ikri

Milner? Edit:Nah I doubt it, but his injury was a bit weird. Not Milner, or even Dyer from what I've heard. I've been told the name of the player by a few people but I'd not want to get the forum shut down on it's 1st day back by repeating their name here.

There were a number of rumours a couple of seasons ago of a team who had caught one of their players with cocaine in his system. The team weren't able to do anything against the player publicly since it's against FA rules for clubs to test their own players. However, the player did suddenly experience an injury that kept him out of action until he tested clear for the rest of the season. I doubt there's a serious problem with drug taking in football, but it really wouldn't surprise me if there were far more players taking drugs than the couple of major public instances that are already known about.

Thank god for that! Was worried that I might actually have to start doing some work.

Hughes seems to be a decent motivator but when motivation alone isn't getting the job done he's lost. At Blackburn he put together a nasty vindictive side that also had just enough flair to look decent (a bit like Hughes as a player). At City he's got players who need experience and tactical knowledge neither of which he has.

The wikipedia article (for anyone who can't be arsed to read it) mentions his investments in casinos. Wonder if Fat Fred's plans for a hotel/casino add-on for St James are still valid.

Duff reminds me of the way Milner plays. He seems to hold up play more than he drives us forward.

Well that was shite. What the fuck is going on this season with penalties?

I assumed that his statement was more about not putting any cash in from his own pockets whilst the club should hopefully still have a few ££ spare in the transfer kitty that's come from the normal running of the club. The fact that Wise is still here and apparently submitting transfer offers for youth players would seem to back that up.

He's slow and can't cross a ball, I presume that means he'll have less weaknesses in his game if he played in the middle. I think right-wing's definitely his best position, just don't think he's a particularly good one. In the few games he played there he looked far more productive playing on the left. His effective crosses virtually all came from the left as did a good number of his goals.

Whilst all the writers and commentators are banging on about nasty old Joey Barton the news that Wayne Rooney was cautioned by the police last week for common assault over an incident with a photographer has been largely ignored by the sporting media. So he's assaulted a guy on the street & keeps losing his head on the pitch but somehow he's OK but Barton is the antichrist?

Having recently had the pleasure of viewing a game with foreign (Turkish I believe) commentary I've got to agree that commentators in this country are utter shite. They can't resist the urge to editorialise & spew forth opinionated bollocks about whoever they dislike today. To hear a game with commentary in a language you don't know is amazing, you hear the players names being mentioned (you think British commentators have pronunciation problems? wait till you hear someone trying to pronounce Guthrie as Gootrez) with none of the other garbage. It's a far better experience.

Turns out that telling the press that you think the manager is shit at his job isn't a good career move.

Isn't the Chelsea game his last game according to his original contract? It would make sense that "D-Day" would be the day that any decisions about JFK's future would be decided. Not sure if it's a misquote or just been taken out of context or if it's JFK just making shit up.

ruined by the last line tbh. Dont see any striker at the club as effective as Martins tbf I believe that Owen & Viduka are more natural finishers, not necessarily more effective just technically better.

I'm quite surprised by how many people can't see why Martins is so important to us. Thanks to his pace, his presence on the pitch means that the opposition needs to defend quite deeply, this gives us more time and space on the ball. Even when he's playing poorly the opposition are generally aware that pushing up and providing space for Martins to run into is like playing russian roulette, the Blackburn game under Roeder is a great example of this - Blackburn pushed up the pitch, left loads of space and got slaughtered when Martins ran on to balls played in behind the defence. Look at what happens when Martins goes off. The opposition realise that there's no one with enough pace to easily beat them any more so they push up the pitch and we end up playing the rest of the game in and around our 18-yard box. It wasn't just Tuesday night either, from his first game for us against Fulham, to last season away to Chelsea and countless others the same thing happens time and time again, we stop looking like any sort of a threat and either end up losing a game we were previously competitive in or we all sit watching the game gnawing our fingernails down to the knuckle as we wait for the referee to blow the final whistle. Martins isn't the best striker in the game or even at the club but he's a very useful tool.

Assuming no new injuries & Owen is fit ----------------- Given Beye -- Taylor -- Coloccini -- Enrique --- Guthrie --- Barton ---Jonas ----------------- Owen ---------- Ameobi -- Martins

Anyone know which paper they're referring too? Was in the Mirror this morning. Couldn't see a link on their site when I looked earlier though.

