David Kelly

Only Angels Have Wings - Classic Howard Hawks with Cary Grant and Jean Arthur.

I don't care who of our central midfielders leave (ok, I want Emre to leave), but most important is that for next season we establish a central midfield partnership that is actually producing something creative. Having said that, there were reports in Jormany that Saragossa didn't use their option to sign D'Allessandro as they are hoping to hold out for a lower fee than the previously agreed 5m Euro. For that price I'd take him immediately. D'Allessandro has had a decent season in Spain, however as someone has pointed out he struggled at Portsmouth with the pace and the physical side of the game, I can't see how that would change if he came here. Eh, I don't think he really struggled at Pompey at all. That's why I am bit surprised about yours and GK's memory. He had a fantastic start there and made an immediate impact. Maybe he faded away a bit after his good start, but he he still made a huge contribution to them surprisingly staying up under Redknapp. IIRC a permanent deal only fell through as Pompey didn't want to match Wolfsburg's asking price. I can't claim to have watched many Portsmouth games at the time but from memory he seemed to get substituted in a lot of what I saw and I remember he was pretty useless up here. I remember a couple of raving reviews about his displays and Redknapp stating that he would like to build a team around him which lead to several weeks of negotiating a deal that didn't come off. And I looked it up. He played 13 games and got taken off 4 times. Once against ManU at half time and twice in the latter stages of games when Pompey were leading. See that's why I didn't bother looking it up, I knew Jorman efficiency would help me out Well I stand corrected, it was probably just the game up here and the Manure game I was thinking about. I remember him looking brilliant for the Argies U21's but I haven't really seen much of him since then. I agree though that we are desperate for someone of his type of creative ability. We haven't really had it since Pedro & Ginola and it's what I had hoped for from Emre.

Actually screw that, hopefully it's Owen. If he plays well for us then that means lots of goals and our best chance of overachieving and getting that last European spot!

I don't care who of our central midfielders leave (ok, I want Emre to leave), but most important is that for next season we establish a central midfield partnership that is actually producing something creative. Having said that, there were reports in Jormany that Saragossa didn't use their option to sign D'Allessandro as they are hoping to hold out for a lower fee than the previously agreed 5m Euro. For that price I'd take him immediately. D'Allessandro has had a decent season in Spain, however as someone has pointed out he struggled at Portsmouth with the pace and the physical side of the game, I can't see how that would change if he came here. Eh, I don't think he really struggled at Pompey at all. That's why I am bit surprised about yours and GK's memory. He had a fantastic start there and made an immediate impact. Maybe he faded away a bit after his good start, but he he still made a huge contribution to them surprisingly staying up under Redknapp. IIRC a permanent deal only fell through as Pompey didn't want to match Wolfsburg's asking price. I can't claim to have watched many Portsmouth games at the time but from memory he seemed to get substituted in a lot of what I saw and I remember he was pretty useless up here.

Taylor hopefully. The lad has a lot of potential that would never have been realised under our past two managers and alongside Bramble. Hopefully Alardyce will be able to get him some quality experienced players to learn from and we will see him become what we all hope. Hopefully Duff can turn his Newcastle career around too!

His wife? I wouldn't be keen on him I have to admit. He's a horrible shit far worse that the likes of Bowyer or Dyer. I'd rank him right up there with Lehman and Keane as the players I've hated most. He is a canny player and if we got him I'm sure I'd get over my dislike for him (being the hypocritical bastard that I am) but I'd prefer we stayed well clear if I'm honest.

I'm just fitting your point to the argument. If you think we need a manager who is good at overachieving, then you msut think we need to overachieve to reach the bottom berth of the UEFA Cup. What it must be to have such ambition! That makes no logical sense whatsoever. I would love a manager who can make us over achieve which for us would be to constantly win things. Scraping a UEFA cup spot is overachieving for Bolton not us.

Who is this mythical manager that we could get in who would show our ambition is to win the trebble?

Dudley's North to most Southerners anyway! But is anyone really suprised that the pie man doesn't know his facts!

Without watching or knowing anything about it, I could have told you that. What were you thinking of watching it in the first place!

Let's face it, we haven't released anything really aproaching a defender! This week keeps getting better all the time!

I don't care who of our central midfielders leave (ok, I want Emre to leave), but most important is that for next season we establish a central midfield partnership that is actually producing something creative. Having said that, there were reports in Jormany that Saragossa didn't use their option to sign D'Allessandro as they are hoping to hold out for a lower fee than the previously agreed 5m Euro. For that price I'd take him immediately. He didn't really impress with Portsmouth like.

I actually quite like him, he's a bit of a tool but he's a character.

So basically we're coming round to the crux of the matter. This is a nothing appointment to get some reliable mid table finishes and maybe win a league cup maybe in the next decade. It's shit. You need to seriously think about what Fat Fred really thinks he has got in Sam Allardyce, and how that compares to what the fans think. Remember when Fred thought he had done the right thing and hired a disciplinarian? I for one don't trust his judgement to critically analyse anything Sam might have claimed/demanded in a job interview (although we all know it's not an interview when there are no other candidates). Where did anyone say that? We finished this season about five points above the bottom three so we obviously have some ground to make up on the top six let alone the top four. I think top six next season is not unachievable but I would be happy to see us move up into the top half and show signs of putting in place an infratructure to progress. After that I would be looking to be in the top six and challenge the top four but we are miles behind Chelski and Manure in terms of finances (and a good way behind Arsenal and Liverpool) so I'm not expecting Champions league football every season let alone challenging for the title. Times have changed unfortunately, you aren't going to see teams like Forrest or Derby winning the league no matter how good their manager unless they get a billionaire backer. I don't like this but it is a fact of life. We have more oppertunity to bring in revenue than most clubs but we still can't come close to the top two. As for crediting Shepherd, I don't. I don't believe this appointment has been made on the back of a fantastic decision making process by him. But that doesn't alter my opinion that it is in the best interests of the club. I wish fatty had more of a clue but and in the future we could get into problems again but for now I think we have a good manager who can do what we need.

