fredbob

Offer what they paid for him and hope he's home sick, it's a starting point and probably our only selling point to him. I think we as fans are looking at the fallacies of the club entirely wrong, i dont doubt for one second that money needs to be spent, but the figures being bandied about are ridiculous, we need to be aiming for the top half before we go looking for Europe, its about expectation and the higher we raise the expectation the more sensitive the trip wire becomes. Personally i would be happy to see the club cement a top half finish before we go making proper strides into the top 6/7. If we go about spending huge amount of money, and only achieve a top half finish, what effect does that have on the club and its fans? Personally i dont think it'd be particularly healthy. We havent seen a team yet play anywhere nears its potential, i dont buy into this the whole squad is s***, deep down everyone at this club knows that there are some excellent players at this club, we need to be punching our weight at present. Look at the effrect that heavy investment had on Tottenham, it needed a set up to get them flowing inthe right direction, and they are now in a posotion of power because of it, i genuinely belive that brining in 7-10 new players will do more damage than good. I just still think this talk of heavy investment a bit kneejerk, i know we are in a very poor position, but we have had a stupid run of fixtures, i genuinely belive that this club could be transformed with 3-5 max, players. Who are the 6-8 first team players who are good enough, for you? And what happens when one of them gets injured, or two of them, or three. Our "first team" players are supposed to be: Given - flaky, still top 6/7 for next season/one after? Probably. Beye - Seems pretty good, not a brillaint defender. Top 6/7? Yes. Carr - f*** off. 6/7? f*** off. Faye - only an idiot thinks he's a "beast" so far. Seems alright, needs to iron a few errors out. 6/7? Hopefully. Taylor - has a number of things to iron out, imo can become a good defender. 6/7? Hopefully. Cacapa - vastly over rated. 6/7? No. Enrique - unclear whats happened to him. Not a good buy, it seems. 6/7? No, not on showings so far. Duff - weak, doesn't drive forwards, ineffective. 6/7? No. The Zog(at left wing) - our best left winger by a country mile. 6/7? Yes. Barton - Has been poor, pretty consistently. Also scum. 6/7? On current showing, No. (and please f*** off). Butt - f*** off. Geremi - f*** off. Milner - not the fastest, but not as slow as some would have us think (no slower than Solano, really). 6/7? Hopefully. Smith - rubbish. Rubbish in the middle. Rubbish up front. 6/7? No. Owen - Past his best, not arsed, not fit, no service to him. Still clearly has ability, but not world class by a long chalk. 6/7? Yes. Martins - Very, very flawed. Extremely fast, but its no good making random runs. 6/7? Possibly. Viduka - Slow, fat. lazy. Well past his best. 6/7? No. So, imo, what we have is: YES x 3 (ST, LW, RB) PROBABLY x 1 (GK) POSSIBLY x 1 (ST) HOPEFULLY x 3 (CB, CB, RW) NO x 6 (CB, LB, LW, MC, ST, ST) f*** OFF x 3 (RB, MC, MC) We WERE mid table crap for the past few seasons. Allardyce put things in place to bring us down to the level we now are. We do not want to be looking for mid table safety next season, we need to be looking to get back to the top 6/7 without delay. And to do that, we need some serious investment. Mind, anyone who thinks we can prise the likes of Carrick away from teams like Man Utd is an idiot. We need to look at what teams like Citeh have done with their buying, or get a great manager in. In the end, its a matter of opinion, and i havent seen a single set up at this club for a good 3-5 years which has been an environment where the players can prosper. I dont think its just a coincidence that a huge number of supposedly talented players come here and flop so badly. Take a look at the number of top class players we've had here, we havenet had many players who have really prosepered since the SBR days. I dont think its a coicident. It'd be nice to see a player be judge in a team that is actually playing cohesively. I mean i surely cant be the only one who thinks that the defence is crap because the organisation is shocking. It cant be as simple as "they're shit etc" Sure the indivdual players have there fallacies as players, but there fallacies cant be entirely responisible for the horrendous results. Surely not. For me, id like to see 2 CM (1 DM, 1 AM), a RW and a CD as a minimum. Thats for players who, in a squad going in the same direction would transform the team.

