ChrisMcQuillan

Fair play to Hughton. Good line-up.

He could easily have had 4 against Cardiff alone.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/8494432.stm Christ... :no: I'm sure everyone will join me in giving Antoine our condolences.

well hes hardly going to come out and say butt was complete garbage, when the hell does any manager say that about one of his players He could not say anything about Butt's performance at all.

It's either lying, or delusion. And neither are what we want. I'm with Ronaldo.

A resounding yes. This is why England always fucks up major trophies. The press. Too much pressure placed on someone over something stupid like this that comes out before a World Cup/Euro campaign. Yes it was wrong, and yes it should be resolved. But not in the fucking Sun, or by Fabio Capello or the FA. Just play football. He was Captain for a reason, who he sleeps with shouldn't impact that.

We should be preparing for the Premiership since we were apparently promoted already. Exactly. People are going around saying 'Oh he's not good enough for the Premier League.' Newsflash: We're not in the Premier League. We're a Championship team. These signings are for the Championship. And from what I've seen, they look good enough. If our players are good enough to win the Championship, then they're good enough to stay in the Premier League. Not flourish, just stay. That's been proved time and time again over the years. The players we are buying now seem the right sort. People complain about the length of contract, but we're not gonna be stupid and sign them on a 6 month deal. What if we don't get promotion this season? We could need these guys to continue to build to go back up. No one seems to be considering that. We are not gonna be back where we were anytime soon. It takes far longer to rebuild a squad than it does to strip it apart. We've been stripped down, we won't be back near the top for another five/six years at best, and that's being overly idealistic. What we should be worrying about is who we'll bring in over the summer if we're promoted, but more importantly, who'll be managing us and who'll own us. Those are the kinds of questions that'll determine our Premiership performance next season, not who we buy now. They're for the Championship because we're in the Championship. It really is time for some people to let go of the dream of playing Barcelona in the CL in three years time. It's not gonna happen. Let's get back to the PL with these players, then let's make sure we can stay in the PL. Then we can start worrying about rising to the top again. A meteoric rise to fame and glory is not going to happen with this administration.

Yeah I love watching the likes of Nolan and Butt scream for the ball while standing still behind one or two opposition players. Disgraceful from professional football players - my U10 girls know not to just stand there. "Don't just stare at it..."

Pretty bog standard away performance from us, minus the goal of course. We are getting worse as the season goes on. Without the Jose & Jonas link up we were slow & predictable. Yes, we had new players but we couldn't dictate a game against 10 men. Had Jonas and Jose been playing we'd have won that, I have no doubt. But it goes to show that we need that on the other wing. Simpson and Routledge might have the ability to form a similar partnership over time. But we need a driving force in the middle. Smith - Butt - Nolan is having a laugh. Their top speed COMBINED is slower than Lovenkrands. We need Smith - Guthrie at the bare minimum, but preferably a new quality signing there. The problem is not the quality of our strikers, imo. Looking at Carroll against WBA, you can see what he can do. Lovenkrands too. The problem is CLEARLY the midfield. We have a strong backline even without Taylor, Enrique and Simpson playing as was evidenced by the clean sheet today. The problem is that our midfield don't have the physical athleticism to run enough, and we hoof difficult balls up to our strikers who huff and puff and get tired. Routledge and Jonas are good enough, but we need to shore up that centre. How Butt can still be considered for a starting XI is absolutely beyond me on today's performance. Smith and Nolan not far behind him. I can tolerate one of Smith and Nolan playing, but they have to have a decent foil for them. Right now, we don't have that.

Shit. How did Butt stay on? WTF?

Can I just remind everyone that Moses plays for Crystal Palace. Why don't we play Fabregas instead of Butt while we're at it?

I think I'd rather play the bench on their own than that starting line up.

Butt's been okay this season.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/football_league/article7008928.ece From the Times, published an hour ago. Some promising quotes there from Hughton - who plans to use him as a forward Well, if Hughton's "hopeful" we may as well forget about it.

Plus he was injured wasn't he? Nursing his way back in.

Harper - 7 - Dependable, another great save. Kadar - 7 - Bit shaky at RB, much better at LB. Coloccini - 7 Solid, dependable. Williamson - 8 - Colossus in the air. Great debut. Didn't put a foot wrong. Enrique - 6 - Didn't really get time to shine. Guthrie - 7 - Strong performance. Tidy, and industrious. Nolan - 4 - Non existant. Smith - 6.5 - Good. Got a bit of a physical beating from their lot. Gutierrez - 6 - Soldiered on despite clearly not being 100%. Did okay. Lovenkrands - 6.5 - Some neat and tidy runs. Unlucky not to get a goal. Carroll - 6 - At times showed why he is a talent with nice turns and strength. Seems to lack vision and sense. Pancrate - 7 - I was impressed, gotta say. I groaned when he came on, but he played an incredibly sensible game and used his pace and strength to good effect defensively. Gotta say, Hughton made the right call here with what he had on the bench. Routledge - 7.5 - I was again impressed. Quick, spritely, but he also seems to have the vision and sense Carroll lacks. He spots runs the others don't even look for. Ranger - 7 - A very well taken goal, and the usual above-average hold-up play we've come to expect. Hughton - 7.5 - Depleted squad, good selection. We really need a stronger CM though in order to stop teams overrunning us. However, steps in the right direction with the new CB and RW.

Anyone else Notice that Geremi is now gone from the squads at the back of the programme.?

Pretty sure there was for Harewood at least.

Ballymena is the Helmand Province of N. Ireland.

Surely we can't throw two new signings in with one days training, especially Williamson. Routledge I could just about understand.

Look, Healy wants to be snapped up. Let's take him. Quality finisher when he's playing often. We could really do with a good right winger, but Hughton won't do that cause of Pancrate. We need a good CM but he won't displace Butt/Smith/Nolan. So bring Healy in, bring in a decent defender (get a Chelsea, Man United, Arsenal prospect or something) and pray Taylor's injury's not too bad.

So they're not even ruling him out yet for the official site. Maybe will only be a few weeks. Please let it only be that.

I don't think we can afford to lose the Jonas/Enrique left side if we have any chance of out-scoring them. So Tavernier gets my vote.

Na. Will never understand that. It's the third best int'l tournament. CIV 1-0 and just had a legitimate penalty claim turned away. In what ways? The Euro Championships, World Cup and Copa America are all of a better standard imo and more exciting. The standard of football in the ACN is poor and so is the officiating. Also being every 2 years dilutes the appeal imo. Better officiating than the Championship, though.

If Taylor is out, and we don't bring in a replacement, we'll be scrapping in the Play-Offs for promotion, simple as.