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The arguing between you two should really stop man. It's obvious you have both cared about the club for a long long time and that you still care about it passionately. Just forgive whatever's been said in the past and move on innit? So many of the youngsters on the forum could really use a history lesson from the people who were actually there.

I'm with NE5 here. However you qualify for Europe, you did it and it should count as thus, none of this 'proper' entries or whatever. If we had won it during one of those years we qualified via the Intertoto or being in the FA Cup Final, would any of us have actually complained? Would we fuck. I bet you when Ashley eventually leaves, he'll have earnt quite a bit as well. What do you think all these people are in the football industry for? They're not fucking Santa Claus. All of them - Lerner, Ashley, the US people at Liverpool, Glazers etc. - are in it for the money. They're businessmen and they'll be trying their damn near hardest to make a profit. Of course, in football, the only realistic way you can make a hefty profit and have long-term-ish stability is by 'creating' success on the football pitch. And this is the same for oh so many clubs at present. And it was the same for whoever ran the club from 1969 until Freddie took over, and this includes SJH btw. Man do I sound like NE5! Anyway, expecting a trophy is unrealistic. Shepherd tried his best, and imo failed, but his record is better than most of his predecessors. Plus, like NE5 has asked, would you rather us be a club like Boro or Leicester who won a League Cup here and there? Would you fuck.

If we beat the big 4 this season by employing the same defensive tactics I would not give a fuck.

Can we stop this practice of changing thread names? This update is worth a new thread imo. It's been more than 10 days since we've heard news about the boy. Fuck me I'm bored of thinking a new thread's started then realizing that the first 5 pages is stuff that's over a week old.

A better example would have been the peddling of Titus. The difference between the two is that Dyer's actually a decent player. Dyer epitomized Bobby's team imo. Energetic, exciting and whose potential was unbounded at times, and other times he was weak, soft and disinterested. He was there for the highs (Feyenoord, Leeds away) and was probably at one of the lowest points (Boro away) as well. There's also the playboy image that neither the players or SBR himself played down, which was a big part of our team with all the youngsters (Bellamy, Dyer, Titus, Jenas etc.) being a significant part of the squad. End of an era indeed if he does leave.

Whatever, he can fuck off Is this the transfer that signals us into a new direction? Have we actually moved on what from everything Sir Bob created and dreamt for us? I still long for the days of exciting football, the days when we had Bellamy causing being a nuisance and Dyer tirelessly running around in midfield but if Dyer leaves, I think it'll truly close that chapter for me. Time to move on.

everything alright Chez?

Started 22 games, came on as a sub in 18 other games (soccerbase.com). That's pretty decent for someone who was never guaranteed a place in the team.

A lot of knee-jerk stuff going on in here. It's a thigh strain ffs - a ten day injury. In Owen's season with Real, he played FORTY games. He's shown that he can get over all this niggling injuries and play a big part in his team's season. The past two seasons have been very disappointing for both him and us, but those were injuries that you really cannot prevent, so I see no reason to criticize him for that. Anyhow, I expect Owen to get to play around 30 or more league games. Factor in that we have no European games this season = less traveling = less games = more time to rest = a better and fitter Michael Owen. Honestly, this should be his productive season in a while, and while that's not saying much, it would mean a revival for him (individually) and most probably mean a revival for the club as well.

Which is why you can alert people first, and then close the thread say 5 minutes later, as opposed to last year when threads were locked straight after a match was finished. I don't think people tend to read the opening post if the thread is 10+ pages long. How about an example of how a thread title will look like? 'Thread for Hartlepool match 21/7/07. Match starts from page 5, post match starts from page 14'? Like that? How exactly? If you direct people to another thread, I'm pretty sure they'll decide to post in the 'right' thread. Are you saying if there's a thread that says 'Post-match thread' and another thread that says 'Pre-match thread' that people will post in the 'Pre-match thread'?

