oldtype

I was at Upton Park a few months ago and there was this hilarious deja vu moment where a West Ham fan next to me stood up and screamed at him to "stop doing those f***ing pirouette turn things." He's always been a pretty decent player with a couple notable flaws, even when he was at his worst for us. It isn't that he's suddenly gotten any better it's just that both the manager and the fans had some pretty unreasonable expectations for him in his last year here. I'd certainly have him back, especially after two years of Butt as first choice CM.

I can see him leaving. He's obviously only around 50/50 about sticking around here and the board would certainly love to shift his high wages. Hopefully we'll turn a profit on his fee and sell him abroad, would hate to see him scoring against us.

In some ways I kinda wish Mike Ashley hadn't failed so miserably in his first two years here just to see how NE5 would have adapted.

I remember I was so excited the first time I was at SJP that I brought back a whole bunch of napkins from the concession stand just because they had the club crest on them. I still have them stacked up on my dresser at home. Such a tourist

Think Pompey/us is about his level. He's a brilliant player on his day but maddeningly inconsistent. He'd go a long way towards fixing one of our biggest deficiencies, so I would love to have him.

You've stumbled upon a brilliant, succint description for the decision making capabilities of our current board.

Always nice to put those on the scoreboard just to make the ref look like more of a mug.

nowt to say then ? Just joking man, I'm pretty bored, we all know spending money improves your chances of doing well, but it's not a given, you need the right manager, the right scouts and the right amount of money but you can do well without spending massive amount if you have the right manager e.g. Moyes and Everton. on the other hand, if you are lucky enough to get a decent manager, and it IS a lottery, and don't back him, he'll be off. Like Moyes, unless Everton are taken over or it all suddenly goes tits up for him. When you say "do well", how well do YOU want to do ? It's a lottery getting a good manager? No it's a skill, not an easy one but it is definately a skill. is it now ? We'll see how easily Arsenal replace Wenger and ManU replace Ferguson. Or Everton replace Moyes .......... Even a "good manager" isn't necessarily the "right manager", which I suppose adds credence to NE5's "lottery" theory. Bit simplistic on the whole though, as usual. you mean "realistic", as usual. Which also, as usual, too many people fail to grasp. were you happy with the kinnear appointment ? hey getting a good manager is a lottery right,surely theres as much chance getting a s*** one to turn out good results as there is a good one turning out bad to your thinking or maybe you are piffling again in anattempt to detect any criticism from the your beloved fred ? (conversly it must work with players aswell...shevchenko,veron,woodgate at real,keane at liverpool......good players who didn't do it so surely it means it's pointless spending big as these players prove it works) i'll stop you in your tracks........."back your manager"............what with ? where was the money going to come from......at this point you mention the debt of others and as always i mention the debt of the top 4 is different to ours as they are making money aside from those with sugar daddies where as we have consistently made losses (not a good scenario when begging to the banks with few assets left to hock). look at the other clubs who,like us have lived beyond their means,they are all cutting right back and ask yourself what liverpools or arsenals spending would be like if they missed out on the champs league for 3 or 4 years ? often on here you have alluded to others having thir heads in the sand but it is clear the one one doing an ostrich is yourself in relation to the position fred left us in. silly. Especially when there are still people hell bent on defending Ashley to the bitter end, and I mean bitter end = relegation and with little chance of coming back. Pleased for you that you still appear to write off all those european qualifications and champions league appearances and the manner in which they were achieved. Still, nobody is "embarrassing us" any more, right ? BORING ! we've covered the euro qualifications to death as that has little to do with the position we were in spring 2007. defending ashley to the bitter end......like you defending fred ? i never mentioned being embarassed by fred's utterences. nice to see you keep your head in the sand re our position when fred left. you mentioned Shepherd, not me, with a silly childish comment. Yep, I will "defend" anybody who gave me the only 15 years out of 45 that tried to compete at the levels this club should always compete at, and thus gave me the best most consistent and highest league positions as a result. As I've said before. Then you should be happy that your season ticket money is going towards paying the bills he racked up in the process. The alternative is of course, only supporting the club when they are winning, as you did when the Halls and Shepherd took over [if you even did that] Was that the Hall/Shepherd era where we were nearly relegated from the 1st division? Or the Hall/Shepherd era where we were finishing 13th in the league despite the big spending? nah, the Hall/Shepherd who took over a club days from bankruptcy, getting 15000 gates and couldn't be sold for 1.25m quid, that became a club filling a 52000 all seater stadium, playing in the champions league, qualifying for europe more than anybody but 4 clubs, and was valued at anything between 100m and 200m quid. I am sorry you feel the need to scorn the big spending that did all of that, what a shame you would have preferred solvency and 2nd division obscurity instead of beating Barcelona and playing in the San Siro. You really are one blinkered old man aren't you. Who said I didn't appreciate the wonderful football we have experienced, but you paint the Hall/Shepherd days with such rose-tinted spectacles. You fail to see what it has cost this club to get these things. You know I wouldn't prefer to be in the 2nd division, but a happy medium of the club not being whored out to pay for the fabulous football we saw would have been nice, do you not think? As for the £100-£200 million quid. Are you happy that Sir John Hall and Fred Shepherd pocketed over £180 million between them when this club was sold, especially since Sir John Hall stood on the steps of St James when he first bought the club and stated he wasn't in it for the money! YEAH RIGHT! oh dear. Resorting to insults. How old are you ? I'm not old you daft bugger, and I'm in good health too. If you don't want to listen to others who have seen things [without meaning to sound patronising] then you really do have a serious problem, and are talking like a naive teenager. I don't believe you saw the mediocrity of the 1970's and 1980's if you think the souness, Roeder and Allardyce league positions were mediocre league positions. Sorry like, but I don't. I believed you at first but your own comments have gave me the impression I now have. I have no idea what makes you think I am happy with money going out of the club. All I have said is that the Halls and Shepherd are by far the best owners we have had in 50 years, in fact, the ONLY good owners in that time. To that extent, they deserved something, for the job they did and the initial risks they took, taking over the club in the state it was in. And don't compare the state of the club in 1991 to now, because believe me, it was miles apart. but we're in the same league position now as we were when shepherd left, so its not the league positions you care about? but how much money we spend? seems weird. I don't ever remember us being in such a relegation scrap under Shepherd's tenure though. point taken, but remember we're always only one or two results away from being out of it (just as much as the opposite is true i understand). but to criticise ashley on current league position while stating that the souness roeder allardyce finishes were not mediocre is hypocritical, whereas to criticise ashley on financial grounds is at best naive and at worst a blatant agenda. I really don't know how many times this has to be said. A board that backs their manager and shows ambition will always be better than one who choose not to. i agree, however i feel thats over simplifying the issue somewhat, dont you? in light of the clubs current financial status? You mean seeing 2 of our best players, one of whom has been a fabric of the club and couldn't wait to get away, and our captain to follow soon, is over-simplifying ? I don't think so. In fact, its frightening. no thats not what i mean because thats not what i said. i dont really think thats relevant to backing the manager? as it opens a whole load of other issues regarding whether jfk wanted given and n'zogbia to stay, what the club did to keep them etc, so lets not side track. i agree with you that boards should back their managers financially, but given the clubs finances at present, how should the board be providing more than they currently are? I'm not sure either, but maybe Shay Given could shed some light on it ? As well as Keegan and Owen ? Don't you find their actions tell you something ? i reckon they'd tell you they left cos the club aint going to be challenging anytime soon (and i would say it it was down to the financial mess we are in) you would say we should have kept on borrowing to keep these players ,cross your fingers and hope we find success before the banks say "no" or "err can we have our money back please" I understand what you and the others are saying. You wish we hadnt' played in the Champions League rather than aim for a relegation and solvency, and you think every club except us is successful, always appoint the right man, and make profits at the same time you must surely accept though that if mistakes are made and things dont go as planned, there MUST be a period of re-building? Not that I have any sort of intention of getting involved in this debate at all, but I think it's worth noting that our spending during Shepherd's last two windows was pretty Ashley-esque in his scope. We had quite clearly run out of money after the Owen and Luque fiascos. If the sale had never happened I wouldn't be surprised if Shepherd himself would be telling the fans right now that mistakes had been made financially and that we needed a period of moderation.

