wacko

As a manager, Souness's track record is a string of disasters. After you outbid us for Owen, he daren't risk refusing the move in case Real stuck him back on the bench meaning he might miss what would probably be his last World Cup.

That's a bit harsh on Barca. Okay, they got dumped out early this season, but they were unlucky to come up against a top side so early.

AGREE 100% Wasn't there other problems at Liverpool iirc? Arguably, yes. But we were well on the way to solving them by replacing Houllier with Rafa. Owen had been running down his contract for a while at that point. I dare say he wasn't actually planning to leave, but he was trying to create a situation favourable to encouraging offers. One came that he liked the look of, so off he went. Given how he wanted to come back and the club was keen to have him back when you outbid us, I'd say it was very much a case of him jumping rather than anyone doing any pushing. Personally, I couldn't care less what he does, and I don't believe there's any substance to the rumours. I just wanted to point out he already has form for naffing off when it suits him. And a transfer to ManU would suit him down to the ground.

He'd be off in a flash. Owen's always been ruled entirely by his head, not his heart. Think of it from his point of view: apart from CL footie, Manc is fairly close to home, and it would be his last shot at the bigtime in all likelihood. He wasn't afraid to screw over his lifelong club when Real showed an interest, so why would it be any different at Newcastle?

f****** hell I can't believe people are looking at this so simplisticly I guess the general level of intelligence is more along the lines of Stevie around here Fine, if you want to attribute the trophies he's won at Chelsea (for the last f****** time I don't give a s*** about Porto), that's fine All I'm saying is, look at how he's fared the first time he's had to deal with a selection pressure, the first time another team has come close to matching his team (is he responsible for how well they football or something? do people really believe him when he says he made John Terry?), the buys he has made without resorting to cherry picking already established talent, the way he has dealt with not having the world's 2 first choice players in a certain position etc etc If people can only see the trophies, without seeing the wider picture, that's fine... Me, I prefer to look at the situations where he has actually had to do what other managers do, and actually make decisions. You want to ignore what he did at Porto? Riiiiight. Because, having huge success at a small club (in European terms) is pretty strong evidence in favour of his being a great manager. Which doesn't fit with your idea, so best ignore it, eh?

I don't see how anyone could doubt Mourinho's quality as a manager. His track record speaks for itself.

A good, very hard manager. A class or two above Roeder.

I'm sorry, Mr. Rooney, I'm afraid we had to amputate the entire leg.

http://files.myopera.com/bcdc/blog/_41771478_crouchmisspa416.jpg http://farm1.static.flickr.com/188/450506719_26adef60e0.jpg?v=0

Bayern Munich by a long, long way. Hate them with a passion. The Man Utd of Germany.

Normally, it's unsettled players moving in Jan. There's no reason why Roeder couldn't have been looking for disgruntled bench-warmers at top European clubs to improve the squad rather than poaching the star players from smaller clubs.

It's not technically borrowing. The hotels and stuff won't be owned by the club, so we don't technically have to borrow any money to build all that. Someone else is doing that and they'll own it, the club will still own the land though and get a 'free' ground extension. I see. I figured it wouldn't be owned by NUFC directly, I just wondered whether NUFC would be putting up any security. Do you think Freddy'll brag to the fans about the free extension and screw the club on the lease for the land? I suppose the most important thing is they aren't risking the club's assets.

I don't think he has the nouse for the job, either, to be honest. Maybe he did have a plan when he took over, but it doesn't seem to be working and there's apparently no plan B. I'm afraid you might be right about your next manager being crap, too. I reckon Koeman could do a fantastic job, and Allardyce would be a big step up, too. Your board'll probably hire another eejit, though.

Does anyone know how the deal is set up? Can you just borrow £300m to build something with only the building itself as security on the loan?

Can't argue with that. All the hallmarks of a great manager. Has Roeder got anything right? I mean, there's always a lot needs fixing after Souness has managed your club.

I think it would. We've grown up a lot since the KK days, we understand its not all about flashy brilliance and scoring as many goals as possible. Some if not most would be happy with well thought out team performances, and coming away with the odd goal and a clean sheet, meaning winning games, i know i would. The added flair and entertaining football would be the icing, but right now some plain cake would be nice. I can certainly understand that. On the other hand, would the fans (and the board) be willing to give a decent manager the time he'd need to rebuild the squad (2-3 summers)? Assuming you've just played boring football for a full season (but didn't let many in), what would the manager have to have achieved for his first season to have been a success?

