Dr Gloom

2 league goals this season suggests otherwise. he hasn't started that many games in the league tbf. he's scored a few for england in for liverpool ib cup competitions. isn't he their top scorer in the champions league this season? 14 starts and 6 sub appearances. I'd be very reluctant to spend the money required on a player based on a purple patch, IMO Crouch is very much a hot and cold player and not one I'd have a great deal of confidence in. he's never going to be prolific over the course of a season but you've also got to look at what he offers to the team. he's a good outlet and plays well with his back to goal - exactly the kind of player we need imo. the downside on that is the increased temptation for the likes of bramble to lump it forward to the big fella. i'd expect him to chip in with 10-15 goals a season - not bad if he's playing alongside a clinical finisher like owen. but tbph, i don't see it happening. he'll be too expensive for us plus i can't see why he'd want to leave liverpool - he's still their third choice striker and he's bound to still get a few games.

i wouldn't mind a bit of what he's toking for tonight. could ease the pain, marginally.

i'd like to see us sign a couple of quality full backs, and a forward. babayaro and carr will do as backup but they're not good enough to be first choice. and for all his effort, i don't think i can handle watching ramage at left back again so a new left back is a must. we're in bad need of a commanding centre half too but that one might have to wait until the summer.

Except at NUFC for the last 9 consecutive seasons. I can't remember the last season without a massive injury crisis and I can remember at least 4 with basically a whole team out injured for at least one point in the season. The biggest difference THIS season is our complete squad is smaller than it has been for a long time (not so very long ago there were 50 professionals in the books – far too many certainly, but we seem to have gone in the opposite direction now). exactly, it was so obvious to all of us that as soon as get our usual bunch of injuries we'd struggle because of how small the squad is. anyone, with the exception of leazesmag, would suggest there was a lack of foresight or dare i say planning on the chairman's part. i'm sure roeder would have liked to have gone into the new season without one of the smallest squads in the league. find it difficult to stop laughing at you when you think the chairman is the manager. The manager chose to - correctly - invest in - in his opinion - quality forwards. He used his budget to do this. Do you really expect the club to continue spending big money they don't have ? If you advocate buying lots of players for 2 or 3m who are no better than what we have, where exactly would that get us and how many of those have we bought that you have said aren't good enough. As i said, it is getting more difficult to stop laughing at you. Or do you continue to think the board can continue to fund their managers massively - then absurdly continue to STILL label them a shit board ???? Give yourself a shake and ask yourself how many other boards match our spending - although I know you think it isn't relevant like Absolutely amazing. the manager identifies which players he wants but the chairman sanctions the signings you spas. do you really think roeder was happy going into this season with just six defenders, and the shower of shite we've got up front? he obviously wasn't because he's been moaning about the size of the squad all season. it's the chaiman's job to balance the books and make sure that the manager has enough money to get the players he wants. the fact that we didn't have enough money left to get all of roeder's targets is shepherd's fault - he's hardly the best negotiator in the world is he? just look at how much money we've blown in recent seasons compared with what we've made selling our players.

he's the sort of striker owen enjoys playing alongside. i imagine he'll be at least £7-8m though, so probably too much for us this time.

2 league goals this season suggests otherwise. he hasn't started that many games in the league tbf. he's scored a few for england in for liverpool ib cup competitions. isn't he their top scorer in the champions league this season?

chelsea have never lost at home in premiership under mourinho. our recent form there is shocking. we're bound to win

