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Might as well make a swoop for Mourinho while we're at it. Hear that Essien lad of theirs is pretty canny too. Think we can get him for 2m? :lol:

Sadly, I don't think the club is going to be sold any time in the near future. Oh well, I'm still in my early twenties, I can wait. Fat Fred has got to leave eventually.... Right?

The next Ashley cole if FM is to be believed. So no, I don't have any idea how good he is Could be Babayaro's cousin for all we know.

I said the same thing about Joey Barton but... Reo Coker = Parker with personality problems. Less consistent too.

So enlighten me. In what way is Given "quality" but not World Class? What keepers in your views are actually "World Class?" I understood your point that you think a world class keeper should be good in all areas, but how do you address my points that nobody can conclusively say that Given is actually bad at all the things you accuse him of being bad at. While we're at it, if you actually think that Given is quality, why say that Either your making some contradictions here or your previous post was just blatant windup/attention seeking tongue.gif Oh, and btw it's just out of the goodness of my heart that I'm not even addressing your highly "interesting" comment that Krul is better than Given.

Not really, since I don't read other message boards. Mostly I'm basing this on the opinions of the supporters of other fans I know around me. A quick google search turned up this though. http://www.blackburn.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=32691

Thompers, I've been looking for a while and I still haven't found your brain. If there's one thing supporters of other clubs recognize it's that Given is World Class. In fact, the only people I've ever seen to shite him seems to be a small overly cynical segment of our own support. Given is quite literally second to none in shot-stopping. That can't be argued. Even ignoring all other aspects of his game, he is quite possibly the best in the world in the most important part of goalkeeping. That alone should mark him as a quality keeper. On top of that, I have no idea where this drivel about his box command and aerial ability being shite are coming from. Yes, he's not as good at those as he is at shot stopping, but in all my years of watching him play I have never seen any sort of conclusive evidence to tell me that his defense of the box or aerial ability is any less than that of a decent Premiership keeper. It also bears mention that the quality of the defense is probably one of the reasons that Shay looks less dominant in the box than he should. It's a lot easier to control the box with Thuram and Cannavaro than it is with Bramble and Boumsong. The only reason he keeps getting unduly attacked in these areas is because a. His godly shot-stopping ability makes them seem bad in comparison and b. Cynics will dig hard for ANYTHING to slag off a decent player with. For me, Shay's only weakness is that his distribution is admittedly utter shite. But I can live with this, to discard him for this weakness would be like writing off Henry because he can't score headers. I'm a realist. I know we're mid table, I know a lot of our players are shite, I know that Ameobi should probably be shipped off to the Championship ASAP. But, being a realist, the one fact that I can acknowledge without a doubt is that Shay Given is World Class.

I would sooner agree with a thread titled "support Sunderland." At least I can think up one good reason or so for that one. A. Keepers don't sell for much, the financial gain would be minimal. B. Harper is very good, but Shay is a friggin superhuman. C. It's not like he's 25 and will be keeping Krul out of the first team for the next 10 years or something. He'll be gone eventually when time calls. Before then? Let's content ourselves with counting our blessings.

Never say never... Roeder and Fat Fred managed to sell Amdy Faye for 2 milion pounds blueeek.gif They obviously have some talent in this department that they're not getting enough credit for tongue.gif

As long as he's not playing... Good news. All good news.

I disagree with the assertion that thrusting forth incisive long passes is a must for any great anchorman. Just take a look at Vieira, he isn't exactly a magical long-range passer (although I'll admit his short-range ability is class,) but he makes it up with his immense movement which gives him the capability to rush into the box and score the occasional goal. Something, incidentally, that Parker has shown that he is capable of doing. (Of course, he doesn't have Vieira's physical presence, but nobody here is accusing Parker of being one of the greatest holding midfielders in the history of football.) For that matter, I honestly don't see where all this "Butt is an amazing passer" talk is coming from either. Call me shortsighted but I honestly don't remember any instances in this season where a long-range killing pass from Butt has set up a goal for us. No, he's not exactly belting everything into the stands, but I'd only rate his passing ability as distinctly average. He seems to have marginally better vision than Parker does, but whether that makes him a significantly better player is debatable at best. Yes, Parker is not a distributor by any stretch of the word. His passing technique isn't exactly world class, and he seems to suffer from tunnel vision when he picks up the ball, only noticing players directly in front or behind him. But in my view these are weaknesses that can be overcome by his inherent strengths. The key to Scott Parker is his ridiculous spirit and stamina coupled with an instinctive knack for covering and constant off the ball movement. He knows where he has to be to stifle the opposing attack and he has the physical capability to get there. I think this is the main reason why he is so often slagged off as "invisible." All his good stuff happens off camera, where he's constantly running around and getting in the way. Couple this with some above-par offensive capabilities and I say you've got a potentially cracking anchorman. I won't dispute that Parker is suffering from some bad coaching, or that his leadership credentials are questionable at this point in his career. Both of those points are certainly true. However, I do not believe that they merit all this talking in absolutes, calling him "hopeless" and "must-sell." The way I see it, he's one of the only players in our squad that can honestly say that he is one of the best in the Premiership at what he does. The question we should be asking is not how to get rid of Scott Parker, but how to make him fit into our style of football. Until this is clearly a lost cause, I strongly argue that he should not be written off.

In my FM game, Bramble moved to Fulham and went on to be the core of their defense for 10 seasons. .... 8 of those were in the Championship. Lets hope this is a case of fiction reflecting reality

Better than nothing TBH. Look at our defense line. He's a body, SIGN HIM!

