ponsaelius

Looks composed on the ball.

Absolute joke the way he's been underused at Juve. He'd already be in the Azzurri if he'd been given a sufficient chance. No chance he'll come here though. He'll go to a midling Italian club and build his status back up before becoming the player he has the talent to be.

Aye.

Nelsen is captain of a midtable Premier League team, he'd walk into our line up tbh. Man mountain at the WC aswell.

Nelson, I take it this is Ryan Nelsen of Blackburn? I'm not being pedantic with the spelling, just making sure it's the same player we're talking about.

Krylja Sovetov Vs CSKA Moscow on ESPN later. CSKA could be a decent watch if the likes of Vagner Love, Honda, Krasic play...

Keep up man.

We're all scared we might be taking your job Dave.

Great for a poor side last season, and at a good age, but he's probably not streets ahead of what we have. I'm still living in blind hope that the money we do have is going solely towards a striker that can keep us up, hence all the freebies elsewhere.

Yeah, Blackpool most surely be heading down. They don't even look like stengthening - although they're after Nicky Butt and Francis Jeffers!

0 pace at CB.

i ain't sure on that tbh, yes hes been a captain before and to success but i never like the idea of someone new coming in and becoming captain immediately Yep. Not to mention the fact it suggests he will be playing regularly. Don't get the whole 'club captain' thing either, what's the point in having a captain who won't play?

Captain, christ.

This whole discussion is really depressing btw. Next season is going to be fucking horrific.

Why, he'd strengthen our options at the back. Plus hopefully he can coach some sense into Taylor. Backwards step. I think in our defence with our midfield infront of him he'd be made to look like a total and utter disaster. A theoretical Colo - Campbell defence is probably the slowest defence in the entire league. For the first time in years we've got a stage where we have a young team and are signing young players (Lovenkrands the ONLY outfield player above 30) that can only go forward and not backwards. I don't want that mentality to change. Fair point. I just think if we're getting him on board as a 3rd/4th choice with the potential to stay on as a coach he could be benaficial. Oh, in a coaching capacity I'd actually love him here. He's one of the most 'talented' defenders I've seen when he was at his best, times a tackle better than anybody else imo. If he could pass on just a smidgen of that to anybody in our ranks it would be beneficial. I just don't want to see him (or that kind of signing) near our playing squad at the moment.

Why, he'd strengthen our options at the back. Plus hopefully he can coach some sense into Taylor. Backwards step. I think in our defence with our midfield infront of him he'd be made to look like a total and utter disaster. A theoretical Colo - Campbell defence is probably the slowest defence in the entire league. For the first time in years we've got a stage where we have a young team and are signing young players (Lovenkrands the ONLY outfield player above 30) that can only go forward and not backwards. I don't want that mentality to change.

Nope, I think believe it or not our players (the good ones) are actually more adept to playing decent stuff - just they're not really good enough to do it at a high level. We don't really have many out and out physical players or brutish defenders in the way Stoke do for example.

Well exactly, but this argument seems to be between the options of staying up or playing decent football. At present we simply need to stay up, nice football can wait. Aye, well then the shite wins definitely. It's not as black and white that it has to be awful to stay up though. If we could sign a couple of players and play the likes of Routledge, Jonas, Enrique, Barton, Guthrie etc we may actually play some half decent stuff in the home games atleast. I hope it's not difficult to watch throughout the entire time.

I'd rather we found some middle ground between good football and kick and rush shite. I don't really want to watch rubbish all season but then I don't want us to go down either

Really hope these Sol Campbell rumours are bullshit.

England Vs Austria on Eurosport at 5:15. No idea whether Donaldson plays or not yet.

Weird, what I've noticed about being in Mallorca is that there is a large Barcelona following from many of the locals. Was there on one occasion when Barcelona won the league and there was lots of people celebrating on the streets, cars driving past beeping their horns etc. There's probably mindless glory hunting for both the big two, hence why the home attendances are so low. Which is a shame because they're actually a decent club who always overachieve, you'd think a sense of isolation would create a local pride and they'd get behind what is a pretty good side.

Aye he looked solid and surprisingly good on the ball. You have to consider the fact that opposition was terrible though.

Perch will be the back-up for Enrique assuming we get another centre half in (Sol?). The centre midfielder will be Gosling, which leaves a forward as a definite priority, whereas I think we'll get a winger in if it becomes a necessity (i.e. an injury). Vuckic may well end up us as our back-up left winger and we'll doubtless shove one of Guthrie/Barton/Gosling out onto the wing if necessary. I hope not, from what Ive seen he's already our strongest and most composed central player. Don't see his attributes as a player running down the wing and taking people on You just know he'll be shunted out wide though. He's the archetypal #10, but there never seems to be any accomodation for that kind of player in this country. So instead we'll make use of his sweet left foot by playing the numbers game out wide.

Aye Carlisle was rough as proverbial Badgers'. Was in early in my toon top and got some funny looks of some scary characters.