Dinho: you want one of two of the most defensive managers in Europe? They're both good managers, but I can't see their football going down so well at Newcastle.

Isn't a hotel complex what drove Chelsea to bankruptcy? Perhaps that's the plan: 1) Make club insolvent 2) Sell to foreign billionaire for squillions Why don't they just redevelop the stand? £300m is an awful lot for a few thousand more seats.

Depends on if you judge expectations against track record or size (i.e. bigger = richer). In terms of the former, NUFC fans sometimes seem deluded, but Newcastle is one of the biggest and richest clubs in the country and should be comfortably top 6 every season. Your manager isn't good enough, like the last one, and he's only there (against his own better judgement) because the board are a bunch of muppets. With those chumps in charge, I'd say relegation is as likely as regular European football. A takeover would be the best bet, but with a £300m investment planned, it's either already happening or won't for a long, long time (unless Fred drives you into bankruptcy).

I agree with the OP. There are plenty of managers where you look and ask, "what the hell is he thinking?" The likes of Souness and McClaren more often prove you right than wrong, whereas the likes of Fergie and Benitez often get it spot-on. They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, so presumably a bit more knowledge (or perhaps just the conviction that you actually do know what you're doing) can be much more dangerous.

How about the "UEFA Better than the UEFA Cup Cup"? The UEFA UEFA Cup Cup, for short. It was never a league, though. That would be utterly unworkable, given that there would be 30+ teams in it. I have no problem with people thinking it should only be for league winners, but it's foolish to suggest that would improve the level of the competition. Quite the opposite, in fact. Pushing three of Europe's strongest sides into the UEFA Cup will also make that much harder to win for anyone else.

Hang on a minute. We beat the English and Italian champions to win it. From what you said, I can only assume a) you have a problem with Liverpool (after all, we WERE good enough to win it), or b) you take the name too literally. Would you have the same objections if it were still called the European Cup? Would changing the name eliminate your complaints?

We are in the top 3. As we were last season. Last season's 4th placed team, on the other hand, was in the CL final. That's mostly because he hates us. He was playing for Juventus at Heysel. I don't buy this guff about it helping the smaller nations to compete. In terms of finance, UEFA could simply cut the CL prize money and hand it out to the smaller leagues. This is preferable, because it would mean all the money doesn't land in the coffers of one club who then have every chance of pulling away from the rest of their league and becoming that league's de facto CL entrant every year. In footballing terms, it's guff, too. Let's compare Everton and LFC. We usually end up in the qualifying rounds, as did they in 2005. Unfortunately for them, they had no experience in European competition and therefore had practically no ranking and were guaranteed a hard draw. LFC, on the other hand, when we first got into the CL, had had a couple of good UEFA Cup runs and had built up a decent enough seeding to get into the top half of the draw. Weaker sides NEED to go into the UEFA Cup first to be able to accumulate some UEFA ranking points, otherwise they haven't got a cat in hell's chance in the CL, because they're guaranteed a tough draw in qualifying and at the group stage. I don't believe teams benefit that much from taking a pasting every year. In all likelihood, we're only talking about 3 places in total (England, Spain and Italy have 4), but it is, in effect, replacing three of the top 10-ranked clubs in Europe with no-marks who won't win a game. Financially, they'll be no better off because there's little chance of them getting past the 3 qualifying rounds into the group stages, which is where the prize money starts.

Because 4th-placed teams from the big leagues can actually win it? You'd seriously rather watch teams who would currently hardly get past qualifying, let alone the group stage, getting slaughtered than an actual game where either side could win? I agree about the money, but that can be redistributed anyway. There's no need to turn the CL into a farce to do it. English sides have earned the fourth place by being successful in Europe. It can be taken away again by another league whose teams have more success than ours. I was looking through our EC runs in the '70's and '80's earlier today. There were matches we won 10-0. The current CL format is much more competitive and much harder to win than the old European Cup format. Assuming it would be LFC or Arsenal who lost out, you'd be throwing out the 4th or 5th ranked team in Europe and probably 3 of the top ten in total. If anything should be changed, it's the name.

Frankly, if any team's players could be said to deserve broken legs, it's Blackburn, with Savage at the head of the queue. The man is a thug.