Howaythetoon

But didn't that "poor Celtic team" beat two teams from the premiership on the way to the final as well. Aye but Blackburn utterly murderered them at Parkhead, it was almost embarrassing, they should've won 4 or 5-1, and the dippers were going through their worst run of results in 45 years. I watched that game, Souness was in charge at the time and they did murder them, Blackburn played some super stuff that day and as you said, should have came away with a big win. Not that that says anything about MON's ability mind.

I disagree, I think he's been very unfortunate, he has lost Shearer not only as a player and Captain, but as an assistant, he then loses Michael Owen, and then his new assistant Bond. Then his players keep dropping like flies to injury leaving him but with no choice but to raid the academy. All things that he has had no control over. I really am amazed we are not down there at the bottom or he hasn't been under more fire, which I'm pleased with actually because it shows fans understand the situation and have accepted he's doing the best he can, that the team are doing the best they can too. All that while working under Fat Fred and Co and being a shit manager. As someone once said on here: Roeder the world's best shite manager

Utter rubbish in my opinion. I've seen managers changing the style of play within weeks even though with limited players or players with limited talent. Roeder has had 12 months including a whole pre-season. Except of the very young defenders coming in most players who started are either internationals or wannabe-internationals or still players of a higher calibre. I can expect those players to understand and realise instructions given to them from the managing staff. And regarding our awful build up of the game from the back it was significant that actually it were the likes of Huntingdon and Edgar who were rather looking for doing the right pass than just hoofing the ball up front. Latter is something I easily expect to get restricted, but it isn't. You are correct, Roeder has had a full pre-season and has been in the job 12 months now but the one consistent theme of his tenure from day one has been, through no fault of his own, an inability to pick his best team week in week out, much less work with them on the training pitch. If you expect him, on top of every other thing he has to do in his role as manager, to put his energy and efforts into making a group of players who he would have mostly regarded as back-up or players he'd like to replace with the majority of players or players not ready (academy players), into a team that plays good controled football, I'd say you're not only being unrealistic, but unfair also. His first priority is results, not performances. Like I said, lets wait and see what manifests out on the pitch when he gets to work with his best team on the training pitch on a consistent basis, I'm positive when that happens, we'll see a team that plays better football. In the meantime I'll take 3 points thank you and to hell with performances.

Big Sam isn't shite, and neither is MON. Your patter is though

It would be ironic given the stick they dished out when the Mancs become Yanks, if they too were take over by Yanks.

Learned a lesson? By failing to address the squad issue again, despite a window of opportunity being open to do so? Don't be fooled by talk of prudence, policy, new plans etc. He's just covering his own arse and talking shite. I'll believe it when I see it.

Renton, Isegrim How can any manager who has had at times, upwards of 10 or more players unable to train, hope to create a brand of football on the training pitch, much less make them tactically tip top? He can't and it is unrealistic to expect any manager to instil a way of playing and team shape into a team that changes from one week to the next, a team that has often been without its best players or in the case of defence, without defenders (Solano at RB, others at LB?). You can't plan around those things, you just have to make do and Roeder is actually doing the correct thing by keeping things simple and just getting by as he is. If he or any manager came in and tried to introduce a sophisticated way of playing, tactics and instructions and all that crap, with a team that changes from one week to the next, it would be utter choas out on the pitch. I liken our situation to a team filled with lots of new players that will take time to gell. Give him the benefit of the doubt until he has at least a full team to send out, with most of its best players, and on a consistent basis. Only then will we see a shape and style develop, or maybe not in which case you would then have a valid point.

We'll lose this one.

Actually the beeb still uses film for some of their productions, unfortunately it is no longer cost effective and with HD tape cameras producing the quality of pictures that they do it is the death of film as a format. Did you know that Kodak have stopped producing stills camera film? And in turn that will mean no more motion stock. It's quite sad really because tape's life expectancy is a fraction to that of celluloid. Things produced over the last 5-10 years won't last like the pioneering films of the 1910s & 20s. Geektastic

If Bill Shankly himself had come in when Roeder did, I reckon we'd be about 7th. And that does mean? That does mean that you expect too much too soon from an anhialated squad where you can barely name 5 core players from the season. Don't agree at all. Even considering our injuries and the annihilated squad Roeder took over, we have enough players in the squad who should be able to play a decent football. But our team isn't really working together and can hardly assemble a string of successful passes. The off the ball movement from a lot of players is shocking. And we still have the likes of Given and Bramble just cluelessly bumping the ball forward as if they were really playing in the times of Shankly. Yes, I do expect a manager addressing this rubbish immediately. That's what shit players or shit teams do. We are a shit team, or average. You can't polish a turd and all that... I think our team speaks for itself, or results, we rely on our individuals, our better players like Martins, Shay etc. and when they don't perform or are out injured, we do bad. Like most average teams. The top teams can perform when their top players aren't or when they take a few injuries because their other players are still top players, ours aren't. I think you're being too harsh Isegrim or unrealistic.

