Pilko

Dempsey and Rooney.

I love Ian Holloway, he's a legend.

Good to see Michael Essien back as well.

I'm sure we heard all this "aussie making a huge impact" shite about Troisi who didn't even dirty his boots for the first team.

Coventry don't look that bad tbh, that Gunnarsson is looking impressive again. Has a great long throw, great engine, decent passer and a canny shot on him too.

Agree with that, whilst he hasn't been setting the world alight in his few and far between appearances, he's never shirked.

As long as Kinnear isn't in charge at the end of the season, I'm confident we won't sell Xisco without giving him a chance.

Le Coq is indeed shite - that orange striped away City kit is worse than roadkill.

I would imagine that we'd start to loan out more younger players if they weren't needed to fill our bench every season.

Agreed, he's a fat fucking waster

The Gambling Gorilla as far as I know.

Vuckic is more of a winger I think. Donaldson, Rangers and Baheng are all strikers aren't they? Donaldsons been playing a central midfield role recently.

And can you blame them? The main reason people get involved in coaching in my experience is to spend more time with a relative (even HTT says this is why he did it at first) and once you've done that it's a difficult relationship to manage. It isn't how they should go about it, but I reckon if someone's taking the time to put the hours in you can't really begrudge them picking their kid. Brilliantly satirised by the simpsons, of course. --Springfield 0 Victory City 86-- "Great debut son! You really settled in after some early jitters!"

and why is Mario from Big Brother in the background?

Lee Mack and Jack Dee's long lost kid there WBCP

Blatter is a fucking gobshite, I disregard anything the man has to say.

I turned up with extra large pockets in fairness. I never gave myself top billing! Was just trying to scare cp40, it clearly didn't work. Your pockets clearly did have a small hole in, cos I did manage to score a blatantly not offside goal. Was that when we had 2 at the back against your 8 strikers? That could have been at any time during the ninety minutes tbh.

I don't know how many people live sort of local (in Newcastle, Whitley Bay, Cullercoats, Tynemouth etc) but I would be up for having a mainly N-O 5 or 7 a side team entered in a league.

I turned up with extra large pockets in fairness. I never gave myself top billing! Was just trying to scare cp40, it clearly didn't work. Your pockets clearly did have a small hole in, cos I did manage to score a blatantly not offside goal.

What happened to Dong Fangzhou? He was shite by all accounts, is he still at Man U?

LuaLua costing us 2 points at Fratton Park

go on, i bet you could. you score one flukey 30-yarder, and think it gives you the right to take liberties... you never stop about that goal, but how on earth can you put a shot in the top corner from outside the box and fluke it? Its eating you up pilko, ill do it twice next time just to prove it wasnt an accident. You've said it now, may God help you if you can't deliver. i wont be losing any sleep, btw, are you sure you want to take this thread down the- who didnt live up to thier own hype line? Nixon more than lived up to the hype. The blue left winger only got three goals.

HTT - this isn't me being critical, so read this... The concept of picking numbers to determine teams is quite common and still used nowadays (I know thats how my 11-year old brother chooses teams up at the field) and it was used sometimes when I was at school. There wasn't a "formation" as you said but there were kids who defended, kids who went in net, kids who goal poached, kids who just followed the ball everywhere and kids who just wanted to try out that trick they saw Henry do on MOTD. Your about 85% right about the coaching thing, it does pretty much stink, personally I think a child under 10 should be played by a coach as a "keeper", "defender", "midfielder" or "striker", none of this left back, right back, attacking mid etc. They should be encouraged to use the space out wide and told/shown how it can pay off etc but not rigidly made to hug the touchline. They should get to have a go at every position (keeper optional) and decide where they enjoy playing or where they play best. After that age of 10, the coach should start assessing where he thinks kids are best suited to play, and sort of having a chat with them and asking. Obviously a lot of kids will say "striker!" but the coach should still say "I don't think you'd be at your best as a striker, you need to have really really good finishing/heading whatever, and if you played midfield you'd be able to use your good pass and tackle as well as having some shots when you can." or things to that effect, and in my opinion, if a kid is told to play in defence but then has a few good games and is praised by the coach, they'll grow to the idea of playing there. When I was playing for the school team in middle school, the first eight weeks or so was when I was on the bench and I only got on the pitch something like three times, for about 10 minutes at the end. I went to the teacher in training the next week and asked him if I could play more, and he said "Yes, if you keep it up in training you'll get more games." - Although I was benched again that week, I played the whole second half. I went to him and had a similar conversation the next week and he said he was pleased how bothered I was about not playing. After that started every game bar two (one I missed through illness, the other was the last game of the season and I was dropped to the bench) and sort of developed a consistency of playing at centre midfield. Through that, not only did I gain skills of how to mark other kids and learn to pass quicker, I also got the mental part right of not giving up and hassling the manager to play and trying to prove I was good enough. Many a manager has picked me as a CB in the past also, as you said HTT, because of my height. The problem is, I was never a good enough reader of the game, or good enough at holding a defensive line/position to be any good there. I was always drifting about or playing people onside. Striker is where I'm better at holding a line, retaining the ball and trying to find a pass. There's also less chance that an error will lead to a goal, and as my passing isn't exactly great, it would be a disaster if I played at CB. Kids need to enjoy football, but also be coached and given some form of discipline, getting slightly firmer at every youth level. They also need to be aware that if they are very unhappy with where they are playing or that they aren't enjoying it, that they must speak to the coach politely and try and rectify the problem. Coaches need to make that more plain.

Why don't we just settle up Viduka's contract now? No point hanging onto the fucking waster.