Which games did you see these signs of improvement in then Leazes? Sheffield United? Charlton? You never said anything at the time (and would have correctly been regarded as mad if you had), and you've never answered the question since I asked it either. I fully expect you to come up with some random bullshit now though, rather than answer a simple question, as is par for the course for a complete moron like yourself. even after the games against Man City, Arsenal, Celta Vigo and Pompey you couldn't see how much better we were ? Ha ha, what a fucking thick cunt. Go and join Dan the brain in the idiots corner. http://www.toontastic.net/forum/index.php?...mp;#entry239627 Never banned anyone on here for constant abuse before, but I'm considering it with you. Stick to the debate at hand, less of the insults. it takes two to tango mate, I suggest you look closer to home ie your chums Ref your post above, yes of course I like it when I'm right. Don't you ? As I point out though, its not difficult calling things correctly, sometimes its just a matter of looking at facts, and realism, and just having a mind of your own to make a conclusion. Which is why I usually am ....... The only constant abuse in this thread is coming from you. I'd quote all the examples of it if you really wanted? By the way, they're not my chums; as admin of this board I treat everyone the same when it comes to pointless name calling. HTL went through this phase too, and admitted to me over PM that he was just taking the piss to try and get himself banned (for some reason). You doing the same like? not particularly. However some people deserve to have the piss taken out of them. Others who have a superiority complex deserve to be told they are idiots, or wrong when they are in fact proved wrong, its just a shame they aren't big enough to admit it. On football related issues, I give my opinion, and it is almost always based on fact and realism wherever possible, rather than simply putting your head up your arse and repeating the same thing that others do. On judgement of football and football related issues, I am generally right, and if that doesn't please some posters on here, then that isn't really my fault if they have poor judgement. My view on the board of this football club is not based on the fact that I like them, because I probably wouldn't if I knew them, just a completely realistic view that they have done very well, we could far more easily do worse than better, and unfortunately only getting a board who have no ambition will prove it, although I don't want that to happen. Again, if some people don't understand this or don't want to believe it, or have higher expectations of the club that have been brought about by the very board they criticise whatever they do, I can't help that, only point it out. Intelligent people will take it in, and listen, having been there and seen it, silly ones won't. Game of opinions though, rather than facts? It's fact, that on average (although it depends which average you take) that we're the 5th best club in the country over the last 10 years, right? It's fact, that in 04/05 and 05/06, as well as currently, we finished way below that average. So I ask you, is that 5th place our yard stick? And how many times do we have to fail to reach that yard stick before we can be deemed a club not being run properly? When the average slips to 6th, or 7th, what then? 5th might be our average, but i wonder if leazesmag can tell us what our mean, mode, median, and standard deviation is? and does it actually mean anything when you consider how shite we've been since shepherd took over apart from a few years under sir bobby

Which games did you see these signs of improvement in then Leazes? Sheffield United? Charlton? You never said anything at the time (and would have correctly been regarded as mad if you had), and you've never answered the question since I asked it either. I fully expect you to come up with some random bullshit now though, rather than answer a simple question, as is par for the course for a complete moron like yourself. even after the games against Man City, Arsenal, Celta Vigo and Pompey you couldn't see how much better we were ? Ha ha, what a fucking thick cunt. Go and join Dan the brain in the idiots corner. http://www.toontastic.net/forum/index.php?...mp;#entry239627 Never banned anyone on here for constant abuse before, but I'm considering it with you. Stick to the debate at hand, less of the insults. it takes two to tango mate, I suggest you look closer to home ie your chums Ref your post above, yes of course I like it when I'm right. Don't you ? As I point out though, its not difficult calling things correctly, sometimes its just a matter of looking at facts, and realism, and just having a mind of your own to make a conclusion. Which is why I usually am ....... The only constant abuse in this thread is coming from you. I'd quote all the examples of it if you really wanted? By the way, they're not my chums; as admin of this board I treat everyone the same when it comes to pointless name calling. HTL went through this phase too, and admitted to me over PM that he was just taking the piss to try and get himself banned (for some reason). You doing the same like? not particularly. However some people deserve to have the piss taken out of them. Others who have a superiority complex deserve to be told they are idiots, or wrong when they are in fact proved wrong, its just a shame they aren't big enough to admit it. On football related issues, I give my opinion, and it is almost always based on fact and realism wherever possible, rather than simply putting your head up your arse and repeating the same thing that others do. On judgement of football and football related issues, I am generally right, and if that doesn't please some posters on here, then that isn't really my fault if they have poor judgement. My view on the board of this football club is not based on the fact that I like them, because I probably wouldn't if I knew them, just a completely realistic view that they have done very well, we could far more easily do worse than better, and unfortunately only getting a board who have no ambition will prove it, although I don't want that to happen. Again, if some people don't understand this or don't want to believe it, or have higher expectations of the club that have been brought about by the very board they criticise whatever they do, I can't help that, only point it out. Intelligent people will take it in, and listen, having been there and seen it, silly ones won't. that's too much. my sides are aching

i can't understand why crouch isn't getting a game at liverpool. he's been scoring for fun this year. we need a new striker and i'd welcome him to the club, but on our budget i think we should be looking at cheaper targets - especially when we need at least two new defenders.

