brummie

I like Mowbray, and think he's got potential to become a really good manager. However, play good football as much as they did try to do, his refusal to adapt the way they play when even a one-eyed man on a galloping horse could spot that his players simply weren't good enough to play like that and survive suggests a bit of a weak point. Stoke might be the anti-football, but - and this is horrible to admit - Pulis did a much better job than Mowbray, as he kept them up.

Saw something the other week saying The Championship is the league with the 4th biggest average attendances in Europe behind the Bundesliga, La Liga and obviously The Premiership. Championship average = 17,875 Serie A = 24,562 It's the 4th best out of total people attending which is to be expected considering there's far more games played. My mistake, didn't realise that England, Italy and Spain were the only 3 leagues to play football in europe. Where on earth did he imply that?

Saw something the other week saying The Championship is the league with the 4th biggest average attendances in Europe behind the Bundesliga, La Liga and obviously The Premiership. Isn't it the fifth richest league in the world, as well?

I read a reference to him on here the other day, with a link to his website, and I swear, it honestly took me about 10 minutes of puzzled reading to work out why it wasn't the quiffed, loved-by-Guardian-readers, Jerry Springer opera writing comedian who you were going on about.

Hang on, is it the little cheeky one, or the taller mongy looking one we want, the one who went blind in Byker Grove? sorry

Shit, I might choose to support Barcelona and go to a Barcelona forum instead. After all, I did shit in a bog in the service station just south of Tarragona once.

I don't want to join the hounding, but it isn't "his team has won the CL" in the same sense it would be if yours or mine did. It is like when I hear Man United fans with cockney accents about what it means to them. By comparison, it means nothing if you just choose to latch on to some successful club. Why do these people never seem to become Mansfield Town or Wigan or Bournemouth supporters at the age of 8? Not talking about Messi here, but I absolutely hate gloryhunters. They are the Quisling maggots of the football world.

Well sometimes that might be ok say for example if a person bought a Brazil shirt for the 2002 World Cup final and wore to cheer them on as they beat the Germans!!! nah, that's another manifestation of the problem we have in this country of harking endlessly on about the war (when countries which suffered infinitely more than we did have forgotten about it).

I don't have a problem with people wanting to watch good football either. My problem goes with the ones you've described at the end of your post. That kind of behavior is just sad and worrying, and it happens every fucking world cup at the pubs in Oslo Half the people who wear Brazil shirts and dance to that samba shizzle in the stands during Brazil games at World Cups are actually Scandinavians, anyway

The PL isn't even the best league in this country *expression of solidarity* *gets coat*

I don't want to see an equal league, I just think that for a league to be "the best" the measure should be not just about how their clubs do in Europe, there are things like excitement, skill and competitiveness to think about. Outside the top four, the PL is very, very uninspiring indeed.

What's the average attendance in the Bundesliga? Crowds have nothing to do with it at all. Juventus play in front of half a dozen tourists and a dog most weeks, anyway.

Oh, and another thing, yes, three out of four teams in the semi finals this year, the Sky Four are great in Europe. Nice for them. That's it though, the PL is four decent sides and the rest is fucking dross. We won two games in just under four months, and STILL finished sixth, and Everton, despite finishing fifth, we also sufficiently uninspiring to not manage to leapfrog us until two weeks from the end of the season. How fucking rubbish is that? And those are supposed to be two sides capable of changing the divine order. I think not.

In my opinion, the Premier League is the best marketed league in the world, for sure. It also has a shout for the "best" league in the world by some other definitions, but there's no doubt it is boring in the sense that, pretty much without fail, the same four teams win everything worth winning, and the same cabal of teams enter the Champions League these days, bar the occasional blip. We already know the four teams from which the winner will come next year (in fact, that could probably be narrowed down to three). Who won the German league this year?

Liverpool are hardly defensive and hoofish, though. Nor are Chelsea or Arsenal, for that matter. Well, Chelsea are a bit defensive at times, but so are all the good teams. Fucking hell. You just made me stick up for the Sky Four. A plague on all your houses!

