Dr Gloom

The look on the one on the left man. Uuuuuuh, my brain hurts

Yeah I'm serious. He'd improve the squad wouldn't he?

it would be good if we still had milner, barton, enrique, carroll and n'zogbia. not sure which of them would get into the side and which would start. it'd be good competition in the squad though, something we're lacking at the moment.

4 fuck you, you faceless know it all

Whereas you'd be broken bottles and swinging fists? Me noooooo. People have this incorrect assumption that I'm some type of geordie Billy Whitehurst with a worse attitude, big pussy cat more like. Anyway. Robson was a brilliant manager, and if FFS hadn't have sacked him, 38% of the posts on this board (even to this day) probably wouldn't exist. agreed. a lot of the shit that has followed can be attributed to that decision, and the fact it came two games in with only souness able to take over.

it's not difficukt to get into an argument with a faceless online know it all :-)

that's how i remember it too. like i said, a victim of his own success.

Booed for Finishing 5th, when we were 6th with 2 games to go. howay man you know what i meant - the players were booed for flopping in the cup then failing to dispatch wolves in our final home game of the season and almost certainly blowing the chance of a third consecutive top 4 finish. how i yearn for days now where we could boo a team for finishing that high up the table!

those boys are unlikely to have reported it incorrectly. i'll take that as proof there was booing. Would you take it as proof there were serious problems in the squad too then? no. the booing reflected the consensus at the time in the stands and on the message boards, not my own view. i didn't agree that the problems in the squad were serious, or that they team should have been booed for finishing 5th.

those boys are unlikely to have reported it incorrectly. i'll take that as proof there was booing.

The Bowyer Dyer incident wasn't even that season man. It was after Robson had left. A perfect example there of not remember things as they really were tbh. fair enough, my mistake. either way, it shows those problems were still there there even after robson, who had apparently lost the dressing room, was sacked. i don't think souness ever had the dressing room to lose tbh.

not revisionst at all. i said at the time that we shouldn't sack him. I've bolded who I said was guilty of revisionism. That much was true whether you thought sacking him was right or not. He had lost the ability to make the players perform to previous levels. We were poor that season, relatively. I remember thinking at various points that I couldn't quite work out how we were in the top 5. Where have I said you've changed your view on the sacking like? i just don't agree that the decline in the squad was that serious - we only slipped two places - certainly not serious enough to warrant sacking him anyway. i remember what the consensus was on this board at the time. yeah, we declined, but who's to say we wouldn't have bounced back the following season? it was sacking him two games in that i couldn't fathom. i would have liked to have seen what robson would have done with the kind of backing they gave souness. all in the past now like but i will always remember that day the news broke as a dark one. it was a shocking decision excacerbated by the decisions that followed it.

i don't think falling from 3rd to 5th meant something serious had gone wrong. there were embarrasing incidents, like partizan belgrade tie and the bowyer/dyer scuffle, and a decline in results but we were still mixing it up with the top teams. something went serioulsy wrong when we appointed souness. if the owners really did want robson out they should have done it in the summer with some dignity and given themselves time to find a better replacement than that dour twat souness. who was it that used to call him the scottish fuck pig on here by the way - was that leazesmag or someone else?

not revisionst at all. i said at the time that we shouldn't sack him.

sacking robson, in particular in that manner, then replacign him with souness was when i lost all respect for shepherd. it was a ridiculous decision and one that the old regime never really recovered from. shame really as we had such a chance to kick on. it said a lot that we were all gutted to only finish 5th.

actually, if memory serves it might have been a lap of honour that was played out to a virtually empty stadium rather than booing the players. or was it the announcement of a lap of honour that was booed before everyone fucked off home? i cant imagine those few that stayed hanging around just to boo the players.

don't fancy you much at our place tbh. england still aren't the best on their travels (particulary in the subcontinent) despite what the world rankings suggest. the problem with us maintaining the number 1 ranking is we're never likely to win a series against india or pakistan away from home but i fancy our chances against your lot in a 5 match home series. your current lot have no experience of winning on our shores.

i said at the time that the whole "robson had to go" line was bollocks. he was our best manager we'd had since keegan and had restored some pride to the club. then people start calling for his head. i couldn't believe it. i didn't give a shit that some of the players were turds as long as we were finishing in the top 5. the booing for finishing 5th was a disgrace tbh. but not as disgusting as shepherd's decision to sack him two games into a new season and replace him with souness. robson became a victim of his own success - partially his own fault for raising expectations. we never really recovered from that sacking though.

should have started himself ahead of silvio maric tbh

micro managers. fuck off and let me do the job already! i don't need another email reminding me of what i'm doing. i'm know what i'm doing - i'm fucking doing it, you moron!

Absolutely spot on. In a better team than he was here and only given defensive duties. I've said this before but loads of players can play this role (it's essentially a non-footballing role) providing their attitude is right personally and it's echoed by the rest of the team's overall ethic. Tiote is the same. Massively average 'footballer', massively effective player. Parker is a huge part of what makes Spurs hard to beat. The purists can like it or lump it, but that has to be your starting point or you're basically wasting your time. Your attacking players soon start to lose impetus when their goals count for fuck all at the end of 90 minutes, match after match. Cheapens their own 'product' and makes them feel like muppets, basically. It's something we've got more wrong than most clubs in the Prem iyam so it's great to see it being addressed. Agree with most of that but Disagree about tiote. He's a good footballer - a modern holding player because he's skillfull enough to take a player on and pick a pass. Parker on the other hand will win the ball and play an easy short pass to modric or bale for them to start the move. That's not to say Parker isnt good at that role but he is a limited player. When he had more attacking responsibility playing for us he would inevitably slow moves down dwelling on the ball because of his limited passing range.

Shocking venues too. Literally one man and his dog in those vast gulf stadiums. Must have been weird going from the atmosphere in the stadiums of the previous summer's home series against India to being able to hear a pin drop.

It was a horror series Kenneth. None of the players fancied it. They arrived believing their own hype as the world's top test team and gifted their wickets away more often than not. The bowlers didn't do much wrong but it was one batting collapse after another. The struggles playing spin have been been confounded by drs. You can't just take a big stride forward anymore and hope for benefit of the doubt on the lbw decision. Still could be worse, could be the convict cricket team.

Aye, was going to say the same. More a sign of getting older .... I hope

Do people still get a short back and sides? I haven't had that cut since I was 13, only a slight imprvement on a step tbh. My haircut costs 25 sheets. And that's nowt to be ashamed of. The lass that does it only uses scissors but she gets it as close as a number 2 round the back of sides with the advantage of it keepin its shape and not growing out looking like a tennis ball like it used to after a barber cut.