wacko

He'll leave if he doesn't get money this January to fund an ambitious title assualt or he'll get sacked if they end up with nowt at the end of the season, or anything other than the CL or League or both. He was brought in to mount a proper championship challenge and they aren't any nearer nearly three years later. They've been spending goodish amounts of cash as well. The real problem lies in his overly defensive style, which is alright for the odd cup run but long term the supporters have grown tired of it and its ability to deliver the big one. He's not defensive, it's that until Torres, he hadn't bought an attacking player that has any business in a top 4 side. We have as many shots on goal over a season as nearly any other team in the league, but our shots:goals ratio has been more in line with relegated sides. The best attacking performance from any of our strikers or wingers since Rafa arrived was the season spent on the wing by the central midfielder he inherited. With his fetish for central midfielders and organisation, we can dominate games against Europe's biggest sides, but we don't have the attacking quality to break down the best sides or take our chances against weaker opposition.

It looks like it's painted to look right through the TV camera. I think the corners are ear-marked for future expansion. As it stands (or, rather, stood), the number of seats is limited by transport infrastructure. We'd have to get the old train station round the back of the stadium up and running again before we could add more seats.

Wasn't he the one who got f***** up by playing too much playstation when at Liverpool? One and the same.

Do you realise how embarrassing you sound? Hitzfeld is the Messiah!! No he's not. He's a very naughty boy.

You're coefficient will drop by about 20 points when your 03/04 season is off the card. It's weighted over 5 seasons so one or two bad seasons won't kill your coefficient, the same as one or two good seasons won't get you in the top spots. Everton would have to win the UEFA Cup back to back to overtake NUFC.

Heart rate monitor readings are standard equipment for athletes. If your resting pulse when you wake up is a few beats off normal, it's a good indicator that something's up (onset of illness, overtraining), so there's definitely an argument for resting a player to prevent illness or injury. It's dumb if his replacement is proper gash, though.

on paper, its a better team than most. its the poor management/tactics that made it not good enough. Imo it's the poor management/tactics that led to that team being selected. Just going back to the midfield there is zero pace, no width and the two central midfielders want to do the same job. I think you have a point in a way about the management/tactics and I certainly think McLaren should have seen us qualify, even if him not doing that isn't that big a surprise. The point is though, that team doesn't work together. They are a good group of individuals but you're better off with Carrick or Hargreaves (even though they are different types of player) alongside Gerrard instead of trying to play Lampard and Gerrard just because they're both 'world class'. Agree completely. England might not have 2 dozen world-beaters, but half the England side was in the CL semis last year, so they ain't bad... Capello's a pragmatist before anything else. He's got a great track record of covering deficiencies and exploiting strengths in squads. I hope he'll play a 3-5-2 with wing-backs.

Good spot, that. Apart from Hughes, none of them has shown himself to be Prem quality yet, though. Do you reckon any of the NUFC squad will make it as a manager?

Were any of those managers successful abroad other than SBR? (I'm assuming that Souness failed miserably.)

The managers, too. SBR managed abroad, Chris Coleman, and Souness had a spell abroad, too, didn't he? Is there anyone else? I think Benitez did the same and took a year's sabbatical to go see how the best foreign managers did things.

That certainly applies to English managers, who have traditionally relied on speed and brawn as a substitute for tactics and skill, which is why they always fall flat on their faces in Europe. Even Fergie, who's dominated English footie for a decade or more, hasn't matched what Benitez has achieved in the last three years in European competition because even he wants to play the naive, let's-stand-toe-to-toe-and-duke-it-out game, which is oh-so successful in Britain but utterly inadequate in international football. However, the same simply cannot be said of England players. Sure, the vast majority of English players are big, fast, strong cloggers who make up for their lack of skill with physical attributes, but that is absolutely not the case with England's first 11. Those guys are very accomplished footballers.

Years? It's been over a decade and we still haven't recovered from what that w****** did to our club. Believe me, many tens of thousands well understand the passion with which you hate Souness. I reckon more of you ire should be directed at Shepherd, though. It was perfectly clear to everyone but him that hiring Souness would be an utter disaster. Undermined from above by ignorant idiots? Liverpool had an excuse for appointing Souness, you did it at a time when his short record in management had been nothing but a success. By the time he came here it was clear to see what he was like and it was almost nailed on that he would fail. Quite right. It never fails to amaze me every time someone gives that eejit a job. He's the kiss of death.

