manc-mag

Fair call from Luke, mind. Stevie's done the IRA and Nazi's sympathiser stuff this week and it was out of order.

From Oakland to Oakwell.

Friday aggro!

'grease'

How does that help his 'mate' Suarez btw? If Suarez is denying it, then that's all Poyet needs to highlight. Going on about Evra being a nancy boy for not being able to take verbal abuse makes Suarez look like he's got something to hide. The daft spik.

we competed with Liverpool and were ahead of Spurs when Mike Ashley bought the club chum. Do you deal in facts, or are you still just babbling on like a rock ape. I'm talking about now though as it's pointless discussing what Liverpool and Spurs were doing then. Liverpool are spending vast fortunes now. They competed with Man C in spending last year, but you've clearly stated you don't advocate matching Man C for spending. Spurs is a fantastic set up for a club of their means. If we replicated many aspects of their approach I'm sure we could kick on again. Spurs aren't on a par with Liverpool though and we wouldn't be either if we did replicate their system so what you're saying still doesnt make sense on that level. You're confusing results and spending and picking and choosing the bits of the argument to suit. It goes back to what I've said before though Leazes, you can condense your post into just saying: spend as much as the top spenders. It's a perfectly valid statement of desire, but it's not a financial reality. At the end of the day though, we are selling our best players, without the managers agreement on occasions if not most or all of the time, and not giving him the monies received which allows him to build on his current good footballers with more and "go higher". People can say what they like about prudency etc, but if you seriously want to reach for the top places you hit a point where you have to play the transfer game the way that they do. If Mike Ashley had any intention of doing that, we would have seen it by now. His ambitions and aims are crystal clear. That's basically just another way of saying spend the same as Man C and Man U etc etc though, which elsewhere you say you don't advocate. if you see my point. This is all I mean really Leazes with all due respect - what you put forward is the dream when everyone else is trying to get to grips with the current financial reality. That's not just in terms of looking inwards at the ownership of NUFC but outwards at the profiles of our rivals. Now. Today.

precisely. People can make as many excuses as they like, and babble on about "prudency and value", but at the end of the day, we should be playing Carroll and Ba up front, and a progressive club aiming for genuine success on the pitch would have done exactly that. Tbh, £35m for Carroll would, under normal circumstances, be a great piece of business. The problem then was the suspicion that it wouldn't be reinvested. That turned out to be the case. And while I rate Ba, he's more comfortable playing off someone. Best has fulfilled that target man role reasonably well (and much better than most of us hoped for). The worry for me would be that Ba has a dodgy knee, Best isn't really the long-term answer and Shola is Shola. There's Ben Arfa too but can he and Ba play together anyway? Questionable, certainly in the 4-4-2 that has served us so well. Basically I think we're a striker short, specifically someone who can hold the ball and play with his back to goal. Maybe we'll get him in January as there are noises about done deals with the likes of Maiga (who I know very little about). In any case you'd like to think someone is coming in, although we've all cause to be cynical about whether that actually happens as forwards don't come cheap and you have the problem of wages being commensurate with the transfer fee on top of that. I think manc-mag was certainly correct when he said that the efforts and performances of the players so far meant that they deserved some reinforcements in January. Otherwise any progress made won't be built upon and the likes of Cabaye will have their heads turned. Absolutely nails it as a pure footballing assessment for me. Also clear evidence of people not 'getting carried away' on here, contrary to the daily claims that that's the case.

we competed with Liverpool and were ahead of Spurs when Mike Ashley bought the club chum. Do you deal in facts, or are you still just babbling on like a rock ape. I'm talking about now though as it's pointless discussing what Liverpool and Spurs were doing then. Liverpool are spending vast fortunes now. They competed with Man C in spending last year, but you've clearly stated you don't advocate matching Man C for spending. Spurs is a fantastic set up for a club of their means. If we replicated many aspects of their approach I'm sure we could kick on again. Spurs aren't on a par with Liverpool though and we wouldn't be either if we did replicate their system so what you're saying still doesnt make sense on that level. You're confusing results and spending and picking and choosing the bits of the argument to suit. It goes back to what I've said before though Leazes, you can condense your post into just saying: spend as much as the top spenders. It's a perfectly valid statement of desire, but it's not a financial reality.

