Ronaldo

Duff's f***ing s*** man. bit harsh, considering nobody was saying Shearer was shite when he came back from injury in 1998 and wasn't the same player for a good 18 months

I have a speck, and I mean a miniscule speck of hope that Duff can actually be a player for us

Duff, what a guy mackems.gif

defending aint just about the back 4 It was here for the most of last season it's been my constant rattle on this and every football forum i've ever been on...defending,like attacking is a team thing. blaming the back 4 alone for the defending is like blaming a forward for a lack of goals when he is getting no support or service. that and "attacking" and "defensive" midfielders...the best ones and the ones we ought to be looking for if we are going to 4-4-2....do both well I agree. I actually think Barton could do a "Rob Lee" if he could get his head right, on what he did for Citeh anyway. Rob Lee was an intelligent person as well as a good player though. Barton if he isn't baring his knuckles, is usually baring his arse. This is where the comparison starts to go adrift. :laugh:

stupid question James, try again son

said it before, reminds me of the Roeder pre-season

Don't think anyone can answer that question. Doesn't stop them having a whinge though. If we wanted him and didn't get him then that's disappointing, but we move on either way. so you don't think it's dissapointing if we didn't want him? Players like that dont grow on trees for £6m Loads of other clubs (including our direct and indirect competitors in England) didn't want him either it seems, so I'm not too fussed if Keegan wasn't, tbh. they didn't want Robert either This conversation could go on quite a long time, couldn't it? Robson wanted Jeffers instead of Bellamy, look what happened there. Just saying I trust Keegan on this one; if he didn't want the player then that's fair enough with me. If he did want him and the board have let him down then that would be worrying, but we don't know that's the case so why waste time and effort worrying? If the board is letting the manager down as badly as some are making out we'll soon find out because Keegan will be off. Let's see. fair enough

shut it down

Don't think anyone can answer that question. Doesn't stop them having a whinge though. If we wanted him and didn't get him then that's disappointing, but we move on either way. so you don't think it's dissapointing if we didn't want him? Players like that dont grow on trees for £6m Loads of other clubs (including our direct and indirect competitors in England) didn't want him either it seems, so I'm not too fussed if Keegan wasn't, tbh. they didn't want Robert either

Don't think anyone can answer that question. Doesn't stop them having a whinge though. If we wanted him and didn't get him then that's disappointing, but we move on either way. so you don't think it's dissapointing if we didn't want him? Players like that dont grow on trees for £6m

can just see Taylor causing us 3 goals in a 5 goal mauling on the first day. but at least he will have 'looked interested'

Reminds me of a taxi driver in Mauritius who had Beckham and Man U stickers on his dash board. He was trying to have a go at me for being a Newcastle fan. I explained to him that it is to do with being from Newcastle. His reason for supporting Man U? "They are the best." aye, briefly lived with a bloke from Bahrain who announced that he followed Manchester and Chelsea 'because they are better' people like that really make me sick, not the first fucking clue

prick of the highest order

It's called Shola syndrome. 27soon Shola, joke of a career

so which is it NE5? I'm not a fence sitter myself, but it appears you're swinging your views back and forth as it suits. Please clarify if you've got the time. Thanks just read his posts and it seems to me he's spot on - the ambition he refers to is to complete deals isn't? he says something is wrong, ambition or whatever woodgate, modric, aimar have all been moved for and turned us down to some degree so he's right, something is missing - whether ambition is the right word is neither here nor there my opinion, however, is that a bid for aimar shouldn't be considered ambitious - we've just lost him to benfica if reports are correct, wasn't so long ago they were picking up our cast offs for nothing... EDIT: also meant to say in that last part about his career appearing to be on the decline as well, but forgot The club has been on the decline since the appointment of Souness. What I mean by that is our league finishes have been largely s*** since SBR's last season in charge. Ashley, Keegan and co have come into this club well aware of the need to REBUILD its stature. No wonder players turn us down when they have witnessed the last 3 or 4 years of total shambles. not disagreeing, but we've been this bad before and still managed to get the players we wanted - as ATB says by offering money basically it still makes NE5 right, somethings missing, call it money if you want You can't blame the club for missing out on the three players for not showing the money, when you imply in other posts that we showed them the money and they didn't come for other reasons? Stop moving the goalposts. you and your f***ing goalposts James, doesn't wash as I'm moving nothing - you seem fond of pointing out deals are complicated so what's so complicated about making the leap to; one deal we might match a fee but not wages, lose the player...another deal we might be willing to pay the wages but not the fee? same result {before you start these are example of possibilites, rather than extact examples} the reports of aimar, be they true, say we matched the valuation that benfica had to then match to conclude the deal - so what went wrong? reports also said they dispatched rui costa on a jet to make sure the deal happened, did we urgently dispatch anyone if we wanted him that badly? i don't know do i, i wasn't there, but i'm with NE5 in saying "something" isn't right at the moment but i don't know what it is, there are many possibilities money being one of them aye

