fredbob

Nah, Mort's openly said that he's gonna back his manager until its unteneable, i dont think he'd go back on his opinion so soon, it'd be a disaster for the PR of the club, nevermind the dressing room falling apart, imagine going to a club where so much is changing so fast and one man being instrumental to all those changes both on and off the field leaves. How damaging would that be to the players who have all signed for him under his visisions. Disaster.

man, what i would do to see the football we played back then again, i think id sell my girlfriend.

Am i the only one who thinks that the FA may still go for an english manager? Just had a look at who they have spoken to [Hodgson, Toshack, Platini and Beckenbaur] and i cant help but think that most of them would say go for an english manager, especially Platini, not only that but they're looking to speak to others in the game such as SBR, G.Taylor, Hoddle, etc and looking down the list i'd say 90% of them would advocate an englishmen....i just dont think that that many respectable opinions will be ignored by the FA.

Who exactly is being played out of position? In my book it is Zog and Smith. Now Zog's posisitoning makes no sense to me whatsoever, a blind person can tell ya that he's not the right personto play there, which leds us onto Enriques role into the side....is it a case of him not being good enough, fit enough, or just not intergrated and adapted to the english way of football and life, either way zog is being hindered by his lack of involvement. Maybe its because Zog gives the ball away a stupid amount of time. Putting him in defence may teach him to give the ball away a little less, making him a more effective winger. I remember seeing JCole scoring from 20 yards out and mourihno shouting him over and literally giving him a bollocking seconds after him scoring. Now the point i am trying to make, is that the top managers dont really look into too much detail the good things you do, because its wasted time they already know you can do it good, they have to look at the bad things hie does, cos its these things that effect the team most, and in coles situation, he was gettin a bolocking for losing the ball to often, and in my opiion its the saem for Zog. While he goeson his run, a good percentage of the time he'll cut inside and lose the ball, now it might (or might not) be a case of SA giving him more responsibilty and forcing him to learn the hard way that giving the ball away isnt an option. As for smith, there is some merit in why he isnt being played in his correct position, and i think it has much to do with the Acrifican nations cup, we know that Smith is naturally a forward, but is resonably adept at plaing in midfield, one of the best managers in the world seems to think so and so does SA, when the likes of Geremi goes, Smith can fit into that slot, of right midfielder or central midfielder. Barton isnt exactly 100% fit at the moment, he also would be able to replace Martins and also Butt, it would be silly to not play smith then stick him in the deep end come january where he wont perform, the same can be said if he's playing up front come january then moved into midfield once the squad becomes thin. So the best thing to do is to compromise and play in him midfield. The thing about football management is that nearly evdery decison that i football manager makes can be justified with one way or another.

I think the problem lies in the type of players that england are producing, the english game is a physically dominant game and technical attributions arent encouraged at a grassroot level, how many times do you hear "get stuck into them nice and early, show em what its about" at a junior level football match. Well its this coaching method in my opinion whcih is dominant in the english league, in another country, footballers are taught techinically and so the coaching and management is just as techinal. The managers at present will of been brought up on football the way it was played 20 odd years ago, and technical coaching was non existent then, its taken the likes of SA so many years to catch up with the like of mourhino and wenger in terms of scientific coaching, in essecnce, europe has had a 10-15 year headstart on management techniques and english managers are only just starting to catch up.

maybe SA is hopin he'll be a better ore consistent version of Butt, our defence has been offered very little protection from the midfield and he might be the person we need. I personally have been thinking we needed a better defensive midfielder. Ive thought that the protection offered to our defence has been pretty abominable.

I know that this isnt by any means anything to shoutabout and will come under a hell of a lot of scrutiny but isnt it worth mentionaing that we're due for approximately 54 points which isnt to be sniffed at, i mean obviously its a load of bollocks looking at i that way but 54 points would be a decent finish, i think that would of got us to 9th positions last season. I'd be happy for that in his first season, proving we dont have any relegations problems i will stick by SA. According to my incredibly scientific calculations he's on course to better roeder, and for his first season withall the good changes he's made, id be happy with that.

Its a difficult one, i mean shearer hasnt got any experience at all, its one of the biggest jobs in the world, and would make or break his entire career, i think the passion that he has would transend into the team well, i dont think the FA will offer him the job though, its one of the biggest job in the world and if the FA get it wrong again then they are fucked. They wont gamble, this job has got Capello written all over it. I mean i'd personally like to see a managers whose philosphy is to attack, and has a good record of implementing that into his team, i genuinely believe that the quality we have in this team should and maybe would steamroller over 90% of the national teams out there. Playing restrictive football with the quality of players we have is madness in my opinion.

