Vedder

41.1% we're catching up, swietnie!

Not Lee Dixon surely. His 'analysis' of games usually revolves around 'he gets the ball in midfield, plays it out wide. The winger runs with the ball down the wing, crossed it in and the striker is there to put it in the net'. Yeah, thanks for that Lee, you are aware that you are on TV and we can see what's just happened! Used to love the commentator for Serie A when it was on channel 4, he was on MOTD for a bit too. Must have replaced him with that woman commentator

Exactly, in an ideal world I'd imagine he'd have loved to stay at Inter (a massive club in his home country, playing in Champions League regularly etc) and has moved to us to get out of a bit of a rut that he was suffering under his old management. But he's here now and I'm sure once he starts playing, and hopefully we're doing well, then he'll settle in fine.

Don't think people are talking about his pace, more the reading of game, which is hard for some foreign players as the game moves much faster. That said, I'd still start him, he'll have to get used to it at some point!

And the same picture is used for both auctions. Crazy people.

It's the type of signing a newly promoted club would make. But Sunderland are supposedly establishing themselves as a good Premier League club, so I'd have thought they'd be signing players for the future. Unless their future is a 35 year old Wes Brown!

Decent signings, but not enough to justify the major wank fest they are currently having. That said, if they get Zog and possibly one other good quality player, then they'll have a good mix of solid and attacking players. So far, nothing to be scared of, just they've bought more players with PL experience which might settle better in time for the derby. Fucking hate sunderland.

that got them relegated More like stopped them getting relegated sooner. Aye, there's fuck all they could do playing alongside Phil Stamp, Curtis Fleming and Steve Vickers

Yeah, not sure if I have my anti-mackem glasses on still but I'm not sure what they're get so excited about. I can't say I've ever thought 'oh shit, we're up against Gardner and Larsson this week'. They'll be weaker this season than last (if you include the loan players going back as well as the loss of Bent and Henderson). Still can't believe the bastards got Wickham tho, the girlfirend's family will be full of their usual pre-season bullshit when I see them at the weekend.

Not necessarily, if you play 4-4-2 you would have the two strikers and two wingers as being primarily attacking players and could still accomodate a box to box midfielder. It depends if the 3 attacking mids were all given free roles or if they are expected to put a shift in going backwards as well.

Yeah, it's not just respect for their football knowledge/integrity either. As soon as the Man Utd shirt comes out I can't help but think complete w*****! Rarely do I stand corrected tho

I thought the same. I was getting annoyed that he was starting to drift infield a lot in the second half, then when he made that mistake I said to my mate "get him off now". Got a bit of stick off him once the red card was shown like!

Ranger really needs to work on his running off the ball. He holds it up well but once he lays it off he doesn't know where to run and often ends up just getting in the way. Also, probs been monetioned already but Pardew should get Kuqi on a bit earlier, looked like the new Sibierski today!

Mine was Feb 1990 FA Cup game against Man Utd (lost 3-2). Was only 5 but can remember being moved from the Milburn Paddock to the Leazes (or the other way round?) becuase of over crowding. Second and third games were both 1-0 home defeats to Millwall and Brighton, at least things got a bit better over the next few years!

Shearer's record breaking goal against Portsmouth was a special moment as well. The atmosphere for the ten minutes following was unbelievable!

Saw Pardew on SSN yesterday, looks like he's aged 5 years in the 2 weeks he's been here!

Don't even joke about this cunt

If it is Pardew, does Ashley seriously think that we now have a better chance of staying up thatn if we had stuck with Hughton? Fucking hell, I've been overestimating Ashley (and I've always considered him a useless twat).

Not to mention how much closer he has brought the players and fans. Actually like our team at the moment, haven't been able to say that for a long time. Even the team under Bobby had the likes of Dyer and Jenas who boiled my piss at times.

Always liked Martin Jol so I wouldn't wish it on him to come and manage under that fat cockney twat.

4 points off sixth as well. Two points from a possible fifteen as well. Yep, it's called mid-table. You tend to be as close to the top as the bottom, hence being in the middle. Thought we were just quoting statistics. Were you certain that we were going to get relegated? Impossible to be certain, but we were heading in the wrong direction, looking less and less likely to win games. And fwiw I spent the whole of the relegation season thinking we'd survive. I did say last week (I think) that I thought we'd be bottom three on Boxing Day. Following this decision do you think we are more likely to stay up this season?

I won't be renewing next season and I never thought I'd say that.

Same for me, even in our relegation season I didn't feel this pissed off.

4 points off sixth as well. Two points from a possible fifteen as well. 11 points from last 8 games. You can look at little runs of form but it means fuck all. All that really matters is that we were doing ok under hughton and Ashley is a fat clueless bastard who's gonna get us relegated now.

Good point, we are gonna be fucked. Then in even more of a rush to get a manager in = JFK.