David Kelly

I don't see the point in remaking excellent films. Remake something that had potential but wasn't done well the first time. Unless you can update it and bring something new, which you can't with this, it's a complete waste of time. Mind you, the theatre was packed and they seem to be having a shed load of showings so it might be making money.

Interesting to pull out a thread from 18 month ago to post that.

I wasn't remotely interested in football until I was about 9. Before that I have vague memories of my dad going to the match every other Saturday so me and my sister had to spend the full day at my grans as my mam worked then. The first specific football memory I have is the mackems being on the telly and my dad wanting the opposition to win. At the time I couldn't understand why he would be cheering on a southern team rather than a local one. I said to him "you'd support them if they were playing in Europe though wouldn't you?" to which he replied "you'll never have to worry about that son." The first match I ever went to (or can remember at all) was against West Brom in the season Charlton managed us (so it must have been 84 or 85). My dad had to tell me who played for us in the car up to the town. Waddle was the only one I'd heard of. We won a pretty unremarkable game 1-0 with a freekick from Beardsley.

Murder On The Orient Express. Not bad but not a patch on the Sidney Lumet original. The cast is good but Michelle Pfeiffer is the only one who really compares to the cast of the earlier film (not surprising when it included the likes of Bergman, Connery, Bacall, Finney, Perkins and Gielgud). The fact that most will know exactly whodunnit well before it begins obviously doesn't help it, but if you've not seen a previous version you'd probably enjoy it a lot more.

Aye that was my first reaction to reading that. They escaped by the skin of their teeth, it's not like he'd rocketed them up the table. They'd been out of the bottom three for about 30 days all season if memory serves.

Fucking hope so, he's been a big miss the last couple of games. Apart from his effectiveness, he's actually a really good player to watch.

Don't really see Benitez walking before the end of the season regardless.

He might change his approach if he's wanting to ensure a sale goes through but it hasn't by January. You'd like to think (although with Ashley you can't be sure) that he'd realise that in order the make the sale go through he needs us to be in the premier league and Rafa to be in charge. Would it be worth him risking the sale by risking our safety by not allowing Rafa to spend? Also I'm pretty sure we get a payment in the winter from the TV rights, so he wouldn't need to put his own money in, just allow us to spend what we should have.

Is that because our players are better than their's or because you don't know their players? I've not watched much of Watford but I'd say for a start that Gomez, Deeney, Richarleson and Gray would all be an improvement on what we have.

Very true. I see they have inside information that hoselu actually cost us £10m.

I like the fact that they're going on about how pathetic it is that we think there's a referee and sky conspiracy against us (we don't we just think one makes shit decisions and the other are a pack of cunts but never let the truth get in the way of a good story) whilst constantly moaning themselves about the magedia. You really couldn't make it up.

The dark haired one does have a canny set of chebs though. That was enough to get me through a few episodes years ago before I had kodi.

Not particularly.

Brawl in Cell Block 99. A bit like a much nastier version of the Stallone classic Lockup. Vaughan is pretty decent in the main role. Worth a watch.

Given the other choices, one of the centrebacks might make it in there alongside Colo but I'm struggling to think of anyone else.

Aye it's possible that they could get a manager to do that. I just doubt it would be done by improving their defence. Other than maybe just improving their attitudes. Mind you, from the outside there seems to be something very wrong going on inside that club and I'm not sure even a good manager that the players believed in (ie the type they won't be getting) would be able to fix that.

Even without Rafa some of the morons would be saying we should be beating the likes of Burnley and Bournemouth (and Watford, West Brom, Stoke etc etc) because none of these teams were big names since Sky took over running English football. I agree, with the current resources available to Rafa, finishing in or around where we are now would be an excellent result.

I'm not that convinced some average at best manager will have the ability to sort our their defence tbh. Any thought that they are going to get a good manager is pie in the sky unless by some miracle they appoint Ball or ratboy and they turn out to be something unexpected. Other than those two the choices are very limited for them and they have players like O'Shea who's playing walking football these days, Kone who is desperate to get away or Jones who is just plain awful. I still look at the starting 11's they are putting out and with how close they actually are those above them, I think they are far from done for if someone can motivate them.