Nah me neither, he looks like ap layer who has ridiculous amount of confidence. I think thats essential in the modern players. He seems to have a proper cockiness about him. I think he could be a bit special, wouldnt be unhappy at all ifhe came, granted ihavetn seen loads of him but the bits i have seen look good.

Does anyone else see similarities between him and Ronaldo? He has that dead quick shimmy where he moves the ball to the side really quickly, puts the defender off balance and gives him an extra few seconds to get a shot in. Also quite tricky. Could be an absolutle gem.

Surprised Kenwyne Jones and Gordon havent been mentioned, (not sure when they were signed, dont really care), also Elano has been a good player as has Eduardo. Would put all of them ahead of Woodgate, Muamba, McFadden.

think it was7m

Offer what they paid for him and hope he's home sick, it's a starting point and probably our only selling point to him. I think we as fans are looking at the fallacies of the club entirely wrong, i dont doubt for one second that money needs to be spent, but the figures being bandied about are ridiculous, we need to be aiming for the top half before we go looking for Europe, its about expectation and the higher we raise the expectation the more sensitive the trip wire becomes. Personally i would be happy to see the club cement a top half finish before we go making proper strides into the top 6/7. If we go about spending huge amount of money, and only achieve a top half finish, what effect does that have on the club and its fans? Personally i dont think it'd be particularly healthy. We havent seen a team yet play anywhere nears its potential, i dont buy into this the whole squad is shit, deep down everyone at this club knows that there are some excellent players at this club, we need to be punching our weight at present. Look at the effrect that heavy investment had on Tottenham, it needed a set up to get them flowing inthe right direction, and they are now in a posotion of power because of it, i genuinely belive that brining in 7-10 new players will do more damage than good. I just still think this talk of heavy investment a bit kneejerk, i know we are in a very poor position, but we have had a stupid run of fixtures, i genuinely belive that this club could be transformed with 3-5 max, players.

Thats the one.

he'll take into account inflation,check the stat of evary player and slag each one off for not being brilliant or climb aboard the bandwagon (begrudgingly) He'll only conceed in 10 years time when Ashley et al have helped us to finish in the top 10, 4 times.

I would take Carrick in a flash, think he;s exactly what we need, someone who can find a pass. The thing is is that as it stands we are in the same position as Middlesbrough, our only selling point really is our ambition, what kind of player that brings us who knows, i think its a safe bet that any big player in the prem who's not looking for a pay day but success would come here, so that rules out the likes of Bentley and Carrick etc in my book, i think all our big signings will come from abroad to be honest.

That's what I was saying earlier. Any quality signing is dragged into the torpor rather than pulling the squad out of it. Instill a bit of belief, then make expensive additions to a club on the up. It's like they say about getting your hair cut, you should always go when it looks it's best. Eh? If you go for a haircut when it looks s***, your barber thinks you like your hair to look s***, and gives you a s*** haircut. Surely you go to the barbers to get your hair to stop looking s***? Nope. You need to be more pro-active than that. Well what if you go to your barbers while its looking good to have it cut, and the barber does a s*** job and the end result is that it now looks s***, despite not being s*** before you had it cut? Serves you right for having a 'trophy' haircut. Just because you spend £50 on a haircut doesnt mean you are going to pull! Same concept applies to the club.

Didier Deschamps was the one for me, i thought he was stand out, he's been mentioned a few times for bigger jobs than ours and had come out and said he would of been interested, he ticked all the boxes in my book, minus a huge amount of experience but had achieved a notbale amount already in his short career. Had long term written all over him as well.

Deschamps was the stand out manager for me, young, and successful in his short career, played attacking football and would of had a decent pot to work with, would of been disciplined and would of been extremely up to date with current coaching set ups. Not saying he;d of done any better and i dont think keegan could of done any better but i think it would of been a hell of a lot more ambitious manager in appointeing a CL finalist than to get Keegan. Im happy to stick by Keegan because there is definitely something different about him, and i am very excited to see what the summer has to offer, if anyone has an eye for flair and skill then its got to be Keegan. Hopefull we wont go down, hopefully our current standing wont put players off.

