brummie

He's done ok. We are bearable to watch. Quite entertaining, in fact, which is borne out by the massive uplift in goals scored since he came. As a person, though, he strikes me as a bit of a thick idiot. A well meaning thick idiot, mind, but all that gillet throwing stuff is a bit embarrassing. He reminds me of O'Neill is his touchline antics. Let's just hope that's where the similarities end. I think we'll find out what those are this summer, as although he's clearly a decent coach (although apparently Tony Parkes is massively involved in the coaching), we have no idea what he's like doing the other bits of management (ie the transfers part). I still think we may have left it too late to sack Lambert. He should have gone ages ago. Hard to believe how depressing his reign got towards the end. It was worse than watching McLeish's side.

PS "Club Wembley", kiss my arse.

I've not got a ticket for our semi final on Sunday. I probably wouldn't have been able to get one had I even tried, to be honest, but the fact that I am not really hugely bothered strikes me as something of a watershed in my relationship with football. Mere piffery, I know, but I had to share. Next season I am going to try not even paying attention to results, then sometime, soon, I will be free. Screw you, football, with your money-raking Wembley semi finals (especially ones on a Sunday FFS). What a cartload of horse shit.

Does anyone else, upon hearing a member of the national media refer to Stamford Bridge as "The Bridge" or, even worse, White Hart Lane as "The Lane" feel a bit of sick coming up to the back of their mouth, or is it just me?

Could do with you inflicting some seriously grevious injuries on them, please.

I wish that were true, but they've won a couple of titles which they wouldn't have been anywhere near without said dosh.

I was thinking that earlier. Ashley really has got away with it this season. I honestly can't believe you're not in the relegation mix. You're easily bad enough, not just to be "in it", but to be at proper risk.

If we manage to score against you FOUR times in one half, you really are a poor side. They're in big trouble.

http://www.nufc.co.uk/page/Fans/FansForum/0,,10278~4540283,00.html Utter cunts man. That is exactly the approach our weasel took "we comply with all legislation", which is to be expected, I guess, but not what he was asked.

Incidentally, it's not just you. Slight tangent, this, but it says a lot about football. A couple of months ago, the Villa Supporters Trust organised a roundtable thing, at which members could come and talk to Tom Fox, our (recently appointed) CEO. Fox is the bloke who was chief commercial officer at Arsenal previously, American bloke who got them their mega shirt deal and what not. I was looking through the minutes of the meeting, and at the end, someone asked him if Villa could commit to paying *all* their staff the living wage, rather than the minimum wage. There was much umming and aahing, which ultimately came down to "we aren't planning to do that, and don't think we would". I believe the PL have since said all clubs are going to have to do it, but the fact was that we had a football club happy to throw 50k a week at utterly mediocre footballers pleading costs when it came to paying non-football employees that extra quid or so an hour. That just says it all about football, and the people who run it.

Sorry, late to the party. I don't think it made you look fickle at all. And that's coming from a supporter of a club whose under-pressure manager once called their fans fickle. This after a cup defeat against Doncaster Rovers. What fickleness, expecting not to get limply dumped from cups like that, eh? Which says it all about the f-word for me. Whenever I hear it, I tend to turn off, because 99 times out of 100 it is being used as a way of waving a shitty stick at a group of people (in this case fans), who are accused of not matching with the opinions of another group of people (usually journalists), who have absolutely zero idea of being what a fan is. Journalists will look at your club and use the same well-worn yardstick that other journalists use, they'll fish out the same bunch of cliches, because they're playing to an audience, and that is what they usually tell that audience. In my mind, the biggest change in the dynamics of football since the Premier League inception has been between clubs and their fans. It used to be "club" and "fan" (who, rather charmingly, often use to think of it as "his" club in a sense beyond just turning up to matches). Now, it is far more about "product" and "consumers". The product is a massive, global industry and the locals who were buying it for years count less and less. The thing journalists and clubs don't seem to get is that, it wasn't the fans who made it this way, it was the clubs. They now treat us like "customers" to be "marketed" at, like some Ford trying to flog you a Fiesta or something. The dynamic between them and us has changed, and they - and the press who support them - have no right whatsoever to moan about it. If they think that ultimately they can treat fans as "customers", part of the relationship being that they can continue to up prices as high as they like, then they also have to accept the flip side of it, which is that supporters are going to demand in return better quality, better football, competitiveness. What the likes of Ashley, Lerner and every other half-arsed unambitious chairman in the top flight want is to have it both ways. They want to continue to stick the prices up, to continue to rake in more and more money from far eastern television rights, to have matches moved to stupid times and dates without thinking about supporters in the ground, they want all of this, but at the same time, they want you to just shut the fuck up and suck it up. That's the bit that makes me angry.

A performance which is pretty much a textbook example of the concept of a team being "on the beach".

Can't quite understand how you've managed to keep clear of the relegation mix if this is something you've seen a lot of this season (this level of bilge, I mean).

Rumours starting up again re our takeover, some bloke called Boehly who apparently owns some American rounders team. I hope it happens. Not so much for the money (FFP has put paid to that) but just to have someone with a brain running things.

