ewerk

I suppose I'd rather have Smith but in all honesty neither are good enough and should be shipped out in the summer, though in saying that I would like to see Smith get a decent run of games up front so he at least has a chance to prove himself but I'm not hopeful, Ameobi on the other hand has had more than enough opportunities to show what he can do and has come up short.

Aye he's no Mike Schofield now.

He cost man U £18m and unless he's really unhappy there or they went rid of him (which doesn't seem to be the case) then there's no chance unless he pay them a huge amount of money. We all know that January is a bad time for signing players, especially domestic players, so I'd rather Keegan maybe bought a creative midfielder for the right price and then waited until the summer before spending big after he has had a proper chance to assess our players and the team's needs.

And you think they'll see value in this offer? It's a decoy, whilst they're busy laughing we bundle Berbatov out the back.

PHew, for a second there I thought he was dead.

What has Cox been doing lately?

If that's the reason they haven't spoke in a long time then it's very fucking petty, even moreso as Shearer doesn't seem to have come out and told Keegan that directly and has just gone off in a huff. The more I think about it the more I don't want Shearer at the club, I really can't see his ego fitting in with the current regime.

Bastard, openly supporting the new manager and the suchlike, what's his game?

Nope, but nor did Keegan have any other options tonight.

I'd have Bentley, Barry, Ashton and Bent here like a shot, the rest are a bit meh. ashton isn't looking anything like the player he was at the moment, better option is agbonlahor imo Aye he certainly does look like he has potential but Ashton has done it in previous seasons though it's hard to see how the injuries will have affected him. Tbh they're much of a muchness at the minute but I'll give Ashton the theoretical benefit of the doubt atm.

I'd have Bentley, Barry, Ashton and Bent here like a shot, the rest are a bit meh.

Owen has always known how to talk a good game (when it suits him), hopefully he genuinely has been caught up in all the hype and is willing to give his all to the Keegan regime.

No Smith Yes I know he's suspended.

Pompey 2-1 up now though.

BBC Is it the same prick doing it today as Wednesday night?

As Jimbo said it is a good idea as an olive branch but he's not my idea of a captain though we are very short on options, I'd like to see him bring someone else in with real leadership qualities in the transfer window or in the summer.

It did all appear to be be badly managed, not necessarily the way we went after Harry because I suspect the leaks were coming from his end rather than ours but the fact that we were targeting that calibre of manager. But we've ended up with Keegan so everything is alright and Ashley is the man again.

Says the woman who has 17 posts in here.

Usually resulting in a free-kick/penalty Hopeless fucker. aye, true enough like. For some reason the nation media see him as a shining light amongst our defenders. He's young, English and not completely shit, that's why.

Looks like he was on the piss last night.

To be honest, I know a thing or two about local/regional newspapers and the Chronicle is not a bad paper. It's just that Oliver is a pompous clown. But in a way you have to feel sorry for him - he did get a lot of inside information when he was Shepherd's mouth-piece, but he clearly hasn't got a clue what's going on at the club these days. And that, as far as I can see, is the only reason he is their head football writer, it's certainly not for his writing abilities anyway.

'Proper' tackle as Souness would no doubt say.

There's a definite contradition there. No, not at all. A team full of the quality of Arsenal's B-siders playing constantly under Keegan would be much better than the maximum potential of those same players when just being wheeled out for the Carling Cup every now and then. Aye, Wenger never maximises the potential of players. Are you disagreeing that there would be a better potential playing regularly than just turning out in the Carling Cup? No. I'm suggesting that he hangs onto the players with the real potential 99 times out of 100 and they go onto to be more than just bit-part players. Are you suggesting Keegan is better at maximising potential etc.? I said we might start buying some of these players, even Wenger can't change the rules and play all the players he thinks are first team quality at the same time, and some of the 'kids' might prefer to come and play with a Keegan side that is flying and constantly play in it rather than wait for a chance at Arsenal. Other than Bentley, which kids has he let go who has done the business then/gone on to bigger and better things? Pennant has done ok but aside from those two.

Not hard to see why he's still stuck at a regional paper.

Did they have the bottom tier, or did the club just not sell tickets there as Stoke fans are scum that would coin the good Geordie stock below. From my position high up in the gallowgate I couldn't see the upper upper tier where the away fans normally are, so couldn't tell if there were any stoke fans there or not, didn't look to be too many coaches. Of course you could'nt hear any chants from them either. There were one or two people dotted about the lower corner, which makes me think it was given to stoke. Someone near me also mentioned an FA Cup rule about giving a certain percentage to away fans too. You have to offer them a 1/4 of the capacity as an allocation for FA Cup games iirc. Been that way as long as I can remember. Don't know what the situation is if they don't take that allocation though as there isn't much time to re-sell returned tickets when it's a replay. 15% isn't it?