mrmojorisin75

We do?! Based on what? Based on the fact we're not losing like a lot of the teams around us. Based on the fact that we're only just below mid table in the Premiership form guide since Kinnear arrived. Based on the fact that we've got plenty of games left to play. On what do you base not having hope? Nothing more then "I can't see us beating them", I couldn't see us beating Villa or taking a point off Chelsea, results will crop up that we don't expect, otherwise we'd be betting milionaires. The fact is if the form we're under since Kinnear arrived, disapointing as a lot of the results have been, we'll be safe on 42 points. I'm worried like anyone else because we could get worse, but what I don't understand is the panic that's going around, people thinking we're doomed, that it looks bleak ect. I can only imagine people aren't really looking at the facts as closely as I am. my own personal pessimism revolves around the fact i see no way kinnear will improve us over the rest of the season, i honestly believe this is as good as it will get under him, in fact i think it'll probably get worse we've difficult games to play, like everyone else, but we're not picking up anywhere near enough points in his "honeymoon period" for me...make no mistake he'll have a bad patch, how bad only time will tell

certain people really have forgotten, or never got at all, the feeling around supporting & watching the club from bobby leaving onwards, largely because of ashley i haven't, i honestly believed we'd eventually get relegated under the old board, their ineptitude seemed to know no bounds after the robson appointment, in fact even during that when they were making the poor old fella look like a mug on the sky cameras with the rooney bid being released the old board did some top stuff but people with memories know it was coming apart at the seams, with 100m+ of debt and the current credit crisis it would have taken a FUCKING good manager to get us back to the CL imo I see the smoggies have released their end of year accounts, and they are 93m quid in the red, and they haven't built a stadium like we have done, nor do they have our support. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Expect to see flak for Steve Gibson and warnings that the club may fold ? i fail to see what this has to do with the topic at hand really, couldn't give monkeys about 'boro

certain people really have forgotten, or never got at all, the feeling around supporting & watching the club from bobby leaving onwards, largely because of ashley i haven't, i honestly believed we'd eventually get relegated under the old board, their ineptitude seemed to know no bounds after the robson appointment, in fact even during that when they were making the poor old fella look like a mug on the sky cameras with the rooney bid being released the old board did some top stuff but people with memories know it was coming apart at the seams, with 100m+ of debt and the current credit crisis it would have taken a FUCKING good manager to get us back to the CL imo

just occurred to me to look at the dutch league & i see twente are 3rd after 14 games not bad, anyone know anything about it? how he's doing...

for your first question the answer is: if you want to, why not, some people might like to discuss it but you're right imo, the demise under ashley isn't in any way attributable to FS or the old board, and i repeat IN ANY WAY

piss poor

oh and apisith, you really should have put something in the OP about the slightest mention of mike ashley in this thread getting you a weeks ban from the forum, although i realise that's not possible...but still

personally i think it would have all ended very, very badly indeed...allardyce is not the kind of man you want spending heavily so he'd have wheeled & dealed for 2-3 seasons while the board balanced the books after the souness fiasco probably slow progress up the table into the top half with mind-destroyingly bad football then we'd have hit break point, either let allardyce spend some money or get a new manager in to do that and hope FS & the board could choose the right man to move us on i personally would have had faith in neither scenario

He did, on occasion... The Summer of 03 for one. To be fair, johnny, Shepherd spent our future income by giving money to Souness. If we hadn't been bought out by Ashley, I doubt that we'd have spent much in the past couple of seasons (yes, I know we haven't spent anything so it makes no difference anyway). Of course, this is just conjecture but we took a risk with Souness which didn't pan out. Imo, the past season or so would have panned out similarly to how it's gone if Shepherd had stayed (excluding the KK appointment...). Shepherd ran the club well until '04. We had money to spend because our revenue was relatively high. The club paid for its own transfers and still gave out dividends. Shepherd didn't dress it up in nice, technical language like Ashley's done but that's what it was. It worked very well too, which is a credit to Shepherd. You run a business well, you get a piece of the profits. No one's complaining about this part. However, we then suffered from not qualifying for the CL and then took a risk by giving Souness money to get us back into the CL. Because that didn't work out, where would the money have come from? We had spent it all, and would have had to wait a few seasons until we could get back onto a level-footing financially, and this is pretty much what we're doing now. Shepherd's pretty lucky, imo, that his legacy hasn't been totally tainted by what would have happened had he stayed. This is not to say that Ashley hasn't been a disappointment, but I think our managers would have gotten the same 'backing' that Ashley's given so far, if Shepherd had stayed. Again, I repeat, this is conjecture but I believe it's backed up with some of the soundbites regarding our finances and the financial reports also support this view. Ashley's still been a disappointment because he's a billionaire and fair or not, we expected him to put some of his own money into the club (which would have been a marked difference from the way the club's been run for the past 20 years...). Because he didn't do that and fucked up his managerial appointments, he's alienated a lot of the support that he had purely because he was a replacement for Shepherd. But, I still think that we would be a similar position if Shepherd had stayed and I'd be interested to hear any counter-arguments. What's the most reasonable scenario if Ashley hadn't bought out the club? Shepherd had just hired Allardyce and we had just finished 14th (?). What would have happened? i always thought the appointment of SA was essentially a tacit statement of the financial situation - allardyce was known as the man to operate on a budget, he'd have been given a slight increase in spend compared to what he got at bolton but i think the fact is he'd have been operating a tight ship at NUFC, until the books balanced a little at least

