acrossthepond

I dont think you were right, iirc you thought he'd be sacked as we'd be doing shit not because he was never Ashley's man and not part of some hitherto unspecified plan to install his own manager and back him with cash in the next window, as per yesterday. Hughton may have been sacked but all your reasons were wrong. Also CT was expressing confidence about our prospects this season, which is what you had the problem with. It may be hypocritical but i dont stand to gain from it personally so am not arsed if you think that. I also have offered it in a perfectly reasonable manner rather than to prove someone else is a cunt. You're perfectly right that I thought we would be doing poorly and that's why Hughton would be out of a job, but my main point was to show that Fat Mike couldn't be trusted and would discard Hughton at the drop of a hat as a scapegoat (which is exactly what he did by waiting until we'd had a bit of a 'poor run' before sacking him rather than having the balls to remove him at the start of the season if he wanted 'his own manager' - not as though Hughton wasn't also 'his own manager' - in.) The problem that I had, and still have, was CT's blind faith in somebody who does not deserve it and who has demonstrated many times that he does not deserve it - and the fact that that same blind faith that he spews forth constantly on these boards is actually a load of shit, since he wasn't willing to back it up.

They'll need to sack him today and hoy a caretaker in for the inevitable humping that's going to occur at Old Trafford on Saturday, that way their new manager won't be tainted by it. He's a good manager and he'll bounce back, but I think Liverpool, especially in the dire state that the fat Spanish waiter left them, were a step too far for him.

Fantastic bit of hypocrisy from Chez ITT. I remember him having a pop on multiple occasions after I offered the Tree a bet on whether Hughton would still be our manager at Christmas - which, of course, I was right about - and now here he is doing the exact same. HF's position is exactly right anyway. Nothing is certain at this clown college of a club. We all thought Hughton was Ashley's appointment, a yes man through and through and that once he actually was doing well, there'd be no way he was sacked - oops, there he goes. It makes perfect sense to keep Carroll. If there's one thing you can say about Ashley and Diamond Dekka, though, it's that they don't realise what makes perfect sense.

In a world of my choosing, we'd finish just below European qualification and build up the squad over the summer to have a real tilt at 5th or 6th next season. But the primary objective this season was safety and I think we've just about done enough, so now we just have to focus on winning as many games as possible and moving as far up the table as possible. If that takes us to 6th, 7th, or 8th I'll be overjoyed but 10th would be a great result and 15th would do me tbh.

So what else is new? If we sell him we may as well pack it in now since we'll be going down faster than you can say Joe Kinnear.

Get a grip man, we've been openly speculating about Carroll going to Spurs on this board ever since we found out about the injury, no surprise that at least one rag has decided to make a story out of it and no surprise that someone on this board would post it. It's always amused me how the Sun, supposedly England's 'most-read' rag, I mean paper, have absolutely no idea how to use the word 'toon.' It's always "Toon want this" or "Toon will demand at least 30 million", and I'm not talking about headlines or even sub-headers.

We can beat these with or without Carroll and I look forward to seeing it happen. 2-0 to us, Super Shola and Barton to do the damage.

He's 24 now, how long is this 'promise' going to go on? Will he still have loads of 'potential' at 26, 27, 28, like Shola? He's shite like. Better at RB than CB as you've said before and as we saw in '08-09.

I still have 5 years on my sentence mate - I'm trying to avoid a shag, if you know what I mean.

If we get a decent striker in, I'd play him and Carroll up front with Ben Arfa on the left and Barton on the right. Tiote and Nolan in the centre. Williamson should replace S. Taylor, who should be beaten savagely trained until he learns that defenders should defend first and appeal/point/playact later. If we keep the same crop of strikers (some in the very loosest sense of the word) that we have now, I'd want Ben Arfa behind Carroll and Jonas in for him on the left, rest of the lineup to remain the same. But what I say doesn't matter, since the actual purpose of this topic is not to discuss potential first XIs but to give CT another opportunity to big up a player (LuaLua) whose play he's probably never seen more than 30 minutes of and to have another whinge about how shit Jonas is.

Harper only had one save to make in 90minutes Nowt to do with Taylor, who was gash.

I thought Jonas was quite good in the second half. If you guys haven't figured him out yet by this point, he's never going to be a world beater to say the least but he was a good attacking option/pressure outlet. Good performance against a shit team, better finishing would've seen us hammering them (near things from Shola, Jonas, Colo and Taylor, maybe even the Best chance at the end) but I question why Pardew played shit like Best, Smith, and Lovenkrands unless it really is for the shop window. S. Taylor is a crap centre-back and Williamson should've been back in as soon as he was off suspension.

Listen to those Wigan cretins (all 15,000 of them) chanting "off, off, off". Fair tackle, that's a yellow for Joey Barton while it's play on for Steven Gerrard.

Maybe he tweets too much.

Tiote runs half the field and passes 2-3 defenders only for Shola to be offside. Now he's off for Best. Bugger, I was sure he'd never play for us in the Premier League.

Does this mean Barton will move into centre mid? No point in that, he's been at his best this season out wide and definitely in this game.

I really hope we won't pay the price for these crossbar-rattlers and near misses.

That was a good cross by Jonas. Happens so rarely I thought I'd mention it for posterity.

We were comfortably better in the half but we could've used another goal to really put this to bed. Barton very much back to form on the right side.

Christ, Lovenkrands, peg it with the fucking right, you're 3 yards out.

Fine, fine strike from Barton there but it was perseverance that scored that goal.

GET IN!

Silky skills from the Fenham Pele there!

I can hardly blame him, Cattermole nearly killed him with a similar tackle earlier this season. Was it not Henry for wolves, either way they're both cunts Right on both counts.

I can hardly blame him, Cattermole nearly killed him with a similar tackle earlier this season.