort and co were too slow to act, so he might have done better.

What's the most plausible scenario if Ashley hadn't bought out the club? Shepherd had just hired Allardyce and we had just finished 14th (?). What would have happened?

If a mod could actually just cut out my post and start a new thread on what would have happened if Shepherd had stayed, that would be cool.

He did, on occasion... The Summer of 03 for one. To be fair, johnny, Shepherd spent our future income by giving money to Souness. If we hadn't been bought out by Ashley, I doubt that we'd have spent much in the past couple of seasons (yes, I know we haven't spent anything so it makes no difference anyway). Of course, this is just conjecture but we took a risk with Souness which didn't pan out. Imo, the past season or so would have panned out similarly to how it's gone if Shepherd had stayed (excluding the KK appointment...). Shepherd ran the club well until '04. We had money to spend because our revenue was relatively high. The club paid for its own transfers and still gave out dividends. Shepherd didn't dress it up in nice, technical language like Ashley's done but that's what it was. It worked very well too, which is a credit to Shepherd. You run a business well, you get a piece of the profits. No one's complaining about this part. However, we then suffered from not qualifying for the CL and then took a risk by giving Souness money to get us back into the CL. Because that didn't work out, where would the money have come from? We had spent it all, and would have had to wait a few seasons until we could get back onto a level-footing financially, and this is pretty much what we're doing now. Shepherd's pretty lucky, imo, that his legacy hasn't been totally tainted by what would have happened had he stayed. This is not to say that Ashley hasn't been a disappointment, but I think our managers would have gotten the same 'backing' that Ashley's given so far, if Shepherd had stayed. Again, I repeat, this is conjecture but I believe it's backed up with some of the soundbites regarding our finances and the financial reports also support this view. Ashley's still been a disappointment because he's a billionaire and fair or not, we expected him to put some of his own money into the club (which would have been a marked difference from the way the club's been run for the past 20 years...). Because he didn't do that and fucked up his managerial appointments, he's alienated a lot of the support that he had because he was a replacement for Shepherd. I add here that we expected more because he's a billionaire - and this is different than saying 'anyone would be better than Shepherd'. Only some were/would be (in terms of expectations) and Ashley was one of them. But, I still think that we would be a similar position if Shepherd had stayed and I'd be interested to hear any counter-arguments. What's the most reasonable scenario if Ashley hadn't bought out the club? Shepherd had just hired Allardyce and we had just finished 14th (?). What would have happened?

Clown. Why not add the cost of relegation to your shitty little stats, cause that's where we will end up if Owen goes next month. Honeslty, he averages a goal every 1.8 matches in the league when he starts yet you still want rid. So? I swear Oba saved us with his 11 league goals in his first season and no one mentions that when they're assessing his value to the team. Owen's contribution is there for all to see, and personally, he's not been worth his transfer fee nor his 'world class' wages. I think we can do better, either through distributing his wages to other players or simply replacing him with someone younger and with potential to improve. Instead of spending 100k/week on a new striker, we could simply buy two players and give them 50k/week which will improve two positions in the team. This is merely a suggestion to counter the 'who can we sign that's better than him?' and the 'we can't attract players of his quality anymore' arguments, but of course there may be better alternatives. I would say that I hope he stays until the end of the season because he's needed, but after that, if he's unwilling to accept a contract that matches his contribution so far and his 'expected' contribution in the future, we should let him go. How much is a 12-15 league goals/season striker worth? Since his contribution is severely limited to just goals, we figure that out and offer it Owen. It sure as hell ain't 100k/week, though, and if we've offered that to him, we'll be financially hamstrung by his wages.

What's the news re: Butt and Duff? If Guthrie's still out, then I wouldn't mind having Butt in there but the rest of the team absolutely must stay the same. I think we'll get a point. 1-1.

Looks awesome, mate

This one is top notch as well. Put in some blue to vary the colour scheme a bit and it'll be awesome.

This one is my favourite so far. Would look better if you cut out the two little balls and leave it blank though.

Good game, this. Fast-paced.

1-1 Lescott. Great delivery from Arteta. Whipped in a free-kick, Osman flicks it on and Lescott taps it in.