I think McClaren is a decent manager, and his record shows it. History also teaches us, surely, to totally forget about how managers do when they get the England job - that is a job which over decades and decades has ruined managers. These days, for example, Sven is a joke, but when he took the England job, his record was excellent. See also Capello, one of the highest achieving managers there was, but not good in the England job. Graham Taylor, too. Managed to get a dreadful Villa side out of the second division in one go, and within two years had us finishing second in the league. Goes to England, gets slaughtered, looks awful. Even Bobby Robson had similar. Got to the semi finals, yes, but people tend to overlook that before that, he got absolutely slaughtered by the press almost continually, because the results were so poor. It was right till the first round of the 1990 WC that the press wanted him sacked. Basically, the England job is at worst a proven graveyard for managers and at best a stain on their CV, and that applies to McClaren. I'd have taken him prior to Sherwood. In fact, I'd swap him now, given the chance.

I was at a mini talk in with Micky Quinn last night and he absolutely slated Hodgson. Literally called him "fucking shite". That needs to be tempered with the fact that Micky Quinn is the dictionary definition of "know-nothing, semi-literate gobshite", mind.

Imagine going on a night out with Roy Hodgson and John Motson. The level of conversation would be extraordinary.

racist abuse I know that, but how bad, how much etc? I've read a few things here and there, but nowt really reveals the true extent. Watching the documentary on the Chelsea player, fucking hell man, what a vile society/game at the time. I wish Pat Nevin had revealed the player who was racist to Paul Canoville. Btw Pat Nevin seems a top bloke like! You really only need to watch a bit of telly from the 80s and earlier to get an idea of how different things were in general back then.

That song was about Howard Gayle. I remember being in the scoreboard in the 80's and it was towards Cunningham. The song went, He's black, he's broon, he plays for the toon, Cunningham, Cunningham to the tune of the Mickey Burns ditty I was in the Gallowgate this season, and Cunningham was never sung it was altered to a double oo. Unacceptable - yes, nasty - definitely no - he was well liked for his effort That's the era I watched you a lot, and I can remember that song and the double-o bit. I remember coming from Birmingham hearing a lot more racism in Newcastle (in general, I mean), but there were just so few Asian and black faces around the city at the time, it didn't really surprise me. Of course, you need to see all the above in the wider context that Britain itself was a lot more racist back then than it is now.

The problem you have is that, if you finish mid-table, for Ashley that's basically a result. Not going down, still be here for another year of mega tv money, still probably be here the year after next for the even bigger mega-money. If Carver gets you there, then Ashley has the perfect situation - a cheap, low ego, low profile (compared to some of the others) manager who isn't going to stand up to him or throw his toys out the pram if he doesn't get the money he wants to spend, and who is basically just over the moon to be Newcastle manager. And that is the problem with the premier league for the likes of us, you, Everton. Maybe Sunderland at a push. Finishing half way is acceptable, it'll rake in the cash, the difference between finishing there and, say, sixth or fifth is a run in the Europa League (which earns almost zero money). To go from 10th or 11th to 6th or 5th is going to cost money - better, spendier manager, better, more expensive coaching team, better players. More half decent players so you've got a decent bench. Maybe you'd also get a decent cup run, it'd be nice, but hey ho, you're probably not going to win it, so getting to a semi final, as we have, is seen as an extraordinary achievement. The fans will get a nice day out at Wembley, it'll keep them off your back for a bit. That is the mindset that is slowly strangling clubs with a history of being in amongst the top clubs, winning bits of silverware, being in the Premier League almost all the time. It is what makes supporting clubs like ours actually one of the worst positions to be in. Even the plucky recently promoted sides get more out of it, they're just dazzled by being in the money league. It's all a big adventure for them. Just like it is for the Champions League sides with their top flight experience utterly, totally different to ours. It's going to be a long time till we get to play Barcelona again. No mid week trips to Monaco for us. It is just to involving for the likes of Lerner or Ashley - time and money - to really try to be anything better in the long run, so fuck it, just bob along in nothing-land and try to keep the supporters (who they probably call "customers" these days) happy enough not to give you too much grief. I'll tell you what got Sherwood our job, for example. It's the fact he's worked with youth coaching, and when you say that to Lerner or Fox (our CEO), their eyes light up. Youth players = cheap players. We tried that for two whole seasons under Lambert, naively throwing kids in when they're not ready, basically in the hope that they'll muddle through and in time sort of magically become good enough. It doesn't work. it makes it horrible to watch. I bet what you like that's exactly what they try again, though.

*salutes*

I'm starting to warm to Sherwood. I mean, he's an idiot and whatnot, but he's at least our idiot. And he has some interesting ideas. Last week at Sunderland, he put Rushian Hepburn-Murphy on for the last 15 mins or so. A 16 year old even people who watch our youth team had barely heard of. I think what I like about Sherwood so far is he renders things at least very interesting. He said this about it on our official site:

Some people are such f***ing idiots and dicks, and will do anything to get one over on opposition team. At Old Trafford this season, a Newcastle fan responded to the 'disgrace' of ManU not joining in with our 17th minute clapping by starting to sing about the Munich Air Disaster. The mind boggles (and despairs). Did none of the Everton fans sort him out? I'd like to hope so. The thing is, there are a lot of absolute cunts in society, and football is nothing different. I always try to remember that people like that are a tiny, tiny minority, and the vast majority of people are actually decent.

Is there another forum on earth that sees as many new threads as RTG? Look at it now, every single person who has something to say does so via a new thread. Like a bunch of squealing kids fighting for attention. I have no axe to grind with Sunderland, but that truly is the worst football forum on the internet

Man City's problem in the long term - despite the odd bit of short term joy - is that they're not a "big" club (in the sense that they need to be), they're a rich club, and the difference between those things is massive. It explains why you get so many really expensive players who totally go missing when the chips are down, and at the moment, they seem to have a lot of that type of player. The money is there, yes, but not much else is.