I have to say, I was very impressed with his interview after the game. He's made it clear what his opinion is in terms of the level of "wrongness" and Id imagine in that in the discussions he is having with Ashley now, he's discussing what he wants to do to put it right, and - most importantly - what he needs. I bet none of it is nice listening for Ashley. I just hope Ashley backs him. Not just with cash, but in the sense of letting him run the club. I understand what is one of the conditions O'Neill laid down for taking the job with us - "I run things" - and although it sometimes has its down sides, at least in a situation like that, you know that if the manager fucks up, it is because he's made mistakes, not because he's been working within a structure which is a mess, and which he can't influence. In circumstances like those, the best manager in the world will struggle to succeed. Shepherd (from what I've read on here) doesn't seem the type of man who would have placed that level of trust in his manager, and I don't know if Ashey is either, but surely this is a massive, massive opportunity for Ashley to gain redemption in the way he has run the club, but also - in cold hard business terms - to recoup some of the money he's lost in the lowered value of the club, and that he'll continue to lose year on year if you stay down.

Not only that but he does reference the end of this season: I think it is unfair to level the finger of blame at him for what happened in the last eight games, but I do think it was a strange decision given the circumstances at the time

Barcelona didn't have eight matches to save themselves from relegation though. Neither do we. We're already down I'm talking about when you brought him in originally.

Barcelona didn't have eight matches to save themselves from relegation though.

I think that if you strip away some of the hyperbole and ranting in that article, he makes some good points. Why did Ashley appoint Shearer when it was clear someone needed to take over from Kinnear? Why didn't he go for someone with experience? There's no guarantee that it would have worked, but it would have stood more chance. Shearer might turn out to be a great manager in the future, but it is a hell of a gamble (a losing one on evidence so far, but next season is another gamble) to appoint someone with no managerial experience whatsoever. The one thing I can think of in giving him the job is the motivational aspect, that he'd motivate the players to really dig deep and get you out of trouble, but - as i said the other day - though teams like Hull and Stoke (who I think are much worse on paper) came to our place and battled like fuck, and in Stoke's case got something, your players looked entirely unmotivated, and just not bothered on Sunday, so if that was the plan, it didn't work either. The thrust of that article which i think is most valid, is that next season, with less revenue, possibly financial problems, the need to wheel and deal and scrap and fight to get out of the division as soon as you possibly can, a canny, wily experienced campaigner would surely be the best bet. It doesn't necessarily have to be someone who is out of the game or anything, I actually think Bruce would go to you, example, despite your having been relegated.

Word is we've nipped in and agreed a deal with Toulouse for André-Pierre Gignac. I hope so, we need options up front.

My memory is shot like. The one I remember from 93/94 Graham Stuart scored the goal to keep them up, I think, I think. Yeah, I was on about the 98 one..... when Mikel Madar scored. Gareth Farrelly, actually. Parry is so embarrassing. I'd just like to point out that he's not a scouser, he's from Chester and that 99% of blues think he's a tit as well. really?? I seem to remmeber madar scoring a header against coventry, no? anyway, i think i got myself muddled up here. Farrelly (one of the worst players I've seen for us) scored an absolute screamer and late on Barmby *spit* missed a pen. Dion Dublin then scored a header to equalise which meant we relied on Chelsea to beat Bolton. Is that the same Farrelly who played for us? I always confuse him with Dave Farrell.

Ha ha, that tickled me for some reason. Rarely has the disconnect between supporters and players been so total. What about Caroll though? I think he assumed the kids will stay regardless. Ah. Understood.

Ha ha, that tickled me for some reason. Rarely has the disconnect between supporters and players been so total. What about Caroll though?

I think it is easy to underestimate the effect that expecting to win matches on a regular basis rather than struggle is going to have. Given that, if they get the pricing right, your crowds will be fine. One thing though. Didn't they sell a lot of "three year season tickets" or something? How does that work in terms of you not actually getitng what you paid up for in advance?