brummie

too much galacticos tbh. ^^^^^ funniest post ever ^^^^^ And I'm not joking

West Ham - Spurs was easily the best game I've seen this season.

Funnily enough, I wasn't there, but our fans said exactly the same thing about Bilbao, that it was the best European away night ever, and that the friends were incredibly friendly, a night to remember by all accounts. Later on in the competition, we played Atletico Madrid, which i did go to, and it was absolutely fucking dreadful, van loads of coppers driving around, jumping out and batoning our supporters, women and children included, at random. As we entered the ground, they were lined up at the side swinging randomly at us. The exact opposite of Bilbao. I've been a major fan of the Basque country ever since.

Yes, it was Villa 3 - Charlton 4, 99 or 2000 I think. Their keeper was sent off, but I think it was Danny Mills who scored the winner, and it may have been in injury time. It was indeed them going ahead, us pegging them back and so on. I seem to remember we had someone sent off as well, actually.

Doesn't appointing a DoF invariably lead to tension between him and manager, and manager leaving?

I read yesterday that Spurs that last year was the only time in 16 years that Spurs finished in the top six, which frankly amazed me, and possibly puts last season in perspective. FWIW I've quite enjoyed watching their UEFA games this season, unfashionable thought it may be to admit it here.

I probably shouldn't say this but I've got almost as soft a spot for Sunderland as I have for Newcastle. My best mate at Uni was a mackem. I even got dragged to the 1990 Div 2 play off final against Swindon, which remains the worst match I've ever attended. I'm expecting Stevie to arrive now and shout at me a bit.

People walking around in 110 degree heat. That game was obviously a classic, but there used to be a song on Fantasy Football League that went "Old football was crap, Old football was crap, Old football was crap, Old football was crap, Old football was crap etc...." I've watched the 1966 World Cup Final in full, players made mistakes in that game that would be unacceptable in the Conference now. That memorable goal by Carlos Alberto wouldn't have even been conceded by a back four of Carr Bramble Ramage and Huntingdon now. That may or may not be so, but it's one of my favourite goals of all time. Love watching it. I think it is probably the most perfect piece of football ever, it really does make the hair on the back of my neck stand up every time I see it. Especially when you watch the whole build up. If anyone wants to know why football is the beautiful game, point them at that goal. Carlos Alberto talks through it here: (apols to mods and please delete if youtube link not allowed) I think Argentina's goal against Serbia by Cambiasso was far far better, the best example I've seen of a goal being scored by a patient build up and movement off the ball. I think that was a stunning goal, but the thing I like about the Carlos Alberto goal is that it just had so much nonchalant swagger about it. And the way Pele hardly even bothers to look before flicking it out to his right, he just knows *precisely* where his man is going to be.

I enjoyed France v Russia from 1986, but solely because it had the great line from John Motson "Rats beats Bats!" (Vassily Rats scoring past Joel Bats).

People walking around in 110 degree heat. That game was obviously a classic, but there used to be a song on Fantasy Football League that went "Old football was crap, Old football was crap, Old football was crap, Old football was crap, Old football was crap etc...." I've watched the 1966 World Cup Final in full, players made mistakes in that game that would be unacceptable in the Conference now. That memorable goal by Carlos Alberto wouldn't have even been conceded by a back four of Carr Bramble Ramage and Huntingdon now. That may or may not be so, but it's one of my favourite goals of all time. Love watching it. I think it is probably the most perfect piece of football ever, it really does make the hair on the back of my neck stand up every time I see it. Especially when you watch the whole build up. If anyone wants to know why football is the beautiful game, point them at that goal. Carlos Alberto talks through it here: (apols to mods and please delete if youtube link not allowed)

I remember NTL buying shares in our club, the papers reported that they were only allowed 10% maximum (ie they bought 9.99%) because of PL rules since they already had a similar amount in another PL club (cant remember who) as well as Celtic. Villa? Correct, they had 9.9% in Newcastle, Villa and someone else in the Prem I think. Possibly West Ham? And there are rules about ownership of more than one club in the Premiership. Plus, why would RA bother buying an English club at some stupid inflated price, he'd just buy some cheapo French team or something and farm the players out there.

Today must be a very difficult day for you, Dr.

sounds like you're talking from a pulpit. Nah, I'm swaying around, clutching a can, jabbing my finger at nobody in particular and scaring my friends.

One could argue that we should all stop deluding ourselves with this rubbish about Fulham's expectations, take a step back and realise that outside the top 4, we've all got the same limited expectations these days, the gulf between them and the rest is so huge. Maybe there'll be an interesting scrabble around for the couple of places in the (utterly fucking pointless and devalued) UEFA cup, or a decent cup run, but that's about it for the lot of us these days. Sneering at clubs because they don't have quite as many fans as you, or their ground is a bit knackered is pretty fucking unpleasant, tbh, and just makes me think of everything that is fucked up with the game these days (and I'm talking here about anyone, regardless of the club they support, spouting the 'they should think themselves lucky to even get to play us in the big league' nonsense). Before doing that, we should probably have a think about how clubs like Man United think about the clubs we support, and reflect on the similarities.

Fking hell.

Loathe the club and their fans though I do, I'm quite happy to see them beat Roma.

