McCormick

It would be nice to watch some entertaining football, but if we win under big sam's long-ball tactic (which was all we did in the villa match) then i'll be happy. From our summer buys it seems blatantly obvious what alladyce's plan was- bring in rough solid passers and people who can lob the ball upfield, if he was planning attacking football we'd see some flair players being bought.. its why he bought viduka; to have a big man up there to target. Plus you can see why sam made geremi captain- all he does is toss the ball up. but you'll hear no complaints from me: long ball or no long ball whatever it takes to get 3 points.

defence has definitely improved from last year, helped by the fact that that the 3 midfielders we used are defence-orientated

Harper's a great keeper, wipes the floor with Lehman. We're very lucky to have a keeper like him waiting in the sidelines. Tbh i think people just enjoy complaining, other than that goal to liverpool i think he's been excellent cover for us while our main man shay has been tending to his groin.. ( then again i think shay is the best keeper in the premiership.. rose-tinted shades perhaps?)

blueyes.gif tbh so many papers/ tabloids spew absolute crap that i don't know which ones to take seriously anymore...

It was in the News Of The World. yeah thats the one.

oh and i read somewhere that big sam is trying to use emre as bait to sink a deco deal. any thoughts on this, if its true?

that may be the case with centres, but with right and left backs age is a factor. players playing on the flanks need that bit of pace to keep up with zippy wingers.. that being said i dont think 31 is all that old and, anyway, belleti has speed that belies his age- he's been quite nimble the times i've seen him play and his defensive abilities are pretty solid too. he can really add another dimension to our game

i agree, he's an honest hard-working player who, unlike some, genuinely plays for the shirt.. if he plays like he did against roma ( cheesy: one game i know) every game i'd be ectsatic

as did i.. but i don't see anybody ripping geremi to shreds and calling him sh*te

FFS! Smith is a quality player who used to play regularly for a quality club, can't say that about geremi.. who by the way has not impressed me in the slightest, despite the f*cking mountains of praise he gets. Smith gets stuck in, never shys away from a challenge and his passing game is actually very good if you watch him at manyoo. He didnt have a brilliant game but tbh nobody did- lets remember that it was a slow 3 man midfiled versus a ( i think) 4 man midfield.. honestly give the lad a break..

if theyr mega-rich, willing to splash the cash and don't look like magnusson. Then i'v no problem with it.. i doubt ashley would sell ( assuming of course that this is true, which it most probably isn't)

west ham, mackems, liverpool, spurs .. and a surprise1: man city- hate their new chairman his face just makes my blood boil and I hate sven. Above all though west ham- revolting fans, slimey team, dirty cheats (tapping up, and illegaal transfers) and how can eggert not piss u right off?

never thought of that. but you never know, west ham the cheeky buggars are always sniffing around and more than once this close-season they'v tried to snatch players we're going for. the thing is faye doesn't excite me, but i'm the fist person to get impatient when all goes silent..

fair enough.. my bad.. just thought you were having a go at a player who didnt deserve it. apologies due if oba hasn't signed it i wonder whats taking him so long, seemed sure enough that he was going to sign the deal and unless he's writing a letter-a-day i dont really see what the hold-up is. but i doubt he'll want away unless a top 4 club comes swooping in..

not picking sides here, but i heard a few but i wouldn't put them in the same boat as the shearer chants.. obviously. anyway what happened to faye?

well i'll forget so happy birthday now i want to see the match to watch how he plays.. hope he doesn't go on to become the player we always wanted him to be. abit selfish, but come on who doesn't hate west ham.

I don't know how long you have watched Dyer for but the guy is a waste of space. Is he quick? YES. Is he an England international? YES. On his day is he a threat to most teams? YES. However, i have never once seen a consistant Kieron Dyer. He only ever performs when he feels like it, that isn't me basing it on opinion but from what i have seen. When he came back from injury last season he was fanstastic for two games (Man City and Arsenal). He then did NOTHING until Roeder was sacked. When he realised we had a new manager watching, he scores against Watford, IMO because he made a consious decsion to put that little bit more effort in. -when nobody else did in that match The guy is injury prone and not the greatest technically, for 6-8m pound i'm very very happy to get rid of him. Him will peform well for man city for half a season perhaps and then he will drift back into the wilderness. chezgiven was saying dyer was crap. so why you quoted him is beyond me. yeah, and he went to west ham.. aaah so when we had a new manager watching he put in the effort.. good thing we don't have one of those like. No i wasnt saying he was crap, i was saying that he wasnt a 'flashy skills player who can change a game in an instant'. I was also pointing out that if there was a general consensus that with all players fit he was not likely to start, the loss cant be that great. on those rare days when he gave a crap he was one of those players. and no, i think he'd start pretty regularly, probably in place of milner or even slot behinb attackers in a 442 formation. oh and i what i said about you saying he was crap- took it upon myself to read between the lines, if that not what you meant than sorry; but still it was pretty stupid of rodham to quote what you said and then argue it, because you were saying the same thing.

