Gallowgate Toon

Even the best journos go a bit stupid when transfer season come about, Caulkin's a great journalist but that right there is bollocks.

Butt will be even worse because you have to do more running in the Championship.

I don't think he's the type that's too arsed about wages, and he's built a very good rep in Spain over the last 5 years. Can see that being an easier sale tbh, probably about £5 million.

We must keep a hold of some players, we need the PL quality base so if we get promoted straight away we won't have to spend gigantic amounts on replacing all the Championship players. I'd do my best to keep Enrique, Beye and Guthrie first and perhaps a couple of others.

No doubt. Also lets say we were to get back up, it's gonna be such a huge task to actually stay up. Not if we do things properly. We have a lot of advantages at our disposal compared to every other team that has gone down. We are a debt free club, owed money from various clubs for players like Milner. We will have a reduced wage bill which has eaten into our club by about £50 million, we will have player sales, which could easily get us £20 million, we have a good base of youngsters and we have appeal, the best Chamionship players would want to come to us imo. All we have to do is be smart with the money tbh. If Alan does take over, i can imagine him persuading a few of our senior players to stay for at least 6 months, see how we're doing, if we're doing crap then they can leave, if not then stay for promotion. It is key for me that some players stay, i'd like Enrique to stay, Beye to stay, Guthrie and Viduka on a lower wage. If this is done well, then getting back into the PL won't be hard, and staying there would not be too much of a challenge either, we wouldn't be firing for Europe or anything but isn't that the point in rebuilding. The club needs a change of culture, too long have we been the homeless man's galacticos.

I'd only keep Duff if his wages were slashed at least half.

Yet we still equalised and had a chance to push on then, but we didn't. Arsenal were on a 16 game unbeaten streak, you really think we would've won still, that they would have just rolled over? considering we were up on Man U at one point yet still lost, i seriously doubt it was anywhere near as critical as a one-on-one against a team that have pretty much been as s*** as us all season. if we had scored that penalty we would of won imo, we we're all over them 1st half Meh what does it matter, we're down anyway and he'll be gone. In reality there are numerous different occasions which cost us tbh, could easily blame Howard Webb for being a tit, Owen or Martins, or Steven Taylor for playing Kamara onside, or Loven missing vs. Everton, or Barton being sent off, or Nicky Butt for giving away about 5 pens, or Ryan Taylor for chesting it down, or Jonas for not scoring vs West Ham etc. There's so many things that could have saved us, and we never took one of them, yeah Oba had a few chances but so did others, nobody stepped up.

Yet we still equalised and had a chance to push on then, but we didn't. Arsenal were on a 16 game unbeaten streak, you really think we would've won still, that they would have just rolled over? considering we were up on Man U at one point yet still lost, i seriously doubt it was anywhere near as critical as a one-on-one against a team that have pretty much been as shit as us all season.

He blew chance after chance even with a poor midfield. The penalty against Arsenal, the volley over from 6-yards versus Portsmouth, the two good chances against Fulham, the volley over yesterday, the header just wide (granted that was tricky). Take just one of those, and chances are we're still a Premiership club right now. They weren't overly difficult chances either. As for the "he can create something out of nothing" crap, what's the point of that if he can't finish a bowl of soup? None of the chances you mention were anywhere near as simple as Owen's vs Pompey. If there's one chance that should be to blame for all of our troubles, that's the one.

Top and bottom of it is, when you think over the last 3 seasons, some of the good times and you think who was pretty much the main reason for them, it is Martins. He was involved in every single one like UEFA cup vs AZ at home, the win against Liverpool, the draw vs Man U, the wins against Tottenham, the end of last season he played a massive part in that, beating Villa, beating Pompey, the goal vs Boro. Whether you think he's a fucking clueless prick or mint, facts are that in this crap season he's the only one that's provided something with some pretty good goals and some flair and passion at times, yeah he bottled it in the latter games but that was down to pressure and low confidence, something that everyone else was suffering with. He probably will go to someone like Genoa, and have a good career, he'll be a huge miss imo.

Got to say I agree at the moment. Yes they messed him around but the way he just quit so easily has tainted my view of him forever. Hes a quitter and hes hid ever since he left us. I'll never welcome him anywhere near this club again. The rest of you can of course, but hes a bottler and a coward in my eyes. I'm so sick of our past, I just want this club to move in the right direction for a change. Both these posts are utter bullshit and show a complete lack of respect for and understanding of what Keegan has done for this club. The man wants 8 million compensation still even after we've been relegated. If he was such a great man, who loves the club, he'd show some fucking compassion for us and just leave it, it's not as if he's flat broke. That is the sign of a right greedy twat.

