Chaser

No club can compete on £30k a week

Mattock is supposed to be quite a prospect. I love how Colin Richards is bigging himself up yet Mcghee is bad mouthing him

The thing is, we are in no position geographically or competitively where we can offer low wages to good players to tempt them to come. It is a fact of todays market that if we are to tempt players away from London based clubs, we need to offer them something in return for not being in the capital. As we cannot offer European football, we need to tempt them with cash otherwise we are going to see bid after bid turned down. Unless this is an exercise to stop agents trying to squeeze silly money out of us, I can see it being another long season ahead

Another Dyer in that he has pace but no end product?

It was plain to see that after Turkey & Russia got through to the semis that their value has suddenly shot up. All on the back of 1 match.

I left for uni in 2001, and the board was up and running before that, a long way before. I would estimate somewhere round late 99/early 2000 that I first started using the original site.

Dont blame him, doesnt need the cash, cushy number watching football and giving an opinion and still picking up a wad. Private life pretty much left alone and plenty of time for social and family

Bresciano, Barnes, Wright Phillips & a Striker (Dont know much about Arshavin)

Ive always thought it would be good to have teams with some backing back in the prem. The likes of Forest, Sheff Wed, Sheff Utd & Leeds will always have good support. I would have said Coventry but they had very poor attendances when they were up in the top division.

If Chelsea go through, whats the odds of them LOSING in Russia? Not likely

Tough one this as I despise both clubs, however think i'd rather Man Utd won the title rather than Chelsea. We can have a hand in what happens and lets hope we can hold Chelsea at our place, or even have a go at beating them.

Finished as a player, career wrecked by injury. Still bet he has a tasty bank balance though

Viduka was one of the highlights for me. Great control. Should have pulled the trigger when through on goal. Martins was a different player second half, seemed to be finding space although think Brum got a bit complacent and started pushing up creating space behind their midfield. One thing that certainly needs to be addressed is passing. First half, our completion rate must have been about 20% absolutely woeful for a so called professional outfit.

Smith always seems to be one of the few who actually gives a shit what result comes out at the end. He always puts in a shift, and despite him being played out of position, like others have said he gets on with it. For those to say he is the worst player ever, I honestly dont see him any worse than the likes of Emre or Barton in the current side, and certainly a class above the likes of Boumsong, Bramble, Luque (I could go on). A lot of people including myself gave Butt a hell of a lot of stick when he came and was garbage before he went on loan to Brum. Once he came back he was a different player. I would be tempted to stick with Smithy but certainly not in Midfield. If he is going to get a game, then put him up front. Viduka on the other hand, isnt what you need in a relegation fight. Sure on his day he can be a terrific player, but you just dont know which one of him is going to turn up.

Certainly not too good to go down. I dont think our players have the fire in their bellies to fight off relegation. I think we will survive only due to the equally poor displays from Bolton & Fulham, making us the 4th worst team in the league. That is a pretty depressing stat. What is honestly wrong with the state of our club? Why is it that every year the league is written off, or it is a transition year? There is now no constant between now and when Robson left, however we still continue to freefall. Looking at the team on paper, you would think it good enough to sit around mid-table at least. We've been quite fortunate with the injuries this season too. I honestly dont know where Keegan will take the club from here. We're a pretty unattractive option right now, and the worse we get, the harder itll be in the summer to attract decent players.

Unfortunately, with relegation, teams need a bit of luck to survive the drop. We dont seem to be getting any luck of late which concerns me most as there is usually one team that gets sucked in and at the moment, it is looking like us. Keep the faith

Too old

Needs to keep his feet on the ground, read between the lines on those quotes as well.

Im hoping that we'll pick up the 11 points in the following games Blackburn - 1 pts Liverpool - 0 pts Birmingham - 1 pts Fulham - 3pts Tottenham - 0pts Reading - 3pts Portsmouth - 0pts Sunderland - 3pts West Ham - 0pts Chelsea - 0pts Everton - 0pts The most worrying fixture is probably the home game against the mackems

The Souness appointment was very reminiscent of the Dalglish appointment in the sense that both had replaced managers who liked their teams to be creative. Souness and Dalglish were more concerned with defence, however neither got it right and in doing so, dismantled a very good team. There were obviously cracks in the Robson side which were showing, but if Robson had been moved upstairs the season before his sacking and helped to appoint a new manager, we may have been still up there challenging for honours.

There is no "dont buy players from here or there" because every club has bought their players from here or there and some have been poor, some have been a sensation. Its not about where you buy them from, its who you buy and how well you spot a decent player.

Belgrade match or Bobby being sacked. You could argue that we were climbing up again before that, after it, we've just dived and never recovered. Bad appointment after bad appointment.

Martins mkII?

Who would come to us in our current circumstance? Nobody from the likes of Everton/Liverpool/Utd/Spurs would be interested. £50m is nowhere near enough. This needs to be around £75m mark and even then we are taking that on the premise that we can actually attract players in. For the remainder of the season, I would be looking to give the youth more of a run in the side. When the chips were down with Roeder, they pushed us into a top half position and at least had some fire in their bellies. The senior players at the moment are an absolute disgrace to the shirt and dont seem interested in putting the effort in. Theyve earned their money regardless.

I think I agree with the sentiment in that theyre basically heeding a warning to Mort/Ashley that this cant continue. For too many years have we underacheived and just when we thought we had turned the corner with new chairman/manager at the helm, things really do seem worse than ever. It seems ironic that under Allardyce, we had one of the best starts of the season yet we find ourselves now with the lowest points score since we moved into the prem. SA must be rubbing his hands with delight at seeing us implode since his departure. Looking at the remaining fixtures, I can see us getting no more than 11 points from those games, which may just be enough (39) to keep us up. It is then make or break for the board/management to get it right this coming close season to turn our fortunes around. Unfortunately with each game, that optimism fades a little further. After all, why would good players come to a club who has no European qualification, and has seen the management team do nothing with the current crop to suggest that things will get any better in 2008/2009 season?