ikri

Blackburn are a beatable team, but I cannot see where goals are going to come from currently. 2-0 to Blackburn & 40 pages of us wondering how the hell we managed to miss so many chances.

It's so hard watching Owen. Same expression all the time. No passion. No anger. No frustration. Nothing. This is the problem with Owen ... we can talk about his 1 in 2 strike rate all we want but ultimately it's not getting us enough results. He is pretty much lacking in every other area, so unless he is scoring almost every chance he gets he is a bitch of a pain in the backside. It of course doesn't help that he is apparently the captain and never acts like one and he is on such a huge wage and he is expected to leave on a free at the season's end. I would rather have Darren Bent at this point. Without a shadow of a doubt. All the qualities you want in a captain.

Aye, players like Butt & Duff, the apparent "senior pros" who are on massive wages and offer the team fuck all. Relegation wouldn't help us rid ourselves of them either since they're the type of "honest, hard working" (runs around a lot, offers nothing else) player who would be likely to stay. A new manager would help. Anyone with a bit of tactical knowledge who can react to a substitution or change the team around quickly when it's clear that our opposition are running rings around our players. Someone who doesn't see someone's name & think "Nicky Butt, played for Man Utd, he must be good" and instead sees "Nicky Butt, fucking hell he's well past it". A manager who understands that hard work is no substitution for ability. A coaching team who understand that you need to pass to the space where a team mate should be running into, not the space where he was 10 seconds ago when you last looked up. A new chairman & directors who understand that communication is actually important. A new club doctor / physio team. The number of injuries that we're suffering this season (and pretty much every season since SBR left) is not normal.

Pathetic. Again, as on Saturday, if you miss those really fucking easy chances you don't win the game.

He's not too bad as an impact type player coming off the bench for the last 10-15 minutes of a game. Once the other 21 players on the pitch are knackered from running around for 75+ minutes and the pace of the game has dropped to a crawl then Geremi looks a decent player, if he starts a game he just looks woeful though he's consistently off the pace and his only worthwhile contribution becomes his hit-and-miss set pieces. If the £1.5m figure is genuine then we've absolutely mugged Besitkas.

I doubt there'd be any way to cap the weekly salary of players in the same manner that they used to be (even then there were ways around it, "sponsorship deals" involving new cars, houses, etc.). I'd not be against capping wages and transfers as a percentage of club turnover. So, where a club has an annual turnover of £100million there'd be a 60% salary cap and 50% transfer cap for example, with £60 million for wages in the pot Citeh would be able to pay Kaka £500k per week, but they'd have to fund everyone else's wages from the remainder. Transfers could operate in the same manner, it would allow clubs to spend a lot of cash on players but should prevent a club like Leeds from spending a huge amount of money on players with no way of funding those transfers.

From what I can gather, at the original hearings West Ham said that the Tevez deal was all correct by that point, that there was no ownership conflicts and he was properly registered which is why he was able to play for them for the rest of the season. If it turns out that they were simply bullshitting the FA then they'll be in deep shit. No money as it is, a number of assets already sold to cover losses & reduce the wage bill, a potential £30million+ fine owed to Sheff Utd and potential loss-of-earning court cases from Sheff Utd players. Any fine or points deduction at this point could kill the club. If the FA hadn't bottled it in the first place and had docked them 10 points none of this would have happened. West Ham would have been relegated but would have probably bounced back pretty quickly. Instead they may end up having to sell all their assets (not sure if they own their ground) to stay afloat at all.

and why is that? paper thin midfield. smith can cover if we desperately need. What? So he can run around as a forward somehow managing to be in the wrong place all the time, never take any shots on goal, play with his back to the opposition goal for 90 minutes and fail to link up along side anyone else unfortunate to be playing along side him? Or are you talking about his midfield ability where he somehow manages to be in the wrong place all the time, dives into unnecessary tackles, fails to link up with anyone else in the midfield, or defence, or attack and manages to gift at least one edge-of-the-box free kick to anyone we're playing. We'd be better off playing with 10 men than put Alan Smith in the team.

ITV should be banned from covering football at any level. Whenever they get the chance to show a game you can virtually guarantee that it'll be one of the "big 4" (or spurs). They care nothing about the game, everything they do is about the hype, whether players (Lampaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaard!!!, Gerraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaard!!!) or clubs ("that famous night in Barcelona"). When their commentary isn't sleep-inducing it's outright patronising, in one way Kettering should be glad that they don't have to sit through 90 minutes of being called "plucky little Kettering".

