brummie

Our kids were great today. Even Nathan Baker prior to his sending off. Fuck Charlie Adam when Wee Barry Bannan has a range of passing like that.

Liam Ridgewell has been fantastic for us, with his supply of own goals when we play them. Craig Gardner is bog standard at best. Although he's got a decent volley on him. His brother Gary is coming through our youth system at the moment, outside chance he'll get a PL run out this year, and he's the most promising player I've seen there in years. Mate you can't deny that both have performed very well for Birmingham (despite being average footballers). Lots of average players have done well for them this year. They're still average at best, though. being kind there. Absolutely atrocious team IMO. Meant the individual players, rather than the team. They're an awful team to watch. That Zigic is fucking awful. Indeed and for that reason alone I hope they go down. Me too. Well, obviously, I've got loads of reasons to hope they go down.

Arsenal are going to knock them out of the Champions League so 3? You seriously haven't got a chance mate, not a hope! Delusional Gooners. They'll give it big from now until the first 5 minutes off the game where Messi will get his inevitable goal and it will be damage limitation. The first 15 minutes of there last encounter was the most one sided game in football history. Cheers fake Dave. No problem, shit Martin Jol. This site is very funny at times. You two. Most amusing.

Liam Ridgewell has been fantastic for us, with his supply of own goals when we play them. Craig Gardner is bog standard at best. Although he's got a decent volley on him. His brother Gary is coming through our youth system at the moment, outside chance he'll get a PL run out this year, and he's the most promising player I've seen there in years. Mate you can't deny that both have performed very well for Birmingham (despite being average footballers). Lots of average players have done well for them this year. They're still average at best, though. being kind there. Absolutely atrocious team IMO. Meant the individual players, rather than the team. They're an awful team to watch. That Zigic is fucking awful.

but i suspect he might fit in very well. He was born and raised in Ghana so he should be used to the living conditions of Sunderland. gyan has looked quite good in what i've seen. And Ghana is quite well developed for an African country, too.

He's unbearably pompous and thinks his word on football is gospel. He has two or three managerial favourites (Hodgson, O'Neill amongst them) who he waxes lyrical about to pathetic levels. I vomited up my spleen when i read this bullshit: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/blackpool/8275992/Henry-Winter-unlikely-lads-Holloway-Martin-ONeill-and-Owen-Coyle-earn-all-managerial-plaudits.html and there are plenty of other examples.

Liam Ridgewell has been fantastic for us, with his supply of own goals when we play them. Craig Gardner is bog standard at best. Although he's got a decent volley on him. His brother Gary is coming through our youth system at the moment, outside chance he'll get a PL run out this year, and he's the most promising player I've seen there in years. Mate you can't deny that both have performed very well for Birmingham (despite being average footballers). Lots of average players have done well for them this year. They're still average at best, though.

Liam Ridgewell has been fantastic for us, with his supply of own goals when we play them. Craig Gardner is bog standard at best. Although he's got a decent volley on him. His brother Gary is coming through our youth system at the moment, outside chance he'll get a PL run out this year, and he's the most promising player I've seen there in years.

Never heard of him until now. The Togolese Zidane.

For fuck's sake, West Ham.