Love you too bubba! "Offered" being the operative in crap words there. Oh by the way, how much do you think Oba, Carr and Babayaro are worth? the love is clearly mutual wouldn't be surprised if he'd already signed a new deal. as for you're question..carr is still rated -although i fail to see why- by other supporters and i think its safe to say that anything up to 2.5 mil and he would be snaped up by the likes of boro, erm.. maybe portsmouth and some soon-to-be-relegated teams. babyaro, you see wigan, birmingham, boro, written all over him. he used to play for chelsea, and that in itself is a credential in the eyes of smaller teams and would snap him up for around the same price. actual value however.. both in my view would amass 1.5 mil between them. oba is class; he's young, has prem experience, superhuman pace, and scores goals by the bushel. so yeah, easily 20 mil. You don't think the PR machine would have been working overtime if that was the case? As others have constantly mentioned his superhuman pace (your words not mine) is worthless if he can anticipate a run. He needs to be proactive not reactive. Glad to see you're smart enough to realise that fatty Carr and sick note Baba are worth about 750k each. And thats if another club was willing to match their over inflated wages. http://www.goal.com/en/Articolo.aspx?ContenutoId=369402 -- seems nailed on iyam. i don't undrstand why you're giving martins flak, been a very solid player for us and we probably would have been fighting relegation last year without him. he's still young and can work on his anticipation- which to me doesnt seem as bad as you're claiming it is. ffs top score for us last year, top scorer so far this year.. give the lad a break

so you were joking, don't do it again.. you almost gave me a heart-attack with you're last post there's been a lot worse posted about owen and a lot more positive things posted about ameobi. i dont know which is more disappointing. both is pretty depressing.. although i can understand why people are slagging owen; just after coming back from a long injury and we'r all riled up for him to be our top scorer-- he goes and gets injured in a friendly. its some people's inability to cope with disappointment that leads to him getting flak iyam

i say krul's better Aye. One save that looked slightly like a save his daddy made (although it was more to do with the striker being put off balance with the shove in his back) and questions are being asked if he's going to be better than Given. No one pulling him up on his awful positioning on several occasions in both matches which would of resulted in about 4 goals if the strikers hadn't fuked them up. Does have a lot of potential though, through namesake and his decent loan spells, but i think he'd be lucky to get on the same level as Krul, nevermind Given or his father. what they said..

Love you too bubba! "Offered" being the operative in crap words there. Oh by the way, how much do you think Oba, Carr and Babayaro are worth? the love is clearly mutual wouldn't be surprised if he'd already signed a new deal. as for you're question..carr is still rated -although i fail to see why- by other supporters and i think its safe to say that anything up to 2.5 mil and he would be snaped up by the likes of boro, erm.. maybe portsmouth and some soon-to-be-relegated teams. babyaro, you see wigan, birmingham, boro, written all over him. he used to play for chelsea, and that in itself is a credential in the eyes of smaller teams and would snap him up for around the same price. actual value however.. both in my view would amass 1.5 mil between them. oba is class; he's young, has prem experience, superhuman pace, and scores goals by the bushel. so yeah, easily 20 mil.

I don't know how long you have watched Dyer for but the guy is a waste of space. Is he quick? YES. Is he an England international? YES. On his day is he a threat to most teams? YES. However, i have never once seen a consistant Kieron Dyer. He only ever performs when he feels like it, that isn't me basing it on opinion but from what i have seen. When he came back from injury last season he was fanstastic for two games (Man City and Arsenal). He then did NOTHING until Roeder was sacked. When he realised we had a new manager watching, he scores against Watford, IMO because he made a consious decsion to put that little bit more effort in. -when nobody else did in that match The guy is injury prone and not the greatest technically, for 6-8m pound i'm very very happy to get rid of him. Him will peform well for man city for half a season perhaps and then he will drift back into the wilderness. chezgiven was saying dyer was crap. so why you quoted him is beyond me. yeah, and he went to west ham.. aaah so when we had a new manager watching he put in the effort.. good thing we don't have one of those like.

that can't be true..

so you were joking, don't do it again.. you almost gave me a heart-attack with you're last post

Saying Smith is a worse passer/finisher than Dyer is taking it some f****** stretch, man, surely the most avid Smith-basher couldn't take it that far. Dyer's short-range passing was underrated, I'll grant you that, but from what I've seen of Smith over the years he looks a player with the ball at his feet. i think people have taken my comment the wrong way.. it wasnt meant to bash smith at all. i rate smith highly im saying that in terms of creativity dyer (on his day) has him beat. i guess it wasnt very well written because i didnt mean to imply that smith's passing was poor in any way.. simply highlighting dyers strengths and what we will miss. then again i doubt we'll see smith blaze past players like dyer used to. i personally just want to see a player of the same mould as dyer, but preferrably with more hunger. Apologies from my end too, wasn't necessarily calling your fine self a "Smith basher", was just saying even those sorts would be stretching to claim he was a worse passer/finisher than Dyer. You're spot-on about losing his pace, which is a concern I can see myself as plain as day, but I'm hoping/thinking it won't be a major factor in this new Allardyce team. a bit of flattery never hurts and for the last part.. i hope so, it seems alladyce's tactic is to out-muscle teams, which will work well against the top teams since we can never outplay them. i think that guile and grit is not the answer: i've always thought 2 gritty centre mids and 2 pacey creative (basically brazilian) left/right mids was the perfect midfield set up.