Whilst I agree with the sentiment that selling 1st team players is bizarre, Barton has either been injured or suspended for most of his time here. I see him as being similar to Emre, it's obvious that he makes a difference to the midfield when he's in it, but he's in it so bloody rarely that he may as well not be here. Plus, just having him at the club makes us easy targets for media hypocrites critics. He's a decent player who will never really get a decent chance at any club due to his past. Besides, we can always have him back for free when Pompey get relegated and declare bankruptcy.

Did anyone point out that placing him in a team with players like Bryan Robson & Gary Pallister might not have been a great move to combat his drinking? Those two would have been bad enough, but put him with Paul McGrath too & Gazza wouldn't have made it to 30.

Crap player. Looks great in Scotland but he couldn't hack it outside Glasgow. Also, wasn't he supposed to be a huge problem when Paul Le Guen was in charge? Refused to play & effectively forced Le Guen out of Glasgow? Sounds like a fucking great player to have, 30 years old, shit outside Glasgow & goes on strike when he gets dropped. What little faith I have in JFK will vanish if this is true.

Clearly bollocks. You don't wait till the 88th minute to decide that a player's having a shitter. It was far more likely that it was Kinnear using a late sub to run down the clock that worked a hell of lot better than anyone could have expected. Anyone trying to claim anything else is just shit stirring.

What has Hughes ever really done to make him stand out as a decent manager? He did OK with Wales, won a couple of massive games early on & lived on that for the next year or so as they struggled to win a game. Blackburn? He turned them into team version of him as a player - nasty but with just enough flair to cover up the dirtiness. Citeh? The club has more money than god even though they've not been able to spend a lot of it to date, but his man management of Elano in particular is straight out of the Graeme you'll never play for this club again Souness school of bad management. The bloke has done nothing of any real worth but gets a pass because he's British. If he'd been any other nationality he'd have been hounded out of the premiership ages ago.

Different link if you don't want to register: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c9ab7434-cc0e-11dd-9c43-000077b07658,Authorised=true.html?nclick_check=1 From the article

So you think their attendances will actually go up then?

He'll do ok if he can replace Santa Cruz. Route one football is Sam's speciality, the problem at Newcastle was we didn't have the players for it, and Sam was too fat-headed to adapt. I know just the man for that job, step forward Alan Smith!

BBC just calling it an "approach" so far.

Actually, it's not. Clubs don't just go offering 120k for 4 years to a 29 year old just because it's a "free transfer." He's not getting better terms at any team not named Manchester City. So it's up to him whether he'd rather have the money here or UEFA cup glory with another club. Personally? I think Owen knows this is the best deal he's going to get from anywhere. What's the point going to Spurs/Everton/Villa for significantly less money? Unless Villa gets into the CL this year and offers him a contract, or Man City fails in their bids for Villa, Drogba, Zlatan, Henry, and Eto'o and needs to go for plan F, I think he's going to sign. I doubt we'd offer him 90k a week. With his fitness issues, 90k a week for 4 years is an enormous commitment, I really doubt many clubs would be prepared to pay that. That's what, the sharp end of 20m over 4 years? God. Yep, its a fcking top offer if true and not many will offer him that. If any. There's only Man City & us that I can see offering him anything like that over a 4 year contract.

Whilst they might not be able to pay the reputed £60,000 per week that Duff & Smith are both on, Celtic do play in Europe each season which brings in a decent amount of cash, so even if £60,000 per week is out of the question, £30,000+ and the guarantee of a winner's medal at the end of each season might be enough to tempt them. If it's not enough I'd be happy for us to subsidise Duff & Smith's wages for a year or two, just as long as I never have to see either of them in a Newcastle shirt again.

Fits the bill quite nicely - young, available, probably not too pricey, plays on both wings. We could do a hell of a lot worse. Will be pricey as fuck. Don't think we need him personally. Already have Jonas and Zog for the left wing. Jonas & McGeady can play on either wing, so in theory they could switch whenever it suited them during a game, just to fuck with the full-back's heads. Not sure that he'd be that expensive either, he's fallen out badly with Strachan by the sounds of things so they may be tempted into a short-term loan deal till the end of the season or a deal involving players like Duff & Smith. We'd be crazy not to investigate how much they're after for him at the very least.

Fits the bill quite nicely - young, available, probably not too pricey, plays on both wings. We could do a hell of a lot worse.

Scored 3 goals for them so far this season, Saint Étienne are 17th in Ligue 1. Not sure if he's had any injuries this season or if the team's been a bit shit.

There's a story in the mirror today claiming that Souness is off on holiday in a couple of days & had they kept Ince as manager for another week their preferred choice for manager - Souness - would have been unavailable. If they do appoint Souness it'd be a great chance to put some cheeky £500k bids in for McCarthy & Dunn.

The home team will generally be more offensive minded so they'll push forward more leaving Martins with more space to play with.