oldtype

I know you've only used him as an example, but I don't think we could get Bentley now whichever board we were under. He's playing well for a team above us and on the verge of the England squad. We'd be a sideways step for him. one step backwards or sideways, 2 steps forward is how I would see it. Moving to Newcastle from Blackburn would be a complete no-brainer for most players. You don't know if you don't try. And I wouldn't use our current position as an excuse to settle for 2nd best. Players generally don't want to go through the trouble of uprooting themselves/leaving supportive fans and established teammates in order to go to another club unless there's a significant gain though. While I certainly agree that we're a more attractive club than Blackburn in the abstract, regardless of where we are on the table at any given time, I don't think we're more attractive enough to get a player to go through the difficulties of a move just to come to us. Unless we're going to be offering these "sideways step" players double what they're earning right now... And we all know where that got us in the past. On a completely unrelated side note, Blackburn would probably ask for at least 20m for Bentley. And rightfully so.

People should also consider the fact that the Premiership is getting stronger and stronger every year. Teams who actually have long term plans - Everton, Portsmouth, Villa, Blackburn etc. get exponentially harder to beat year by year as their teams gel and the manager is able to shape the squad in his image. Even other teams who lack that kind of long-term thinking such as Man City and West Ham have made huge steps up some years (like this one) by spending cash and getting lucky on a couple of signings. The Premiership as a whole is also just getting better and better as more money flows into it and it slowly eclipses La Liga and Serie A as the world's biggest football league. While everyone else has been getting better, we took huge backwards steps under Souness and Roeder. Naturally, it's going to be a difficult job for Sam to not only get us on the path to recovery but also to make up for the already wide gap between us and other mid table teams.

People have really, really short memories concerning how horrible we were under Roeder. Compare yesterday to the corresponding fixture last year (0-1 to Man City) does anyone honestly believe that we played worse than we did then?

shorter, faster Ameobi.

Getting "one or two players to instantly improve our squad" is a LOT more difficult than it sounds, even if money is not the object. We have to make the cold assessment: who that's better than what we already have is available and will sign for Newcastle United? I think we're all in agreement that the GK position doesn't need improvement, even with Given's drop in form. Centre Back? Taylor/Faye/Cacapa have proven to be mostly competent. To get a significant improvement you would need to find someone on par with the likes of Dunn/Lescott/Distin etc. Who in England has that ability and isn't already at a club better off than we are? Fullbacks? Beye has us covered on the right, and a good specialty left back is just about the rarest commodity in Europe right now. Central midfield? Faye has proven he can play the holding role quite well, and Butt has put in good shifts for the most part. We don't need another defensive midfielder. As for creative OMFs, good luck finding one available in England. There are a lot of names from the continent being bandied about, but how many of them don't have bigger clubs sniffing at them? And let's not forget that a few years ago Emre was a "highly promising creative player from Europe" as well. Wingers? On the left side, who that we could sign woud be better than Zog and Duff? I suppose the right wing is one area we could potentially improve, although immediate targets escape me. Strikers? As much as we hate them, we are not capable of signing anyone with the quality to push Viduka, Owen, Smith, or Martins out of the first team. (Anelka and Berbatov? Nothing more than pipe dreams.) The only way out of this dilemma for us is to scout quality players in smaller leagues abroad before other teams do (difficult, considering that our scouting network has been in shambles for years,) or to pick up scraps from the bigger clubs like we've been doing for a while now. (The likes of Sidwell, Ben Haim, Brown, Crouch) Of course, in the second case we'd have to be competing with other mid table clubs as well, not to mention the fact that this strategy hasn't exactly worked wonders for us in the past. (cf: Babayaro, Parker, Duff, Owen, Smith) Overall, it's not a matter of us only making "squad-padding" signings because we're overly cautious. Making "instant impact" quality signings is possibly one of the most difficult things for a mid table club like us to do. And I dont' see it happening this winter, no matter how much money we have.

I've dropped the high quality def approach of late. Why? Good defs cost about 2/3 what good strikers and mids do and deliever points about as if not even more consistently. I've gone 4-5-1 because I figured shelling out on two quality strikers is a waste of time. As efficient as good midfielders are, I'm even considering 5-4-1 since defenders are so dirt cheap.

This thing is starting to feel increasingly futile for me because everyone's teams are gradually becoming the same so no matter how well I score, everyone else who's still trying will score well as well. I might pass a few people who've stopped bothering and no longer update their teams, but I don't think I'll ever make any signifcant gains from my current position because everyone above me pretty much has 6~7 of the same players I have. (And the high scoring ones, too) Basically everyone has Ronaldo and either Gerrard or Fabregas, and some combination of Barry/Bentley/Petrov/Elano + Maybe one low cost midfielder (usually Dempsey) and some combination of Laursen/Distin/Lescott/Ferdinand/Cambell/Vidic in the back, and either Green or James in goal. There's a bit of variation in strike forces, but that's only because they're the least efficient cost-per-points so a lot of people are willing to cut some corners. Ultimately the game just seems to come down to who can best guess the form players of the season before it starts, since after we're a few weeks in it's dead-on easy to identify who's going to have a good year. I mean, not that I'm expecting super-depth from a free web-based fantasy game, but still...

