Ronaldo

You could say the same about you and Owen tbf. FWIW I discount the injuries in both cases. Injuries only excuse you so far, and they definitely don't stretch to missing a couple of open goals and a handful of one on ones. Owen wasn't playing with an injury from March onwards though. And Oba unlike Owen was at least having an impact on the games

Why aren't people acknowleging the injury as a legitemate reason why his performances were poor in the last 10 games?

A midfield of Fabregas, Xavi and Iniesta would surely get torn apart at the top level

would they play him over Iniesta or Xavi? doubtful

If Fat Sam was the right man at the right time why was he such an unmitigated disaster? the change of owner played a massive part, obviously

What I meant by 'spot on' was appointing the right man and at the right time, something he'd never done previously

Shepherd's net spend by the end of June was £6.5m, having signed Viduka and Barton, 2 good players as it happens. Had Allardyce remained in charge we may have seen the best of them, who knows Allardyce may be a cunt but saying he isn't a good manager is daft, Blackburn won something like 10 games under him, with that pile of shite squad

erm...no He'd hired a good manager at exactly the right time and promptly gave him the funds to bring in new players

Really wouldn't believe much that Greame Souness says. This is the guy who didn't rate Beardsley, refused Robbie Keane for £3m, sold Bellamy for peanuts and would have kept Shearer in the team till he was 50. It easy enough to point to good players now and says, 'i wanted him but so and so didn't.' Not saying Shepherd is ideal, but i'd trust him before Souness any day of the week. Shep made his mistakes but funnily enough was starting to get it spot on when the club was sold from under him.

Did he back his managers or spend money on players he wanted (or who Willy Mckay and the rest of his crony friends told him to get)? Seem to remember quotes from managers that the players we got weren't always who they wanted (e.g. Souness wanted Boa Morte and Anelka and got Owen and Luque) The same Souness who thought £3m was a ridiculous fee for Robbie Keane?

If we could get Gerrard linking up with Rooney in the next few games I think we could really do well at the WC. Young and Cole on the wings, Lampard and Carrick/Hargreaves in the middle

Forgive me but i'd carry Shepherd to St James' Park if it meant getting rid of Ashley and cracking on with the preparations for next season

Enrique, Barton, Martins, Xisco

The whole 'out of his depth at international level' thing always makes me laugh when you compare the average opposition at premiership level to the average opposition in the international games.

Lescott has twice the atheticism that Uspon has. Upson is Ramage/Huntington slow

that said, With Rio out i'd rather Terry be partnered with Lescott

I worry about Upson being the third choice centre back because as good as he is, against the big teams him and Terry will get ripped apart by the quicker attacks

Probably top of the league at christmas 01 thanks to those fantastic wins at Elland Road and Highbury that I was fortunate enough to witness and old enough to appreciate

They would pick the one player in our squad who looks 15 years older than Seb, dickheads

I agree, but it isn't appalling

28 goals in three years is appalling, i honestly believe i could do better myself. 34 goals, and it represents better than 1 in 3. Clearly not appalling

You think we should keep him then? unless we're offered £8m plus, absolutely. He's still an big asset and well though of on the continent I'd be staggered if we get offered anywhere close to £8m, regardless of his reputation. He's on megabucks too (something about this being a lifechanging financial opportunity iirc) so he needs shifting. He was on less than £20,000 per week at Depor according to their fans. His agent said we were doubling his wage, so he's probably on between £38k-£40k. Also we paid 11.3m Euros as far as I remember (with a further 1 million Euro's based on performance). So I'd be asking for between 8.5m and 9m Euros. I think he's on a little bit more than that. If we have 15 over 50k a week, I would doubt very much that Colo isn't one of them. Like I said he was on under £20k at Depor and his agent said the offer was to double his wages. I'm not sure about the 15 players on over £50k either, certainly possible but I saw that list in the SUN and it had Xisco on £50k, which I don't believe for one second. 50k, yeah right. The Sun's football section really shouldn't ever be acknowledged unless you're clean out of bog roll

The opening sentence there would probably sum it up for a massive proportion of nufc fans tbh. From his first season here he's felt like a nufc player, just like Beye. A lot of people are ignoring the fact that he was clearly playing with an injury in the latter part of the season and in an ideal world wouldn't have been anywhere near the pitch. But sadly as our best striker we needed him, injured or not.

if Sevilla are interested I meant

This. Martins has time to improve still, he is a world class striker when he wants to be, getting him to do it more than once every ten games is the problem. Owen isnt getting any better and his pace/ability is shrinking faster than miss pepperpot. Neither are staying though, so its a moot point. They both offered too little this season to get hung over about. World class striker sorry but He has all the ability and skills to be one, he just needs decent coaching and application, the latter being the biggest problem. Eh? He can't control the ball, has no sense of what's going on around him, and his finishing is diabolical except for once every blue moon. Being a natural athlete which he undoubtedly is, is not the same having all the ability and skills to be a world class player. World class players simply do not look as s*** as Obafemi Martins does on a football pitch, regardless of coaching or application. Well that's the gist of it. World class players aren't usually to be found playing at St James Park, unless they are a busted flush like the guy you used to champion, Michael Owen. I don't really know why you are so intent on singling out Martins when you look around at the rest of the squad. Are we a leading club challenging for Champions league football in your world? In that case the uber-criticism might make sense. It's the Oba Martins thread and someone called him world class, i wouldn't say he was singling out Oba more ridiculing that view of him ... and rightly so Gemmill has singled Martins out from day one though