Don't get me wrong, the pressure on him is huge, but there is, as The Janitor said, a lot of other stuff going on at the moment, in terms of the club being changed absolutely to the core, it is hard to fully describe how deep the changes they are making are going. This has a doubled-edged effect for MON. It makes it harder in some ways, as everything is changing all the time. It makes it easier in other ways, because the fans are just so relieved to be rid of Ellis, and happy to see the other changes, that they'll give him a season to basically settle in to the job. I think he'll get it right, I really do. I can't think of anyone outside the top 4 I'd rather have at the club as manager, regardless of the criticisms that can be made of him, and I genuinely can't wait for the transfer window to open and for next season to start. It is all about ambition, under Ellis there was none. Under the new regime (managerial and board level) there is ambition galore, and the structure and cash to back it up, so that'll buy him plenty of patience.

This may sound a stupid question, but I don't know, I haven't seen much of one of them, and obviously even less of the other, but if you had to get rid of one as they couldn't play together, who would it be, a fit Owen, or Martins?

Janitor, I applaud you. And even we don't like Lee Hendrie. We're convinced he's a bluenose.

I fear this is very true. There might be one surprise package every few years, but by and large, the gap is too great. In reference to the impact thing, I'd say he actually did have a big impact at Villa, in that we were the last team to be beaten across all the divisions, but that in the latter part of the season, we faded, but as you said, we're not yet a MON team, not by any stretch. Worth remembering, he parachuted into the job two weeks before the start of the season, and with Ellis still in charge. That's no preparation. Let's have this conversation in 12 months time, that'll be a fair time to judge - a full summer transfer window, a full pre-season and a whole season of his own team, then we'll have a better idea of how things are going to pan out. Don't get me wrong, if things go badly, then I'll be happy to say I'm disappointed, but at the moment, i'm incredibly optimistic that things will go well, we've got a great manager, we've got rid of the worst chairman in the league and replaced him with a guy who is looking more and more like he could be the best in the league. MON has everything in place to be a success, if he isn't, then there'll be no getting away from it, it will be there for all to see. But judging him now is unfair.

Although the whole concept of your average fan in the ground being able to relate to 22 year olds earning 40k a week is absurd regardless of nationality. Although it is becoming gradually less absurd now they're slowly pricing the working classes out of the game. *clenched fist*

The problem is that the "pool" of eligible English players is getting smaller. You could also argue that players like Lampard, Crouch, Rooney in particular look like top quality players in the premiership largely due to their being surrounded by quality, largely foreign, players. When you see them play for England, they don't look such high quality.

This isn't the issue...It is plain wrong that Arsenal fields and continues to field sides with no English players..It's bad for the game on just about every level. We dominated Euro for a decade with predominantly English players...Liverpool, Forest, Villa... Surely the main concern is for the England team... Which is now better than it was in the 80s - surely? How is the England team better than it was in the 80s? I'd say the situation is roughly the same. There's no doubt though, unless there is a limit on foreign players, things will get worse for the national team. Look at the situation now re goalkeepers - we struggle to identify any at the top level we can actually pick from. It'll be like that in most outfield positions soon enough, too. What makes me laugh about Arsenal is that Wenger spouted off earlier in the season how foreign ownership of English clubs is wrong, and how it dilutes the "Englishness" of the clubs, characteristically chosing not to "see" the irony of this from a man who regularly fields 11 foreigners.

That's a convenient stick to beat him with, but doesn't really stand up to scrutiny. He was out of management for just over a year (and managing Celtic, overcoming the Rangers dominance with very little money, and reaching a European final doesn't count as being out of management). Its not like he's been out of the game for a decade, is it?

Neglecting to mention the fact that the cost of O'Dreary getting Leeds to the EC semi final was pushing the club to the point of bankruptcy. Worth reflecting on when you consider where Leeds are now. O'Leary is a cheque book manager. Take his cheque book away and he hasn't got a clue. Also, if you think Roeder has a tendency to put his foot in his mouth and alienate the fans, then he's got nothing on O'Dreary. Debatable - for the first half of the season, the squad wasn't improved at all. We had Petrov in, yes, but we'd lost our best player of the season before (Milner) and had also lost De La Cruz, Berson and Djemba-Djemba (stop sniggering at the back!). We've been forced to borrow keepers from Crystal Palace, we've had to play players who didn't even have squad numbers at the start of the season. He brought Young, Carew and Maloney in in January. Maloney on the last day of the season and, despite some impressive performances, he's been lacking match fitness. Carew was a (great) swap for Baros. You can't really expect players to settle straight away, and i think we're seeing this with Young especially. But the performances in this bad patch have been much better than the results suggest, whereas those in the unbeaten run at the start of the season were largely worse than the results suggested. We've taken points from Chelsea and Liverpool, and were very unlucky to lose against Arsenal. I think you'd also have to be one-eyed in the extreme to suggest we deserved to lose in our match at your place. What has been evident this season is how much we'd slid last season. When he took the job, people said "he's got a job on his hands to keep them up", and that has proved the case. Then again, we're what, two points behind Newcastle and perfectly capable of a mid table finish with our run-in. What is important now is that the new owners and MON have pretty much the entire support behind them, and optimism for next season is absolutely sky high. You hinted at this, and you're absolutely right, if after next season things are still going badly, then that is the time to judge him, and there'll be plenty of us doing exactly that.