Dr Venkman

thought this was as good a place as any to say.... surely the club should now be working towards getting colo, jonas and barton signed up to extensions? for me they were all stand out performers yesterday. they're all players of undoubted quality and more importantly you know you're getting 100% effort from them every time they step onto the pitch, or value for money, if you want to think of it that way. i can see the logic in only bringing in players of a certain age, but it has to be tempered by keeping these type of players around for the long haul, athletic players who aren't gonna hit 30 and suddenly be unable to perform. these 3 could all play at this level until 33 imo. the arsenal model we're supposedly following (i know, i know) is clearly flawed in this respect, resulting in too high a player turnover, and a team filled with un-proven, in-experienced players that lacks leadership on the pitch and is always seemingly in a transitional phase. in short, it's fair enough to ship out your nolan's, but colo's should be kept.

close game but with my black and white glasses on i'm saying we deserved it (stone wall pen). they threatened but never massively and their closest chances were from distance, if that makes sense. i thought we were very strong in the centre of defence, wtf is wrong with tiote btw?

btw it's weird that the official twitter announces the formation, isnt it?

Can't believe he's starting a player that came on and gave us some energy and directness last week. God, what a cunt he is. He thinks his own replacement for a £35m player is worse than Ameobi. Does that fill you with confidence in either player or manager? you're over doing it imo. shola and ba looked pretty useless together last week + shola's got a great record against these lot + obertan looked threatening last week = obertan instead of ba

we'll dominate them in midfield, they're shit up front and slightly less shit in defence. it's alreet lads, we'll win.

this thread

Ready to apologise yourself yet? The crap pundit bit I'll give you, mind. he wont recover from that

did we sign him permanently while we were in the championship?

devil's advocate, if shola out scores Ba by christmas, which one's our number 1 striker?

you've answered the first question yourself. do you only watch teams you support?

A £200m promotion campaign? I wouldn't deny he's using his power to get all he can and being a bit of dick about it but I'm not sure that's his primary motivation. i think you're under-estimating the power of advertising, the reach of the premier league, and how much it would cost to have that degree of exposure for up to ten years. more than 200m

It's a valid excuse as to why we're not a top 4-6 club certainly imo. We're where we are when he came in, and have the basis or a cracking squad with Krul, Coloccini, Taylor, Cabaye, Tiote, Jonas, Barton, Marveaux, Ba, Ben Arfa...two signings before September 1st, and even if we lose the derby I think we could have a good crack at top 8. we had the basis of a cracking squad in january, and a pretty good team i should add. we've since sold the two best players, replaced one of them with a vastly cheaper and more than likely shitter option and have yet to even bother replacing the other. leopards dont change their spots, we'll keep doing it. Don't get me wrong what we achieve is despite what Ashley does not because of him. But even without Carroll & Enrique, if we get a decent striker & left-back in the next fortnight, added to the players such as Cabaye & Marveaux who've came since then, I think we can do well. Obviously if that doesn't happen, then aye, poor. i think we can have a decent season as well if those players come in. the thing is though, that's all we'll ever have while he's here imo, a decent season, because his first real chance to push on has been completely bottled. there's nothing that makes me think we'll do it next season, if there was any ambition still lingering we would have seen it this summer.

I thought they did approach/offer Bobby the job (when KK left), but he wouldn't walk away from Barcelona at the time? I am just going off a John Hall quote at the time. He said he was good friends with Bobby and had discussed the job with him but his son and Freddie were more keen on Dalglish. Hall seems to have a lot more football sense than many. He was recommending Martinez as a potentially good manager a long time before he became a household name. agreed, just why on earth he had to start letting his fat mate in on all the decisions, we'll never know

It's a valid excuse as to why we're not a top 4-6 club certainly imo. We're where we are when he came in, and have the basis or a cracking squad with Krul, Coloccini, Taylor, Cabaye, Tiote, Jonas, Barton, Marveaux, Ba, Ben Arfa...two signings before September 1st, and even if we lose the derby I think we could have a good crack at top 8. we had the basis of a cracking squad in january, and a pretty good team i should add. we've since sold the two best players, replaced one of them with a vastly cheaper and more than likely shitter option and have yet to even bother replacing the other. leopards dont change their spots, we'll keep doing it.

The fuck does that mean? Normaly they play shit, but they need courage to play some real football this match. depends on Bruce's definition of 'proper football' i suppose, either way it seems like he thinks they dont play it?

with the exception of staying in France he sounds absolutely perfect for NUFC

just noticed this quote from Bruce in the echo today The fuck does that mean?

'we're at a disadvantage right now because the squad isnt as strong as it should be, realistically. given the time and money at our disposal to strengthen in the obvious positions we need to, it should have been done by now, you'd have to ask someone else why it hasnt though. it's a bit unfair to the players we do have here in my opinion, but they're a good bunch and they'll give their all for 3 points on saturday, no doubt about that' that might involve locating a pair of balls though, and not having a contract that states he says what they want him to, when they want him to.

nothing personal skirge, but there's nothing quite as sad these days as assertions like this. hell? it'll be a few moans and a smashed traffic light at the most, expectations have been successfully lowered too far now. we'll whinge and moan and we'll go back and give him £4 for a warm bottle of coors next week.

i would be a little bit concerned if he's back up to krul

that's a classic wum post

i absolutely hate watching shola, hate it, but he has to play on saturday.

it's just different degrees of incompetence/tightness though ian, i'm not going to be satisfied that we dont have a left back for the first 2, 3 or 4 games of the season because there's a possibility we could be without one for the whole season. this could and should have been sorted ages ago, by paying good money for a good replacment. there's really not much more to it.

don't forget the agents fees!!

Dabizas 1-0, for starters. Liam O'Brien over the wall, etc. And this beauty.... http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/07/28/article-0-0236DADA000004B0-817_468x459.jpg my memory's fuzzy but did we actually wear that kit at any other time that season? Fulham away? 0-1 with Barton scoring a late pen