Papa Lazaru

He made a stupid mistake, it happens, if people are now slagging him off for it then they are the sterotypical fickle football fans and it just makes them look stupid. He's had an excellent season playing out of position in a back four with no organisation (until Roeder) in a team playing with no tactics or ideas (until Roeder) so he's done remarkably well considering. He needs to work on his distribution and crossing so that he becomes a valuable attacking force to help out Nobby on the right, but he's certainly done his defensive work this season.

He's an Irish Shirley Ghostman (if you've seen that programme!)

Never going to happen, with one reason being as somebody said above, there were reports of Venables practically havign the job last time and the response from the fans ammounted to "Fuck off" and he was never mentioned again. If Shepherd did it he'd be signing his own death warrant and any fan who wants Venables obviously pays very litte attention to football as he is unbeilievably overrated and is merely a cockney wideboy who the London media love to shoot their load over. In this country he has 1 FA cup with Spurs and absolutely fuck all else, he did the Souness trick of winning a trophy in a country where 2 clubs basically take turns at winning. With England he scraped his way to a semi final despite playing every game in his home stadium and with the then greatets striker in football only playing well against Holland and Germany, yet you'd think he'd masterminded 3 world cup wins in a row! Having said all that when Shepherd decided to have a lobotmy and hire Souness i'd have taken Venables over him like a shot. He'd have done nothing special, kept the club basically ticking over but he would not have acted like a spoilt bastard and cost us Bellamy, he'd probably have got on better and used Robert better and would have been on a short term contract.

Not that anyone, least of all Roeder will be bothered, but he should have got it. Simply because he inherited a complete shambles from Souness, with no morale, no ideas and heading towards the bottom three and instantly turned it round. But as somebody said it just meant Pardew suffered the curse and got a good beating in his next game whilst we can go and get a comfortable win at Old Trafford

Sadly it is blatantly the sheep thing. Though i'd say for a few people it is a case of hearing about something (through it winning an award) that they'd previously missed and thinking it may be worth a try, rather than just a mindless attitude of "that won so i have to go and see it" mindset.

Its good to see this load of shite still being spouted as if its true by the tosspots in the media. Roeder's first game incharge featured Souness team except he picked Zog who'd been available to Souness for ages. Other than that he's had about a game and half from Dyer, but has had to do withour Shearer (unlike Souness) and has at times only had 4 fit defenders! I think you should question why Souness and his coaches haven't been shot on sight when you realise quite how much of a disgrace they are when compared to a coach who knows what he's doing with the same players.

He still whinges on about the red card from the first tie, but like everyone connected with Chelsea ignores the fact that even if you think the red was wrong he should already have walked for the challenge he did earlier which was shocking or at the very least had a yellow for both. So he should just quit talking bollocks, admit the best team won and get ready to get knocked out in the FA cup as well very soon!

Ah the old "Who is Owen replacing" debate, its a favourite! But what the hell, lets go over it all again The main and perhaps most important fact in the argument is that Fat Fred, Big Al, Souness and Owen himself made it obvious he was replacing Shearer with Owen merely adding he wished he could play alongside him longer than this season. Owen and Shearer are and always will be the main/most important striker in any partnership, (when they play toegther you can take your pick, Owen is currently better obviously but Big Al at the toon is a legend) They are both the main goal scorer and carry the weight of the team Both proven international, CL and prem goal scorers Both have massive reputations, lift the team by their presence and worry the opposition (less so for Shearer towards the end obviously) Both were massive high profile signings made to state our intentions, our spending power and ability to attract the best (whether you think thats wise is a different matter) And its always been clear that Fat Fred had set aside money when the chance came to replace SHEARER with a striker of potentially equal standing. So he tried for Rooney, failed and some of that money seemed to disappear, but as soon as Owen was available the SHEARER money returned. Bellamy is a creative, support striker who doesn't get you 25 a season, but sets up more than enough to balance that. I think he's a fanstastic player but he will never make a number one out and out goalscorer like Big Al or Owen. And for the record unlike alot of britsih footy fans i don't believe you have to have a "little" and "large" combo up front. Owen and Bellamy together would be awesome with the right fooballers behind them creating and would scare the shit out of any defence, The only thing that would hinder them would be Sounes style tactics of humping the ball in the air at them and getting 11 men behind the ball thus creating fuck all for them.

You're talking complete bollocks to be honest. Souness categorically told us all that Bellamy only gets 9 goals a season, so he can't possibly have scored 12. And you're also probably making up all the assists and wreaking havoc stuff because we all know that Bellamy was just a cancer who destroys football clubs and nothing else! Its embarassing that because of one fuckwitt manager we lost Bellamy, that we lost him for a joke of a fee and tha we lost him right when we seriously need strikers. Still, he sorted out the dressing room didn't he

I dont hate him now, i just think he's becoming as annoying as Fergie and Wenger when he used to be in a different class to them. If he was our manager and we were successful i wouldn't care how annoying he was, but also that wouldn't mean i neccesarilly liked him. You don't have to like your manager/players as people long as they do the business in football terms.

We have a big problem coming up soon. When Shearer retires we are left with one striker who is good enough in Owen! Shola isn't the answer, and neither is Chopra, other than that you are relying on players like Luque (likely to be leaving close season and still to prove anything in the prem) or Dyer (invariably injured and hasn't played up front enough to say for sure he can do it over a season) So the new manager could really need to sign 3 strikers, but i can't see that happening.

