Ronaldo

I can see us going into September with this squad plus 2 young loanees and minus 3 absolutely essential players.

the phoney handshakes and generic backslapping. Fuck the lot of em

Nolan is such a waste of space, just like Smith and Butt

Butt is worse, I feel physically sick seeing him in black & white. Give it a few months and i'm sure i'll feel the same about Smith though

Prior to 2002 I don't think any were released mate. I could burn some and drop them off the next time i'm in the states but that's gonna cost ya

Kilgallon is a very good championship defender tbh, I'd probably prefer him to Sol Campbell

I hope we can use Carroll sparingly. There are a lot of teams in this league that he'll blatantly do well against compared to the others, and for those I have no reservations about his selection. But a strikeforce of Carroll and Ameobi with Xisco coming on after 70 minutes isn't going to get us promoted, imo

We need a new striker, blatantly. And we need to try playing some football with Xisco in the team. Until we do that we have nowt to go on as far as he's concerned

Shola vs Boro 2003-04. That was some day out, Speed chests it down...............

He's got a hell of a shot on him, just needs the confidence to use it. So confidence is the reason he hasn't managed a goal with his feet (with the exception of that tap-in at City) Best locate some confidence soon then, because the other aspects of his game aren't strong enough to justifty selection

He should have been sent off tonight; in the second half he gave away a free-kick in a very dangerous area with a stupidly late challenge. He's an absolute fucking liability.

He had a few words for the midfield towards the end of the night like, which was somewhat encouraging. Looked pretty tentative up until that point Blackburn pal of mine said he was their best player towards the end of last season

How'dyou work that out then? He was good against WBA and Reading and merited a palce in the side, especially if Guthrie wasn't 100% fit. We all know you hate Hughton for some bizarre reason, but expecting him to pre-judge the events of the match before he picks the team is a bit much like - you've got to admit. I was putting words in Obama's mouth

Shearer did that around 2003 I think

that's basically what we said last season about last season's team (around this time too)

he'll be gone by January

my thoughts exactly

It's a rubbish song anyway, rather not sing it at all. Where the fuck is the Jonas song? it's absolutely brilliant

Shola's fitness is pretty poor tbh, he always fades badly in the last 20 minutes. Btw, has ever started a game and scored in the last 10 minutes? I bet it hasn't happened much

In other words Smith shouldn't have started

perhaps, but he got down quickly and held onto it. And won us 2 points

where were you sitting? Sounds like you didn't have the best view of Xisco Slap bang behind the Gallowgate goal 2 rows up, so your point has validity. He just looked slow to me at times, on the ball at least, the dummy for him and shola was magic however, I just hope he's still got the desire to play. well I was exactly where you were but 3 rows up from the pitch, and couldn't tell what was a 50-50 and what wasn't tbh

the bottom line is, Shearer WAS there, apparently

both were very fine saves tbh. If Given had made them you know fine well that tomorrow's chronicle would have a pull-out supplement on him

I'm still confused as to why anyone would wish Steve Harper away. That would leave us with ONE goalkeeper with first team (135 minutes) experience