so which is it NE5? I'm not a fence sitter myself, but it appears you're swinging your views back and forth as it suits. Please clarify if you've got the time. Thanks just read his posts and it seems to me he's spot on - the ambition he refers to is to complete deals isn't? he says something is wrong, ambition or whatever woodgate, modric, aimar have all been moved for and turned us down to some degree so he's right, something is missing - whether ambition is the right word is neither here nor there my opinion, however, is that a bid for aimar shouldn't be considered ambitious - we've just lost him to benfica if reports are correct, wasn't so long ago they were picking up our cast offs for nothing... EDIT: also meant to say in that last part about his career appearing to be on the decline as well, but forgot The club has been on the decline since the appointment of Souness. What I mean by that is our league finishes have been largely s*** since SBR's last season in charge. Ashley, Keegan and co have come into this club well aware of the need to REBUILD its stature. No wonder players turn us down when they have witnessed the last 3 or 4 years of total shambles. not disagreeing, but we've been this bad before and still managed to get the players we wanted - as ATB says by offering money basically it still makes NE5 right, somethings missing, call it money if you want I agree, very slowly becoming an embarrasment. Of all the club's with billionaire owners we're the ones who've comfortably spent the least, you have to ask why

something big needs to happen in the next two weeks, or for the 5th year in a row the season is going to be over before it's begun. August soon, and we're gonna be playing Butt, Geremi and Steven fucking Taylor still

yeah, fuck em

No evidence we were actually really in for him calm down. You guys take this stuff way too hard. We all had a bit of fun with it now move on. Matias Fernandez should be nailed on now anyway for £8m or whatever we should have snapped their hand off, one of those players who could have taken us up the table, really made the difference. I'm not starting to panic or owt but this pre-season reminds me of the Roeder regime, stinking of amateurishness errr, care to point out what has been amaturish about it? a very good player there for us to grab, either we weren't in for him or our 'executives' managed to talk him into playing in front of 4,000 against C.S. Maratimo every other week

No evidence we were actually really in for him calm down. You guys take this stuff way too hard. We all had a bit of fun with it now move on. Matias Fernandez should be nailed on now anyway for £8m or whatever we should have snapped their hand off, one of those players who could have taken us up the table, really made the difference. I'm not starting to panic or owt but this pre-season reminds me of the Roeder regime, stinking of amateurishness at some point you have to ask, what the hell is going on? How did we lose out to Benfica, Spurs, whoever and if we weren't in for him, why in the fuck not?

No evidence we were actually really in for him calm down. You guys take this stuff way too hard. We all had a bit of fun with it now move on. Matias Fernandez should be nailed on now anyway for £8m or whatever we should have snapped their hand off, one of those players who could have taken us up the table, really made the difference. I'm not starting to panic or owt but this pre-season reminds me of the Roeder regime, stinking of amateurishness

if we are to play 4-3-3 he'd be perfect for a midfield role

it was Shaka's place he took to be honest. At the end of the 96-97 season Hislop was no.1 but Pav played the last 2 games due to his illness

we need to go all out for Aimar. In the right system with the right motivation (Ginola) he'd be immense

My rule is, until the bloke is standing on the steps of SJP holding up his shirt I don't believe it. Seems to work alright So you don't believe the Guthrie or Guttierez transfers yet? i know I dont, Guttierez doesn't actually exist, he's just Camoronesi with a spiderman mask