Jesus christ. Shall I? Or Brummie? O'Neil was deemed (and rightly so) to have wasted a lot of money on high wages for players who weren't really doing anything. He was told to get rid of some of these players before he could have any more money. He also, apparently, went to Lerner and had this conversation: MON: "I want to sign Aiden McGeady" RL: "What sort of price are we looking at?" MON: "Whatever it takes" Poor, wronged Saint Martin. Ha. I'll stand corrected. Didn't realize those were the players he was spending on. Sometimes it's tough to get the whole story over here in the States. That being said, I think the guy can flat out manage. Maybe not as good an evaluator of talent though? From the outside - and brummie feel free to correct me -, MoN's player cycle looked like this: 1.Buy player of average ability for a non-average price 2.Player of said average ability naturally performs averagely 3.MoN feels betrayed by the averageness and chucks the player into the pits of oblivion 4. Go to 1 He seemed to have an obsession with fullbacks in particular. 2008: buys Shorey (LB), Knight (CB) and Curtis Davies (CB) - total 18m 2009: buys Warnock (LB), Dunne (CB), Collins (CB) - total 18m, to replace the players he'd bought the year before. In with all that, he'd also bought Cuellar for 7m, and having not had a RB for two years, he buys Luke Young for twice the amount he could have had him for when he went to Boro, AND Habib Beye to fill that role, but ended up playing Cuellar, an out of position centre back there. Some of the players, like Sidwell, Shorey, Harewood (FFS) he bought then immediately decided he didn't fancy, so didn't bother using them. See also Beye. Of those players, we're currently trying to nigh on give Davies away, Shorey went for fuck all, Beye is a 33 year old with 2 years of a 40k a week contract left to run, Sidwell went for fuck all as, after three years of coming on for 10 mins at the end, he was out of contract, Harewood ran his contract down, and Reo-Coker's contract is also up this summer - having been ostracised for over a year by MON. So that's 8.5m we spent on him, and he's walking away for nowt In many ways, he is a very good manager indeed, but he has two failings. One is his transfer policy which is short sighted (UK based players only, ALL of them except Carew and Guzan) and half arsed (we had a scouting network which consisted of ONE MAN - Ian Storey Moore). The other is his tactical cluelessness. It's great counter attacking away from home, but when you're at home and a team doesn't want to be broken down, it doesn't work, so for two years we just whacked crosses into the box all day long. He'll get teams to 6th - 8th with money to spend, but to get beyond that, you absolutely must have a great deal of tactical acumen, and he doesn't.

No idea, sorry. I just read last week he had a knee injury.

Joking apart, I really wanted it to work out for him, and I still hope it does (maybe it will, if he does well with you), but I think there's something very wrong with his head. He definately showed in that one season, think under Hughes ? That he could become a hell of a player, but his regression since has been startling and you've got to question if his head's in it, didn't he also fall out with the Ireland nation team ? In his defence, there was apparently some unpleasant bullying going on with the Ireland team, with him as the target of it.

And the fact we're quite keen to get shot of him, despite currently desperately trying to find a creative midfielder says .....

Joking apart, I really wanted it to work out for him, and I still hope it does (maybe it will, if he does well with you), but I think there's something very wrong with his head.

That looks like made up nonsense to me. You can't force footballers to do anything these days. I've no agenda in saying these things, incidentally, believe me or don't believe me - in the words of Houllier, I don't care - I'm just telling you like it has been from our end.

Other than the low risk part, that point to prove stuff is exactly what we said in the summer. He's out of his comfort zone, unfortunately, and he's not handling it well. I get the feeling it would have been like this had he gone anywhere - anywhere that isn't Man City, that's the issue. He's apparently dreadful in training, doesn't want to know. On more than one occasion, he's ruled himself out with iffy sounding illnesses - the last time it was a "virus" and the very same evening he was seen out boozing with Heskey and Ashley Young. When he came here, someone on the City staff said he was in the top 5 percent in terms of talent there, but the bottom 5 mentally. Houllier said that any loans out, the other club would have to pay all the wages, and that we'd rather players stayed in the stiffs rather than subsidise them to play somewhere else. So, five months of Ireland = 70 x 4 x 5 = 1.4m, add on NI, and you're looking at 1.6m. On top of that, there's win bonuses etc etc etc. So, whilst it could be more expensive otherwise, it certainly isn't free.

No. What's the point of him? We don't need a player of that ilk.

You would do if you'd seen him play or heard some of the stories circulating about him this season. I'll be delighted for someone else to pay his wages for the next five months.

That is correct.

Such a nice bloke too. "In many ways, O'Neill is too good a person for the game of football". Henry Winter actually wrote that in the Torygraph shortly after he flounced off.

No. I can't face going through it again, honestly, I think I may cry.

Jesus christ. Shall I? Or Brummie? O'Neil was deemed (and rightly so) to have wasted a lot of money on high wages for players who weren't really doing anything. He was told to get rid of some of these players before he could have any more money. He also, apparently, went to Lerner and had this conversation: MON: "I want to sign Aiden McGeady" RL: "What sort of price are we looking at?" MON: "Whatever it takes" Poor, wronged Saint Martin.

Oh God, give me strength. *head in hands* And that's not even about the Jenas bit, that's *head in hands* as in I've just blown my head off, into my hands.

1986-7. All of it. 1981 - champions 1982 - european champions 1987 - relegated. Even now, the unbelievableness of it all still rankles with me. Nothing will ever be as bad as that.