Ronaldo

Weirdly my mate who's a Rovers fan thought he was worse than s**** for them and that Khiz would do much better for us / was better for them. He's still learning the game though, not had that much first team football yet. Warnock was a late-ish (ie about 24) bloomer too, there's plenty of time. Did Simpson not get sent home by Blackburn in January? We had this same conversation when Simpson originally signed. I for some daft reason thought he was on loan at the end of last season though.

Brilliant.

Bobby?

We had 5 home wins by Decemeber. With Bolton, Boro, B'burn, Fulham, Reading and Sunderland coming up I'm convinced we'd have surpassed the 40 point mark.

Keegan himself didn't manage any wins in those first few games. I'm not suggesting we would have done any better away to Arsenal or Villa or at home to Man U but we'd have taken points against the likes of Bolton, Boro, Blackburn, Reading, Sunderland and Fulham imo.

Far too much of this arguement comes down to pure speculation tbh. But i'm pretty confident that Allardyce would have comfortably got us past the 40 point mark.

Didn't Man U accept our bid a week ago?

Certainly. But, as I'm sure you agree, calling him corrupt is baseless. I thought Defoe fouled the keeper tbh. He gave him a tug across the shoulders and I assumed at the time that it was the reason the goal was disallowed. Aye, like Jermaine Defore muscled Reina to the ground. Anyway, I don't think Webb's corrupt but he's been shocking tonight and is generally a poor ref.

I think a lot of the fan's backlash against Allardyce was because of the way we played, as opposed to results. But folk now are trying to spin it as if it we weren't getting the results either. We were certainly getting enough to stay up, althought the Derby games are very powerful ammunition against that.

He was absolutely brilliant at his best and most certainly one of the top 3 in the premiership at that time.

Most people are thinking he would of took us down in 07-08. Just had a look at the table & we were not that far away points wise in 07-08. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007%E2%80%9308_Premier_League We got about 26 of those points under Allardyce though.

Does anybody on here actually think that Allardyce would have taken us down in 08-09 with the squad we actually had that season?

I hold my hands up about Milner. I wasn't wrong about his performances for us, but i was wrong about his potential. He looks a very, very good player right now and i hope he goes to the WC.

Sacking Allardyce let us to what some of us felt at the time was a very risky managerial appoinment for all the reasons that were vindicated 9 months later. I hate Allardyce as a manager and love Keegan. But the sacking of Allardyce cannot be called anything but a mistake imo because of the timing and the fact we didn't improve at all in terms of picking up points.

So sacking Allardyce wasn't a mistake then (your original argument) it was getting rid of Keegan. Otherwise you could just as well say that sacking Roeder was a mistake because we got relegated 2 seasons later, the logic doesn't work. We genuinely improved under Allardyce though. that is the worst arguement i've ever heard, improved we looked better with roeder

What's your point? We got most of our points under Allardyce that season, to suggest Keegan saved us wrong.

So sacking Allardyce wasn't a mistake then (your original argument) it was getting rid of Keegan. Otherwise you could just as well say that sacking Roeder was a mistake because we got relegated 2 seasons later, the logic doesn't work. We genuinely improved under Allardyce though.

And we wouldn't have beaten Fulham, the mackems and Reading under Allardyce?

That decision against Crouch was absolutely terrible mind, and the Defoe goal was perfectly legit.

That's not the discussion here though, we all know Keegan wouldn't have taken us down.

I can see Hughton or Shearer getting us to 9th in December.

Barton was injured for a lot of Allardyce's time here. I honestly can't see Allardyce playing Butt to the extent we actually did last season. He's not a stupid as Kinnear, Hughton or Shearer.

Erm, because he seemed to make it a priority to replace Butt the second he was given the job.

He was terrible, but by no means as bad as those 3.

It took a very, very special combined effort from Kinnear, Hughton and Shearer to take us down. Allardyce wouldn't have started Butt or Shola and might have even (pure speculation) dropped Owen when it was clear he was contributing fuck all last season.