One thing to hope for. In addition he now has Calderwood, and I doubt JFK could withdraw fully from NUFC, he'll watch the highlights and pass on any advice on if needed. How bad are things when we're pinning our hopes on advice from JFK?

I'm upset about the fact that the club just blew off a golden opportunity to amicably cut ties with Joe Kinnear and appoint a manager that's actually qualified for the job that can save us from relegation in the short term and offer some mid-table stability for a few years. Who the f*** was talking about CL qualification? Instead, they've chosen to take a massive gamble on our Premiership status by leaving us effectively managerless until the end of the season, all because they're desperate to offer a long term contract to a manager who's not only f***ing s***, completely insane, and utterly out of his depth, but who also shouldn't be doing the job for his own health's sake. What about that decision makes sense to you? I'd really like to know. Nothing about the decision makes any sense to me! I never said that. All I said was, what or who the hell were people expecting us to bloody employ? Guus Hiddink? Phil Scolari? Do you really believe that Ashley thinks Kinnear is a better manager than those two? Do you really believe Ashley continues to employ Kinnear because he thinks he's the dog's bollocks of football management? Besides. I'll think about maybe busting a nut when the club confirm via the official website that Hughton is in charge for the rest of the season, with NO new manager coming in, and that Kinnear has in fact signed "the contract" and will be staying on for 2 more seasons. I wasn't expect Scolari or Hiddink. What I was expecting was having a manager at all. There are plenty of managers out there currently with a Championship club or unemployed that we could bring in to keep us up and give us stability for a couple of years. The fact that they didn't even try was worse than criminal. You know that Kinnear will sign the contract on his hospital bed and will be here for the foreseeable future. That's the only logical explanation. Ok mate. Give me a link to where it states for a fact that "they didn't even try". Thanks. I'm sure they approached plenty of managers in the 24 hours since they realized Kinnear had to have surgery before reaching their decision to do nothing.

