Park Life

I never go on N-O, I wasn't aware there was a pro-Ashley faction. I assumed the only position you could reasonably occupy would be one that is against the current regime. I simply cannot imagine why anyone would think otherwise. It's kind of based around the idea the club would have been history (debt wise) if MA hadn't rode into town or summink.

I think MA realises now that PL clubs burn money. He will be out as soon as he can.

They talk about getting debt down as if they invented it.

If you can't beat a man are you really a winger? At the end of the day, if your job is specifically to get crosses in, whether you are a winger or inside right or whatever, and you can't even do that, which, let's face it, surely isn't THAT difficult (or then maybe it is which is why they are paid such a handsome wage), then you are, IMO, fckn crap. Jonas is overrated imo. Lots of running, industrious, 110% grafter, loads of blind alleys, zero end product but hey, he has that old chestnut we call 'potential'........Right now I'd take Milner and even he is overrated also. Plus there is the small but not unimportant matter of that little ponytail type thing. Perhaps an indicator of some deeper malaise?

Best post since you arrived here fatty.

Still wanting to sell imo.

Good job capitalizing that Headline material IMO.

Also probably cause in all actuality there is no plan. You know if they could get just one senior football man running the football side top to bottom we could get away with a half decent coach. JK isn't completely clueless as games away at Chelsea and whatnot have shown.

Doesn't matter, it will probably change every few months anyway Actually that will manage to make things even worse "it's a basement..... no it's a boat....... I want an elephant now..... but now I fancy a chocolate fire-guard". It'll start off as the Arsenal penthouse and end up as the Hartlepool wendyhouse

You can get round a lot tactical naivety just by adding aggressive pace to a side [MON/]

Everyone was trying to pretend and for a very long time that Jonas bought his contract out and that was that.

Ricky and Guti are working well down the left and I'd stick with that, Ricky for me has just enough pace to interchange with Guti and frighten the right flank of most sides. Early in a game against poor opposition they should be instructed to forget about crosssing and cut inside and drive for the box to draw challenges, Guti for instance is an excellent shielder of the ball. What this does is spreads insecurity in the opposition and they drop off....Then infact if you go for the byline they are almost relieved they haven't had to time an edge of box (left) tackle or two. The coaching we draw on is simply still in the dark ages.

Not really a winger because of that imo. Same goes for Solano. More of right-sided midfielder / old-style 'right-half'. Beckham's the same. Very few true 'wingers' knocking about. That would be my thoughts on it. If you're playing a core 4 def with 2 reigned in DM's (ala Mourinho), you need 2 creatives and they need to be able to feed the attack. Whether they are wingers or through the middle. Generally speaking it is better for the poorer side to stay compact in the middle and make the better side go around you. Why we lose a lot of games is that we don't have two good CM's with defensive/combative/engine type players. Teams go straight through our middle. With Mourinho normally one def ie Cole can ocassionally maraud if everything else is in place, if you look at Benitez, there is no marauding till the last 10-15min and only if they really have to and are chasing the game or the 3 points. If like us the core has no creativity (the middle) than we must have wingers who can really be wingers or at least one. KK saw immediately we were missing all these things and actually converted Owen into a king of withdrawn forward/playmaker. An intelligent roaming forward is as dangerous as any striker cause he is often picked up late or no one is sure who is marking him. I can often tell if managers have a clue by what the forwards are doing when the ball inches up through the middle of the park. Mourinho got away with a lot of shortcuts playing off Drogba who for a while was world class, but during his time the other two forwards would immediately get up near him, but none of the full backs would go up unless Mikel and Essien had locked down the middle against the counter.

Once the wage bill comes down in the summer we will really get a glimpse of what the plan is. For me no player at the club should be on more than 50k a week. And no squad player should be on more than 30k. If you combine Smith, Viduka and Owen, that is enough in wages right there for 6 players.

If you can't beat a man are you really a winger?

I'm always suspicious of 'wingers' who are over keen to track back.

I've had a near death experience.

Well you'll never convince me removing Saddam was an absolute bad thing™ (whatever the reasoning or lack of planning); leaving him in power was killing Iraqi's day in day out (directly and indirectly) and oppressing vast amounts of people with a police state that controlled things down to the very street level. Saddam had directly killed many hundreds of thousands of people over the years (through direct policies, not with his bare hands), and indirectly killed millions. Leaving him in power would have certainly made the last few years less bloody in Iraq, but that's an argument that can be applied to almost any conflict or tyrant no matter how bloody and brutal (it can be applied to Kosovo in fact). Ignoring that for now though, you need at least two sides to have a war. Iran was supplying several sides in the recent Iraq civil war (directly and through Syria), its intention was not just to honk off the USA, but also to destabilise Iraq by encouraging as much sectarian violence as possible. Iran directly killed many thousands of innocent Iraqi's (Kurdish, Sunni and Shia) for political goals, people that would not have died had Iran not supplied weapons money and other support to several sides. No matter how much you may or may not hate the USA, Iran was nothing but a "bad guy" in Iraq with much blood on their hands, any US guilt does not absolve Iran of that. Removing Saddam wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but the way it was gone about was. There's tons of asshole dictators oppressing/ torturing/ killing their people all over the world. That doesn't mean it's ok for the U.S. to go against the U.N. and invade them. In my opinion, that's where we fucked up. Unlike many of my countrymen, I hate this idea of the U.S. being this World Cop. It's stupid, wasteful, and ultimately only pisses everyone else off. I'd much rather see this country take all of the resources, money, and manpower and use it on itself rather than Iraq. I guess maybe if we had it all figured out with a strong economy, 1% unemployment rate, no racism, and parity between a governmental surplus and defecit for the past 30 years you might be able to talk me into it, but with things being what they are (and were, for that matter- when we got into this mess we weren't much better off as a country), it's hard for me to go rah, rah, rah, we just saved a bunch of Iraqis who never asked to be saved to begin with. It's nothing to do with being a world cop and all about strategic asset grabbing. CIA and Mi6 are still supplying arms and logistics across the planet, even to known Al Kidder (Chechnya etc) to make sure the get oil pipelines and strategic corridors. The last thing it is about is some kind of world cop thing, that's just for consumption by a clueless american public.

What happened to the 28m TV money anyway?

Has he had a shot on target yet?

I can't fucking believe it.

Not looking as cut and dried as a few months ago eh?

I'd love to live in Milan.