maggiespaws

Thing is, Lua Lua is settling at Brighton and getting good experience. Is it worth risking breaking the momentum and progress he's making by chopping and changing? With Kadar though, I can't come up with a reason. Maybe they weren't sure enough about him? Obviously, I'm just guessing as much as the rest of us are.

Another thing I was talking to Tooj about and he said it's a bit like how Lua Lua should've been given the time on the pitch Pancrate has had. Ditto Kadar when Enrique was out for a month instead of the kid from Chelsea. Tbf though, the results have been positive and it's hard getting every signing right when you haven't got a lot of money to spend. Best looks like a turkey though. Agree with that too.

I agree with both you and JawD's comments below. He has looked poor, he has looked out of his depth and at present; there is little to indicate he can cut it in the prem. That might be down to his ability (or lackof therin) or it could be down to some of the stuff I mentioned earlier. If someone offered us the right money (like what we paid) then get rid - I agree. Write it off as a bad choice and move on. I'd rather we didnt incur a big loss though by writing him off after 4months and taking a fraction of what we paid for him if you understand what I'm getting at.

Is the right answer (imo), unfortunately EDIT: Still, its a bit premature to write him off. He's only been here 5 mins and he's joined an established winning team. Enrique is by far and away our best player but he's taken time to settle. It's not a direct comparison btw - Enrique has/had far more reasons for needing time to settle - the point I was meaning is that players dont settle instantly. Best is trying to prove his worth and work his way into the starting 11. Problem is, the 2 places he could occupy are currently being taken by 2 players in excellent form. When he does get a chance he's under immense pressure to produce something because he's got to do something special to break those 2 up. I'm not trying to justify him btw or make excuses for him; but there are circumstances to take into account. I just think its a bit early to write him off.

I opted not to post last night because I wanted to sleep on my initial feelings and see if they still remained in the morning; and they do. I can't celebrate yet, it feels a little churlish and premature tbh. If you have asked me at the beginning of the season, when all was uncertain; would I take an auto-promotion slot, I'd have bitten your hand off. Thing is, having led for most of the season, going up as anything other than Champions would feel a bit of an anti-climax. It still feels weird typing that, even though I opted to sleep on it. Great piece by Caulkin imo and sums up many of my thoughts and feelings. I'm not about to forgive and forget MA, but by the same token, things have improved in many aspects of the club and he has been one of them to be fair. The Jan Sale we all expected never happened and we set about strengthening. Best not proving to be a worthy buy, but no-one gets it right every time. I for one, thought we were going to try the 'get promoted on a shoestring' route, but credit where it's due MA has been prepared to spend money and refreshingly - we haven't blown huge sums on trophy players but been more prudent and conservative in our buys. I'm not saying this is the blueprint for next season and too many sides have fallen foul of insufficient investment to stay up; but we've done what we needed to do to get promoted and we aren't in horrific shape. Sure, we need to strengthen over the summer, some of the player we have were good enough to get us promoted, but aren't good enough to be EPL first-teamers. MA has alot to prove next season and his intentions over the summer will indicate if our time in the CCC has taught tome lessons and the 2nd crack at the whip will be taken properly. In one respect, I think the drop to the CCC has probably helped to learn those lessons in a more forgiving league and 'optimistically' I think we return to the EPL better prepared in the 'back stage' dept than we were previously. Whether CH has the strength to lead us in the EPL is a question we will all discuss over many beers in the coming months - but I defy anyone to come up with a good reason why he shouldn't be given a crack: he's certainly earned it imo. We were a fucking shambles at the beginning of the season but over the course of it we have grown. Even when we go a goal down (something we've done a few times against lesser sides - infuriatingly), I now feel confident we'll come back - and we do. I'm not saying it will be like that next year, against much better sides; but we have strength of character now and a bit of fight in us. That's something we didn't have last season - and that's down to CH and his team. Hand on heart, I think we might just clinch the title with 3 games to go and when (ok, if ) we do; I'll be partying like it's 1999. The team deserves it; and regardless of whether or not this is a better/worse team with a better/worse manager than in '93 this is the team that worked all season to get us back into the Premier League. For that, they deserve all the credit they get.

bit premature for We are the Champions Still, job done. i can feel a beer coming on once i finish this tiling off

Barton scores. So there we have it - 2:1 Tell you all what though, I'm happy to be wrong. 3:1, 4:1 or even 5:1 would be fine too

lol, the bloke likes to play halftime music like, which is a bit rendom

www.nufcradio.tk ch3 for a decent stream. Just radio newcastle, nothing else

Nolan!!!!! 1:1 Blow the whistle ref!

You seem so confident I know, but this is Peterbrough man. We're miles better than them. They're only in the game becaseu we've rested many of our better players, just as we did against them in the cup. If it weren't for that we'd be all over them. We still should, although as we seem to be devoid of proper wingers; we've made life unnecessarily harder for ourselves. Forest have equalised btw

wtf? Barton on the left? Ok, on reflection this selection is a bit weird.

before the goal, i was going to say that Hughton's selection choice was good. However..... we'll still beat these though. They want their scalp before they go down, but we'll score 2.

arse

i think he's resting key players for more difficult games,such as Monday. The game allows Barton & Ameobi get game time and as this is an easy tie, Best might even score which will give him confidence. Pancrate needs games too.

I dunno if he gets the right football people backing it he could do all right; Nicky Butt, Pep Guarde-L'eau-la, Bill "Armitage" Shanksly? Good shout that. I reckon Danny Shittu would be my No2 choice though.

Oh dear. This thread appears to be going down the pan.

Agreed. In front of a home crowd it would be immense.

Maybe he's been with his girlfriend so long that he refers to her as 'the wife'. Either that or the term 'wifey' got lost in translation As in French, wife and woman are interchangeable in Spanish. Femme (fr) or Mujer (sp) can mean both. Ah, yes of course I guess it really was lost in translation

Maybe he's been with his girlfriend so long that he refers to her as 'the wife'. Either that or the term 'wifey' got lost in translation

We don't though that's the thing. It's a myth. Support wise we're easily the biggest club outside the top four, and on that basis we're the biggest club outside the top four, it's hard to argue with, but no one here actually THINKS WE ARE the biggest club outside the top four at this moment in time. On the pitch we are light years behind Spurs when the opposite was true 6 or 7 years ago. Nicely put Stevie.

I believe MattM4 posted what you are after on page 7 of this thread

I did wonder why I was getting the feeling of being groomed It's been a few months since anyone made that mistake. I'll have to dig out the post which explains my username. <-------------------- Incidentally, does my avatar look girly at all? I thought that was an obvious clue (never mind my writing style) EDIT: Nice edit on your last post by the way, once you realised I was a bloke EDIT 2: Found the link to the last time I had to explain it (Sept 2009) to Christmas Tree - My username

wouldn't you rather go with me Let me think about that...... naaaaa