Lloydie

Koeman's a decent manager. However his PSV side this year were almost a one man team. As soon as Alex got injured they fell apart at the back, and as soon as he returned things stabilised. I don't know if he'd been trying to bring in other centrebacks etc. but that would be a mark against him. On the positive side he's got a good record, and a decent amount of experience.

It's probably pure speculation, but I can see Allardyes love of statistics, technology and all the rest going over very well in the states.

I'd guess the chairman trusts him and so he stays. Mind you if Allardyce does come the next thing that will happen will be him getting into a row with Bolton about trying to bring his enormous back room staff with him. He won't fancy rebuilding a back office, and Sammy Lee won't want to lose them.

I liked Roeder, I'm sorry he's gone, and next season when whoever has replaced him has led us to glory you can point at this post and say things like 'but you'd have kept Roeder'. I'd have taken any position above 18th this season in return for the stability we've had. No players involved in scandals, no insane trophy signings and indeed those players we have signed are worth more now than what we paid for them. When was the last time that happened on a season? I was looking forward to next season. I thought it was going to be good. This season was wrecked, by injuries that started at the world cup and just got worse from there, but even so there were bright spots. He got Nicky Butt playing well again and a season of good performances out of James Milner. He managed to send out what often looked like the academy defence and pick up points. Around November conventional wisdom was that if we didn't spend big we were going down; we spent nothing and stayed up comfortably unencumbered by another round of panic signings on big contracts. I suspect when Roeder walks out of the door Owen, Ameobi and Dyer will know that he's put years on their career. There are folks here who don't rate Shola, but Roeder was the first manager in years to decide that the players long term health was more important than having him available for the next six months. If anything he just made the decision too late. He was the first manager in years not to rush Dyer back and break him again, once he's got a pre-season under his belt we may find ourselves with another real talent in the squad. In the end though we're told that Roeder lost the dressing room, but I wonder if it was the other way round. After the Alkmaaar defeat we heard plenty about the players deciding the season was over. I don't think Roeder ever believed that, but I suspect a lot of players switched off on the plane back from Amsterdam, and had Roeder stayed I think they knew they'd have been gone. If it's true that Carr feigned injury to avoid facing the pissed off fans of St James' park then I think that sums up Roeders time here. Trying to do the right thing, trying to make himself and others face up to reality and being let down by those around him. I'm not one who believes that professionals on $40k a week should need much motivating, and I certainly don't think they should refuse to face the people who pay their wages. If I was a manager I'd send them out to face the fans every week after a game, have them stand on the touchline at the Gallowgate end for five minutes after every match and just take it, good or bad, they wouldn't want to lose twice. The one who really let Roeder down though was the chairman. When Roeder talked about long term he must have agreed. When the season was a mess he must have accepted that Europe was unlikely this year, but the moment the fans turned on the manager he lost his nerve. It was the gutless, cowardly decision of a man who no longer had faith in his own judgement. So thanks Glenn for putting everything you had into a tough job. I seem to remember David Moyes had a bad season once, I thought you might have turned things around the same way if the chairman backed you, but it seems I'll never get to know.

If losing the support of the players meant players like Carr and Babayaro then I think the wrong ones gone...

Klinsmann, Ranieri, Strachan, van Gaal, anyone but either of those two... hell, even Shearer

1. Black and white scarves 2. Tim Krul's debut 3. Kieron Dyer makes lasting return to fitness 4. James Milner 5. Oba's goal against Tottenham 6. Edgar's goal against Man Utd 7. Michael Owen still has a career 8. Pav gets one last runout 9. Steven Taylor 10. Sibierski, european legend Add your own, and no, sacking a manager doesn't count.

The guardian are confirming what the Dr said, and probably everyone else will be in the mornings papers. "Manchester City will sell Joey Barton in the summer after the midfielder put his French team-mate Ousmane Dabo in hospital yesterday with a brutal and prolonged attack at the training ground. Dabo needed treatment for facial cuts after being repeatedly punched in an incident which was witnessed by a group of children who were watching the practice session." http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,,2070318,00.html Will never play for the club again apparently. And no, I don't want him at St James. Not ever, and definately not under Sam Allardyce. I want Gattuso and Klinsmann, but in their absence I'll settle for Roeder and Parker... ps : what are the odds of Barton being Leeds Utd's glory signing in their efforts to escape League 1, they deserve each other I reckon.

Haven't seen either of them yet, but the extra muscle needn't be a bad thing. In Ameobi's case it's almost certainly good (look at Drogba for the model centre forward physique), in Owens case it depends if it affects his speed. I remember about 15 years ago Linford Christie and John Regis both put on a pile of muscle before the athletics season and both got a lot quicker. Sprinters are either floaters or powerhouses, and I suspect floating isn't an option in premiership football. The real issue is whether it affects their stamina over 90 minutes.

Don't know about Alvez, but Kluivert's been anonymous this season over here. Still with three sides all going into the last day on the same points I reckon next season could be amazing in the eriedivisie, after going through that all the players from those sides will never believe a game is meaningless, you won't see them going 2-0 up and cruising or 3-0 down and packing in...