No he doesn't, it is an Internet myth & so is the 2nd part. Are Faye or Beye getting slammed for being part of a defence that let 5 goals in are they f***. Faye is unquestionably a very good defender, Cacapa and Roz have already been castigated despite proving throughtout there careers that they have very capable, Taylor, have a look through this entire thread and you will see the number of people who have written off Cacapa and Roz after half a season here and the same number who have been able to see past the obvious fallacies that Taylor has, for about 3/4 seasons now, "because he has potential". I dont understadn why people rate him so highly, when he has so many obvious fallacies. Wheres the level assessment on that?

I got a genuine question for you. Can you list all the errors Taylor made vs Man Utd? Obviously not every single one of them, but enough of them to show some sort of background of why you think he was a liability. I really think he looked decent, apart from the third goal. I don't think he's a world-class defender at all, but I still think he looks a decent prospect, who's been thrown in at the deep end, and has had to learn the hard way for quite a while now, without any authorative figure beside him who can teach him anything of what's needed to be a success at this level. People keep comparing him to Terry, Wheater, players like that, but noone mentions the fact that Terry had Desailly amongst others to teach him. Wheater has had Southgate. I really don't think it's a fair comparison at all. Fact is, he shows signs of being a good defender, he's a no-nonsense type who is a strong tackler and strong header of the ball, and commitment really is important for any defender, especially one of his type. What he's lacking is finesse and a good touch, and the positional sense and anticipation is something that comes with experience, which is an area he really is underdeveloped in, due to the point I made previously. To sum it up, I wholeheartedly agree that he's too rough around the edges to be playing week in week out in the PL, but calling him a liability and writing him off at this stage is just daft, in my opinion. Well both of Ronaldos goals were his fault, for a CD his tracking was shocking, i could see Ronaldo making that run with my eyes closed, and his second goal, although was Faye's initial fault for giving the ball away, Taylor showed the composure of a pissed granny with zimmer frames on ice. Really really bad defending, just dived across Ronaldo.

This is my feeling as well, i wasnt particularly happy with Keegan, not because i dont like Keegan but becasue i thought there were more ambitious appointments out there, i think we really dropped the ball on this one, i dont know of another club in the world who would appoint a manager who's been out the game for 3 years, especially with the massive gap which has opened up between the top 4. Having said that, i cant deny that i am extremely happy and excited to have Keegan having apot full of money to spend in the summer. I dont think there will be another manager in the world who has the eye for flair like Keegan does, and if there was anyone id trust to bring the good times back with a pot full of money it'd be Keegan, however ill still worry about is coaching techniques etc because i dont think his style cuts it anymore.

I think Taylor has a massive up hill struggle to get to where he could be, to be honest i dont think he'llmake it, his defending is far too flaky at times and we dont have the coaching set up to bring the raw ingredients together for him to prosper, his positional sense and concentration is non existent and to be honest he will never be able to dominate a top striker which is vital for him if he wants to be a top defender, you have to ask yourself if the likes of Taylor have the talent to be able to dominate a striker like Drogba or Adebayor and the honest answer for most of you will be not, physically he isnt as strong as Drogba and mentally he's not as sharp as the likes of Rooney or Tevez. I personally like Cacapa more than i like Taylor, there is no doubt that has a much sharper brain than Taylor, however physicaly he isnt as strong as the likes of Faye, i would like to see those 2 together a little more, i think there is definitely a partnership there, hell id like to see Roz back in the sweeper role. He was unlucky in my book. Taylor gets away with a hell of a lot because he's a local lad, if he was a foreigner would you all be so easy to forgive his mistakes?

Quite a spectrum of issues being discussed in here, there are a number of things which i think went wrong at this club, and i think that the first thing was the sacking of Bobby robson, in my opinion he shouldnt of been sacked, we were easily one of the 5th best teams in EPL and had poor ish season with some very poor results, i understand that discipline seemed an issue but how much of that indiscipline arose from the public denouncment of SBR, who knows? That seemed to be the reason that was given for his sacking, not only was it a sacking which was wrong but done at a horrendous time, i dont understand who people were expecting to employ after sacking a legendary manager who has just consistently finished in the top 5 for the past 3 years. It made the job unteneable in my book and we paid the price for it. Cue Souness. Cue Roeder. Allardyce was the first pro active appointment in a while from the Shephard era of chairmanship, but he was extremely unfortunate in having the takeover occur at the bignnning of the his tenureship, he was stiill provided with soem funds and made, at the time some decent signings on paper, his biggest flaws seemed to be highlighted with some horrific resultsand the fact that his signings werent coming to fruition suggested that his style wasnt being accepted by the club. I think he went maybe a week too late, i think suggestions that he should of stayed till the end are incorrect, had he stayed, was he expected to recieve funds ever though he was a doomed man, what sense does that make in anyones mind, also, shoould he of been given funds when his signings hadnt worked so far, it made no sense to give him funds to waste, hence the need for a new manager, this is where the biggest mistake of the ashley owenership has occured, and that is the appoinmtnet of Keegan, i think that there were better appointments out there, Deschamps would of been my personal choice.