100% agree on all counts

this

would i fuck

his threat is often outweighed by his giving the ball away too easily and poor positioning meaning when we get the ball out it comes straight back. True, but Martins isn't exactly the only player guilty of giving the ball away too easily. We have players in far more volatile positions who give it away just as often if not more often. Players like Viduka only offer a threat when the ball is in the box, which first requires us to be dominating the midfield and actually getting the ball into the box first. As our midfielders aren't good enough to do that, more often than not, we have to rely on the threat of a ball in-behind (or over the top of) the defence instead - there's only Martins in our squad who can really capitalize on that. Opposing managers can blatantly see how limited we are when the game is squeezed, so as soon as that threat in-behind is removed, they literally push their defenders right up into the center of the pitch and laugh as our midfielders shit themselves at the first sign of pressure. This. I think it's worth pointing this out. The amount of stick both Martins and N'Zogbia get for losing the ball is funny when you consider we can't generally get the ball from one end of the pitch to the other without passing to the opposition. Generally those two lose the ball because they are at least trying to go forward with it, if we had enough movement across the pitch I'm sure passing woulkd be a lot easier for attacking players. nail head someone was criticising martins movement and someone else his passing(!)...if we had a halfway decent midfield their passing would be dictating his movement and it'd be him tearing into the space between fullbacks and CB's rather than watching the ball either fly over his head or not reach him at all

Well there's a few of those, so I think that danger is a bit more significant than you're saying. I think Jenas was affected in that way. The bigger problem though for managers of Premiership clubs - especially ones like ours where the expectations are still quite high - is how you give young players the experience they need for the long-term, without weakening the side too much in the short term. A lot of young players now seem to have to gain their experience on loan, or even through being transferred to other clubs and then working their way back up. It often takes a bit of nerve on the part of a manager, because building for the future often means axing one of the fans' old favourites and then seeing performances dip in the short-term. Wenger and Ferguson are very astute in the way they do this, but I suppose it's a lot easier when you're at the top of the league rather than near the bottom. it's the bit in bold i have a problem with - we're s****, at best average, i just don't see how giving someone like lua lua or ranger a shot is gonna hurt a f***ing thing obviously i'm not talking about replacing the whole team with reserves but where we patently have a problem with "senior" players under performing and the window is closed/owner won't spend then go for it i say I can see a case for Lua Lua as we are short in midfield. As for Nile he has had a great first season with club & has been on the bench a few times this season but with likes of Owen, Oba, Viduka, Shola, Xisco & Carroll he is not really going to get a run at all. just picked two players, maybe kadar would be a better example for covering enrique or something....

Well there's a few of those, so I think that danger is a bit more significant than you're saying. I think Jenas was affected in that way. The bigger problem though for managers of Premiership clubs - especially ones like ours where the expectations are still quite high - is how you give young players the experience they need for the long-term, without weakening the side too much in the short term. A lot of young players now seem to have to gain their experience on loan, or even through being transferred to other clubs and then working their way back up. It often takes a bit of nerve on the part of a manager, because building for the future often means axing one of the fans' old favourites and then seeing performances dip in the short-term. Wenger and Ferguson are very astute in the way they do this, but I suppose it's a lot easier when you're at the top of the league rather than near the bottom. it's the bit in bold i have a problem with - we're shite, at best average, i just don't see how giving someone like lua lua or ranger a shot is gonna hurt a fucking thing obviously i'm not talking about replacing the whole team with reserves but where we patently have a problem with "senior" players under performing and the window is closed/owner won't spend then go for it i say

i'm always interested by the belief that you can't put kids in the first team, especially when the team is struggling, because it will shatter their confidence can anyone think of any examples of this actually happening? has anyone ever met a footballer? they're incredibly self-believing (if that term even exists) and i have no doubt that if you threw a bairn in and he had a nightmare he'd be getting right back in for the next game if selected without a second thought it'd be different matter if the crowd were vocally showing their displeasure, granted, but what kind of cunt would shout at an 18 year old when we're in this kind of state, in fact ever? duff and smith are fucking shit and the longer they remain in or around our first team we will edge closer to the relegation zone, personally i'm a "go out in flames" kinda person rather than a "die with whimper" one...we will die with a whimper if we persevere with these set of useless twats & this manager