If they are not available, then you must ask, do we have the squad to cope until they are, and the answer to that is an obvious no because an injury to Martins and that's us fucked. So you try and work around that and get in some short-term deals. We got one but really, that's not good enough and we did have a whole month to get more than one new face in. I refuse to accept we couldn't do that. My guess is that the board and manager have written off the season, and accepted that we are safe now, and will take anything else as a bonus which is inexcusable when there is so much still to play for and very dangerous because the line as we know is very thin. Basically they are jeopardising our long-term future by failing to adress short-term issues. If we don't make Europe next year, we'll lose out financially, if we get knocked out of the UEFA Cup bang goes another trophyless season. As Alex hinted at above, I don't believe these words of comfort is actually the club's new transfer policy, but soundbites to mask yet another failure in the trasnfer window. I could actually support these words if that was our policy, but I don't believe it for a moment. We'll find out in the Summer one way or another.

I think injuries haven't helped in that the side changes from one week to the next which can't help understanding or indeed the shape of the side. I agree we weren't creating much but of late we have been creating lots of chances hence our improved return of goals, and perhaps with it our tendency to concede more. I agree though, football wise I haven't been impressed but I've seen one or two signs that suggests, certainly in the final third, things are clicking and heading in the right direction. Much work is to be done for further improvements however.

PS Roeder's comments were from The Mag and a good few weeks old, and I don't think he was talking about MON, I think he was perhaps defending himself more than anything and talking in general. The media however like to stir the shit.

Ditto Allardyce. It was a joke, in reference to Roeder's comments recently. I think both have the bottle, or big enough characters for the NUFC job, without a doubt. Why neither took the job.... my guess because of the board. Regarding MON, he's a decent manager but not as good as the hype would have you believe and I don't think he would have done a much better job than Roeder has done in the circumstances, although long-term I think he would prove a better NUFC manager, but whether he could take NUFC to the next level which is what everyone was looking for from the new man in the summer, we'll never know. I doubt he'll take Villa into the top 4 and regular CL footy either. Although I thought Roeder's comments the other day were ill-advised and unnecessary, I reckon both Allardyce AND O'Neill bottled it to an extent. I don't know that O'Neill was 100% ready at that time to take a job on, but Allardyce could have. He might well have a cosy relationship with the board at Bolton and feel he's got something of a job for life, and I think maybe that as much as anything played a role in him not taking our job on. Obviously you could say that the board (ours) is therefore a factor because you know that if you come here you've only got a limited time period in which to get things right before Fred's trigger finger starts to twitch. They could have bottled it, but I'd say other factors played a bigger part in them saying no - especially Big Sam. To be honest I never really thought O'Neill was that interested in our job anyway, I thought for a time he was using us to force the FA into making a quick decision, I think he wanted that job a lot more. When SBR got sacked and we were linked with both, I preferred O'Neill but since then my regret is Allardyce saying no - I rate him very highly.

One of my biggest concerns was whether he could motivate the lads. The Souness-gone factor motivated them and not so much Roeder when he was caretaker, but he's allayed my fears since and I'd agree with Alex regarding your comments above.

Ditto Allardyce. It was a joke, in reference to Roeder's comments recently. I think both have the bottle, or big enough characters for the NUFC job, without a doubt. Why neither took the job.... my guess because of the board. Regarding MON, he's a decent manager but not as good as the hype would have you believe and I don't think he would have done a much better job than Roeder has done in the circumstances, although long-term I think he would prove a better NUFC manager, but whether he could take NUFC to the next level which is what everyone was looking for from the new man in the summer, we'll never know. I doubt he'll take Villa into the top 4 and regular CL footy either.

What the fuck are we doing in 9th then? Someone wants to tell the bloke who puts the table together tbh. Fuck do I know, I think this is one of those top 5 on average, or mid-table on average type statistics. I.e. it can be interpreted two ways, on one hand it shows him doing well, on the otherhand it may show that on average, 4 or so other teams' form has them in 5th too, pushing us down to 9th in alphabetical order. I always thought we should have been AFC Newcastle, we'd start the season top anyway.

