brummie

Please beat them, for fuck's sake. Worryingly, they're starting to show a bit of spirit and play quite well of late.

We were beyond awful tonight. Just dreadful. On the bright side, 6th and a shade under 40k against a nothing team who had over 2,000 empty seats in the away end on a Wednesday night makes me look back to the Ellis / O'Leary years and think how much has changed so quickly. Incidentally, Boro were really quite good at times. If they'd had a decent striker rather than that fat knacker Mido playing, they'd have sewn it up by half time.

Isn't this negated a bit by the recent revelation of how bad the debts were following the Ashley takeover? Turning over a huge amount is impressive, but not if you have to spend almost the same amount to generate that turnover. Turnover = vanity, profit = sanity, as they say. You'd come straight back up, almost certainly.

I didn't say it was anyone's fault, I said it would be galling for us.

Start of the season a UEFA Cup spot goes to the winners of the Carling Cup, unfortunately they won it and they didn't have a particularly easy run in it either, don't see why it's galling tbh. It's galling for me because my club will have finished sixth after a decent season and not got into Europe (for the second time in four years).

Great finish by Miller.

I love the way they're going on endlessly about the magic of the FA Cup being proved this year, when we've had nigh on 20 years of uninterrupted, soul crushing predictability.

He's a good player, mind. Scores goals. Job's a good 'un.

I'm so happy. When is the semi final draw?

I know football has changed, but to be entirely honest, when we got relegated in 1987, I had a fucking great time in the second division for a year. Going to grounds where you outnumber the home fans, seeing places you'd never normally see, towns you'd never usually go to etc etc. Bloke I work with went to every single game we played in the Third Division in the early 70s, and says that was even better. Of course, football is totally different nowadays, so the innocence of those times is gone.

Am not sure a point would be such a bad thing so long as it is followed with a win at home to Fulham. Reason to take confidence from a draw with Birmingham - score draw would be nice if thats what its going to be Defeat would be a shitter of the highest order We cannot afford to lose at Birmingham, not least because confidence would then be at rock bottom for the Fulham game. Im really worried about this Birmingham game, they are gonna be really up for it and they are playing ok at home. I would settle for a draw at Birmingham and a win against Fulham. The Fulham and Reading home games are the must win games. I have a nasty feeling Reading are going to have a decent end to the season Were spirited against us in the second half, then won the next two games. However, look how many places they've jumped in the table on the back of a minor improvement. That could happen to any side in the relegation mix.

Custis and Woolnough push the title "journalist" to its absolute limit, they truly are hopeless. Henry Winter is probably the best football writer in the country these days. That program is utter fucking shite, by the way, I am surprised Winter goes on it.

Surely not at Anfield though where they are the best fans in the world ?? Special supporters. So knowledgeable /jeffwinter The worst are Arsenal fans. The Emirates is surely the most soulless ground in the country, all those canape wielding solicitors in the corporate seats.

The worrying thing about the blueshite is that they are showing signs of having a bit of spirit recently. If i were a Mag, that'd worry me. The other thing is that, anyone else playing Sunderland at home in a relegation battle would fancy their chances, but in a derby match, that goes out the window. Still don't think you're going to go down, mind, i just think that Birmingham match will be potentially very tricky.

Home fans really quiet, away fans really noisy. Is that not the case in 99% of PL games these days?

Mowbray really is a very promising manager indeed. If Albion win the cup - and I think they have a great chance - they'll have won it twice since we last won it. I'm so happy for them (I am saying this through the world's most gritted teeth)

The ability Allardyce had to not lose games did nothing against Derby away, he's the only manager who hasn't had that ability so far. Add Reading away, Man City home and away, Pompy and Liverpool at home Blackburn, Chelsea and Wigan away. I don't think I've missed any. True enough, but by the same measure, wins against Bolton, West Ham, Wigan, Everton, Spurs, Birmingham. The main point i was trying to make, though, was the madness of changing manager when you did, whoever you appointed was always going to be truly up against it.

Seeing the way the FA Cup is going, I have a terrible, terrible feeling that for the second time in four years, we are going to finish sixth but not get into the UEFA Cup. Seeing Spurs in it after their laughable season will be particularly galling.

Before that match, i was walking around the side of the Trinity Road stand and Ashley, his daughters, Chris Mort, and some scruffy looking fat bloke emerged from the car park and started walking to the main entrance on the Trinity Road. All the Villa fans stood around recognised him, and loads were asking him for photos, he stopped for every one of them, was all smiles and genuinely seemed a pleasant bloke. As he walked past me, I stuck my hand out said hello, and shook the chap's hand. I've never touched a billionaire before.

Disclaimer: Casual outsider opinion follows, not seen as much as you etc etc ... I don't think you'd be in this situation with SA still in charge. Had he been kept on and backed in the January window, things may have been better, but it is hard to see how they could have been any worse. One thing is clear, though - regardless of the manager being sacked and regardless of who his replacement is, changing manager halfway through the January window is madness, absolute madness. I struggle to recall seeing a side whose heads go down so terribly after conceding a goal as Newcastle do, and if i had to go one way or the other, I'd rate SA's ability to not lose games over KK's. I don't think you're going to do down, but that is mainly because you've got enough points in the bank already to avoid it happening, points - ironically - won by Allardyce. *dons tin hat*

I'm going to have a flutter on West Brom.

On the flip side, what if some Italian B player ahd seperated Rooney's foot from his ankle? Would we still say nothing should have happened? Ronaldo winking during the Euros was hard enough to take during the Euros remember. That'd be an entire nation whingeing, not just Arsenal supporters. At the end of the day, it was a tackle, a poor one, he broke his leg. He's not dead, he'll be back in nine months, it just looked particularly bad on the telly, when the fact is, there is NO SUCH THING as a 'nice' broken leg. Nasty it was, but I don't get the big deal, it is football, injuries happen, it was a bad challenge, and it was one of a glut, but I can think of several recent tackles which were much, much worse than Taylor's. The lad has had death threats, FFS. How fucking ridiculous is that? And, yes, Eduardo plays for Arsenal, but so fucking what? Will there ever be a similar outcry for a Wigan player getting injured? No. Sorry, it just boils my piss.

I fucking loathe Blatter, he's forcing me to put myself squarely in the camp of our blue and white neighbours. It was a bad tackle, but 999 times out of 1000 nothing would have happened. I wonder how loud the kerfuffle would have been had Eduardo played for, say, Wigan Athletic? Sanctimonious, hypocritical bullshit.

Next time you see Rosenthal on telly (F1), pause it and study his face. He looks distinctly like a space alien.

Fawlty Towers, that line.