acrossthepond

It'll take another year for them to come up.

Featherweight class champion.

I don't know wtf Carroll was playing at there at the end, time and time again we needed him in the box and he was back with Tiote. Not impressed. That's the kind of "Superman" play we can do without. Ranger looked good, Jonas desperately needed to pass more to him at the end, Enrique excellent throughout and MOTM. With Barton to deliver the set pieces we might've taken all 3 here, but that was a good performance and well worthy of a point even if we rode our luck a bit.

1-1 I reckon... GET IN! Nice one Alex

What a surprise, the Saudis are involved.

You been drinking, or have you stepped through a time warp back to 2008? Ashley wonderland, top four. Give your head a shake ffs. This post sounds like you're on drugs.

If this is how we play when missing only two first-teamers I shudder to think how we're going to be next sunday without Barton, Colo or Williamson. Can't think why Hughton would rather play Guthrie wide right than Routledge. Must not rate him at all, but he looked decent when he came on. Routledge on the wing and Guthrie instead of Smith would've been much better. Our players generally wanted far too much time on the ball and were simply being outran, outmuscled and outplayed. Atrocious.

Another two easy chances muffed. Starting to wonder just what Lovenkrands is doing in black and white. EDIT: There's another one from Williamson. It's not as though we haven't had opportunities in this game.

If the defence hadn't been playing around and trying to pass it out there, it would never have come to that. Coloccini had an opportunity to clear but didn't.

This is not unique to Ashley though... expand ? Ashley is hardly the only owner who's fucked around with his manager and sold players/brought in players the manager wanted/didn't want. Lerner at Villa and the Icelanders at West Ham are two good examples. I think we could still be rid of Ashley and in the same situation with someone else. Obviously I want Ashley gone as soon as possible, but not if it means bringing in someone just as bad or worse. Portsmouth were desperate to be rid of the crook Gaydamak, then they brought in another crook in al-Fahim, then they brought in another crook in Al Faraj...point is, there's worse than Ashley, and as long as he keeps his head down and his mouth shut and supports Hughton in the transfer window, it's time to get over him. Nobody wants him except for loons like the Tree, but we can't go on with him being the focus of our lives as fans. Ashley gets a lot of stick, some of it deserved, but would you care to expand on how HE has fucked around managers and bought / sold players the manager didnt want. My reccolection is that he was the detatched owner and until it all went Pete tong I dont really remember him be involved in any of the day to day sort of decisions. I dont recall Allardyce or Keegan blaming him personally for that sort of thing. Not even sure since Keegan what actual decisions he's made that have been against the wishes of manager or players. Seriouis question btw if your up to it. Keegan said nowt because of the non-disclosure agreement. I think the tribunal made it pretty obvious who was responsible for that. How about forcing Given out of the club? How about bringing in Xisco and Nacho and selling Milner? The '08-'09 season was pretty awful, but surely you haven't forgotten it? There's obvious examples of Ashley responsible for fucking about our manager (one he himself appointed) and bringing in players not wanted/selling players that were wanted. I know what your stock response is going to be - "oh Llambias did those things not wor Mike, he's lily-white" - but the buck stops with the owner. He appointed the cronies, he's responsible for what they do, and as the tribunal said, he made promises to KK that weren't kept and that he never had any intention of keeping.

This is not unique to Ashley though... expand ? Ashley is hardly the only owner who's fucked around with his manager and sold players/brought in players the manager wanted/didn't want. Lerner at Villa and the Icelanders at West Ham are two good examples. I think we could still be rid of Ashley and in the same situation with someone else. Obviously I want Ashley gone as soon as possible, but not if it means bringing in someone just as bad or worse. Portsmouth were desperate to be rid of the crook Gaydamak, then they brought in another crook in al-Fahim, then they brought in another crook in Al Faraj...point is, there's worse than Ashley, and as long as he keeps his head down and his mouth shut and supports Hughton in the transfer window, it's time to get over him. Nobody wants him except for loons like the Tree, but we can't go on with him being the focus of our lives as fans.

American. Tedious, predictable wanker for whom absolutely no-one, not one person, on this board feels any affection or interest.

ASM is considerably more tedious than Leazes and it seems as though his only purpose on this board is to wind Leazes up, which makes him considerably more sad as well. He's also promised to fuck off twice now and we're still waiting. Third time's the charm, maybe?

One good attention whore deserves another.

Ugh. That wasn't fun to watch at all. Not Tiote's greatest game, again, and I wasn't thrilled with the decision to take Guthrie off since he was providing plenty of attacking impetus down the right. Should've been Tiote off for Routledge and Guthrie into the centre, I think. Performance came on leaps and bounds in the second half but still not good enough. Schwarzer had a great game. Our home form is becoming a major letdown and we have got to improve.

Lovenkrands? Ugh. I'd rather Ranger played. Guthrie in for Barton seemed a natural choice - what's happening with Routledge? Hughton doesn't rate him any longer? I predicted 3-0 against Fat Sam's rabble and we played like shit. I'll go back to 'negativity' and say we'll lose 1-2 again.

That was utterly, utterly gash. Poor performance. Hope nothing too serious has happened to Shola because Ranger isn't up to par (yet - I still have high hopes for him.) Tiote was especially poor, perhaps suffering from the knock taken against Arsenal or perhaps just having a shit game. Oh well, time to put this one behind us.

We can turn this around. Time to show what we're made of I think.

You guys know the rule, puff puff pass.

Don't know, have they? Maybe if you shared the love, we'd all know...

I'm thirsty too if anyone would like to give a hand.

3-0 to us I reckon.

He'll never be as good as Shearer, he should just retire now.

Shearer's tipped him for England. I think he'll be called up but Barton won't.

Hadn't even thought of this. I had thought Championship clubs and the likes of Wigan would be wanting to poach him off us, but of course he has that Spurs connection. Need to get this contract sorted immediately.