Dr Gloom

fuck that. i cherish my online anonymity

not even on paper?

Everybodies met somebody off here, at one time or another, so just ask them. i haven't. well not knowingly anyway.

as would poster you'd most like to meet so you could beat them up

i'm not. i agree that we lack creativity (don't you remember accusing me of saying as much?) but the creative players we do have (duff, emre) have underachieved while playing for us while others like milner and n'zogbia have been wasted out of position. so basically, we're not doing as well as we should be on paper how long can we keep this up for?

definitely alex

i agree with bagio when he says: that's why i think we're underachieving. we're as good if not better than most of the teams above us on paper yet we're lucky to be tenth after playing a brand of football so ugly it makes the wimbledon side of the 80s look like holland side of 74.

you know what, fuck it. i'm not dropping it. i'm hungover and in the mood for wasting a bit of my day with a good old pointless online argument you wrote: i said we're better than most of the teams above us on paper so we're underachieving. you accused me of contradiciting myself as i also moan about our lack of creativity by the very same players. looks to me like baggio is making exactly the same points I don't think we are better than most of the teams above us on paper though and neither does Baggio say that. he said and i agree with him. i think we should be doing better than we are mostly because the players are underachieving (they should be doing better on paper ). our attacking players are either injured, not performing, or being played out of position by the manager.

you know what, fuck it. i'm not dropping it. i'm hungover and in the mood for wasting a bit of my day with a good old pointless online argument you wrote: i said we're better than most of the teams above us on paper so we're underachieving. you accused me of contradiciting myself as i also moan about our lack of creativity by the very same players. looks to me like baggio is making exactly the same points

i agree. i wonder if alex will argue with you for a page and a half of this thread for basically agreeing with my post.

i agree. i wonder if alex will argue with you for a page and a half of this thread for basically agreeing with my post.

who are you, leazesmag? i'm clearly less of a fan than you because i don't have a season ticket but for the record, i do get to a handful of games per season.

jesus mate. re-read what i posted. i really don't think there's anything there to disagree with. fair play if you want to continue this ding dong but i think i'll give it up now. i stand by everything i've said in this thread. i like a moan as good as the next man but i'm making a legitimate point. anyhoo. here it is again

no i'm not. my argument is a valid one and backed up by the points above. i'll repeat them to make it easier for you look at the squad on paper and we should be doing better. why? i hear you cry. well, there are a number of coveted players in our squad who have underachieved since they've been at the club - owen, duff and emre to name just three. these our players that clubs above us like blackburn, everton, pompey etc would all be in for if they became available. so on paper, we have players with big reputations. in reality they continue to underaciheve.

i would say personally that the duff of 3 seasons ago when he was flying with chelsea was a a far better player than he has been for us so far. ditto for emre when he was a highly rated creative midfielder for inter. both have been massive letdowns for us. the list is endless tbh. who could argue that most of our big signings of the last few years have arrived with big reputations but have underachieved with us compared with their previous clubs? we're talking about players that we've beaten a lot of our rivals to sign here. i remember when we signed players like duff, owen, parker, emre and many more, fans of spurs, everton etc being pretty gutted that they missed out on them to us. but maybe they're all right and these players only come to us for the money, hence the perennial underachivement of highly rated players.

class player. i imagine he'd be an ideal partner for martins.

born in the general but i live dahn sahf

i'm not a massive fan.

compare the likes of: owen martins duff viduka emre milner n'zogbia, butt given and others, plus the number of coveted players we've had at the club in recent yearsd who've now moved on, to the squads of most of the teams that have finished above us in recent years and i think you'll find we've under-achieved. we consistently beat teams like pompey, everton, blackburn etc to the signatures of big players in the transfer windows and most of their fans covet a lot of our players....until they sign for us when they seem to turn shit overnight. whether that's because of poor management, poor fitness coaching or whther we are signing players who only turn up for their wages, i don't know. but something's up. we are underachieving and have been since sbr left You're the one who constantly moans about (along with everything else) there being no creativity in midfield and yet you're saying at the same time we should be doing much better than we are. You're that obsessed with complaining about everything that you don't even realise the contradiction. honestly, what are you talking about? our 'creative' players haven't performed in a toon shirt. that's my point. don't you get it? the likes of duff, emre etc (who all looked decent creative players for their former clubs), have failed to reproduce that form while at nufc. that's not me moaning for the sake of it. it's an undeniable fact. it seems that you have taken to disagreeing with me at every opportunity recently which is slightly strange given that i'm always right about everything.

Not the Baines chap I hope.

This is a very interesting point. I've got nothing against us playing a 4-3-3 but doing it with the wrong players in the wrong positions makes no sense at all. I actually do think we have a number of players who could make the formation work but they aren't playing where the need to. N'Zogbia should be left wing and Milner should be on the right. It's not rocket science but Allardyce seems to be dead against it for some reason. aye; there's that plus him contiuing to play zog at left back where he contributes less than he does further up the field when he's spent £6m on a left back that's actually looked decent when he's started. Enrique must be scratching his head tbh. Does N'Zogbia contribute less? I can't remember the last game where he's done anything of note when starting out on the left wing, I thought he looked decent at left back earlier in the season, especially going forward and like most people thought he would look better if he moved back up onto the wing, when he did though he looked like he struggled to find the space he needs to run into and offered very little. I think the N'Zogbia/Milner combo down the left has a decent chance of working out, mainly because Milner has to cut in which leaves plenty of space in behind for Zog to run into unmarked, I presume he's leaving Enrique out because he's still adjusting to the Premiership, nothing wrong with that and it's good management compared to throwing him in at the deep end, Wenger is doing the same with Eduardo at Arsenal and has said it'll take him a good 6 months to get used to it, the only downside was we didn't have a natural left back apart from Babayaro who was always injured to play until he is ready. i think so; yes. his best performances have come for us at left wing

compare the likes of: owen martins duff viduka emre milner n'zogbia, butt given and others, plus the number of coveted players we've had at the club in recent yearsd who've now moved on, to the squads of most of the teams that have finished above us in recent years and i think you'll find we've under-achieved. we consistently beat teams like pompey, everton, blackburn etc to the signatures of big players in the transfer windows and most of their fans covet a lot of our players....until they sign for us when they seem to turn shit overnight. whether that's because of poor management, poor fitness coaching or whther we are signing players who only turn up for their wages, i don't know. but something's up. we are underachieving and have been since sbr left

i daren't open that link at work but kudos on the thread title

as always, we look half decent on paper but ultimately we underachieve. it's been like this since sir bobby and imo reflects the quality of manager we've had since he was sacked. look at our squad now (on paper) and you'd expect us to be doing far better than we actually are. sadly it seems that players seem to lose either their talent or their motivation when thet