YOU'RE the manager - what would you do?

[JH]

If I was the manager, I would have an agent at the Hull game on his mobile phone and I would make absolutely damn sure that not one Newcastle player leaves the dressing room at Villa Park until that c*** Phil Brown has led his players out of the dressing room.

 

Why would that be?

 

So they don't get our final result with 5-10 minutes left to play. 

 

Hopefully the referees and Sky will be onto that.

 

They'll want all games kicking off at the same time and stuff, I'm sure that happened one year? I seem to remember Chelsea and Manchester United games, and they just waited on the pitch ready to kick off at the same time.

[ohmelads]

I'd have thought a match like this is beyond tactical fiddling, and almost entirely about motivation.

 

Decide what you want to do, make sure it is simple, inspire the players, and get them to absolutely sweat blood to make it happen.

 

Shearer's pre match and half time talk are going to be absolutely f***ing essential.

 

Watching your lot of late, the one thing that struck me was that your players don't look particularly bothered. We played Hull recently, and despiute them being w***, they at least looked like they cared. Stoke City have survived this season almost entirely based on that.

 

Shearer absolutely has to fire them up and instill the right spirit in them. If he doesn't do that, then the task at hand gets twice as hard as soon as they get on the pitch.

 

I agree entirely. Clearly one team and one set of fans will be more up for this game than the other, and if anything can tip the balance in our favour, this'd be it. We should harness this energy, set our stall out early and tell them to attack. Playing a cautious game only makes the players and fans nervous, and then it all starts to go wrong. Our players will go out with a lot more adrenaline, but that can quickly turn to fear. If we play (or at least aim to) on the front foot, we might make a positive start to the game and grow in confidence.

 

I'd like to see a front line of Viduka, Martins and Owen, as a statement that we're not messing about hoping others do favours for us. They might also be able to cause a few problems.

 

What could be tricky is if Hull go a couple of goals down, because you can be sure news will quickly get onto the pitch. Then you've got the scenario where you don't know whether to attack or defend, and that'd be dangerous for us.