How much do you think PES brings in Konami a year? or Fifa for EA? £200m / £30 per game = 6.6 million units to be shipped over the course of a year across the world. (Fifa 08 shipped 1 million units in the UK in eight weeks) They could sell 40 billion units and it wouldn't change the fact that beta testing a game and the negotiations of purchasing a football club are carried out with vastly differing levels of candor, privacy and implied decorum, with vastly differing impacts resulting from leaks. So you don't think that the value of the PES/Fifa Asset to Konami/EA isn't worth a couple of hundred million? If you agree that they are then why should leaks be any less serious - also bear in mind that leaks re the accounts relate to past performance, leaks to the design/features of a game relate to future events which a competitor would love to counter-act. I think I just realized the problem here. We're talking about different kinds of betas. What you're talking about is a private beta - internal testing of pre-alpha builds. No or extremely little public release. NDA, non-compete and other enforcing legalities there. Almost all of hte people involved are testers who work closely with devs and who probably have access to trade secrets or competitive information that other companies would like. In that respect we would agree that the restrictions surrounding beta testing would be as tight as club purchasing. What I'm talking about and what I took ikri to mean and you to be defending, was a public beta - external test of a nearly RTM build to identify bugs on platforms that were unavailable for testing internally. NDAs are still required. However at this stage, there is nothing getting into the hands of competitors (and it will -- leaks will happen here, screenshots and videos, etc) that will matter. You're right, I meant the near-release betas. However, the point remains the same. The NDA will not likely prevent anyone from discussing their bids, it will only prevent them from discussing the club's finances. If those people who have talked about their bids have broken an all-covering NDA then they'll likely never do business again since any future companies they deal with will know that they'll break NDAs & can't be trusted. If the people talking about their bids haven't made bids they'll look like utter twats to everyone. Or, more likely, those people who have made perhaps weaker bids are talking themselves up in the media to either get a piece of the action when the club is sold or an offer from a cheaper club to come & invest.

I doubt that the NDA is an all-binding gagging order to stop any potential buyer from talking about their bid. The NDA will just be there to make sure that any potential bidders don't go running to the press with the club's financial records. I've agreed to NDAs for games where I've been involved in beta testing, I've not had to deny the existence of the game or my involvement in the testing, I've just had to agree not to disclose any unpublished details about the game.

Will never happen. FIFA have a policy that the game should be played to the same rules at every level, from school level through to senior internationals. If there are no TV replays available for a match in the Uzbekistan Sunday league there'll be no replays for anyone. There just needs to be more consistency in refereeing. I've no problem with shit referees, the problem lies in referees giving all the crap decisions to one team. With a consistently shit referee you know that there's a chance for either team to get a soft free-kick, penalty, etc. but with an inconsistent referee (or one who is easily swayed by the crowd/manager) you know there's no chance that one team is ever going to get a decision in their favour unless its really blatant e.g. penalties against Man Ure at Old Trafford - when it does happen its headline news.

Rather get someone from MFI

The man that named himself the guvnor doesn't believe his own press? Not sure I believe that.

Who else is going to pay him £100k+ per week? Liverpool won't & he'll not be ahead of Keane & Torres so would he sign for them knowing that he'd be 3rd or 4th choice? Same goes at Man Ure, Arsenal & Chelski. Citeh can buy another Robinho-type player & Sven's not there now so that's probably not going to happen. That pretty much leaves Everton (would they pay the wages, would an ex-Liverpool player play for Everton?) Villa (again, would they be willing to pay his wages? Who would they drop to accommodate him?) Portsmouth (they'd pay his wages & he's old enough for them) Spurs (the only team in a worse position than us, that takes some doing) West Ham (there are Big Issue sellers with more money them West Ham) He could end up joining any one of those teams but I feel that he'd either not be first choice at any of them or they'd simply not want him due to his age, injuries & wages. Having said that, I expect he'll be off in January.

Duff. Quite clearly capable of performing when the mood takes him, he showed some ability in the 2nd half on Saturday but that only shows the last couple of year's worth of performances as being even worse since he can beat another player, he just doesn't most of the time. Ameobi is crap, but he's not playing below his ability. Butt, Geremi & Cacapa are getting on a bit so their lack of physical ability is almost expected. Taylor hasn't developed past where he was 2 years ago, but again he's not playing below his ability.

Fucking bizarre