Stal

Heartbroken. Pav was not just my inspiration for wanting to play in goal as a kid, he is still my favourite player ever. RIP Pavel, you will truly be missed.

You know what? Gallas wearing 10 didn't bother me. It's the anomaly in all of this and I have no idea why. What are the La Liga rules for handing out numbers?

All of these. It started with Ruel Fox wearing number 5. I hated that so much. Anyone other than keepers wearing number 13 too. Makes me itchy. Hate keepers with 12 or 14 too. It's really that bad with me :rant: The Gini thing is worse because we actually signed a centre back too and yet he isn't wearing 5. Colo wearing 2, he needs to "get in the sea", to quote a phrase I picked up from this forum. Honourable mention to Gouffran as he shouldn't be wearing 11. It's a bloody left wingers number, a FIRST TEAM left wingers number, not a...a...what the hell ever Gouffran is meant to be. ARGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

I guess one of my pet hates (and I have a couple) is players with squad numbers that don't correspond with the position they play. I absolutely hate it and it's like it sends the universe out of kilter. I think I blame this for us not being as successful as maybe I'd have liked over the years (pre Ashley obviously as he is clearly the root cause now, but it still happens under his regime which in my OCD addled mind I think can't help our chances), maybe like a Feng Shui thing.

Nope, I mentioned him in an earlier post. It was a total head scratcher when we signed what was in essence Liverpool's third choice keeper.

That, really. There's no rewriting of history, I had a season ticket back then and Pav was the better keeper in my eyes. That's my take, but both had their good and bad points though and depending on the individual some may rate one higher than the other but Given was a good step ahead of either of them. I think this is fair. I didn't think Shaka was as good. Saw him playing for Reading a couple of times and he flapped at crosses, but he did improve when he played for us. Still preferred Pav by a long way though.

And I would have no issue as such with this, except the club has set precedent in this area by lowering expectations and not buying anyone at all. There is nothing wrong with him saying "things are always discussed behind the scenes but we don't discuss it publically".

Pav is my absolute top #1 player. Loved watching him, was always disappointed when Shaka or Hooper took his spot.

11 days until we start releasing stories about a transfer summit and then a slow drip feeding of stories to dampen expectations over the whole of January. This is exactly what I think will happen. mcclaren has already started the drip feed with his "we haven't spoken about January" bulldust. I would say he HAS had conversations about it (simply because he is in charge of a team and even with his limitations he will clearly know which areas need upgrades), but has been told by the regime to start the dampening of expectations exercise. I fully expect to start seeing the moncur "we can do it with the players we have" articles appearing in the chronicle soon.

Would anyone have Mourinho here? I kinda wonder what that would be like. Purely hypothetical like.

Liverpool after Matip? Still annoyed we didn't go for this guy in the summer for a new freshened up back line.

Paying professional footballers to not have squad numbers is literally the least imaginable Mike Ashley thing I think of Lol, well, yeah. That and appointing competent folk in key positions of management. I've noticed a trend in Mcclaren dumbing down talks of January transfers recently. Sounds like he is trying to dampen expectations again. Now where have I seen that done before?

Need a CM first, a proper CM. If we get that I think we can fumble through at CB probably but trying to go the season with the CM options we've got is tempting fate massively. CB not much better, granted, but as least we have one who can play there and some others who are capable of decent games. Tempting fate is the tagline of the Ashley era though. We have needed a CB for 4 years now yet Colo still trundles on forever, we never do whats needed. True enough. It'll be a derisory bid for Matip ahead of his contract expiring, probably same for that Cameroonian lad, then jack it in when we get told to get to f***. Another 2 wins and we might not even do that knowing these idiots Realistically we have 2/3 spots open now for the PL squad list but then we did in the Summer and they chose to include the likes of Bigi Aye, saw that Chronicle article yesterday making a point of explaining that the squad was "full" and that they couldn't shift players in the summer for the price they wanted. Yeah, really Lee? Clubs don't like to buy s***, what a f***ing shock, lower your price to get them out of the club and free up space and wages you literal bellend. Plus the fact we lose Williamson, Taylor, Obertan, Marveaux, Elliott? and likely Bigi in the summer. Bigi/Krul can already be taken off the PL squad list and realistically we need this motley crew replaced asap too. We whould be telling the world they are all on frees not waiting for offers All of this. Never mind even shifting them, just don't give them a squad number. Tada!!! Then you've freed up space for actual footballers to take a spot in the squad. The fact they haven't done this, nor has the question ever been raised by so called football journalists, speaks volumes about the club actually spending money in January (or even adding more quality in key areas to the squad in the last window either).