I really can't understand his thinking here. From us down over you've only got West Ham who haven't already changed their manager and I can't see them doing so. Citeh will be looking for someone much higher profile with their impending takeover so he'll not be going there Birmingham aren't going to sack Bruce and Keane's going nowhere just yet (although him leaving the great unwashed is inevitable) and he's got no hope of anyone in the top half of the table so where does he think he's going to go? He's said he only wants a couple more seasons anyway hasn't he?

Sorry for the shite choice of colour btw!

I do rate Parker but I worry that he's lost a lot of the fans and it's starting to effect him (although you can never doubt his effort) so if we were offered £8m I think it would be too good to turn down.

The Proposition - Canny, Guy Pearce is quality as always.

How is it overachieving? By what standard do you judge, when he's had 8 years to run his own personal fiefdom? I guess if Sammy Lee doesn't get 5th now he'll be slated as absolute shite. What about the bloke at Gretna? Has he overachieved? You achieve the potential in your circumnstances. I'll judge Sam on how he does with a year with these players as compared to every other manager that has been given the same affordance. Alternatively, we could take a back step and actually look to see who is out there who really could improve this club over 5 years, not just take the bloke we know wants the job because he turned it down 3 years ago. Any comparison of NUFC to Bolton is way off base. Different players, different chairman, completely different club, different exectations, hell the only thing in common is the Premiership, nothing else at all is the same. You have to ask yourself would Liverpool/Arsenal ever take a chance with Sam? If not why not? His only top flight record is Bolton. Some people think that's a good thing, I don't. Alternatively, If you want untried at the top, why choose Allardyce? Why not anyone else? Why not a completely unexpected and dynamic appointment, like Wenger to Arsenal, Houllier to Liverpool etc etc. And frankly, most of this is down to Fred, so delusions of anything coming good now and attacking any hint of questioning is also foolish. You've still not said what his bad points are though. Come to think of it, he doesn't have many, apart from the glaringly obvious that people seem to think is water under the bridge, even though it isn't even resolved yet My anger at his appointment is the pure bull being spouted about justifying his appointment: 'over-achieved at Bolton' - flawed argument, see above 'best for our circumstances' - he would have been here 3 years ago, don't even pretend Fred has gone for Sam because of circumstances, he is his number one idea of a top flight manager 'backroom staff' - this is basically spin and soundbites, Sam is certainly not the only manager who knows this stuff 'will stand up to Fred' - basically, when it comes down to it, no, he won't. No manager ever has. Ifyou want this, you get a director of football Combined with the fact that yet again, no effort at all has been made to get the right manager, we have taken the easy choice once again. I can't understand why you think he hasn't overachieved with Bolton. Is your criteria for overachivement? Do you have to take Wimbledon from non league to the premiership? The simple fact is that before his arrival Bolton were a first division club with no expectations other than having the odd challenge for promotion and if they did get up battle bravely against relegation. But he did more than this, he took them up, kept them up, established them as a premiership club (similar to Curbishly at Charlton) and then give them a realistic chance of qualifying for Europe and even an outside chance of snatching a Champions League spot. For me and it appears most others, that is what we would consider overachivement. This whole point you have about the fat man wanting him three years ago is irrelevant when you are arguing about why people now are saying he is the best we could get currently. Three years ago I agree few people would have wanted him (although I'm sure almost everyone would have took him over Souness) but we are not in the same position we were then. At that time we had finished 4th, 3rd and 5th in three seasons, qualifying for the 2nd group phase of the champions league and getting to a Uefa cup semi final. At that time we were an attractive proposition. Now we have had three god awful seasons, we are not in europe and we don't have the same amount of transfer funds as we did. We can't expect Europes elite to come kicking our door in so most of us have shifted our expectations of who we can appoint. I agree with your point that any manager should be able to bring in decent backroom staff but the simple fact is that none of our last five or six managers have done this and Allardyce has a succesfull record of it. If he did pick Gary Speed to bring as a coach I would be quite confident that he would be up to the job beacuse Allardyce's previous picks Brown, Lee, McDonald all appear to have been good at the jobs with all three going on to manage their own teams. As for standing up to the fat man, none of us know whether this will ever happen but I don't have any real expectations for it. But I do believe that Allardyce would have set out certain ground rules before he accepted the job that Shepherd must have aquiesced to. This may be a false assumption but we will never know. I also agree that Shepherd is unlikely to have undertaken a thorough europe wide search for our new manager, I think this is something most would concede. But that just makes me all the happier that we got SA in. No one expects fatty to carefully consider his options so we can just be grateful we didn't end up with an appointment like the last two!

tbh that's where a good backroom staff must help, a Ferguson style hairdrier rollicking is best served in many ways as a last resort, really there should be layers of management and discipline that stops that stuff long before it every gets to that. Which is something that Allardyce appears to sucesfully employ.

He gives the impression of a bloke who won't take any shit from the players too which is something our last two managers were fucking awfull at. Souness tried to get by on bullying whereas Roeder just looked like you could walk all over him and he would just take it. Allardyce appears to be tough without losing the players respect.

My cousin used to be the same (well not quite the same but all hyper and mental) with it.

Jessie The Body is a legend tbh. Spirited Away. Looks fantastic but I was a little bit disapointed after all of the rave reviews I've seen for it.

Saw a bit of it when the lad came to the lass's door and they thought he was Jehova's Witness. That was canny funny. It's the first time I've ever seen any programme with Rob Brydon, I think he's really funny on talk shows but I've never fancied any of his shows.