We basically need Liverpool to pipe down a bit on the transfer front-a poor return for them this year under chequebook Dalglish will give the external backers cold feet about repeating the huge injections they've underwritten thus far. Spurs aren't going to throw daft money at us for our players so that's not a major issue. Man U, Man C and Chelsea can all comfortably knock on the door and offer more so that remains a fact of life, but they haven't yet so it's unknown how well they rate any of our players. Our efforts have to be i) ambitious to the extent that we're prepared to pay decent money for talent to fit a system of play and resist all but the top buying clubs to retain those players once theyre through the doors, and ii) pragmatic enough to have the scouting constantly focussed on the market where we know theres a danger we may lose a player. The latter part of that jigsaw also includes busting a gut to keep all of your players sweet and happy to be at the club if at all possible because there is a role for that and its something we've largely neglected in the past, assuming simply that massive wages alone should be enough to earn you loyality and commitment. We've been too reactive and not pro-active enough for me in some areas and theres been no excuse for that (striker), because it's a system that has practically no margin for error in it. cf where you're prepared to spend money on a succession of players til you get the right one. Where we have actually bought though in the last couple of seasons, it has been encouraging. I think it's pretty obvious where the strengths and weaknesses (meaning previous, current and future) lie, given the system we've adopted. Nobody's under any illusion that Ashley's whim remains the biggest potential single future pitfall either.

Liverpool and Spurs compete at wildly different financial levels btw, it's a footballing nonsense to equate the two. We've lost players to Liverpool, in the last year-who in the last year have competed at the financial levels of Man City.

I wish he hadn't signed off with the: 'white kids are listening to black music' epithet like. Welcome to the 1950's or what? Trying to get away from the stereotypes here John.

well they had more points, no? you still get 3 points for a win..etc etc. They lost a group game, we didn't, points are irrelevant in this comparison. Only a yank would rely on a stat like that. .....check your facts stevie, same amount of games they won two group games and drew one....england won one and drew two.....whatever, agree with alex's post they would have been seeing a better opportunity to go through where as everyone including the england XI knew germany was going to drub you. They lost a group game to Holland. they did too, wiki has paraguay down as a tie!?!! oops, sorry stevie, it pains me to say it, but you're right......but you're still a wanker... Defective world cup stats are excusable, but words like 'tie' are most certainly not.

Mint.

The blue star on it's own was mint, the beer mat was poor though iyam. It never quite was the beer mat was it?? Was missing 'The One and Only' off the top and the coins around the middle. The simple blue star (1983-86) was by far the best we've had IMO. Yeah sorry, was just using the 'beer mat' expression for ease of reference. Wasn't the full bottle logo as you say.

The blue star on it's own was mint, the beer mat was poor though iyam. Nah, love it! Might have to do with us being fucking class back then, mind. Aye that's it for me, obviously the association of it is great in terms of what period it brings to mind and so I love it in that sense. As an actual logo on the shirt though I think the blue star on it's own was far more iconic.

The blue star on it's own was mint, the beer mat was poor though iyam.

Should have worked in a few facial ticks if they put a camera up in your grill.

You wait 10 years for Ameobi to fuck off and then three come along at once.

All the best Meenz, hope you're having a good 'un!

HF=NF. Big racist. Seriously though I'd say if Ben Arfa fulfills his undoubted potential and either one of Abeid/Marveaux turns out to be an average player, that's an excellent return on recruiting efforts. And that assumes Obertan never achieves better than average and one of Abeid/Marveaux is complete dog shit. Any better for those players and it would be an even bigger result.

Leazes though seriously, re-read what you've just written there in the context of what other posters like Trophyshy are telling you. You're now saying that even when Shepherd may say something that conflicts with the things you say, you'll just correct that for him and substitute what you think he's really thinking. As if anyone is ever going to take that type of debating seriously. And you're going to those lengths when nobody's even arsed about the subject to begin with. Ignore me by all means (I'd genuinely welcome that fwiw) but listen to the other posters flagging this up. If I'm such a grey man with nowt to say it obviously can't reflect well on you hounding me round the board pre-occupying yourself with getting my views on things days later. It is a vendetta whichever way you dress it up-not just against me but several other posters-and everyone has lost count of the number of people who've told you to let go of it by now I'm sure.

Fibs. 12001.

Reminded me of Father Jack Hackett and his pet brick. Fair do's as far as Mr Cansdale's concerned though.

spouting shit for at least 4 years and not admitting it is massively depressing to see...... Unfortunately, "days later" equates to the fact that, unlike you, I don't sit here every night and posting comments like "chomp", which is equally massively depressing. I don't expect you to understand that. nah. Plenty more posts than me so that doesn't wash either, just more fibs. It's an obsession for you at the end of the day old son. 17,500 posts, I guarantee you 12,000 of them will be about Shepherd. 5,000 will be about muslims and miscellaneous browns and 500 about lemonade.

Leazes i) stop telling little fibs, you're a man of 57 and ii) let it go, you're a man of 57. Begging for responses days later at 12.30 in the morning is massively depressing to see.