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I agree with this but would like to see him re-evaluate the situation again come preseason. I think Harper's been alright - better than I expected - but obviously not even close to Given at his best. I also still believe that in time, Given will recover his form if he can regain his confidence regarding his injuries, especially the niggling groin injury which has seemingly shortened his reach (when jumping) as well as his reaction time. But, quite pertinently, I'm pretty sure that an optimistic manager like Keegan will know what to say to help Given recover, unlike the dreary Roeder and Allardyce.

Nihat would be absolute quality. I remember when Souness was here, he was in his last year with Sociedad and we were linked with him for a measley £2m. He would have turned out to be one of our best signings for such a small fee because he's got most of the key attributes you'd want from a striker.

Doyle's shite man. Just because he says something good about us doesn't mean that we should be signing him

I thought Bramble would develop into an England international, thought Jenas would anchor our midfield for his whole career, thought the Speed sale was good business, thought the Butt buy was good business, agreed with the reasons for Bellamy's loan deal to Celtic, and then agreed when he was sold (even though I'm still a massive fan of his). I also thought Luque would be superb ('become our Henry' was what I told my bro ), and I also thought (still do btw) that Emre would excel in a team which plays 'carpet' football. But recently I swear I've been much better.

4 Champions Leage entrants: - Champions, - Runners-up, - Third place, - Fourth place. 3 UEFA Cup entrants: - 5th place, - FA Cup winners (if they're already in, then the runner-up gets it), - League Cup winners (if they're already in, the 6th place team in the league gets it). 1 Intertoto entrant: Highest placed team in the league who applied for entry. Simple enough really

My sneaky £2 bet for Fener to get through this round may still come off...

Voted Martins. He's been involved plenty over the past 3 games and I can see an explosion coming up soon.

mackems.gif I laughed at that as well.

Yeah, I'd say that the fact that they were missing two of their most influential players rubbishes your claim.

What's this shit about deserving it? Fuck off, you deserve what you get. If Man Utd don't win it this year (please god), then they won't have deserved it. Simple as. I hope Man Utd crash and burn at every opportunity and if Totti and Perrotta aren't ready in the second leg, then Messi better be fucking ready when the semis come around.

Totti out, and probably more significantly, Simone Perrotta is out as well. Can't see Roma getting anything out of this game, even though it'd obviously delight me. 2-0 to the scum.

Didn't Valencia spend something like £12m on him? Maybe a bit too expensive for someone like him I think, but then again I haven't seen him on that many occasions. Aye but they cant be overly impressed if they have sent him out on loan. I honestly don't know how good he is but would suggest we could get him for 6-7m. Wiki says Valencia bought him for £17m (!!!) so I don't think there's any chance of him signing for us for a reasonable fee. I wonder whether there's a permanent option in the loan deal with Everton and how much the agreed fee is.

Didn't Valencia spend something like £12m on him? Maybe a bit too expensive for someone like him I think, but then again I haven't seen him on that many occasions.

If someone makes a bid of £10m+, we'd be pretty stupid to refuse it. Decky, you said he's in good form and all that and I agree, and of course he's showing himself to be a good all-round footballer but he's NEVER scored 20 league goals in a season in his career. He's just not a durable player that we can depend on for a whole season. He'll always pick up little niggling injuries and this injury-free run that he's had is his best for something like 4 years - it says a lot about Owen's injury-proneness that 16 games in a row is his best run for 4 years. It's unbelievable that having been called 'one of the best strikers in the world, 'top quality', 'his left foot would cost £30m' (Houllier) and having won the Ballon d'Or, Michael Owen has never scored 20 league goals in one season.

that is so true of this forum

Nah, they'll easily get 5 more points by my reckoning, meaning we'll have to win 4 and draw 2 of our games. Too tough imo but if they fuck up their next 2 games and we beat them at Upton Park then I don't see them getting more than a point in their last 3 games.

We can get better than Arshavin.

Personally I think Fabiano is overrated, and Bridge is still living off the reputation he carved in his good seasons with Southampton and Chelsea. I think Enrique is better and is a more viable long-term option since he's got all the attributes a good fullback needs, and he's shown a marked improvement since Keegan came (no surprise really since he's actually been played!). I'm sure Keegan will encourage him to be more attack-minded in time, which is the only part missing from his game.

I think it can definitely work. Chelsea made it work for a couple of seasons until Abramovich started intervening whilst Barca have made theirs work for a few years as well so I don't see the need for the rigid 4-4-2 especially when it seems that many of our players complement each other in this attack-minded 4-3-3. I really hope he sticks with this because if the players are this comfortable with it after 2-3 games then surely there's more to come.

I'm here We'll see in summer if it was a mistake or not though. Whatever happens, Keegan made a decision which has given him 4 more months to take a look at the players that he has at his disposal and 4 more months for him to extensively scout the players that he might end up buying. He's been vindicated in his decision to stick with the squad and see the season through By not getting relegated? Thats all we cared about on Jan 15th? Ok One performance doesnt make a season but if this is backed up by wins against Reading and Portsmouth, i'll agree with you. As it stands, in reality, we are just another side to have knocked 4 past Spurs this season. We were always going to end up as a mid-table team with or without Allardyce because we hadn't accumulated enough points in the easy part of our season so yea, I'd say yea, not getting relegated was the only major goal after Allardyce got sacked. We could have gotten an extra couple of mill from prize money but that would have meant Keegan needing to spend money on players he hadn't scouted and on positions he might have been unsure about (eg. leftback). European football wasn't on the table anyway considering the teams ahead of us at that time, and the fact that now there's only one automatic UEFA Cup place surely vindicates his decision not to spend any money even more. I don't see how his decision not to sign anyone can be construed as a negative one, especially now with the benefit of hindsight and seeing that the short-term benefits weren't much (the aforementioned couple of mill of prize money) but there was a definitely a long-term risk (paying over-the-top fees and wages for average players) there. He gambled on us surviving and it's worked (barring a crazy collapse), and now he'll be way surer of the positions that need strengthening, the players that will stay/go and of course he's had lots of extra time to eye up prospective players as well.

I'm here We'll see in summer if it was a mistake or not though. Whatever happens, Keegan made a decision which has given him 4 more months to take a look at the players that he has at his disposal and 4 more months for him to extensively scout the players that he might end up buying. He's been vindicated in his decision to stick with the squad and see the season through

So where's everyone who said it was a mistake that Keegan didn't sign anyone?

Reading back on this thread is quite entertaining

Gonzalo Higuain 3-1, quality control and then a quality pass from Guti.

I should stay out but, I can't help myself. How many of Martins' starts was he actually playing up front? Who am I? Motty? How many has Owen been up front? Every? Behind Oba though, right? No? Oba was unfortunately on the bench for those games (except in the past 3, which have coincidentally lead to 7 points). So not "every" then? And Oba's been the further forward in the games we've been scoring... but hasn't scored as many as the man he's in front of. Shite debate. Just sing "Englands number one" next time Owen scores and I'll keep singing "Oba Oba-Fem". It is a shite debate But just to clarify, when I said 'every' I meant that Owen had started every game as a striker, whilst Martins hasn't.