There are positives to take tbh however depressing it feels now. It is key though that the right decisions are made when we start to rebuild. We need to get rid of the old, slow players and bring in some youth and vibrance. I personally am looking forward to seeing Kazenga Lua Lua get a game over the likes of Damien Duff week in week out, and Danny Guthrie will hopefully start over Nicky Butt etc. I hope we can keep a hold of a couple of players like Enrique and Martins (very unlikely) and i can see perhaps Beye and Viduka both staying, particularly the latter. It has been a shit season, but last time we came up we took the Premier League by storm with KK, and i hope with the right man in charge (Shearer would be no. 1 choice) we can do the same.

Jason Scotland.

Butt was heading for the tunnel from what i could see from the 'tears on tyne' video. Were any of them at all emotional?

He'll go back to Depor, be their captain again and play in the uefa next season.

What makes you think we'll rebuild? We might be consigned to the lower leagues from now. See Charlton, Norwich, Southampton, Leeds etc etc. Those clubs we're broke, had relatively no appeal to anyone and are a totally different breed to us, you could perhaps take Leeds into account but they were bankrupt. Now i might just be in a shit load of shock that i really haven't taken it or i really just think that football is a game and i have more to live for. The reason we've gone down went back to 5 years ago we've pissed about and we've bought some real shite, to see the back of Butt etc makes me smile tbh obviously there'll be some real losses like Martins but for the first time this season i have felt fully optimistic that things will be better. And i don't give 2 hoots about whether we've previously not gone straight back up that was 1989 this is 2009.

Best fucking thing imo i don't give a shit if we're in the championship for one year, because next year may have been even fucking worse because we might have kept half the same team. Honestly getting rid of some of the shit like Butt and Owen and Duff and Harper is what i've wanted for more than a season. All we have to do now is rebuild the right way and we'll be fine.

Same, i actually feel fine, i'm surprisingly optimistic about it all.

I sometimes however think that Martins is quite reluctant to use his pace tbh as like Pompey he loses control, may be why he doesn't use it all that often because it'll make him look shit, especially when he's not in a period of confidence.

Not quite, problem with Martins is that he's always on his heels in those situations, everytime the defenders already been running and in 10 yard sprints that you get in football, being on your heels nullifies the threat no matter how fast you are. Martins is very quick see Fulham, Chelsea, Sheff United, Villa, Pompey, Liverpool (where he scored) and Birmingham but he just doesn't use it well.

I mean take Fulham's midfielders yesterday, they had a great balance Murphy is no spring chicken and he's not exactly the quickest but he pulled the strings with his footballing brain and Etuhu? had the legs and work rate. Neither are particularly great players but they worked well and imagine what they thought when they saw who they were up against. If you compare that pairing to ours... Butt, was supposed to be our Etuhu, who was the epitome of discipline and hard work he kept his head well, kept his position well and protected the back 4 at all times and most importantly did the simple things he didn't try an over zealous hollywood ball or dink it out the stadium he did what he was told. Butt however didn't, at one point Schwarzer was about to kick and Nicky Butt chased him and harried him but left a black hole right in the middle of the pitch. No wonder Murphy pulled all the strings, he had acres of space and time to spread it out to Convey or play it in to Nevland or play it behind for Kamara. I felt sorry for Nolan because he's obviously not the fittest but he basically had to cover 2 positions making it worse as he was fucked after 60 mins but again he was meant to be our Murphy, pulling all the strings and driving us forward but Etuhu always had him and Nolan didn't have the pace or nous to get away from him. It was sad to see really but it pains me even more to think what Murphy and Etuhu would have thought if they'd seen Barton and Guthrie on the team sheet or even Smith.

Thing is our CM's aren't even good defensively, bar Alan Smith perhaps. Nicky Butt, our anchor and defensive cover spends half of his time sprinting about leaving a huge hole where he should have been and he doesn't have the legs to get back, and Nolan is too fat to cover him well enough so then teams have a mass of space to play in. Yesterday at half time i would have taken Butt/Nolan off put Guthrie in the middle and stuck Loven out wide. A huge part of yesterday's problem is that we didn't play a winger on the right making our attacks even more predictable, and although Loven's best position is a striker he wouldn't have kept drifting in spreading Fulham out and making space for our strikers. I was tearing my hair out when Guthrie came off because although Nolan's alright in attack, he doesn't quite have the vision to play through balls, Guthrie does, he's the next best after Barton and i can't fathom why he doesn't start in the middle above everyone else.

He's been doing that sort of thing all year. A lot of Seb's errors yesterday came from Stevie Taylor, he left his man about 100 times in the first half and what was he doing for their goal? bollock head defender and Bassong looks really nervy when he plays with him.

Villa's home form has been pretty crap all season, they've only won 6.

I remember the best i've seen all season and neither of them were in it. Although Nolan has picked up a bit in the last couple of games, he's just too slow.