When Mourinho first came here he was great, he's started turning into a wanker now though which is a shame as the three leading managers now are a bunch of pricks. The players hounding refs and any similar dissent could be stopped in weeks if the refs did what they are perfectly entitled to do. And that is book and send off players when they do it. The refs have the option but are too gutless oir too stupid to do it so i have no sympathy for the idiots whatsoever, though the players behaviour is also embarassing. As for the decisions, the Robben one is a blatant red which the ref got spot on. He jumped in two footed and dangerously and the intent was to do some damage, the fact that his feet were quite far apart and missed doing any real damage is irrelivent, it was a clear red. The West Brom one is tougher to call, it was a bad tackle and could have got a red, and i may well have said red, but i think most refs would give a yellow for that.

Blackburn are just starting to reap the rewards of Souness' long term legacy of his time there tbh. 102668[/snapback] Its true, and anything positive we may do next season (or even this) will ultimately be down to Souness "sorting out" the dressing room and ridding the club of the "cancer" that was destroying us and absolutly nothing to do with the managers and coaches who have succeeded him!

He's busy sticking pins in his Robert voodoo doll like he does every day and counting how many misplaced passes Robert has made on the video compilations he's made of Laurent's games...allegedly!

Yep, which shows how highly he rates himself. Watch what you're saying, mate! The FC Bellamy supporters won’t be happy with that. Did you know that he still loves NUFC?! 102323[/snapback] The "FC Bellamy supporters" or "people who rate him as a player and think he should still be here" (to give them their correct name) would tell you when he's played this season he's scored and created goals and has indeed been pretty much their player of the season (not that it particularly matters as it doesn't help NUFC). As for the interview, he was having a go at Souness and his staff as he talked about how its better under the staff at Blackburn and whilst he didn't need to say we were the worst team they'e played anyone who actually watched that match and used their brain can see we were absolutely abysmal until the goals in the second half which were down to Zog and Owen and not down to a great performance. And lets be honest its not a surprise if Bellamy did have a go considering during the Blackburn match the toon fans gave him shit from the start. Whether you think he did (does) still love NUFC or doesn't once the fans do that he's likely to remember it. Personally i didn't care that they had a go at him, even though it would clearly motivate him, but they'd have been far better off having a go at Souness who was fucking the club up and helping Fat Fred to decide to remove that useless bastard alot earlier.

I've noticed that with Roeder since he took over. Every interview he's too decent a bloke to rip the previous bunch of tossers to shreds, but he isn't shy of pointing out what he's done differently and the things he thinks are essential and even basics of coaching that were severely lacking at this club. And surely anyone with even the slightest knowledge of football (thats Souness ruled out) knows you get your back four organised into a unit, have them well drilled and make sure they communicate with each other at all times.

Looks like Souness was an advisor as Nobby is playing in the centre there!!! People in football won't want to hear it but you can't fault the toon defence under Roeder, 5 games only 1 goal conceded and we've only had about 5 fit defenders, sometimes 4 to pick from, have had to play people out of positon and have been don to 10 men at Villa. Individually toon defenders are never as bad as the media and even some toon fans love to portray them, but collectively they were so poorly coached and organised and had no confidence. As things stand there are only 6 prem teams with a better record than us this season, and that includes our players having to cope with Souness and his "coaching". Now obviously we don't want just the 7th best defence in the prem we ideally want one at least in the top 6 statistically, but we can work on that and i'm sure next season will see more than one defender having been bought.

I knew who it was, but to be fair i've seen the clips from their "hit" song on TV before!!!

Toon win 1-0 or 2-0, or 2-1, not that i'm hedging my bets!

He was pretty dodgy first half and better second half, but overall was certainly not an £8m french international. However i hope its the start of him at least improving because with Roeder in charge and his use of actual coaching, defensive tactics and organisation our defenders should be taking advantage.

The whole midfield in general have been better, instead of the defence clearing the ball over them we're actually putting it on the floor and playing 100015[/snapback] Amazing isn't it how footballers like Emre and Nobby prefer the ball to feet and passing the ball, to seeing it twatted over their heads at Shearer's throat whilst we get 10 men behind the ball at home to piss our own fans off!!!

The Charlton performance had nothing in common with the abject shambles we have witnessed under Souness. We pretty much controlled the game and but for 1 or 2 moments were never going to concede. We played with a shape and some decent one touch football, with the only thing lacking being enough cutting edge. Despite the injuries (which Roeder didn't use an excuse) we still created two sitters for Shola and Boumsong to head in which they pissed away, a chance when Bowyer put Shola through on goal and one in the first half when Shola ran through and hit a decent shot. Shola also had one disaalowed for offside (probably rightly). I left that perfomance thinking we were pretty solid, organised, in no danger and if our players could head a ball or Shearer had played we'd have won comfortably. When i came out of Souness' games i wanted to shoot myself...and Souness.

The second Souness was finally kicked out has seen a big upturn in Nobby's performances, and that shouldn't surprise anyone who could see Souness was killing him as he was with half the team. There's still more to come from him though, but as people have said his football brain is second to none.

The review in the chronicle tonight was certainly far from favourable! Described it has far and away the worst gig they have ever been to in their life. Said they were out of tune, out of time and he couldn't sing a note right basically and that it was just one big mess, much like Doherty himself. And it wasn't a review by some old reporter, it was a young lad who i think was a fan and looking forward to it. Anyway some of the bollocks written about Doherty as if he's some sort of genius, amazing poet or "the voice of a generation" is embarassing.

As a defender he's a genius, plain and simple and can transform any back 4 you put him in. Sadly because of his injury record and fitness any club these days would be daft to spend more than say £5m-£6m at best and get him on a pay as you play deal. If he stayed fit throughout his career he'd be remembered as one of the alltime great world defenders and its a real shame he probably won't.