Parky

He has the raw materials to become a good manager.

I often wonder about Spurs and their wage structure and the other talked about ingredients that often keeps good players at the club rather than agitating for moves every season. Berbatov accepted of course.

Yeah, but we don't have any talent to start with. I'd disagree. I think there's copious amounts of individual talent within the team - however, it's hard to see that when results have been as dire as they have been because of disjointed management and poor tactics since all the upheavals of last summer. What is missing is an esprit de corps - team spirit is sadly lacking - that much is self-evident. As far as good practice, well one thing that's been sadly lacking in recent times is mutual respect between players within the squad, between individual players and the manager, and between the manager and the Chairman. That situation in particular, i.e. the relationship between manager and chairman, one would hope (although there's no tangible evidence as yet) should well have improved since the changes at the top. But, I don't think Keegan has yet shown that he's going to be able to achieve the sort of equilibrium between players and manager that is needed to produce the consistent individual perfomances, levels of motivation and camaraderie which is required to get a team to gel and become a well-oiled machine like Wenger has done repeatedly at Arsenal, for example. Some excellent points.

In this day and age and the way top flight football has gone, it seems an illusive yet much prized component of a good side. Top sides seem to have it by default ie success on the pitch and is in no small way part of their success. Are there some elements and good practice we could focus on to get some of this back and is player loyalty really that important anymore?

In their report on the wolves game under SBR. They spent the remaining part of SBR' managership sniping at him and generally leading the cheerleading to get him out. Nice one lads I hope your happy with the last 5 years but lay off the hypocrisy of other fans expressing their views eh? POT KETTLE BLACK. Ha ha. Glass houses.

respect is earned Are talking to me from a parallel universe? A model pro, a winner and well regarded all over Europe not enough?

This KK as quitter lark is media driven nonsense. People should show a little respect for the man.

Viva la revelucion!! Agree with the last para in particular. Supporters regardless of brainpower/matchattendability/foreigness/madness should feel they can come on here and get involved.

People can come on here and spout what the fuck they like as far as I'm concerned.

My lads have written a fair few stories over the last few months iirc. There isn't that much to really get the R&O (my section) teeth into atm and I don't really want to get into premature doom and gloom scenarios. Don't give a fuck what .com say, do or think tbh.

The result tonight would have hurt Birmingham.

We probably do have better players. Unfortunately we're not prepared for a scrap in any way. These teams knew they were going to be down there, and know what they have to do. We just pack in. Agreed and B'ham have developed a lot of belief recently.

Villa should come back.

Yup. I think it's a necessity actually.

Fairly balanced view IMO.

The press he gets in Italy is mainly driven by jealousy cause he ain't done all his badges and paid his dues like all the other old dinosaurs. There is a concerted campaign to brief against him. Excellent manager imo.

The Gypsy one.

Yup. Should have stuck it out till the summer and then given a new manager time to buy and implement his tactics.

Relegation will be avoided by 2 clear points.

If you use the search button you will see that I've not said we deserve to go down at all, so please don't make out I said things that I didn't. Btw are you saying we wouldn't be in a relegation scrap if Allardyce had stayed? I don't think we would Baggio. Without the big upheaval we may have got players in, SA had identified targets, even saying so in a press confrence the day of his sacking. It's too late now though. The change happened and we *have* to get behind the lads. It's Allardyce wasting money on the likes of Smith and Barton that has put us in the s*** in the first place, who honestly trusts him with any more money? After the money he wasted I dread to think what sort of player he'd target, we were linked with Kevin Nolan iirc. As for us not being in a relegation battle, which of the teams have we played since he left do you think we would have picked up more points from if he were still here? I think his dire brand of football would have collected more points, yes. In which games? Bolton (w), Boro(w), Blackburn(D) But I don't see the point in speculating like this I could see us floating around 11th. Worth considering all the same.

The funny thing about Baggio is that somewhere on this board he's already said if we go down we "deserve to go down" or was it Mick? Pretty casual like with statements like that. Relegation would be a catastrophe. In my mind it's clear. Mashley hedged with SA and did make statements about money coming in first...If they weren't going to support SA fully they should have got rid of him earlier. But ideally they should have waited till the summer. In some ways and without trying to sound dramatic they have without realising it gambled with our PL status. Mort on the business and administration side of things has done a good job, but they haven't really fully understood the football side of things. I accept they are still learning.

Fredbob brought up Luque Dave, not me. Standby the comment that Smith was good before his injury, same as Duff and Owen. Time will tell. Trend continued with Viduka and Barton too ie players who were good elsewhere but not here, so far. All good players once. Johnny Averages like Geremi and Cacapa to supplement them don't help matters, still thats the standards that were set out by the new chairman who said they were "good business". Smith and Duff should be given a chance because of what they did for other clubs, yet you dismissed those who pointed out Luque was good for another club. And Geremi and Cacapa are now dismissed despite what they did for other clubs. Spot the double standards. not in the slightest. I made a judgement of Luque the first time I saw him. I judged him to be a waste of time and money. It depends what you look for in players And plenty of others did exactly the same with Smith. Funny how you've gone quiet on that front. No surprise to see you attribute the failures of Cacapa (multiple league title winner) and Geremi (multiple league title winner) to the new board and this imaginary policy btw. Fucking incredible. But we're digressing. Carry on. Cacapa and Geremi are over the hill tho Dave (both free iirc). Past success in football doesn't guarantee future success. As you/Baggy point out with Smith. We had to pay Geremi a £2 million signing on fee to cover his drop in wages because Allardyce rated him so highly, I don't remember anyone saying he was over the hill back when we signed him either. SBR did phone the club to tell them his legs had gawn.

I don't disagree at all, with either the views on the players (though both can still play a part in keeping us up iyam) or the bit about past success. I'm simply making the point that IMO it's utter bullshit to blame their failures on the board, just as it is to defend Smith as you mention. Picking faults is all it is. Fair enough.

Fredbob brought up Luque Dave, not me. Standby the comment that Smith was good before his injury, same as Duff and Owen. Time will tell. Trend continued with Viduka and Barton too ie players who were good elsewhere but not here, so far. All good players once. Johnny Averages like Geremi and Cacapa to supplement them don't help matters, still thats the standards that were set out by the new chairman who said they were "good business". Smith and Duff should be given a chance because of what they did for other clubs, yet you dismissed those who pointed out Luque was good for another club. And Geremi and Cacapa are now dismissed despite what they did for other clubs. Spot the double standards. not in the slightest. I made a judgement of Luque the first time I saw him. I judged him to be a waste of time and money. It depends what you look for in players And plenty of others did exactly the same with Smith. Funny how you've gone quiet on that front. No surprise to see you attribute the failures of Cacapa (multiple league title winner) and Geremi (multiple league title winner) to the new board and this imaginary policy btw. Fucking incredible. But we're digressing. Carry on. Cacapa and Geremi are over the hill tho Dave (both free iirc). Past success in football doesn't guarantee future success. As you/Baggy point out with Smith.