ditto. regular carling is weak as piss. this stuff must be undrinkable

chelsea must be rubbing their hands that they've got us when they need to bounce back. bit of a gimme of a fixture - especially with that injury list

i wonder if fletcher and flintoff will finally pick the team they should have played from the first test onwards.

we may as well write this one off, put the reserves out and hope no one injures themselves in training before watford.

out of that squad of 31, i'd say only 12-13 are good enough. Aye, I agree and your point still stands, it's just you-know-who would no doubt point out that we have a bigger squad than Chelsea (their squad is about 22 players I think). that's the difference. they've got at least two top players in every position; we went into this new season with bramble, carr, babayaro, ramage, taylor and moore as our only recognised defenders. i'm not even going to mention bernard tbh. the forward situation wasn't much better. with owen out all season and shola destined for the operating theatre, we started this season knowing that we'd have be relying on martins, sibierski and a man utd reserve and hoping that shola could make it through to january before breaking down - sadly he couldn't. we've been lucky that nobby has been able to fill in so well at right back and sibierki has done so well out of position up front. i'm, frankly, baffled that leazesmag refuses to criticise the chairman's lack of planning when all of the above is so obvious. i'm pretty sure roeder wouldn't have been best pleased. in fact, i don't think anyone was apart from leazesmag. when it was all kicking off on here after transfer deadline day he was the only person that had the gall to defend shepherd.

out of that squad of 31, i'd say only 12-13 are good enough.

Except at NUFC for the last 9 consecutive seasons. I can't remember the last season without a massive injury crisis and I can remember at least 4 with basically a whole team out injured for at least one point in the season. The biggest difference THIS season is our complete squad is smaller than it has been for a long time (not so very long ago there were 50 professionals in the books – far too many certainly, but we seem to have gone in the opposite direction now). exactly, it was so obvious to all of us that as soon as get our usual bunch of injuries we'd struggle because of how small the squad is. anyone, with the exception of leazesmag, would suggest there was a lack of foresight or dare i say planning on the chairman's part. i'm sure roeder would have liked to have gone into the new season without one of the smallest squads in the league.

darren bent would be a good buy if charlton go down. i can't see them selling their prize asset if they're fighting to stay up.

sadly, bridge has just signed a new contract. he would have been ideal

he's probably having a look at kuyt tbh

haha.......you call me a cretin. Go back and see where I said to that rentboy chum of yours that the team is showing signs of improving [before the last 2 or 3 recent results] and he rubbished it. What a fucking wanker you are lad. Still think we need defenders more than forwards ? Which is precisely what you meant and said. You may say we had 6 defenders or whatever but the only forwards we had were Luque and Ameobi, when I pointed that out you still said we need defenders. Double fucking wanker lad. You won't admit you were wrong.........and guess what, I am right - again ... jesus wept, you're like a stuck record. i never said that. stop putting words into other people's mouths - can't you see how pathetic it makes you look? for the 100th time, i said that shepherd wanted shooting for going into the season with only 6 senior defenders. i didn't at any point say that we weren't also in desperate need of new forwards too, quite the opposite in fact. if you bother re-reading the old threads you posted earlier in a rather sad attempt to prove how right you are, you'll realise that, like you, i was aware of how desperately we needed new strikers but, unlike you, i thought we were crazy to go into this season with only 6 senior defenders, most of whom are complete gash. if you fail to see the logic in any of the above you should be sectioned.

jesus wept at that lineup. could be a long cold and painful 90 minutes

what a relief. i fancy our chances now our star full back is back in action

for anyone that fancies another laugh at his expense, here's leazesmag implying that we have improved under shepherd. quite amazing when you compare the state the club was in when he took over to where we find ourselves today.

no I have not said that and I have never said anything other than this board - since 1992 - is the only board that has shown ambition to be successful in over 50 years. Do you still think we need defenders before forwards ? And do you still think we have a bottomless pit of money ? And do you still expect a "shit" board to continue generating money and being among the top spenders in the country ??/ What a fuckwit you are i never said that, you cretin. if you re-read those threads you posted up the other day in a you'll see just how poor your attempt to put words in my mouth to suit your lame argument is. i actually said that we were foolish to go into the new season with just 6 defenders, for some bizarre reason you don't agree with this. i never denied the fact that we were desperate for strikers, quite the opposite in fact.