Mate, if you think we're playing relegation football today then I'm sorry but you're either blind or precisely the type of "fan" that is bringing this club down. Ironic that you'd mention fans being "disloyal and unprofessional."

Duff looks... Fast. That's unexpected. Not that he's playing well, but just trying to find some positives.

Surely not. As for the game, I think it will either be us nicking a 0-0 draw or playing well and losing 0-1. No matter how shit we are, we very rarely get absolutely hammered by the big 4 clubs (Liverpool home this year excepted.)

Well, thank God for that. Korean tabloid writers must be projectile vomiting right around now.

There is a bar that shows footy and often has our matches on in Itaewon. The South Korean supporters group heads over there on matchdays sometimes. And I'm sure it'll be much easier to catch our matches anywhere once the Cho deal is tied up, since MBC-ESPN will probably pick up all of them as they've already done for ManU, Spurs, Boro, and Fulham.

Fuck. This club is cursed.

A Korean started this thread. Another Korean has added his comments. (hint: they both say "s***") To be fair both of them are clueless and know jack all about football. Cho is one of the best Korean players. Probably the best after Park Ji Sung and possibly Tottenham's Lee Young Pyo. He's good in the air, a good targetman, and despite what people think he DOES score goals, the reason he can't score for Korea is the same reason why our strikers can't score, the whole team is s*** and he gets no supply. Supply is so limited, he only gets around 1 good opportunity per match, if he misses that single opportunity, the whole nation blasts him as wasteful infront of goal. I'd rather start Smith infront of him (though I do think Cho would score more goals than Smith), but I say he can be more of a threat than Ameobi because of his ability to link up with teammates. If we get him I'd put him as our 5th choice striker. Viduka-Martins, Owen, Smith, Cho. Encouraging. Yes but we're hardly trying to sign a 1st choice striker are we? Surely Big Sam is looking for a top midfielder and a backup striker when Martins goes to ACN and Owen gets injured? Quite a sly bit of selective bolding there, but give him supply and he will score goals, he can't score because he gets no supply. Though that is a massive problem with us at the moment. I don't see much truth to this rumour anyway, we really should be concentrating on a creative central midfielder and a right winger to challenge Milner for a 1st team spot. "f*** the other South Koreans! He's not bad! He's just worse than everybody we have except Ameobi." Wonderful ringing endorsement. For the record, I know enough about football, I know he's s***, and a lot of South Korean Toon fans rate Ameobi ahead of him. He hasn't got a patch on Park or Lee, even ignoring the fact that it's sort of impossible to compare a winger and a fullback to a striker. I would be pleasantly surprised if he has a better experience with us than Luque did.

....eh?

A Korean started this thread. Another Korean has added his comments. (hint: they both say "s***") nice one mate the future looks bright and even boro can have a laugh at us now (not that its a time for them to laugh at the minute but ironic all the same) . "We've got the best Korean striker, you've got the second best Korean striker, and they're both shit!" good times.

By how I just told you who?

A Korean started this thread. Another Korean has added his comments. (hint: they both say "shit")

Mort: Sam, we need some $$$$, find me an Asian player. Big Sam: Hmm... Where can I find a big, strong, Asian grafter with absolutely no skill whatsoever... Aha! sadly not far from the truth I think.

but he wont sell shirts as oldtype said they think he is s**** Think of it as the equivalent of buying Emile Heskey to improve your popularity in England.

possibly. Quite popular with the ladies as well, so more similarities there.

These rumors started earlier this week and I wrote them off as tabloid talk, but the player's agent is now claiming a "done deal," so I suppose I might as well post it just in case. South Korean international striker Cho Jae-Jin is apparently set to sign for us pending a medical. Korean sources report that the parties have already reached an agreement and the player has traveled to England for a medical. According to his agent, the deal is done and he will be confirmed as a toon player in a matter of days. The player is coming on a free form Japanese club Simizu S-Pulse, and is reported to be getting an 18 month contract with around 10,000pw in wages. He's allegedly rejected offers from several other premiership clubs, including Fulham and West Ham. --------- Let it be said, if these rumors are true I'm jumping right on to the "sack sam" bandwagon. > Is everyone familiar with soon-to-be-former Boro striker Lee Dong-Gook, who's scored a scinitillating 0 goals in 18 league appearances? This is the guy who gets constantly kept out of the South Korea first team by him. Strong, good in the air, good work rate, just can't score. There is absolutely nothing good about him other than the fact that he's on a free. For fucks sake, he won't even sell any shirts. Even the South Koreans hate him.

THAT really would be bad times My God, maybe I should just cut myself off from footy and the internet for five months and just check what's happened to us at the end of the season. It would be much better for my sanity.

Hope he approaches Sam after the game and asks him what the fuck is going on. Cripes.

Chelsea away? Only if you consider conceading 5 to be playing excellent. It's perfect actually, we'll nick a hard-fought draw which will ameliorate the fans while also having a minimal effect on our league position so we can drop down further later when we're playing teams we should be beating again. ...God, my pessimism is startling even me.