You're spot-on about the failings of grass-roots football in England, but that's not the answer to this problem. (Well, it does explains why English managers are shit.) I mean, it's not just England, is it? Spain is in exactly the same boat--continual underachievement relative to the quality of their players, and the international vs Premiership football argument doesn't hold water with them. Not to mention the fact that most of England's best players regularly feature in the late stages of the CL, so they're hardly incapable of playing continental-style football. Nor are they the skill-less cloggers that Rangers sent out to play Lyon. Firstly, there's always huge pressure and unrealistic expectations placed on the team. We've not had the world's best side in those 40 years, and we've often been nowhere near the top, but we've never let a thing like reality get in the way of our expectations of the side. You can see the pressure bearing down on England's players' shoulders like it never does when they play much bigger games for their clubs. Even now, with our best group of players in possibly decades, we still don't have the quality that the top sides have, but a truly world-class, top-notch manager CAN make that difference. We've seen the same group of players reach the WC quarters under a decent manager and fail miserably to qualify for the Euros under a clueless one. Newcastle fans, who watched Souness destroy everything SBR had built up, must know that better than almost anyone. If Capello proves as good at international management as he is at club-level management, he'll make England a side to be reckoned with. They still won't win the WC, I'm sure, but England will be a lot more formidable than they have been in many moons with Capello in charge.

Saying the ManU fans are at fault because they should have known better is preposterous. Sure, if you jump into the lion's den at the zoo and get eaten, it's your own fault, but you can't blame lions for being animals. You can blame Roma fans. UEFA should boot Roma out of their competitions and not let them back in until their fans stop stabbing people. It's up to the club and the Roman police to stop this crap. It's not like CCTV is unavailable in Italy, nor is it impossible to ask the English police and football bodies how they sorted out English football hooliganism.

Years? It's been over a decade and we still haven't recovered from what that wanker did to our club. Believe me, many tens of thousands well understand the passion with which you hate Souness. I reckon more of you ire should be directed at Shepherd, though. It was perfectly clear to everyone but him that hiring Souness would be an utter disaster. Undermined from above by ignorant idiots?

No, we don't, we love him. Momo is boss. He has stamped the world's best players into the ground: look what he did to Ballack in the Charity Shield. Problem is, he doesn't even have the modicum of footballing skill needed to make a short pass to Alonso. Not what NUFC needs at all. All liverpool fans i know, really don't like him, they all want rid, and have said he is the worst player at the club He possibly is the worst player at the club, but no-one else can do what Momo does. Phenomenal when they have the ball, rubbish when he has the ball. He'll almost certainly be off in the summer, anyway, if we sign Mascherano. Masch and Lucas are both ahead of him for DM.

No, we don't, we love him. Momo is boss. He has stamped the world's best players into the ground: look what he did to Ballack in the Charity Shield. Problem is, he doesn't even have the modicum of footballing skill needed to make a short pass to Alonso. Not what NUFC needs at all.

Thought it was the real Ronaldo

Reverse psychology? Not at all. I rate him more highly that Kuyt--Crouchy has a bit of class about him, even if he has the elegance of a drunken giraffe. It really helps who he has playing around him and they movement they make off the ball. He would have those same types of player here and sadly would be very exposed I think he plays well with Owen, not that you're having Crouch, like. That's lucky, because he's still s***. Plus, the Crouch-Torres partnership is the same as the Kuyt-Torres or the Babel-Torres partnership - Fernando makes anyone look twice the player they are. I mean, he makes Steven Gerrard look like a "brilliant" footballer for Liverpool, when anyone who's seen Ingerlund play knows that he's not that great... Because all the other England players shone so brightly under McClaren?

Reverse psychology? Not at all. I rate him more highly that Kuyt--Crouchy has a bit of class about him, even if he has the elegance of a drunken giraffe. It really helps who he has playing around him and they movement they make off the ball. He would have those same types of player here and sadly would be very exposed I think he plays well with Owen, not that you're having Crouch, like.

That is very true. He is a bit gash in the air, but watch his goal against Arsenal: brilliant footwork.

Reverse psychology? Not at all. I rate him more highly that Kuyt--Crouchy has a bit of class about him, even if he has the elegance of a drunken giraffe.

Crouch is a very handy, intelligent player, and I hope we don't sell him. He and Torres play very well together.

who's our quality midfielder then? I said midfield, not midfielder EDIT: Actually, I said midfields, but I meant midfield, not midfielder.

Depending on your definition of big teams, it's the week-in-week-out consistency that gets you points, not winning the big games.