oldtype

God, thank you so much for Shay Given.

shouldn't have been disallowed. Oh well, not like we deserve a goal. Ronaldo in full-on sulking, pouting, crybaby mode. That's a positive for us.

Considering the other thing's he's doing, I think I'm willing to forgive him.

if anything I'd bring off Owen for Viduka. Don't know why it wasn't that way in the first place.

Almost giving away a penalty aside, we would certainly have conceded by now without Smith's tackles.

Smith just pulls him down inside the box. My God, where is this man's brain.

Not a bad shot considering that he was under pressure and on his right foot. Ronaldo fucking diving again.

And there is so long left Starving children could use food, doesn't mean they're gonna get it.

Please don't jinx it.

Woohoo, shot on goal!

I'd say this looks more like Roeder tactics than Allardyce tactics

definitely 4-5-1 with Smith and Butt holding.

pray this won't be too painful. I feel like I'm at the dentist's waiting on a root canal.

You're joking right? Says more about Britain than it does about Allardyce tbh.

I fail to see why West Ham would want to sell their best striker (maybe best player, period) for anything other than completely silly money. It's not like they're a selling club anymore, and I doubt Ashton will be up in arms about wanting to go to Newcastle. Realistically we should be looking at maybe one midfielder and one defender. And Crouch if he gets thrown at us for 8m or less I suppose.

Realistically who would you have? If Citeh can get Sven, that's the minimum calibre of manager we should be looking at. Assuming we are aiming for European football once more, it'd be nice to have someone with a little experience of it. ...again it comes down to ambition, research and selling th club in the correct manner. There seems a slim chance it might not be Nappy. ...of course it might then be McClown. Waiting with baited breath. City is the one example I don't think anyone can argue with. Spurs less so because they were in a false position when they sacked Jol and always have the bright lights of London. But City were going nowhere just like we are. They finished 14th last year. A mid-table team with a couple of good players, but with 'no chance' of attracting a world renowned manager like Sven-Goran Eriksson. They got rich, new ownership and got in a manager lots of people mocked but all knew was of top class calibre. They now look set for good things. We need to try the same. Well, I suppose we could wait until the next time a world-class manager ruins his reputation by catastrophically failing at the England job. Capello in 2 years?

Well, so much for this then. He's an idiot really. 90,000 pound a week? Maybe he just didnt' want to come and this is his way of saying no.

Very good player, but a complete ass. Probably my least favorite footballer attitude-wise. What are we trying to collect the biggest asses from every squad now, is that it?

Look, if the stuff on SSN is true, then obviously Ashley is in love with Redknapp and will lavish him with support/money etc. Given that one of the failings of the Allardyce regime was his ambivalent relationship with the board, Redknapp could very easily be successful given 100% backing from Ashley, Mort, and Ashley's checkbook. The man's a decent manager, and he's taken a relegation-threatened team and turned it into arguably the best side out of the pack that's hunting for 5th place. I'd rate him slightly higher than Sam, much higher if we take into account the fact that he has a reputation for "good football." I'm not saying that he's "the one" who'll bring balance to the Force and take us to the top six, but he deserves a chance. We dare not have this mentality that we'll immediately turn against any appointment that isn't Mourinho or Lippi or some other unrealisticlaly qualified foreign manager. If he comes, let's back him.

Hiddink in the summer after Euros! Sorry. Drunk.

I figure if Mourinho doesn't have us in the top 7 by the end of the season fans will find ways to hate him as well. "Useless without Roman's checkbook..." "Completely unproven in a top league aside from Chelsea." "Chelsea doing just fine without him..." "Avraam Grant is a much better manager. Plays better football too."

would it be spamming if I started a "I will do something crazy if the club appoints Mourinho" thread as well?

I've got nothing against fans of other clubs coming here to offer their opinions, but honestly, can we just ban the one that only come here to gloat whenever this club is in crisis? Not that I think we've got a chance of getting Mourinho or Lippi, but there's no reason we should have to deal with this sort of tone tbh.

Now that Big Sam's been sacked, what's going to happen to his signings? I'm not even worried about the ones that've been shit, like Rozhenal, Smith, and Geremi. They'll either get better or be frozen out of the team by the new manager. (I'd hope that we'd see some improvement from Geremi, at least.) But what about those who've been playing well, like Beye and Faye? Will Big Sam leaving have a negative effect on them? I'm particularly worried about Faye. He seems to have a close relationship with Big Sam, and if I recall correctly he wanted out of Bolton as soon as Big Sam signed for us. Would hate for his preformances to go down now that Big Sam's gone.

Non-Shearer, Non-Foreign... Dare I even speculate? This space is reserved for everyone to give words to the excruciating pain they would feel if we indeed did the unthinkable and appointed Steve McClaren as new manager. Mr. Mort, I hope you're watching Well, I can't really threaten to stop going to games... So err... I suppose I'll burn my replica shirts and stop buying any more. Anyone else want to join in?