brummie

There's something very, very fishy about this signing.

I'm going off football quite a lot of late. For so many reasons. I fear this may be my last as a season ticket holder for a while. Oh well. Welcome back, anyway.

If Rooney has an issue with huge expectations, one thing he might want to consider is doing fewer Nike (and similar) tv ads which make him out to be the nation's saviour. I'm picturing rows of babies having 'WAYNE' wristbands stapled on them whilst I write this.

The Heskey thing is beyond comprehension. I appreciate he did OK against the USA, but, even if you get beyond the concept today of bringing him on when you're chasing a goal, you have to look at the very notion of picking a player who has not had a regular game in an unexceptional side this season. Every time he comes on for us, you can hear the groans of depression go around the ground. He's patently not good enough to be playing in the upper echelons of the Premier League, a blind man on a galloping horse could spot that. So why does he persist in the national team? He's fucking indestructable ... managers change, but he's always there. We then hear that Rooney loves playing alongside him. Michael Owen did, too, apparently (which ignores the fact that Michael Owen is history), but then we hear Rooney telling the media he likes to play alone up front. So how is it that Heskey persists?

Me too. Some of those players have never done it for England with any consistency - Lampard, for example. All i associate him with in an England shirt is endless pointless fucking shots ballooning over the bar from 30 yards. Gerrard is another. Not as bad as Lampard, but even so, he's been at best mediocre for England. Then there's John Terry, who as well as being not as good as he thinks he is, has the added bonus of being a moral reptile. Throw in some of the extras who get predictably chucked on (SWP) and faces who shouldn't even be on the same continent as the national side, let alone in it, (Heskey, Upson), and it is all depressing. Get rid of the fucking lot, start again. That was Capello's biggest mistake, he said he wouldnt pick players who weren't on form, and he wouldn't pick players who were injured, then he went and did precisely that, and picked another player who doesnt even get a game at club level (Heskey).

Nothing will be done to help the England team without the approval of the Premier League and the big clubs, and they rate "what is good for the England team" down there with "what's the optimal temperature of a half time pie" in terms of burning issues.

Wait 'til you see us next season. In fairness, you won't be one paced whatsoever. You'll have a fair bit of variation, with Smith being slow, and Nolan even slower. Ha ha ha, that's made me laugh like a drain. Apols to our hosts, no malice intended.

His main issue is that he's so very one paced. De Jong is a good player, but him alongside Barry is one of the most one-paced central midfields I've ever seen.

Is Redknapp's baggage his tax nastiness, because that's exactly the same baggage Capello was carrying. I for one hope MON gets the job. Then the rest of the country can take their turn of having "you dont know how lucky you are to have him" nonsense rammed down their throats whilst being forced to watch tactically inept, turgidly predictable football.

I've read a few things on various forums today, since the game ended, talking about why the national side is so fucked up, but this is the most pointed and spot on post I've seen on the subject.

When he went, I was annoyed, more by the way he did it than the fact he'd done it, but I genuinely think we got the best years out of him, and even saying that, for the last three years he went missing for vast chunks of the season. I lurked on a Man City forum a few months ago, and read what they were saying about him, and it was exactly that - that he'd gone missing for weeks on end. Don't get me wrong, he's a decent player, but the really good players don't just disappear for great chunks of the season.

I know I wasn't the only one by any means but fucking hell, if he is in the England team for any other reason than there being no-one else, then I give up. Average midfielder (as I've said for a while now) who was horribly exposed for being just that today by Ozil, who frankly didn't have to work hard to completely bamboozle the hapless Barry. Well, if we're getting stuck into Barry, I'll wave my hand in the air and remind you that I've been telling you all this on here for about four years now, but none of you would listen to me. Him breaking into a half arsed jog behind Ozil today was England's entire campaign summed up in a few seconds.

Not a shirt as much as a sponsorship thing, but our new sponsors announced today. FXPro, who apparently are something about currency speculation.

Unfortunately, that wouldn't surprise me, either. Would be a small step up on Carew/Heskey but you lot need a lot better if you're going to continue to push for 4th and higher. surely? Doyle better than Carew? Oh lord. Carew is a perma-crock these days. No he isn't. 42 appearances for us last season, 17 goals.

Decent player, very popular indeed when he was with us. Still comes up to watch us play, had a box for one of our matches last season and 40 odd of his family and mates over. Also has the best English accent ever - a bizarre mixture of Brummie and German.

It's all very well moaning about not having money to spend, but I find it hard to be sympathetic when, in supposedly tight financial circumstances, he goes and spunks 20m on an injured, moody European show pony and almost as much again on a full back who can't actually defend. And the club is 400m in debt, not the owners, as they've loaded it onto the club. If the club then defaults on the interest payments, it isn't G&H personally who go tits up over it, it is the club. Even Doug Ellis managed to see through that utter shyster Gillette. God knows why Moores didn't.

If they want him, they'll get him. Unfortunately. I know. Which is why football is so massively fucked. You try to build something, then some vile, lottery winning, arriviste blaggards come and fuck everything up by preying on human greed. Imagine how we felt when we had a great manager had us playing the best football we've played in years. All of a sudden some jumped up club with a foreign billionaire owner paid over the odds for one of our best young players, he was sold behind his back and this was a cornerstone to the manager leaving and the club imploding. Fucking annoying when lottery winning clubs fuck you over by being so rich... 12m was hardly the sort of sum you need to be a gazillionaire to afford, mind Exactly the same thing but scaled up...you wouldn't have been able to spunk £12m on Milner without your sugar tit... On a different note, I played footy with a mate from work today who used to play for Crewe until he called Dario Gradi a cunt aged about 17. He's a keeper and was telling me about how he'd played against Villa U16's and at one point in his career conceded a goal to...James Milner. Ridiculous. He's so good looking too, he does my fucking head in. We spunked almost that much on players in the Ellis years, and those times weren't sugar tit so much as witches tit.

Harewood is, though.

No

Unfortunately, that wouldn't surprise me, either. Would be a small step up on Carew/Heskey but you lot need a lot better if you're going to continue to push for 4th and higher. It'd strengthen our frontline but nowhere near enough to step on.

Unfortunately, that wouldn't surprise me, either.

If they want him, they'll get him. Unfortunately. I know. Which is why football is so massively fucked. You try to build something, then some vile, lottery winning, arriviste blaggards come and fuck everything up by preying on human greed. Imagine how we felt when we had a great manager had us playing the best football we've played in years. All of a sudden some jumped up club with a foreign billionaire owner paid over the odds for one of our best young players, he was sold behind his back and this was a cornerstone to the manager leaving and the club imploding. Fucking annoying when lottery winning clubs fuck you over by being so rich... 12m was hardly the sort of sum you need to be a gazillionaire to afford, mind Still, look what we've taught him to do.

I can't believe what a big deal the media are making of Walcott being left out. It's not the biggest of surprises, surely?

SWP isn't that bad. He was the only player against Japan who looked like he wanted to move about and cause them problems. Heskey is the true puzzle. He is totally useless and will get booked plenty as he is too clumsy and physical for international referees. His hold up play isn't as good as his fans claim and he can't shoot for shit. He's terrible man. Head down run forward is about all he can do, ignoring the fact there are 3 others (Lennon, Milner, Cole) who can play that position more than adequately. Not to mention Ashley Young, who's currently sunning himself on holiday

Heskey's been on fire this season. Sorry, in my dreams, I meant to say, and "fire" as in "flames" and "combustion". Happy for Warnock. Bit iffy towards the end of the season, mind,so quite lucky to squeak in ahead of Baines, who bollocksed it up alla grande against Mexico.