Not sure Milner got the ball there. If he didn't, that's a pen.

8 goals in 14 matches (4 of them on as a sub), I'm not complaining. That's understandable. I still feel that our team play suffers when he's on the pitch in a 4-4-2. When he scores it's awesome great, but when he doesn't, we play like we've got 10 men on the pitch.

It's almost reminiscent of Shearer's last couple of seasons at the club where his overall contribution had declined but being captain and with the reputation that he had, he was undroppable.

Deserve a player of Owen's calibre? Piss off, he ain't some god. He's a footballer who's paid handsomely by the club and for the most part, has not been able repay us back. He's paid as much as players like Kaka and Messi are and what has he done for us to deserve it? 16m was and always will be too much for the player that Owen was, and sadly, the player that he hasn't been for us. No good team will be taking him because his overall team play in 4-4-2 is almost inexistant and I don't think any successful team will be changing to a 4-3-3 to accommodate our little Mickey. And to say that we would be playing Championship football without Owen is true, but also ignores the fact that he contributed fuck all until we changed to the 4-3-3. The goals he scored at the end only made up for the invisible act that he had been pulling all season so criticism would be equally justified in this case. For 100k/week or whatever it is, we can do better. The team comes first, and I think his reputation and stature is starting to harm us almost as much as his goals are helping.

And we dropped 5 bankable points last season and survived pretty comfortably in the end. A decent manager got us out of the shit. Touche. Still, I think we've got better players than we did last season and they'll put in good, complete performances every now and then, and that'll be enough to keep us up. September the 1st, man. Fuck.

And we dropped 5 bankable points last season and survived pretty comfortably in the end.

That's true. Pretty weird considering he's one of the best at coming out and getting a decent punch on the ball. Today was just.. come out, jumps, whiffs at ball, waits for defender/s to clear ensuing danger.. then next cross comes in, comes out, jumps, whiffs at ball again.

Moved up from 2 to 3. Chill the fuck out. This is early December. Worrying is fine but let's not get too excited. The period between Kinnear's arrival and KK's departure yielded 0 points from 5 games. If we had had an actual manager then, I think we would have been 5 or 6 points better off than where we are now and no one would be saying that. The point is that a five-game stretch has put us in trouble but generally, our form has not been relegation-like and we'll climb out of this eventually.

Ok, it was a bad game. I've calmed down now and I still don't think we'll get relegated. We've got 12 points from our last 10 games - that's not relegation form. We're also still unbeaten at home under Kinnear and I think our home form will keep us up. The second half was poor and Kinnear deserves the blame for it but still, some of our players need to be better. We were under no pressure and then Colo gets burnt by Fuller. It was out of nowhere but Colo's got to be better at shielding him away from the goal. Then Bassong puts his hand up for no reason and there's always a chance that the ref will call that. It was a dumb thing to do and we got punished. That kind of foul is similar to strikers fouling their defenders in the corner flag (Shola fucking Ameobi comes to mind). I know that coaches are supposed to get rid of some of these bad habits but the players themselves have got to be aware. It was a needless thing to do because their player was near the line and Enrique was around. Saying all that, I think we'll be fine. It's disappointing but there's no need to panic.

Pathetic. That's what you get for taking off our outlet and fucking around with the formation. The Oba decision contributed to the awful second-half performance but what did it was changing around three positions for the sake of one. We had a proper rb, rm and cm, so when guthrie went off, naturally we just make sure that only one player has to play in an unfamiliar position but Kinnear's such a dumb fucking cunt that he changed around 3 positions. We lost shape after that and kept on dropping deeper and deeper (a familiar, familiar theme). I thought Zoggy was poor in the second half, especially so considering how good he was in the first. The only players that can come out of this performance feeling relatively good are Enrique, Owen and Martins. Jonas had a poor second half. He dropped too deep at times, pushed forwards at other, wrong times. He's not a CM and I have no idea why Kinnear would think he'd be able to put in a decent performance there. He was great in the first half, so why the fuck did Kinnear change his position? Beye was also non-existent in the second half and again, Kinnear's at fault for this. What can the players do when you've got a fucking idiot for a manager?