Rather, other clubs are in the s***, so we must dive in headfirst ourselves to compete. How dare we be financially solvent!

I'm upset about the fact that the club just blew off a golden opportunity to amicably cut ties with Joe Kinnear and appoint a manager that's actually qualified for the job that can save us from relegation in the short term and offer some mid-table stability for a few years. Who the f*** was talking about CL qualification? Instead, they've chosen to take a massive gamble on our Premiership status by leaving us effectively managerless until the end of the season, all because they're desperate to offer a long term contract to a manager who's not only f***ing s***, completely insane, and utterly out of his depth, but who also shouldn't be doing the job for his own health's sake. What about that decision makes sense to you? I'd really like to know. Nothing about the decision makes any sense to me! I never said that. All I said was, what or who the hell were people expecting us to bloody employ? Guus Hiddink? Phil Scolari? Do you really believe that Ashley thinks Kinnear is a better manager than those two? Do you really believe Ashley continues to employ Kinnear because he thinks he's the dog's bollocks of football management? Besides. I'll think about maybe busting a nut when the club confirm via the official website that Hughton is in charge for the rest of the season, with NO new manager coming in, and that Kinnear has in fact signed "the contract" and will be staying on for 2 more seasons. I wasn't expect Scolari or Hiddink. What I was expecting was having a manager at all. There are plenty of managers out there currently with a Championship club or unemployed that we could bring in to keep us up and give us stability for a couple of years. The fact that they didn't even try was worse than criminal. You know that Kinnear will sign the contract on his hospital bed and will be here for the foreseeable future. That's the only logical explanation.

I'm upset about the fact that the club just blew off a golden opportunity to amicably cut ties with Joe Kinnear and appoint a manager that's actually qualified for the job that can save us from relegation in the short term and offer some mid-table stability for a few years. Who the f*** was talking about CL qualification? Instead, they've chosen to take a massive gamble on our Premiership status by leaving us effectively managerless until the end of the season, all because they're desperate to offer a long term contract to a manager who's not only f***ing s***, completely insane, and utterly out of his depth, but who also shouldn't be doing the job for his own health's sake. What about that decision makes sense to you? I'd really like to know.

yes please!

I've always found that argument laughable as f***. If I've arrived 10 minutes late, I'd like to know the score without having to ask people around me. If somebody's scored while I'm off at the bathroom, I'd like to know as well. The whole "if you can't pay attention you shouldn't be here!" thing has always seemed like one of the most ridiculous parts of the Geordie soopafan myth to me. Stadiums should have scoreboards. It's not tinpot it's common sense. Why is it so hard to ask the score? And as if you'd not know if someone scored when you were having a piss. Have you ever been to SJP? Yes, but as you might recall, I've never seen us score there

I honestly haven't been this angry for a long, long time. How the fuck do they persist on making exactly the wrong decision every fucking time. Beggars belief. Ashley and the village of idiots he has making decisions for him really don't have the slightest, slightest clue. Just fuck off.

fucking idiots. They need to be fucking shot. Seriously, what a bunch of complete monkeys. How can they not see the writing on the wall? Houghton leading us the Championship this season and then Kinnear back on for the foreseeable future. I give up. What a fucking joke.

I've always found that argument laughable as f***. If I've arrived 10 minutes late, I'd like to know the score without having to ask people around me. If somebody's scored while I'm off at the bathroom, I'd like to know as well. The whole "if you can't pay attention you shouldn't be here!" thing has always seemed like one of the most ridiculous parts of the Geordie soopafan myth to me. Stadiums should have scoreboards. It's not tinpot it's common sense.

Silly of me to relax my assumption that whenever Ashley and Llambias have to make a choice, they'll make the wrong one. If they're honestly not thinking about a replacement, we're odds on to go down.

Tore Andre Flo See, that's what Dennis Wise is for

I'd love Advocaat here, probably my number one choice. Has Zenit playing some very good and attractive football. Don't see him leaving them though, unfortunately. I honestly think he's almost on par with Hiddink tactially. Had some serious man management issues when he was down here though, now that I think of it.

In all seriousness, Advocaat is a good shout as well. Very underrated manager. We should have tried to hold on to him after the 2006 WC.

Iran's keeper has been absolutely phenomenal today by the way. Given-esque shot stopping ability. Sign him?

Cool, I'd like to see South Korea do well again, enjoyed their exploits in 2002. We've got a great group of young players and hopefully they'll mature before 2010 to save us from an utter embarrassment. God we're s*** today. Seeing us trying to play carpet football makes you yearn for some good 'ol Big Sam style long ball. EDIT: Jisung Park scored almost the moment I hit post

They'll be second in the group until about twenty minutes later. It's not going to happen really. There's a fairly large gulf between us, Iran and everyone else in the group.