Wenger manages on respect and understanding and not fear or totalitarianism. Roeder on the otherhand... I think he's a simplistic manager who keeps things simple, training, tactics, team-talks - the lot. And a lot of players like that and respond well to that style, especially youngsters. However the downside to that style of management is those players will come unstuck in certain complicated circumstances that a game may throw up because they wont have had the coaching or instructions to deal with such situations. Regarding Roeder's record, I personally think it is excellent especially given the circumstances and things he's had to deal with, I read somewhere last week that our form since he took over is top 5 form, amazing stuff if true or accurate. Indeed our form over the last 8 or so games has us in the top 5 and that's great stuff too. He isn't and never will be the man to take us back into the Champions League or to challenge for the title again, even with huge funds, because he's tactically average and isn't a decisive decision maker but if you accept (which I have done) that his remit here at the Gallowgate is to rebuild and stabilise, while maintaining European football, so that we can maybe attract the better managers who will take us to the next level when the club is in a more healthier position, then you have to hold your hands up and say thus far, he's doing a job well done. In my opinion anyway and the stats do back that up, if not exactly the performances. He has overachieved in my opinion and done better than I expected and I'm pleased with the work he's doing so far and accept that there are no easy fixes here and I'm patient enough to let him do his job without being too critical having accepted what we are and our circumstances. I.e. an average squad, no funds, clueless board, heavy competition around us and a period of major transition. What I'm looking for from Roeder in particular is to get rid of the wasters and dead wood, to bring in players that will do a job for the club, short or long-term, players who will prove good value for money, I'm also looking for him to make use of the academy which he has done (albeit somewhat forced) and to put us in a position where we can see some sort of direction and improvement on the horizan, which again he has done. If he can top all that off with a trophy, well, I'd be fucking delighted. We all know Shearer will be our next manager, and I actually think he'll be a good manager, but he will have more chance of succeeding taking over a club on the up, a club with better pospects ahead of it, and in Roeder I guess he's the man charged with that. You could say he's Shearer's labourer, doing the dirty jobs and getting things prepared for when that time does come around.

The club can't see that far ahead man.

Has no bottle.

Aye, you're right. Had we signed lots of players, he'd have rolled out the "we always back our man" line. That's what makes this quite decent policy worthless, becuase you just know he's just masking over yet another transfer window failure and this isn't actualy a club policy. BTW I'm aware this may open the old "they can't win" argument

There are a few rumours as to why such as not being happy seeing Shearer on the interview panel, getting the impression that NUFC weren't at all serious about appointing him, i.e. he was way down the list and a word to the wise from SBR about full control if he did take over. Shame it never did happen because I think we'd be in a far better position today had he taken the job. Heard that rumour too, although tbh, you'd dismiss it if it didn't support your point of view. I heard it wasn't so much he thought NUFC weren't serious about him, rather that a player shouldn't have any say in picking the manager. If it's true, he was right. Didn't Big Sam have a pop at some of our players once when he caught them messing about in a hotel showing staff, hotel and NUFC staff, a lack of respect? I remember reading about it, how he gave them all a bollicking. I bet a few arses twicthed when he was offered the job.

All good and well Freddy but by having one policy, you limit your chances, especially in the fickle world of the transfer market. If you can't get your number one targets, there should have been a plan B to tide us over until we are in a position to get who we want. This is what pisses people off - the contradictions. We don't want to sign expensive foreigners - we sign Martins. We don't want to waste money - we sign Duff (we were well covered in that position, buying Duff took away funds that could have bought us players we DID need, defenders). We don't want to sign overaged players on short-term deals - we sign Sibbers, and later Srnicek. We won't be making panic buys or buying players for the sake of it - err, Bernard, Sibbers, both last minute buys. The best policy is to strengthen when you can, with what you can if those players are or will be an improvemen - i.e. Gooch. Are the club trying to say out of the thousands of players playing the game, he was the only one they could get? Pull the other one. In part I agree with this 'new' policy, but if anyone needed proof that this club lacks planning, then the transfer window or rather our policies, are proof positive. Typical Toon, we get one thing right but leave ourselves short as a result. BTW our transfer policy has sucked since KK left.

There are a few rumours as to why such as not being happy seeing Shearer on the interview panel, getting the impression that NUFC weren't at all serious about appointing him, i.e. he was way down the list and a word to the wise from SBR about full control if he did take over. Shame it never did happen because I think we'd be in a far better position today had he taken the job.

Exactly, it is a myth that they play scrappy football, they don't, they like to mix it up. They spend a great deal of time practicing set-plays of course but in open play, they play decent stuff at times. Anyway, who on here would swap positions? I would, and don't really care about beautiful football so long as we win. Indeed it says a lot about Big Sam's abilities that he can get a group of foreigners to scrap and fight like traditional British players. I'd have him here in a shot.