brummie

I thought they were awesome against us at Villa Park this season, played some cracking stuff.

given how Lambert seems to be disregarding Bent full stop (planning to sell him I wonder?) it seems unlikely See above. I'd agree with your points above but theres one problem, your not scoring goals atm so why aren't you using a proven goal scorer, Bent has already proven he can play in shite teams and score Because Bent won't do anything other than apply the finish. If you get it into the box to him, he's a good bet to put it away. What he won't do is drop back, fetch the ball, work to create chances for other players, or put in a shift elsewhere on the pitch when needed. Right now our biggest problem is that the midfield isn't creating chances, we're not getting the ball into the forward players with enough regularity for them to score. Benteke puts in way more of a shift than Bent does, and is doing ok (4 in 7 or 8 games so far). Weimann also works tirelessly when he gets a game. Bent, on the other hand, will wait for the ball to come to him. Right now, we can't guarantee getting it to him with enough regularity. That's the problem with Bent, and currently it is a major issue for us. I never think that the route to improvement is in selling your "best" players, but if Lambert were to move Bent on in January for anything like a decent fee, and invest the money in the midfield, I would totally understand why.

Not in the first half it didn't. They were utterly shocking. This is truly classic Arsenal, when the evidence starts to stack up that they're in decline, they manage to frantically paper over the cracks just in time. I would have banked on Villa even to have managed not to spunk away a four goal start at home to that side tonight. That's how poor they were. Arshavin in that first half gave the most un-interested, not fucking bothered, fuck-you performance I think I've ever seen.

given how Lambert seems to be disregarding Bent full stop (planning to sell him I wonder?) it seems unlikely See above.

Bent won't start and probably won't get on the pitch. Benteke will play alone up front, certainly if Lambert has spotted what most Villa fans have this season. Bent is a cracking goal scorer, but we're much better when he doesn't play, as he offers bugger all else to the team. I know that sounds mental, but it's true.

Incidentally, I know I go on and on about MON, but in my defence, pretty much everything I say about the bloke is demonstrably easy to back up with actual evidence. I'm happy to acknowledge that sixth place three times on the bounce was a decent - not earth shattering, as David O'Leary achieved the same finish three years previously, but decent - achievement. I just think that he has a small number of costly flaws which are visible from space. The only thing is, the media seem almost entirely unwilling to admit it. I notice even Sunderland fans seem to be cottoning on now, mind.

Curtis Davies 10m or so and Heskey plus 3 year deal take some beating 3.5 yr deal, I think you'll find. MON doesn't really do many big-fee poor signings, what he does is mid-range fee signings that he then instantly decides are shit (Shorey, Harewood, Sidwell) or who the whole football world said "he's shit" and then turn out to be, well, shit. His lack of imagination means that his transfer policy turns into "throw enough darts, eventually one will hit the bullseye" Tried telling my mackem mate this when he joined them, but he was totally not having it, despite the glaring evidence of recent years at VP.

O'Neill is really starting to look like he's not enjoying it much. He'll walk before the end of the season.

I went to Northumbria Uni (well, it was Newcastle Poly at the time). My best mate up there was a mackem, from Cleadon. We went over to his parents house a few times. Now, that's a particularly posh area, so I assumed most of Sunderland was relatively pleasant (like Newcastle). Then we went into the centre, and I rapidly re-evaluated. This was 1989, though, I would imagine it has improved a lot since then.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/newcastles-wonga-shirt-sponsors-spark-1367970 labour MP with a pair of platinum tickets. what a c*** he sounds, complaining about this deal. aye, spending his wage on something he likes, what a c*** Ian Lavery's a total joker: haha felt like I had just seen the Political Version of Goal of the Season. Crikey, look at that for a row of pure cunt. Hammond, Mitchell, Cameron and Gideon. The last time I saw a row of gaping cunts like that, it was on the gang bang section of Red Tube. *feels sick come up at back of throat*

"Aston Villa are completely useless", says Chairman of a club who have just been beaten by Stirling Albion, who were, according to their leagues, the 40th best club in Scotland. Maybe one day we will see the two big Scottish clubs in the PL. Celtic and Hibs.

Are you talking about those two spazzers talking about their historic moment of beating Man City? The bloke's eyes were all over the shop. I thought he was blind or partially sighted or something, but yes, he could well have been pilled off his tits.

Interesting strategy. Is this the longest contract a PL manager has ever had? There will doubtless be clauses, but if you ever want to get rid of him, that's going to cost a lot of $$$$

£10 tickets apparently to get it to near capacity. It's almost as though some common sense has been used. 8,000 Covscum there, too.

Very hard game. Nah, not even for us.

Swindon town away? I'll take that one.