Heinze's not as good as he was in his first season. Maybe it's the lack of games and thus being unable to maintain match fitness or his injury has really affected his pace and aggression. Anyhow, he's not worth £7m. Parky mentioned an interesting name, Per Mertesacker, whose bound to move to a bigger club someday very soon, if we get him it would be a steal and a half.

That's dumb. People were only complaining because the thread was closed IMMEDIATELY after the match finished. Just give it 5 or so minutes, alert people, open up a new thread and then close this thread. Now we'll have mega-threads, with the beginning 5 or so pages filled with predictions, expected formation etc. etc. It'll be annoying for anyone who hasn't posted in the thread before to find out when it actually becomes the 'match' thread, and then of course having to search through and find out when the 'post-match' part of the thread actually starts. The forum as it is now is already starting to be clustered with uberthreads which go on for 10+ pages. It's a real deterrent for anyone who hasn't posted in that particular thread to see that there's been that much discussion going on already. I thought this forum (and the mods) were against uberthreads of that kind? Edit - Better yet, you don't even have to lock threads, just leave them open but post a link to a 'match thread' or 'post match thread' in the pre-match thread and direct people there.

[FM] Barzagli's a bit slow, not sure he'd cope with the speed of the Premiership. [/FM]

Was Riise not bankrupt a few months back?

Jesus man is your spelling bad or what

I'm with Vic here. It does not make a fucking difference that the company is now de-listed when Ashley already knew that it was going to happen. If he was going to spend any money in the past couple of weeks, he would have. He wasn't waiting for the de-listing to commence any 'spending spree', which if it did occur right now, would be a mere coincidence or actually related to the completion of the internal review, rather than related to the de-listing.

I know this is all subjective but IMO he has Berbatov just about right, he can bump and bang with all the big defenders and doesn't complain too much, and has real silky skills he is a real pleasure to watch. As for Ronaldinho well he goes awal far too often in games to be rated the best or in this case the second best in the world, again IMO the best footballers are the ones that give you effort even when they are not playing well, their touch might be a little off in a game but hey still graft for the team and Ronaldinho is not one of them. I agree Berbatov's rank is okay (well, justifiable) but he does not have a body like a bruiser, which was something that actually made me laugh out loud.

The Owen pic has me really excited for the new season. Don't think I've been this excited since we randomly came 4th under SBR. Howay the lads!

Thought it was a decent list tbh. Some of the stuff written (like the Berbatov thing ) was utter shit but at least he's tried to justify most of his choices and well, for the most part, I can see where he's coming from.

Post-match drinking session I agree, we've really developed and honestly the passing play at times was fun to watch, almost Arsenal-esque like I mentioned before. Cheers for the luck, good luck for Bahrain as well, but it seems your passage is quite secure - surely Korea will beat Indonesia and thus leaving you with needing only one point from the game against the Saudis.

Just got back home from the match. Fucking great performance from us. Battered them for a sustained period of about half an hour but just couldn't fucking score. We seem to be trying to play the Arsenal style of football and took like 4 or 5 shots throughout the whole game. Really entertaining stuff though. The home fans were brilliant and surprisingly there was quite a big Aussie section as well, was really cool to see. Viduka didn't really perform well on the whole. For the first 60 minutes or so he lost the ball on numerous occasions, was too slow or non-reactive to the general attacking play of the Aussies and just seemed really unfit, then boom pops up with a clever hold-up play which leads to his first goal. His second goal was a really nice header as well. Can't really make a full judgment of him yet. When he did put the effort in, he was really good but the first 60 minutes still bothers me a lot. It seems this has been the case in all three group games as well, so hopefully he'll sort out this stuff soon enough. Saddened that we lost when we really honestly dominated play and was by far the more entertaining and enterprising team. Best of luck to the Aussies though, they showed their quality in the end with all the counter-attacking play.

Bahrain man!! Haha, fucking hell, Korea might be out.

No doubt now that Morty-boy is checking the forum.

Ronaldinho was poor last season? Yea, 21 league goals is poor.

Monday 7.45pm Bangkok time (12.45pm GMT). I will report back on Viduka (if he plays) though I'm obviously hoping we batter the Aussies.