ikri

Disappointed with the result but we created a number of good chances that we'd have scored from on another day. Thought Ben Arfa played very well, despite giving away a penalty, if he can continue playing like that he'll be devastating for us.

Excellent result & some great football in the last 20 minutes, unlucky in the end not to get a winner. Tioté & Gutiérrez both great.

If he was playing for the reserves he'd be "plying his trade". And who could afford to buy out his contract? If they were to actively prevent him from participating in competitive games, refusing to pick him under any circumstances I think he'd still have a case.

Even if they tried to hold on to his registration I'm sure that with his and his agent's wealth there'd be a lawsuit on restraint of trade issued almost immediately. If Tevez or a 3rd party were to offer to buy out his contract with Man City and City refused to sell and refused to allow him to work I'm sure they'd be on pretty shaky legal ground. Can't remember where I read it but there was some talk about whether it would ever be possible to "let a player rot in the reserves" and the suggestion was that the player could walk away from their contract after a couple of months of inactivity because by not allowing him to ply his trade they would have broken their contract with him.

Sunderland haven't banned him from every pub in his home town, the landlords of the pubs and clubs in Stockton-on-Tees have banned him from visiting their establishments. thats what he said. D'oh, misread it as Sunderland having banned him from visiting Stockton.

Sunderland haven't banned him from every pub in his home town, the landlords of the pubs and clubs in Stockton-on-Tees have banned him from visiting their establishments.

I'm sure I've read articles in the last couple of years mentioning Rémi Garde and Dragan Stojkovic as coaches who had been earmarked to take over from Wenger when he retires.

They'll either promote Pearce (who'll be a disaster) or go for the England icon like Shearer or Beckham, if they do go for the England icon they'll need a good back room team to cover for their lack of experience but being the England FA they'll fuck it up royally and we'll probably end up with David Pleat as assistant.

I've always believed that Capello is an incredibly conservative manager. During very minor qualifiers and friendlies he's perfectly willing to play younger players but when the important games and tournament finals come along he's always going to pick the older, safer players even though they've been tried and have all utterly failed in previous competitions. We do have some decent players at u21 level but under Capello they'll never get anywhere near the team as long as there's a 30-something plodder to pick in his place.

It's the Daily Mail, you're just lucky they didn't go with their first choice headline - Weird Foreign Types 2 England 2: Reckless Northerner sees red but Shifty Itialian's men reach Euro 2012

He apparently had the opportunity to go on loan to Leeds in the summer but Leeds weren't willing to offer 1/3 of his wages (which would mean we were willing to cover £40k per week just to get him out of the club) and he seemingly wasn't interested in taking a cut in wages to join his boyhood team. If he wasn't willing to take a wage cut to join his childhood team I can't see him having any interest in joining Doncaster, even on a free. He'd probably earn more in the last 6 months of his contract with us than he would in 4 years at Doncaster.

Lucky.

i'm a bit concerned about the positioning of her hands. The real question is; would you, and how many pints would it take? Which? The dog on the left or right?

Doesn't like films, hasn't played a computer game in 25 years, has never drunk a cup of tea or coffee. Does he get put into a chemically-induced coma whenever he's not needed for watching horses or sitting on the bench?

The mackems are watching! http://www.readytogo.net/smb/showthread.php?t=629669 :omg: Another merged thread - they're learning :omg: They'll be developing opposable thumbs next. If they ever figure out how to make and use tools we're fucked.

Good result and a much better performance

Probably Joey even would have stayed for that last season without McKay. Without McKay Barton would have probably signed a new contract with us back in January (or at least when we were guaranteed to stay up).

Jonas 6? He was beyond horrendous. Worse than Walcott headless chicken-wise. Jonas has spent most of this season having to track back and cover Ryan Taylor at left back so he's not able to get forward much.

Dismal performance. We let a newly promoted team full of players barely on first name terms pass the ball around and outplay us everywhere. Considering how we were set up and the apparent game plan (keep it tight at the back, hope to nick a goal from a set piece) the only explanation that I can see is that we've rehired Fat Sam.

Been woeful so far, lucky not to be 3 down. Really annoying to see a newly promoted team play the ball around quickly and incisively whilst we're apparently limited to hoofing it up the pitch with all the imagination of a dead canary.

England should probably stop trying to build teams around individuals since they always seem to get injured around the time of major competitions leading to us rushing unfit players back to the team then wondering why they didn't perform as expected.

Oh no! Someone had a different opinion to you on an internet forum. They must be getting paid. If anyone on Ashley's payroll would like to contact me about disagreeing with HawK, or any other user, I'd be willing to listen to offers. The Carroll deal seemed to work well for everyone involved. We got a s*** load of cash, Carroll got a massive wage rise, Liverpool got a young, English striker and his agent made a fortune. As it has turned out, the money we received hasn't obviously been reinvested in the squad and we've not replaced him in the team and Carroll hasn't settled yet at Liverpool and hadn't come close to finding the same form for Liverpool that got him the transfer in the first place. The thing isn't about Carroll. It's just a total mess that we had 8 months to find a striker and we didn't. And here are people who think it's acceptable. I see selling Carroll and purchasing a replacement as two separate issues. Selling Carroll for £35m was good business for everyone involved. Failure to purchase a replacement is unacceptable.

Oh no! Someone had a different opinion to you on an internet forum. They must be getting paid. If anyone on Ashley's payroll would like to contact me about disagreeing with HawK, or any other user, I'd be willing to listen to offers. The Carroll deal seemed to work well for everyone involved. We got a shit load of cash, Carroll got a massive wage rise, Liverpool got a young, English striker and his agent made a fortune. As it has turned out, the money we received hasn't obviously been reinvested in the squad and we've not replaced him in the team and Carroll hasn't settled yet at Liverpool and hadn't come close to finding the same form for Liverpool that got him the transfer in the first place.

And the reason they didn't even secure anyone on loan despite a few players clearly being available? Utter crap. They should have had someone ready to come in on July 1st, if it was clear that the contracts we were offering to players weren't going to attract them by that point they should have reconsidered their contract offers to provide a more attractive package.

Wish I could find the article but it's from so many years ago it probably pre-dates the internet. Back when Sky first threw bags of cash at football clubs and Premier League clubs started buying overseas players in greater numbers there were a few who failed to settle, especially those coming from Italy, because they were so used to having every aspect of their lives managed by others. Premier League managers were getting phone calls from their new signings asking how to do the most basic things, even boiling water was apparently beyond some players. I doubt much has changed except most Premier League clubs probably now have the type of set ups that Italian teams used to have to take care of every aspect of their player's lives even from the academy years. A lot of players probably never bother to learn how to do the most basic things like boil a kettle because they've never needed to do it for themselves.