LucaAltieri

Deluded? The team selection got leaked! He was bang on! And given his journalist girlfriend, it was probably Casillas that fucking did it! Least he could do is take his bollocking like a grown up. Completely undermined his manager and his team.

Biggest cunt in that story is Casillas.

Long / direct ball, if it is working, isn't the crime so many people make out. The same in that Pep teams aren't boring for keeping the ball as a means of defending. Yeah, that irritates me. Long ball is only boring when it's plan A, B, and C.

Every manager working at the top end of Europe's top leagues is a strong personality. To a point. And some will use it to get performances out of their players, ie. Mourinho, SBR, SAF, etc. And others will alienate them ie. AVB, O'Neil, Souness, Dalglish, etc. Mourinho's players love him just as much as SBRs. The man is doing something right. Real Madrid's players absolutely hated his guts didn't they? Fell out with a couple of them, to my knowledge. Vast majority of players have had not a bad thing to say about him. Inter & Chelsea in particular.

Every manager working at the top end of Europe's top leagues is a strong personality. To a point. And some will use it to get performances out of their players, ie. Mourinho, SBR, SAF, etc. And others will alienate them ie. AVB, O'Neil, Souness, Dalglish, etc. Mourinho's players love him just as much as SBRs. The man is doing something right.

Managers need to be strong personalities. See SAF, SBR, etc. Whether you like his shtick or not, he gets it done. Aside from working together comparing him to SBR is garbage. Ferguson is nailed on though. Winning > all else. Massive difference in management style, obviously. But both are excellent at motivating their players. Both strong personalities.

Managers need to be strong personalities. See SAF, SBR, etc. Whether you like his shtick or not, he gets it done.

better than Pep? Not a hope in hell Easily. Had this one won before a ball had been kicked. Pep is a good manager but by far the most overrated manager around. Mourinho keeps proving himself again and again. If Guardiola can keep at it for another 5 years or so, and not pull a Wenger, he might be in the running. But not now.

better than Pep? Not a hope in hell Easily. Had this one won before a ball had been kicked. If he had it won before it kicked off, why did he have to resort to long balls and putting on three strikers to win it? this. It wasn't some "majestic tactical masterclass" it was fucking desperation and the same kind of thing any manager would bloody do in the same situation and hope it works. Hell Steve McClaren pulled the same trick getting Boro to the UEFA cup final Like I said, he won the game in the build up. You can't pull off stuff like this without belief.

better than Pep? Not a hope in hell Easily. Had this one won before a ball had been kicked.

Best manager in the world today. It's not even close.

Beautiful.

14.5% ffs. 1 in every 7 matches we get fucking thrashed. That's the risk you take when you're playing all-out attacking, front-foot football for 90 minutes.

In terms of design, organisation, being ad-free, quality of debate and the type of people on it nothing comes close. Great place. I don't post as much as I used to (maybe in numbers I still do, but not length of posts) because of other distractions but I doubt I could stop logging in because it's such a great resource of news and decent craic. Our admins get the trains running on time. Fascist pig dogs.

Does Zaha count?

Agreed. Some of them are horribly edited, mind. The Toronto and Colorado games this week were chopping all over the place. Really awkward.

Finished 4-4. Dempsey hattrick. I'll put up the highlights when they're on youtube.

Are you seriously expecting credit for being a downer on our best league finish since SBR? "I was a negative creep before being a negative creep was cool."

That's largely my approach to it, too. With the kids I coach you always want to get them to try shit, even if it doesn't work out. But I suppose my remit is to make them better players, not to win high stakes premier league matches.

Tevez was definitely a player he should have been playing. But even at Liverpool it took Mascherano quite a while before he looked like a Premier League player. He was right to use him sparingly.

There's a reason other clubs aren't kicking down our down trying to sign a player that Pardew obviously has issues with. That's enough for me to assume that maybe Pardew isn't just being a complete moron over HBA.

Like I've said repeatedly, I'd probably have him in my team most weeks. I'm just acknowledging that there are legitimate reasons to not play him, too. To listen to some on here you'd think he was getting a goal and a couple of assists every time he plays. He's a risk that our squad can't always afford. It's a little easier for good squads to accommodate flair players than it is for a squad with limited ability. We're hoping for some of our players to play above themselves half the time. Should they also have to pick up slack for others? And once again, I don't actually watch Pardew's pressers and the odd few that I have caught I take with a pinch of salt. There's balance to be had in this argument and a lot of you seem to completely lack it.

It's not about misplaced passes. It's about what happens off the ball when we're defending. I also happen to question how effective he is going forward on occasions as his decision making is suspect at times, but I'm in no way arguing he misplaces more passes than anyone else. It's got nothing to do with anything Pardew has said. In the main I rarely listen to any of his press conferences. My opinions are based on actually studying the game rather than gauging popular opinion down the pub.