Souness had Shearer and even Owen from time to time. That, and even at his worst, his playing team was still better than his injured one. Roeder isn't class, but I say he's competent. Just a lot of bad luck all around really.

I don't care how smart you think you are, if you start finding reasons to piss on Shay, then your not just making sense anymore. soapbox.gif

We're blaming this on Parker AGAIN? Parker's DMFing yesterday was at least as good as Butt's best day, you know, the days when everyone is pissing all over themselves to call him Godly. We got slightly out-posessioned yesterday because they were Man-Frigging-United and we're just an average squad missing half our first team. NOT because of Parker. How does Scholes scoring goals immediately correlate to blame on Parker?

I don't think we were 'outpassed' in midfield because we've got crap players, its just that they've got better ones than us, simple really. When the teams were announced of the outfield players the only one of theirs who I felt wouldn't have automatically walked into our team today was Fletcher, and he's not too shabby to be truthful. It's not something to get too worked up about in my opinion (yet) as they are top of the league and playing like it, they are a very classy and attack minded team and at present we're not anywhere near them. They've been playing this type of football since at least the inception of the Premiership and it shows, especially when they have a settled and experienced team who all play in their correct positions ie wingers on the wing, fullbacks as fullbacks etc etc When they attacked, especially down the flanks, it was our tactic to double up on their winger, Milner & Solano, Dyer & Edgar, with Parker and Emre helping out too, that worked in one way but the downside was when we got the ball our wingers were behind the ball so Emre or Parker or whoever had the ball only usually had Sib and Martins ahead of them, who were both, in the main, well shackled by their defenders. The only option was to try and run with the ball and because we didn't have the bodies ahead of the ball, they could smother the ball-runner before he could get too far. While we did give the ball away a few times needlessly with an under-hit pass (Dyer and Solano stand out from memory), we also had some canny passing play, the build-up to Milner's goal especially. Granted they had the lions share of play but who to be honest didn't expect this, and overall, and under the circumstances, I think we did alright. Fantastic post. Aye, calling our midfield shite because it didn't live up to ManU standards... Sadly, that's expecting way too much of our lads. No team in the Premiership, or in the world for that matter, has been as fluid or graceful on the break as the Mancs have been this year, and we did what we could to stop them with what we had. You simply can't expect the same thing from us, we just don't have nor can we afford the talent. For a mid-table team with occasional European aspirations, I think our midfield is class. And until we make the step up, the like of parker and emre will more than do it for me.

If he WAS here right now, we'd probably be slagging him off to no end and blaming all our woes on his bad finishing. I mean, imagine if he had missed that penalty while playing for Newcastle. We'd have a 17-page thread titled "Louis Saha" with everyone and their mothers getting on the bandwagon to kick him in the nuts. The cries of "Saha Out" after every game would be deafening, and we'd probably sell him to Tottenham for 1.5 mil, where he'd go on to score 15 a season. Funny though, inconsistent, injury-prone, easy target for knee-jerkers.... The lad has all the hallmarks of a Newcastle player.

Dream day for Edgar. Pulled a Santiago Munez, he did.

Well yes, but if not for a few lucky clearances, not to mention the fact that my countryman is a really, really horrendous finisher, we'd have been down 4~5 goals. The result is all that matters tbh. And I'd be happy with this result if we were fielding a full-strength team, never mind a reserve squad

Nah, somewhere deep down, even Fat Fred has a brain. If this is at all true, Glenn should threaten to shoot himself unless it's called off. Liverpool offloading Crouch may be plausible though, considering that they'll have ample money in the window for replacements. It's just that 12m is a crazy-land fee.

Not too bothered. Amazing as it must seem, losing matches actually does happen from time to time. And it would just be a truly horrible reflection on our collective intelligence as fans if we took one bad day to mean that our boys are shite again. Going to a tough away fixture with a fourth-choice keeper in goal and a defense line with two reservists and no players over 24, something bad was bound to happen. If there was ever a game that we should've expected the worst from, this was probably it. What I'm more worried about right now is our "new" injury crisis, which is arguably scarier than our old one. With Given, Harper, and Krul still unconfirmed for both Everton and Manure, and Nobby apparently swept off into the twilight zone once again, it seems we'll be forced to face the most testing time of the year with a uber-makeshift defense that can't be termed as anything more than a disaster waiting to happen. Not to mention that Dyer and Emre both seem to be playing slightly injured as well. We're pretty much one unlucky training ground incident for Butt from going 5-0 down to Manure at home.

The way I see it, Joey Barton is basically just Scott Parker but with personality problems. (waits for the flames to fall) Definitely agree with Taiwo/Baines, but if the big clubs are on the prowl, I guess we wouldn't have a chance. Arsenal is looking desperate for a LB, so I guess they'll pick up Baines. Why the **** does Inter want Taiwo anyway? Don't they already have like 30 leftbacks on the first team? In a quaint bit of nepotism, I'd personaly like to suggest Lee Young-Pyo. Was a good preformer last year, and is in my opinion a good deal less shaky defensively than he gets blamed for. Jol was a crazy bastard to ditch him for Ekotto TBH. He wants out of Tottenham and would probably come on the cheap (3 mil at most). Deal to Roma in the summer fell through because he didn't want to move out of England, so we'd be an ideal spot.

Admittedly, he's been rather impressive every time I've seen Watford play. Did a cracking job against the Manure early in the season tbh. Definitely not the kind of complete package we need though. Chances of turning into Bramble II = 35%

Finally showing all that Football Manager promise This is blatantly knee-jerk, but I could see this being a 15-goal season for Martins. Go Oba!