i'll take you back to the threat he carries pace wise (which he rarely uses and would be much more effective if he had decent positioning) is offset by his giving the ball away easy through poor control etc. martins was ok under roeder, fucking hopeless under SA, improved under KK once he got fit to the point where he was VERY dangerous on the break & in the latter half of games, now we're back to kinnear and him being erratic again one good coach among 4 and the lad plays well, hmmmmm...maybe there's more to it? coaching some might say kk had the sense to come up with a system that suited both their strengths, kinnear appears barely able to come up with a system that suits either

Martins (2008/09) -- League = 5 goals in 36 shots, with 12 of those shots on goal, in 11 appearances, none of them as a substitute. Martins' season is 5 goals in 39 shots, with 15 of those shots on goal in 12 appearances, none of them as a substitute. He also has two assists. (2007/08) -- League = 9 goals in 72 shots, with 38 of those shots on goal, in 31 apps, 8 of those as a sub. He had three assists. Owen (2008/09) -- League = 6 goals in 19 shots, with 12 of those shots on goal, in 12 appearances, with four of them being as a substitute. Owen's season has 8 goals in 23 shots, with 15 of those on goal, in 14 appearances, with five of them as a sub. (2007/08) -- League = 11 goals in 47 shots, with 31 of those shots on goal, in 29 appearances, with five of them as a sub. He had one assist. His season total was 12 goals in 51 shots, with 34 of those shots on goal, in 32 appearances, with five as a sub. Still only one assist. Martins' conversion ratio in the league this season is about 1 in 7. In fact, 3 in 10 of his shots are even on target. Owen's conversion ratio in the league this season is about 1 in 3, and about 6 in 10 of his shots are on target. Last season, Martins conversion was 1 in 8. Owen's conversion was 1 in 4.2. I don't think that is quite "virtually identical". At least, not in my maths classes. Owen's goals to shots taken ratio is better -- enough so that I think you need more than "Martins' shots are from farther out" to equate the two. If you're stating Martins is taking worse shots, isn't that rather proving the point that he's not as good at reading the game as Owen? At any rate, I think the conversion rate rather proves that if you are looking for a goal, Owen is the better bet to leave on if chances are scarce. Plus, I think there is the opinion around that if you're looking for a player to drop into the midfield to defend effectively, Michael Owen is better suited to that than Oba Martins (see the Chelsea match). It may or may not make sense to us, but I'd bet that's how Kinnear reasoned it when he's left Owen on when trying to defend a lead. priceless

Virtually identical until you really look at them. Martins has had 27 shots and score 5 goals, however owen has had only 15 shots yet scored 6 goals effectively making him twice the finisher Oba is and in a side struggling to create chances that's critical. Maybe that's why we accomodate him when we can? I'm also curious why you think it's "patently unfair" to criticise Martins for a lack of footballing intelligence when, IMO, that's the one aspect of his game that's indefensable. Also the passing accuracy is quite different and probably the reason why Martins gets taken off... passing accuracy? he's a striker ffs whose main assets are pace, strength and unpredictability...sounds like allardyce style bullshit; "sorry oba, not enough interceptions, you're on the bench the day, alan smith starts" thought i'd repeat this as the main point of agreement with Goalfather: "There is a stark difference however in the way both players have been treated. Formations and personnel and tactics have been tweaked to accomodate Owen. Martins has been treated with contempt by every manager since Roeder. He scored a double in his first game under Allardyce and did not get a chance to play half a dozen games b4 he was replaced by Owen as soon as Owen was half fit." we barely have an ounce of guile or top quality in our team from CM or really the wings when the truth be told...therefore why we disregard our main threat to the opposition with such alarming regularity is beyond me

could not agree more if i tried

Whereas we'll look like geniuses by getting relegated. That's what I never get. When people go "we can't sack another manager, we'll look stupid", it comes up every time we fail with a manager. I'd rather look like an idiot and be laughed at by the media and the rest of the country than support a team in the Championship. yep i feel one things for sure; nufc will not keep themselves in the league this season as long as JFK is manager - it will literally take 3 other teams to be more fucking awful than us to keep us up

JFK keeping things close to his chest again I see. yeah, i've been giving it some serious thought and the conclusion is i fucking HATE jfk SHUT THE FUCK UP

oh lordy yes!!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2008/dec/05/premierleague-sunderland genius! the photo & first line make him out to be like howard hughes!!