I would have thought 13 games was enough for a manager to get some basics right. When you say this are you implying that his decisions are completely born out of incompetence? I mean when you say basics i assume you mean playingthe right players in the right positions etc? I know i'm sounding like i'm clutching at straws but isn't there a distinct possiblity that as he's seen them train for the past 6 months he might actually have a method to his madness. Dont get me wrong, im literally on the fence with Sa, i dint want him at the club in the first place however im willing to give him a season, the reason being that he can have no excuse for failure in his second season, whereas this season should have been a right off from the start, the club hasnt had so many changes in one go for many years, i defy any manager to have to change anything round so quickly so easily. In my opinion we reallly need to be looking at ourselve as a mediocre team, i personally dont place my opinion any higher then Fulham, people need to relise that in the past 4 horrific years we've dropped down the pecking order hugely. I dont think Fulham fans feel any divine right to be outplaying liverpool and portsmouth week in week out. Where we should be and where we actually are as a team are completely comletely different things, unfortunately alot of our fans seem to judge our team against our potential and not with the reality.

Av never understood this playing for a draw scenario, surely its easier to lose a game that we are drawing in that it is to lose a game we are winning. why make it difficult for yourself? It's basically sayin that its easier to defend goals than it is to score them, which may well be partly true but on the flip side automatically gives the initiative for the toher side to try and test the theory which means a bombardent.

I think indirectly comparing him to Sounes is a bit naive to be honest, he's ten time the manager Souness was, Sounesas didnt have a single posisitve effect on the squad or even the club as a general, whereas SA has, especially for the club. I do understand when people say that he should go, i was dead against him being appointed because i always believed he would be a manager who could possibly take us to the top 6 and that would be it, there was no way in my eyes that sa would get us into the top4, and that would invariably lead us down the saem route of unreasonable expectations. Whats the point of appointing someone who can only lead you so far? People are using the jan transfer window as a counteracting weight for their arguments for not keeping SA "we shouldnt let him blow millions in the Jan transfer window", well i say the chances of us being able to do that anyway are pretty slim, no one does well in the transfer market in january, its an appaling time to have a transfer window.

I don't think we should have to wait a couple of seasons, if he's not looking like doing anything come May then he should go. Surely it's naive to expect any manager to turn a club in our state, thats been left to rot for so long in a season. What happens if the next manager comes in and can't turn it round in a season do we sack him, then the next and the next? Perhaps the problem is this vicious circle that starts with the fans being far too impatient. It's about time people woke up and realized it isn't our divine right to be finishing a European position and began to accept we may need to endure a couple more seasons of mediocrity before we turn it around... I agree with a lot of things that are being said here, but this quote probably sums up howi feel, we seem to have given our sense of divine right to european qualifications when we havent in fact deserved Euro qualification for 4 years now, in the SBR era whenwe were a good team. Your only as good as ya last season and as it stands although newcastle seems to have a decent squad, the foundations of this club are rotten to the core and its gonna take alot of time and patience for someone to repair the damage that has been caused by the last regime of managers and chairmen. looking from a distance nufc seems to have someting inherently broken....no matter how good a house looks from the outside, its useles if the foundations are made of sand and this is exactly the case. I dont think its exactly unfair to refer to ourselves as a midtable side, we're no more, and if anything less. 4 years is a lot of time to change a club, and in those 4years alot has been changed. long gone are the days when we had any right to complain about losing to portsmouth, or succumbing to liverpool. We're actually more mediocre than we think we are, and need to be looking at ourselves as a team on par with Middelsboough or Fulham but with ten times the ambitions, the amount of pressure that is put on the manager is riduculous in retrospect to our position as a team, but justified with our ambition. If anyone told me that SA or anyone could fix the roots of nufcs problems in under a season i'd of laughed in their face. Anyone who thinks that they would needs to take a look at themselves. I always had this season as a right off, i actually would wait till the beinginng of next season to judge him. p.s i was actually against the appointment of SA

yeh i think he might do well for england, he's a pro, and his passion and commitment to england would transend to the players alot more than it would to the newcastle set up a la Pearce. I dont really understand why he's been touted the the job though, this is a person who got a worse managerial recored than Mclaren, in the sense that its non existent. I also dont understand this nostalgia and romantic affliction which seems to make people seriously consider him for the nufc job. If you want a romantic affliction with the nufc past, then have one with the ways we played football under keegan and SBR. I'd much rather that those days occured than we place the future of this club in the hands of another person who hasnt achieved anything of managerial note. I mean even if he did achieve something at the lower leagues id still want it to be a consistently substantial achievement for me to want to consider him. If he does and proves to be a top notch manager, then by all means i would be happy to consider him.

well yeh, fair enough, not sure whose point that proves but.....