For the first time in all my time of supporting nufc, the possiblity of relegation is a real possiblity, the only teams that are nailed on to go down are fulham and derby in my book, even Reading have a bit of bollocks about them. We've had a stupidly hard run and i dont know the future fixtures but the confidence in our teams is rock bottom, at present its hard not say that we arent in free fall. There is still 10 games left, its a horrible thought, the major issue that i can forsee for the future, is that our organisational fallacies wont be hidden until our atacking unit becomes first rate, this is the biggest task Keegan faces and as it stands i dont think that a team in our position will be able to attract the type of player that Keegan needs in order to make it a reality!

Feyenoord vs nufc- what a match Liverpool vs nufc x 2 Man U vs Arsenal FA Cup Semi - to be fair it was a very good game which had everything nufc vs man u - 5-0 nufc vs man u - 4-3 German vs England - 1-5

The frustrating thing is that Man U are making us look worse than we actually are, they've had 2/3 clear chanes and stuck them both away, both have been well avodable ie closing Roanldo down for the cross or zog picking up Rooney and taylor tracking back with Ronaldo, its frustrating because if itwere any other team who werent so clinical we'd be 0-0 at half time. I dont think whats been seen should be praised but i also dont think it should be chastized. We have no invention of movement in the final third, to be fair, we have been in there final 3rd a fair bit. We just need some support when we get there.

Zog and Duff is the best partnership we have at this club, those 2 gel extremely well, really have a good understanding of each other, if only Zog was defensively astute then i'd be extremly happy with those 2

Well, thats an interesting line up, really wish we had Oba in, god how id love to see oba, Butt/Barton CM scares the crap out of me to be honest, will get dominated like no ones business, i can see the merits of Zog at LB, for me its his best position, but not against Man U/Ronaldo, to be honest, i have no idea who i'd put in the team as it stands, Enrique would have a place for me to be honest, man U are very wing orientated and it'd be the forst things id try to neutralize. Faye for Cacapa - meh Smith - has no "chemistry" with Owen at all. but i dont mind seeing him up front. C

So what do people have a problem with? Foriegn fans or fans from around england who support teams outsidethere region? I dont see the harm in any person wanting to be part of a group of fans that they understand, or empathise with, its all forthe greater good, do there same people have problems with "bloody foreigners stealing our jobs as well?" Not wanting to diverge too much, but i imiagine the same people who have problems with "non local" supporters are the same ones who complain about the "job stealing foriegners"....right? In the end, if there is something about this club, which has really drawn you in, (could be one of many things), then you have every right to want to be part of something that you percive as being unique and special. To be drawn into something because they win all the time is reminicent of a hanger on, trying to leech of someone elses success, its undignified at an abhorrent praqctise. Something which i dont empaphise with at all.

Got to disagree there. Neither of them have 'all the attributes'. Even minus the footballing brain. the brain can be attributed to alot of qualities,a lot of qualities which both players lack in my opinion, like anticipation, and movement, both cognitive function. As a defender i think taylor is strong, quick, good in the air, if he put it all together i think he could be an excellent defender, same with Martins, pace, strenfgth, decent in the air, is an ok fininsher. All the qualities but minus the brain to bring in together.

Taylor to centre back is what Martins is to centre forward, has all the attributes but minus the brains. Needs to decide what type of defender he is, he's a bt of an in between defender, neither a sweeper nor a "bruiser" would get dominated physically by the likes of Drogba,but would get turned inside out by the likes of Berbatov or Rooney. Copes well against the middle of the road strikers. Unfortunatley i dont think he has the physical stregnth to dominate defenders like Faye would.