oldtype

Beat Nigeria 2-1 with a formation reminiscent of bielsa's for chile. Very happy with our new manager just based off this one game. The new boys he brought into the squad all preformed admirably and he seems to play a very detail-oriented, attractive brand of football.

Really? Out of all he's done THIS is the moment where you think he's crossed the line?

what if after 7 days, the deal collapses, then we have 7 less days to find a replacement. we should pull out of this deal now, as we don't seem committed to the deal (i.e. on loan deal), and marseille are f***ing us around Am I allowed to laugh at this Dave? I'm not getting whooshed again am I?

Is there anyone halfway decent out there for them to pick up? O'Neil has picked up a page from the Kevin Keegan playbook of resigning at the worst possible time.

Is it something in the water these days? Yeah, that sarcasm blocking s*** looks like it's got all the way to Seoul. Lovely. I'll hang my head in shame for the next hour now.

Is it something in the water these days?

What makes it decent? The fact that we haven't lost any of our better players? We are going up against opposition that is massively better than last years', promotion must have done our financial position a world of good, so I don't see why we couldn't expect a reasonable investment in the squad to give us a better chance of staying up..? What's happened is Ashley has lowered our expectations to the point where we are happy if anything but the worst happens.. Criminal how far we've fallen from grace in just a few years.. 1. It's a minor miracle that we haven't lost any of our better players. 2. Clubs are not lining up to sell players for nothing and players are not chomping at the bit to join a club who will be at best 12th~17th for the forseeable future. Given the circumstances, we've not done badly. Things have actually gone a lot better than I thought.

I've just had a revelation about what happened to Alan Smith. http://img159.imageshack.us/img159/5509/spacejamver13vv7.jpg Quick, somebody go find a giant alien hiding a glowing football.

I used an extreme example and could have used staying up instead of winning the league. Either one would have had the same result, thinking something might happen doesn’t change how you feel when something actually does happen. Whatever actually does happen is what determines how you feel about it. Am I the only one who has no idea what Mick is trying to say?

I actually think we've had a pretty decent transfer window for a team with no money and no short-to-medium-term prospects whatsoever.

My take on why this is dragging on so long is that Ben Arfa and his club are at a standstill. Ben Arfa has said "f*** you I want to play in the Prem let me go to Newcastle or I'm not discussing personal terms with anyone else." Marseille have said "f*** you we're not selling you to the team who's offering peanuts and a bag of crips, go sign for Hoffenheim or Benfica or have fun warming the bench all season."

That's like saying we should all think we're going to win the league then at least we'll enjoy the season, even if we go down. No it's not Have you seriously convinced yourself that the odds of us staying up are anywhere near as short as the odds of us winning the title?

Again, people have been saying this for weeks and I find it kind of funny. Three strikers out of the entire bottom half (Bent-24, Cole-10, and Rodallega) got double figures in the league last year. Strikers, excluding truly exceptional cases like Bent, do not just waltz around plugging 15 goals a season in relegation-threatened teams that struggle to create chances for them. I'm not saying you're wrong, of course we're going to stay up if we can get someone who can score 15 next season. But it's not realistic in any sense of the word. I'll consider it a great success if whoever's playing up front for us nets 8~9 next year. Putting forward "double figures" or "15" as if it's some sort of benchmark for a competent bottom-half striker is ridiculous. A lot of those teams have other players who chip in with goals, do we? And don't say Nolan. Bent, Cole and Rodallega would all walk into our side. Completely missing my point. To rephrase, why are we saying "we need a 15-goal striker or we're going down" when getting one is completely unrealistic for us or ANY of our rivals? Your missing my point we don't really have anyone who is an out and out goal threat at this level. Sun- Jones, Bent Wigan - Rodallega - Bosseli (1 in 2 for Etudiantes) West Ham (nearly relegated) Cole (Would have been at the WC bar injury), Diamate (7-22 from midfield) McCarthy 1-3 for Blackburn 1-2 for Porto. We don't really have a midfield that look like it's going to get too many goals between them, hence the need for at least one proper striker. I know what you're saying btw, but our team makeup won't balance out having s*** strikers at this level. The problem I wanted to point out was the absurdity of defining "out and out goal threat" as 12~15 goals. Teams at our level just don't get strikers of that caliber unless it's a freak accident (like Tevez at West Ham) or if there just very fortunately happens to be a proven Premiership goal scorer who's out of favor at his club and the owner decides to start shitting money out of his ass (like Bent.)

Yes because my life is depressing enough without having to convince myself that the football club I love is destined for failure.

Again, people have been saying this for weeks and I find it kind of funny. Three strikers out of the entire bottom half (Bent-24, Cole-10, and Rodallega) got double figures in the league last year. Strikers, excluding truly exceptional cases like Bent, do not just waltz around plugging 15 goals a season in relegation-threatened teams that struggle to create chances for them. I'm not saying you're wrong, of course we're going to stay up if we can get someone who can score 15 next season. But it's not realistic in any sense of the word. I'll consider it a great success if whoever's playing up front for us nets 8~9 next year. Putting forward "double figures" or "15" as if it's some sort of benchmark for a competent bottom-half striker is ridiculous. A lot of those teams have other players who chip in with goals, do we? And don't say Nolan. Bent, Cole and Rodallega would all walk into our side. Completely missing my point. To rephrase, why are we saying "we need a 15-goal striker or we're going down" when getting one is completely unrealistic for us or ANY of our rivals?

Again, people have been saying this for weeks and I find it kind of funny. Three strikers out of the entire bottom half (Bent-24, Cole-10, and Rodallega) got double figures in the league last year. Strikers, excluding truly exceptional cases like Bent, do not just waltz around plugging 15 goals a season in relegation-threatened teams that struggle to create chances for them. I'm not saying you're wrong, of course we're going to stay up if we can get someone who can score 15 next season. But it's not realistic in any sense of the word. I'll consider it a great success if whoever's playing up front for us nets 8~9 next year. Putting forward "double figures" or "15" as if it's some sort of benchmark for a competent bottom-half striker is ridiculous.

Guess how many strikers playing for bottom half teams got into double figures in the league last year.

Imagine if he broke his foot or something at st james. Would it be too crass of us to cheer?

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_srKLQ9PUso4/SfhqGPxas7I/AAAAAAAAAiA/DLSIaW7-K1s/s400/panic.jpeg Thread title change anyone?

Counting wages, should be approaching 15 million pounds now.

Doom-mongering right now is the safe option. If we stay up, we stayed up so you're happy. If we go down you can start blabbering on for the next year about how you "said this would happen from the beginning" and feign amazement at how "certain posters" couldn't see it coming.

very, very surprising - he misses so many chances it's untrue, if we were discussing with him i'd be dubious...can't see him flourishing in this league but roy has made worse players than him look good i suppose I agree, he's a brilliant player but he has never, ever, ever been a good finisher. Doesn't have the composure to be prolific anywhere. Could just be paper talk. There are also some fears that the Liverpool board are signing him specifically for the shirt sales.

My home club is giving out 2,000 free Vuvuzelas to home fans at our first match back from the summer break tomorrow to "recreate the atmosphere of the World Cup."

Park Chu-Young in negotiations with Liverpool apparently. Surprising that he'd move to an average mid-table Premiership club

If this is actually true then I'd certainly never call Chris Hughton "spineless" again. Would take absolute balls of steel to do this.