Mark Hughes also strikes me as an intense, sharp minded individual.

Are we talking about international managers? Because if we are, then i can quite easily see why Shearer would be successful. But comparing club managers to international managers is pretty pointless, they are completely different ball games. There arent too many top class footballers who have transferred to club management well, i can only really think of Rijkaard of recent years whose done anything substantial on the club arena. Mark Hughes is another manager doing well so far, i dont doubt that he will bea success for the fututre either, my point is is that there is always exceptions to the rules, i'm sure i could quite easily names plenty of top class footballers who havent dont well at club football, and like i have said, it could partly be due to the fact that they played on instinct and had to think less about the game, if you look across the world game, the top club managers generally had poor careers as footballers and ofen started in lowering coaching systems, learing there trade and being able to see football from a different perspective, beingpart of a successful team, i dont think a top players whose played at the peak of the game for 15 years gets the see that perspective and misses out on vital experience.

I dunno...i think shearer is gonna be a poor manager to be honest, and i'm obvioulsy basing this on very little like everyone else, but i just dont think he has the intensity or drive to want to have to think about football 24hours a day. I just dont see him being capable of being able to thouroughly prepare a side to the extent that Mourihno, Wenger or Fergie. These are top class, managers who are capable and willing to obsess about football to the tiniest degree and its that obsession which has proven to be successful for them and there team. Sure shearer has the passion in abundance, but does he have the intensity to be able to dominate a team and get them playing the ways he wants them to. I dont think so, am a great believer in the that top players dont make top managers and that is, in my opinion because they play by instinct, they spend there entire career playing by those instincts and when it comes to top class managers, instinct doesnt cut it at all. Being respectful as i possibly can be, i think you need a superior level of intelligence to be a top class manager. Respectively speaking, shearer has never struck me as being overly sharp minded. *puts tin hat on*

To be fair, so would i, though i dont think jose would take the england job, he's a man of his word and he's said he wouldnt manage england so i'll take that as gospel, i just wish he was back in the premiership again. Theres a quote from allardyce saying that he cant take the job cos his chairman, unlike his last chairmen isnt offereing the oppurtunity to do so, now i read into that, is that he still wants the job badly, now in my little world, i'd like to see Mort let him go for it then take Jose! That would be so sweet!

I think the england job has got capello written all over it. In fact i cant think of a single reason why it wouldnt be...

good possiblity of seeing 433 for the next few weeks!

So, who do you think would benefit the current team? Why? What about the teams under GS and GR? Can come from any era! I happen to be from the Sky Television era so... I'd go for 1) Ginola 2) Shearer (We do miss him) 3) Beardsly

nothing more than a stupid asshole with double standards, harping on about the bollocks that he's doing yet at the same time encouraging the growth of the Champions League to the elitist few for monetary reasons. If he really wanted to put the game before before money, he'd encourage the doing away with the Champions League group group system bollocks. And the UEFA Cup proposals. He's as big a w****** as Trevor Brooking is at the FA. Both of whom have their current position because of their prestige as players. Which - as an aside but relevant point - completely blows a hole in the theory that some idiots have that people who know about football make better footballing based appointments / decisons - I'm talking specifically about people who think apponting these DOF's can somehow guarantee that whoever appoints such a thing can guarantee success and a good appointment. Yes, Baggy, I mean you. You never did reply to the point I made that if everybody appoints a DOF, how can they all win the premiership or the FA Cup mackems.gif Fantastically hilarious. Especially in view of the fact that your very own Spurs have got nowhere near winning either, despite employing your dream setup mackems.gif Am not being funny, but is it just me or have you managed to change a thread about Platini lambasting foriegn ownership into a personal slanging match about Directors of football? How long did it take for you to think of a way to do this? I like the way you call out alot of people on this board for not replying to your mails...is that served with a big tablespoon of irony or what?!?

yeh exactly, i questioned this in another thread. If he's really struggling to fit a player Owen in his system how was he ever going to fit him in the england squad, the same goes for Rooney for that matter.

Isnt Edmilson defensive? To be honest id have a team built around him, just like SBR did with Shearer, Owens gonna be too big a burden on SA, there is no way that SA can fit in Owen into his team. Arshavin has looked like a good little player though, i like the look of him, would like to see a young defensive midfielder though.

I dont understand the logic in payin premium for english players, i really cant, some of the prices quoted for some of the english players are ridiculous, i just cant understand who thought it would ever be a good idea to pay 16m for Bent when most of the world were thinking "crikey, 10 mill for Bent?? bit steep" what is it about english players that make them more expensive? Does anyone actually have a good idea as to why?