I think Roeder's plans were shot to bits by Owen's injury and then being told there was going to be money and not getting it. (probably because of a takeover that never happened)

Um, no. You don't sell your best player of several previous seasons and someone who's been there for ages just to make a few pounds and get some familiar faces in. It's a great way to deliver a kick in the guts to the dressing room's morale, it's a great way to make sure your new keeper will have a bloody tough time winning over the fans, and in this case it's absolutely pointless since Jaskeleinen really isn't going to add anything to the side. It would also be a great way to convince me I was right when I wrote on April 30 2007 that Allardyce is the wrong manager for Newcastle and we don't want him here.

It's not the world class we're missing, it's leadership. Taylor might get there, but he's a bit young, Titus doesn't seem to be a leader on the pitch and Moore hasn't been around to do it.

Put yourself in Allardyce's shoes for this one. You've spent ten years building up a really successful team at Bolton, and your results have been based on a lot of hard graft, long term planning and patience. You'd know that when you walk away from it to another club you're going to be starting from scratch and that for your way of working to really pay off it's going to take two or three seasons to build a team the way you want it. If you're going to do that, and walk out on a club that you've just got into European football you're going to have a plan. You'll already know where you're going. Maybe it's Man City, maybe it's to take over at the newly rich Southampton, but wherever it is you'll have lined up a deal already, with someone who's prepared to put in the time it'll take for you to work the way you want to. With the big four managers all comfortable (Fergie, Mourinho, Wenger, Benitez are all untouchable this season) my money's on one of the newly taken over clubs as Allardyce's destination...

One thing about this. Roeders got a good record with youth players, especially at West Ham, so lets hope in a few years time we're looking at a first team line up with Taylor, Huntington, Edgar, Carroll, Lua Lua, NZogbia etc. in it. Cheap as chips and just what any club needs.

Um, nobody spent #4.5 million on shares, and probably nothing like it. What happened was that the price went up. No shares needed to change hands at all for that. Had oil been discovered beneath the car park the value would have soared. Still, 5% is a big rise and suggests that either a) the market knows something we don't (unlikely, it's illegal for the market to have secrets) or b) someone has been prepared to pay 5% more for the shares today than anyone was yesterday. And given that the rise is continuing that does suggest an effort to build up a stake by someone, but the volumes shown on that Telegraph page are tiny. As you can see from the <a href="http://mwprices.ft.com/custom/ft2-com/html-interactivecharting-i.asp?subtab=1&t=e&q=NCU&s2=uk&extelID=&ticker=UK%3ANCU&countrycode=uk&sid=122111&symb=NCU&selected=Newcastle+United&company=NEW&isin=&sedol=&ftep=">volume over the last three months</a> there's no big trades going on.

What kids competition do you have to play in to win those two trophies, they're bigger than he is!

Souness, without a doubt, he turned a club with serious champions league aspirations into relegation candidates. Where we are now - this is what mid table mediocrity feels like. This is what Spurs fans have been feeling like for decades. Maybe getting into Europe, maybe getting into a relegation scrap but actually going nowhere. I can take a season of this as the price for stopping the rot. Next season we get Owen back and up front with Martins. We get Shola on the bench instead of Sibierski. We get players who are actually fit rather than constantly in the middle of a comeback from injury. We get Dyer with a pre-season behind him for the first time in god knows how long, and that's before we sign anybody. Hell, we might even get a settled back four, but I'm not betting on it.

No. Next summer everyone's going to be cash rich and spending like there's no tomorrow, and we're not in a position to attract top name players in that environment. Especially if we're out of Europe. We've got him, so assuming the recovery is going as well as expected we should keep him.

Wasn't there some young kid six years ago or so that West Ham made the youngest signing ever (presumably on some wierd pre contract deal). Anyone know how it turned out / is turning out?

I don't want him. There was nothing in the way he handled the England side to make you think he knew what he was doing. It's not that long since he decided that Theo 'no premiership experience' Walcott was worth a spot in the World Cup squad. Gerrard and Lampard have both said he never spoke to them about how they were supposed to play together despite their relationship being the most important one in the whole side, and he clearly didn't have the guts to try anything like dropping one of them for Hargreaves. He'd never have sorted out the left wing if Mourinho hadn't realised Joe Cole's potential, and his relationship with Beckham was pathetic, especially that experiment with a 'quarterback' formation which was clearly done just to let Beckham play in the middle without dropping either of Gerrard / Lampard. That kind of thing really doesn't give me much confidence in his ability to handle big name players or take difficult decisions. Not to mention the fact that he's a magnet for tabloid press, something we've had mercifully little of this season.

Personally I think Roeder deserves another season. Still, if he were to go * Klinsmann has done great things with the German national side, but has never managed at club level, so a bit of a risk * Ranieri did a good job at Chelsea, worth a look I'd say * Strachan, if he's prepared to leave Celtic * Allardyce has got the CV, but I can't stand him I've got the horrible feeling that if Roeder did go we'd get a big name manager in easily. Step forward Mr Sven Goran Eriksson...

Bolton : Stuck with the same manager for ten years, proved that its not just about the money Tottenham : Usually a good side to watch, Jurgen Klinsmann was fantastic to watch

Yup, he's still a kid and he gets looked after like one. I'd say next season he should be looking to start 15 or so games and come on as sub in some more. Duff would expect to start 25+ and get subbed from time to time. It's more than he'd get if he went to Arsenal, and it gives him plenty of opportunity to earn a place in the starting XI.

They've got the two sides above them, and the two sides below them to play. At this point, that's the best they could ask for. Plus you might not like Warnock, but he's got what's needed as a manager. They've got every chance.