Interpolic

HandBa.

I really don't think it's that different, it's just not working today.

Next person to say this needs to give themselves a slap Still glad we didn't bother signing any defenders?

And again I'm fuming that we didn't bring a couple of defenders in. But I'm wrong though, we'll be alright, we don't need any more players.

Fucking hell man.

I think it's a tactic tbh, set up to play the most tedious football possible and hope you sneak a goal at some point. Like Pardew said last season "sometimes (i.e. always) you need to wait for the win to come to you". In other words there is generally no desire to pro-actively go out there and get the win. In a way I've no problem with it because it's effective. I don't enjoy watching us though, which annoys me since I devote a fair bit of time to it.

The contrast between the way we've played today and the way Spurs approached this fixture a few weeks ago is quite startling. Reading really did look like a pub team that day.

Daft from Cisse, that like. Well played by Williamson and Ba as well.

If it ain't broke don't fix it. If it never worked, it's not broke. It's working as well as it ever has.

If it ain't broke don't fix it.

Thought Ben Arfa was going to do a Blackburn/Bolton there.

We're involved in a lot of those.

I prefer players to leave the way he did as he just got on with playing for us and didn't spit his dummy out. I can understand why he didn't want to say that he was leaving because he would have got stick from some for doing so. Talking the club down after he'd left is another thing but not the end of the world. He's thick as fuck as well, another reason why I'll let him off.

That's really interesting. There was another statistical analysis (on More or Less, I think) that said there was *no* Man Utd bias, but I think that was only penalties. At any rate, I'd like to see those rates compared to those for LFC and Arsenal: it appears that referees, like other people, are unconsciously biased towards teams/competitors in red. I think ref's usually have to make many more decision for or against Man Utd as they have more of the ball than most teams. Have no idea how that affects things one way or the other. Tbf to Liverpool (hate saying that) they haven't had the rub of the green at all so far this season. But in Suarez's case that's his own fault 100%. Boy has cried wolf and cheated so many times that its no surprise he gets less decisions. And he's STILL cheating and working his ticket every game. If I was a ref I'd give him nowt either. I'd buy into Jonas's 'antics' 100% though.

Send the bugger back!

I've always, always done this when predicting scorelines though and defended Lawrenson when people were having a pop at him for it. It just improves your chances of being correct.

Oh I get it then, trust every single decision and don't ask questions. Despite the signs we're seeing in terms of performances. I understand now. This will make my life easier.

God. I can't argue with this. You're insane. "Results with our back up players" - Well performances so far this season have been poor. Results have been alright but not great like you're suggesting. We missed our absentees against Villa who we should be beating and even Everton could have been a more winnable game if we had a stronger squad. I've only got 5 league games to go on so far. Don't get me started on the European games which have been a waste of time to watch and I'm not sure why we bothered our arses qualifying at this point. Your point about cups leans towards a "There's always next year" outlook. If I ask you about this in 5 years or 10 years then you'll say the same thing. Because most people connected with NUFC accept and embrace this attitude, we will never win anything. Ever.

Also, some of our best signings ever were "over-priced" - Shearer was probably over-priced at £15m, same goes for Ferdinand at £6m given his age and the transfer market at that time (we'd only gotten about this amount for a far younger striker Cole from the top club in the country a few months previous), Robert at £10m is another one, even Bellamy was a risk at £6m. They all proved their value. I know we're talking about different regimes here but sometimes you just have to get the deal done. Otherwise we're stuck forever waiting around for contract loopholes while the squad is left woefully short of numbers and quality. The situation up front is a disgrace, we've let Best and Lovenkrands go and there is nobody new there. I hope to God we sort that out in January.

Well to pad it out a bit, I'm fed up with being accused of being a spoilt kid for wanting moderate investment and the club to have a desire to improve. Your post encapsulates that attitude and I'm fed up with reading it. If we set a budget for transfers, how would it make sense to spend over what we estimate that players value to be? With moderate investment that would directly affect the amount we can spend the next time. What if a better player in any position becomes available then next window? Break the budget to get him or miss out? Also how do our scouting team rate the prospective additions in comparison to our current side, is the improvement worthy of the fee being asked? If its slight improvement, would it be worth relying on our current players if we cannot get them for the price we want so that we can find a bigger improvement in future? Is there not a lot more to this situation beyond "i just want moderate investment"? Everyone wants moderate investment man, but it has to be sensible & you have to plan ahead. They have been doing this, this is why we have improved. It doesn't work if we repeatedly miss out and leave ourselves short.

Fantastic post.

If only we could see the positives which come from the negatives. We're saving money all the time, man.

The goals scored last season by Best gained us 7 points, the goals scored by Shola gained us 1 and I wasn't a fan of Best but I think his movement pisses all over the movement of Shola. What were the better results where Shola was present when Best wasn't? It's alright man, Mick.

This must have happened in parallel universe because it didn't happen in this one. I honestly don't know where these super-sensible, "it'll be alright, man" people come from because I've never met one of them in real life. It's not hysterical to have genuine concerns about certain things going on at NUFC.

What are you on about man? Who cares about those clubs? We should look to continuously improve ourselves. That's it. Nothing else to it. Your assessment of how desperately we should add numbers to improve is obviously up for debate. We had the 3rd best form in the country from January onwards last season. Our current squad achieved that. As i mentioned before our best results this season have been without both Colo, Simpson & Tiote in part. What is your basis that suggests we should be going out of our way to match other clubs fee's to maintain or improve? Whats the basis for it beyond insecurity? Because the results dont back it up. What? We have been so fortunate with injuries in the last few years it's unreal. Surely you can't be happy with us chancing our luck like this time and time again. If we had bought a couple more players in the summer then we might be able to play a team in Europe that is better than a reserve team for a start.