I have also heard this, although second hand. It was a sunderland director who originally told the tale if I remember correctly.

I saw him do this at the Silverlink pictures when he played for us. He was wearing a "The Rock" t-shirt, happily signed stuff and shook hands with anyone who approached him. I cant remember if this was before or after Dyer v Bowyer though.

Oh, it's bollocks alright. I agree entirely with that sentiment and your description of his default style of writing. If we wanted pure physicality then Mitro would have been on etc. It's just not the worst thing I've read, NUFC-wise. Although bob moncur probably takes the prize for that rather than Hutchison now I think about it.

I dunno like, I've read some of Don Hutchison's guff. I find him far more unbearable.

"The Mountain that Hides" is my favourite name of the day! ;D Outstanding!

I'm kinda pleased. I reckon Liverpool will tank us regardless, but if this awful, awful "player" is injured, then perhaps it will force their hand to buy in January, because quite frankly I don't believe they were going to spend.

All this talk of "wingers", is that right wingers or left wingers? Much like fullbacks, its better if they play on the side they prefer. A "winger" cannot necessarily play either flank effectively.

So was Abied. Aye but he was mates with HBA and we all know that's not allowed. I thought it was Cabaye he was mates with?

I always thought there should be more coaches. The manager explains how he wants the team to play and what he would like the coaches to work on and the coaches then go and work with the players in specific areas. It makes sense (well, to me at least) that a defensive coach could pass his knowledge onto the defenders in the squad etc. This way doesn't mean that the players get mixed messages, as the manager has already explained his philosophy to the coaching staff.

Just seen a story in the chronicle saying he refuses to look at signings in January when we are in a relegation fight. Surely that's the time we really need good players to come in? It's so transparent, he's just trying to lower/manage fan's expectations and further kill the club. I didn't want him, but with the backroom staff he brought in I started to have hope. He didn't clear the dead wood and not enough quality signings were made over the summer though and I started to think it would be a struggle. Carr also needs his share of blame for insisting on bringing him in when the club could have made a decision to make a big change with someone else (Garde, DeBoer etc) as does the inept lee ryder for cheerleading him (not on the carver ring licking scale, but still -apologies for Darth for the pre-lunch imagery), rather than championing someone who could have been a breath of fresh air. Anyway, point being he's just another pardew, just a less odious one.

"Do you want NUFC to be relegated?"...I'm now wondering if the players and/or mcclaren actually do. Not sure what mcclaren would gain from it, but I think it's a viable thing for the players. They'd still get moves to other top league clubs.

I am in no way a mcclaren fan, although I can see he's far better than pardew. I think new faces would have solved it IF they had been made in the summer. There is too much of a can't be arsed attitude which seems to permeate throughout the squad and you can see it affecting the good players we brought in. Get rid of those with real fight because they stood up to the regime and keep the yes man patsies. Colo is the absolute epitome of this. Never mind as a player, I believe this guy is a massive reason why the club have trouble moving on. Why would you motivate yourself with this as your captain? A bloke who has the odd good game in a blue moon, doesnt have any passion, thinks asking "how's your wife and kids?" is motivational when we're a goal behind and seems to also be sodding off back to Argentina every Christmas. Mcclaren had the chance when he took over to make a huge change, relieve the existing captain of his duties and give it to someone with drive who would inspire. He also should have insisted on a replacement for colo too. And I do say insisted because it was us (well, graham carr) desperately licking his ring to get him here in the first place, not him chasing us. I can understand to a degree him allowing abeid and kemen to go because he likely thought the centre midfield was full so I'll cut him some slack. But he needed to make sweeping changes to breathe life into a decaying corpse of a club and instead he kept it as it was. Not just about player selections for me, it was about having the balls to make the changes needed to make a statement. That change could have really driven us forward, taken us out of the bog of eternal hopelessness that was the pardew era and I believe that the players who are either being written off as cack or just aren't performing might actually be different players now. Ones who actually care. But if you keep the rot around then you're just putting a Kleenex over a pissy puddle and hoping the wet bits don't spread.