Raconteur

Excellent. Six month contract is this era of five and a half year deals is a bit weird, but I have no doubts he will earn a new contract in the summer... Beardsley back to the stiffs, or staying on as first team coach?

Do you ever feel like you're repeating yourself? It must get frustrating saying the same thing over and over - it seems the media myth of the Lerner/O'Neill split is as hard to dispel as the one about Toon fans going on about being the best fans in the world...

That's gold!

That may be true, but I wonder how many times he's played as a left midfielder? He's a centre midfielder by trade, instinct kicked in and he came inside. At that stage of the game why wasn't Lovenkrands tracking back with the right fullback? Or why did Pardew take off Jonas - who was running the ball from out of our defensive third - in the first place? Harsh to put too much blame on Gosling - but then again, the result was very harsh

He did play very well in the main, but it's the same old "from the sublime to the ridiculous" performance. Some of his hold up play was top drawer, but some of his touches were woeful... But he did better than Best, and was better than anything Lovenkrands, Ranger or Xisco could hope to offer

aye, at the time i thought that was fucking stupid by him, though you can't blame him for the goal as he lost it far up the pitch. probably shows how far from genuine match fitness he is. I would have said it was more about having a central midfielder playing as a putative left midfielder - would have preferred to see McLoven out wide, Shola up top by himself and three in the middle to close up shop. But it's easy to be an armchair coach :s Gutting to concede an equaliser like that, but we have to be happy not losing - and taking away the emotion of the derby we went to the 6th placed team and came away with a point. Harper - 7 Simpson - 7 Coloccini - 10 Williamson - 8 Enrique - 9 Gutierrez - 7 Nolan - 7 Smith - 5 Barton - 8 Ameobi - 8 (ranging from 6 to 10) Best - 7 Guthrie - 7

Sewelly, that Toon midfield is so bad that the current Huddersfield manager could probably force his way in!

Yup, Socrates the Brazilian is almost as wise as Socrates the Greek - a deep thinker not just about the game but Brazilian politics and society. Naturally, the powers that be despise him, but he is a very admirable man (and was quite a player in his day)

Well, that makes you wiser than me, because I DID stay up to watch it, and wish I didn't! We make BSA's football look like Barcelona Gotta be happy with the draw though - I thought we would have gotten rolled...

Or possibly Ziani in the hole, Nolan in the middle and Barton on the right? That said, all this right midfield talk is giving me the willies - AP, please keep Barton out wide!

If you don't put at least two past our lumbering centre-halves while keeping a clean sheet against our "midfielder as a sole striker" attack, you're not going to win this tournament. For all the crap in the Australian media about winning this tournament, our old and impotent team will be lucky to make it past the quarter finals. There's no shame in losing to South Korea (or one of the other decent teams in the competition). Football in Australia would be better served by losing to a quality, professional opponent than going all the way with the rag-tag collection we've sent to Qatar...

On the other hand, many people are informed and inquisitive - some people might even understand the difference in connotation between "no difference between Koreans and Chinese" as opposed to "no difference between Koreans and Japanese"... To be fair, without google sat in front of them, I can't say I know many people who would have said Iran is not Arabic with any authority on the subject. Most wouldn't even know. There's nothing wrong with not knowing something most people don't know and later admitting it and apologising. I made two errors - firstly not providing a safety wink. Secondly, I teach history for a living, and I admit to treating oldtype as I would one of my students - his "mini-rant" demonstrated a trait I don't tolerate from students: wilful ignorance. He's lucky I didn't assign him a 500 word essay on the difference between Arabs and Persians, to be read out in class tomorrow I do apologise for treating you thus, oldtype. My only defence is that the new school year starts next week and I'm getting warmed up

I love how it' partly religious and partly cultural/political. Has good giggle value

On the other hand, many people are informed and inquisitive - some people might even understand the difference in connotation between "no difference between Koreans and Chinese" as opposed to "no difference between Koreans and Japanese"...

<------- It's a damned shame this guy isn't available...

Delighted Aussie Holger avoided the temptation of playing the galactically shite Scotty Mac against India. Here's hoping we keep humping them to get our GD up (in case we can't beat Bahrain)

Wow - why today? The theory that they would wait until after the derby had logic to it... Dalglish for the rest of the season. Wow

Everyone did see the "Not So Serious" bit under the pics, didn't they? For mine, it's a better use of the ridiculous paypacket he got at Pompey than booze and hookers. Good to see footballers take the piss out of themselves

Pretty good?!? He's starting as a trequartista from the middle of the first season for me - he's an FM God!

None story really. The team went eight games without a win before the "revolt". Much appreciated - couldn't find it myself... I guess what made bells ring was the lack of "allegedley" and "we understand" - they are flat out saying Ziani is agitating aginst the coach. Not saying it's a dealbreaker, just worth keeping in mind

You'll have to bear with me, but I was reading an article on either soccernet or BBC Football this week, analysing why they were doing so poorly. Anyway, the relevant part is that Ziani was named as the leader of a player revolt against MacLaren's training methods. I'm going to hunt for the article now, but the named jumped out at me (as being FM-tastic, many moons ago!)

See if you can find a still photo for the real effect - an Australian sports magazine showed it a year or so ago, and to be honest I could have done without the reminder! Shocking at the time, no less so after the passage of time...

The point being that with both Saylor and Willo being offered very contracts is a pretty fair indication that Ashley sees them being the medium-term centre half partnership. The high wages you refer to, given what we have seen from Ashley, lead me to believe that he will be happy to let Colo wind down his contract and walk away from the club when it is finished. I know Colo cops some flack here, but for me he's head and shoulders above Saylor and Willo. It's all very well not worrying about it until the time comes (after all, hopefully Kadar will be ready by then) but for me it's a depressing reminder of Ashley's "ambition".

This was the first thing I thought of when I saw the length of the contract - it's Mike Ashley all over