The wage bill is the big issue, but that should be far more under control come the end of this season. That will, however, be three entire seasons to recover from the shit we were in when he walked away. Thank fuck Lerner didn't give in and give him what he was demanding to buy Aiden McGeady. Lerner said "how much do you need?", O'Neill said "whatever it takes". You can't really argue with people when they're like that.

They played some beautiful stuff though with real penetration of the defence Forest's style of playing there is totally incomparable to the way MON's teams play. Forest would keep the ball and pass you to death, playing little triangles over the pitch. MON's not a big fan of actual passing.

http://www.nufcmismanagement.info/img/freddys.jpg Wasn't MON linked with your job under FFS? I can only begin to imagine the carnage that would have unleashed. For starters, you'd probably still be paying Steve Guppy 60k a week, and he'd have 4 years left on his contract.

Incidentally, he hasn't a prayer of getting Sunderland to sixth, the football landscape has changed, and it is much, much harder. He'll struggle to get them tenth or above.

The first 2 stats sound impressive in a way. However it's not that they've just happened to be poor in different games but had the resolve to get something - the issue is O'Neill actively encourages that brand of football and there's only so many times they can nick points. They'll have to start playing a lot better if they want to do anything this year. The major thing with that style is that it works away from home, counter attacking, but as soon as teams start to show you any respect at your own place, they're not going to recklessly attack you and create openings. There's also an ethical discussion to be had about counter attacking at home. Ultimately, it means drawing lots of games at home. That led to the sort of tedious football that got Villa fans slaughtered in the media for DARING to complain or moan about. This is our record under MON for the last two seasons: 08-09: Home - W7 D9 L3 Scored 27 Away - W10 D2 L7 Scored 27 09-10 Home - W8 D8 L3 Scored 29 Away - W9 D5 L5 - Scored 23 Look at those home records, lots of draws and 27 goals one season, 29 the next. However, in both those seasons, we had two home games in which we thrashed some shit team (Bolton, usually) and scored 5 goals. If you take out those two anomalies, that leaves 17 goals across 17 home matches one year, and 19 the next. That basically equates to a lot of games where MON teams struggle to break teams down - because there's no alternative if it's not working, and he doesn't "do" tactical substitutions beyond changing the right back. The problem is the media never, ever seem to spot this. It's like they don't want to see what is going on. I reckon right now, there will be a lot of Sunderland fans who are starting to think "errm, hang on, maybe the Villa fans were right, after all". O'Neill has other qualities, chief amongst which is the ability to motivate shit players to deliver more, which is very useful to have, but there's a quite definite glass ceiling to his abilities - and that's pretty much where he got us, sixth. To get any further than that he'd need to be savvy in the transfer market (he isn't) and tactically clued up (he's totally not this), and that's why his answer to push us on was to just buy more of the same sort of player we already had, and hope for the best. It didn't work, and just landed us with a bloated squad of average ability and a huge wage bill. Look at us now, having been the 3rd or 4th biggest spenders in the English game for a few years, having invested so much, ultimately O'Neill's approach meant it was all built on foundations of sand. How is it possible to have had such an enormous wage bill, but wind up with a squad of players nobody else would want, and to have to rebuild like we are now? Still, it wasn't Martin's problem to deal with, because the very first time Lerner suggested he do something about the squad, move some guff out (players who never featured but were costing us a fortune), Martin stormed out, five days before the start of the season. There's a reason MON ended up in a totally underwhelming job like Sunderland. Not all chairmen are daft and naive to not understand the way he works.

Wouldn't surprise me like. They're a bunch of horrible cunts. Turned out to be bollocks, thankfully. Some nonsense started on Twitter.

Was thinking along the same lines earlier. Granted it's a bit weird to be a trophy snob when Newcastle haven't won one in ages, but it still wouldn't really be winning one in this Mickey Mouse competition where even Wolverhampton fucking Wanderers changes 10 players and fields their juniors. League Cup is a glorfied reserves cup. In fairness, when we reached the final a couple of years ago, it ceases to be insignificant at the point at which you're within touching distance of winning it. It's the general disdain it is regarded with in the interminable rounds up to that point that devalue it.

What Man City are doing is ultimately the sort of thing which is going to ruin football, but let's be honest, if it was our club, we wouldn't give too much of a shit. I don't normally care much for Mancini, but the ruck last night was apparently about something I absolutely can't stand, the waving of imaginary cards at the ref. For that, he's a cunt.

I don't think 23k is that bad an attendance, to be honest. They've got plenty other things to play for, its what most would assume was a relatively routine win before the match. It was pissing down with rain, etc etc. Basically, the League Cup really needs to be strangled off for good.