I was really pissed off with the booing after the game. Much more than the actual result which lets face it could have gone either way. I first started going to matches in the days when we absolute dross like George Riley, Tony Cunningham and Billy Whitehurst playing for us. But in those days no one would have dreamed of booing the team, especially when they were clearly trying. The sad fact is that so many of our supporters these days are part of a generation brought up watching football on Sky thinking we have the right to beat anyone who's not in the top six. We should be beating teams like Burnley and Bournemouth is something you hear regularly. Why should we be beating teams who were able to spend £20m on a centreback while we're paying £5m for a striker? We've just had to basically start again, getting rid of uninterested overpaid mercenaries like Sissoko and the like, and we've got a team of players who actually want to play for the club and we boo them for conceding a last minute goal of a game we could have very well won but for some poor officiating. It's fucking pathetic.

Reasonably fortunate timing given the complete waste of time international break. I agree with Gloomy on the run of games we've got. I don't think it's that bad at all (and it's probably the worst run we have all season) with plenty of opportunities to pick up points. Of course there's no easy games at this level (or any level if you're Sunderland) but I don't really fear anyone but City. 2-0 tomorrow.

I'm using the metric of my eyes seeing him doing fuck all except turnover possession. I know this is the Burnley match thread but I was speaking generally about Perez so I'm not concerned with his link up with Diame as they will barely ever play at the same time. I really don't see him as a pest to anyone but us. We don't have a lot of possession up the field so him losing it so often is a problem. I'm not saying this because I think possession generally is that important, certainly not at our level, but being able to build a platform up the field is and he stops us from doing that. When Diame came on against Palace (combined with Merino's introduction a bit earlier) we were able to retain possession in the final third and build attacks which lead to our first efforts on target of the game, and ultimately the winning goal. I'm not saying Diame is better than Perez in that position as usually he's just as bad (and more lumbering) but on that occasion he did what was needed. I think everyone agrees that we don't really have anyone who is particularly suited to position, what I'm saying is that we should be looking to adjust that position within the system (by playing Shelvey further forward would be my idea) or dispense with it in favour of another striker. IMO we wouldn't actually lose a man in midfield because Perez causes us more problems in there by losing possession than he solves by any harassing he may do of the oppositions defence. If you want to play someone in there just to close down the opposition, I'd suggest that Ritchie would be a better bet. He actually works hard to close down his man and retains possession for us. I know he's never been tried there but I can't see him doing worse than Perez or Diame. The reservation would come from losing him down the right where he is our biggest threat and links up well with Yedlin. Of course given that we're 9th in the table you could say that we don't really need to change much at all. And as long as we can keep in and around this position I'd probably agree. But if things start going south I think it would be a pressing concern.

I hear this bit in bold being said as a defence of Perez but I just don't see it happening in practice. Instead what I do see is him constantly surrendering possession and very rarely doing anything that results in a chance for us or even allow us to keep possession further up the field. I'm not saying this means 4-4-2 is the answer and I recognise the problems with playing 4-4-2 against teams playing 3 in the middle. But what I do say is that since I don't believe Perez does this pressuring of the opposition we are in effect just playing with 2 in the middle anyway.

I noticed Don Goodman saying they've tried it all with managers from Fat Sam to Poyet and the Nazi so the only thing they have left that they haven't tried was bring in a manager from a lower division. How he managed to not realise that Poyet and Di Canio came from lower division clubs is beyond me like but perfectly in keeping with the intelligence of your average Sunderland fan.

If he could turn the fans around that might be enough though. Get them knuckle draggers on board and they may be able to get the players playing for them. As it is, the place is so miserable they would most likely turn on any manager who they don't love from having a history there, as soon as they lose a game or two. Which they inevitably will. And they don't have the choice of bringing in a quality manager because none would touch them with a barge pole.