Isegrim

Really don't understand how it would be Allardyce's fault if we were relegated. We were mid-table when Keegan took over, if we go down it's squarely on his head. Mainly down to a favourable fixture list Allardyce beat better teams than Boro and Bolton at home. We certainly wouldn't have conceded as many goals if he was still in charge. Can't actually believe some people are removing blame from Keegan's door should he take us down. Well, Keegan wasn't in charge for the ManU game. Under Allardyce we conceded three against Man City away and two at home, four against Pompey at home, three against Blackburn away etc. So I don't know how you can say that the defence actually really got worse and would have performed better under Big Sam. We also saw some shocking home results under him. One against a team trying to beat Sunderland's negative record. Of course Keegan is (also) to blame if we go down. But I'll make this kind of judgement at the end of the season and not now.

Pay them enough and they'll come With the obscene wages players are getting anyway in modern football other factors are becoming more important nowadays imho. This doesn't meant that a move can't be "sold" to these players, it's just becoming more difficult. As for the original question: What were people expecting? Keegan to be infallible and turning water into wine ... or the likes of Smith, Butt, Carr into decent footballers? Keegan wept. Of course the results against Bolton and Boro were disappointing. But the team is currently just a huge mess, imbalanced and totally out of confidence. Also looking at the repeating second half collapsing it raises concerns about the fitness level. Though, I think nothing of all this comes unexpected at club being in constant turmoil for about three years now. I'd hoped Keegan to have an immidiate effect in putting believe into the players and make them perform better and a result against Bolton would probably have had this effect. So all I hope for now is that we will successfully see the season off by getting some much needed results against the bottom half teams and then will see what Keegan can do next season with players who suit his philosophy and whose morale isn't rock bottom. Good post. Overall the new owner is lacking vision. Is he? I think this is utter nonsense. You can't get any more vision than sacking a manager whose ego made it impossible to adapt to the club and hiring someone who suits the club. Also I wouldn't call the attempt to give the club a more professional setup "lacking vision". The lack of vision is the smallest problem of the club at the moment if you ask me.

Hence the mystery timing of the sacking. Fresh starts are better made in the summer. Really?The season was already over. Giving your new manager a head start of six months to have a look at the squad and the things he wants to change is much better than to try to do it with limited time in the summer. But it's not though, I might agree with you if we were sitting on 40-odd points but there's still games to win and I can't see us winning any at the minute. Of course it's not over in respect of the relegation battle, but it was in concern of any top half finish. Would we be in a different scenario if we had stuck with Allardyce? I doubt it. Of course we might have got a result in one of the recent games. Though looking at the form in the games preceding his sacking this is questionable. Of course, if the club gets relegated the "plan" went tits up. But at the moment we are on 28 points, having a couple of home games against other relegation candidates. Ending up on 37+ points should be enough to be safe in the end. From the two scenarios of sticking with Allardyce for the remainder of the season or hiring Keegan with the outlook for the next season, I'd always chose the latter.

Pay them enough and they'll come With the obscene wages players are getting anyway in modern football other factors are becoming more important nowadays imho. This doesn't meant that a move can't be "sold" to these players, it's just becoming more difficult. As for the original question: What were people expecting? Keegan to be infallible and turning water into wine ... or the likes of Smith, Butt, Carr into decent footballers? Keegan wept. Of course the results against Bolton and Boro were disappointing. But the team is currently just a huge mess, imbalanced and totally out of confidence. Also looking at the repeating second half collapsing it raises concerns about the fitness level. Though, I think nothing of all this comes unexpected at club being in constant turmoil for about three years now. I'd hoped Keegan to have an immidiate effect in putting believe into the players and make them perform better and a result against Bolton would probably have had this effect. So all I hope for now is that we will successfully see the season off by getting some much needed results against the bottom half teams and then will see what Keegan can do next season with players who suit his philosophy and whose morale isn't rock bottom.

Hence the mystery timing of the sacking. Fresh starts are better made in the summer. Really? The season was already over. Giving your new manager a head start of six months to have a look at the squad and the things he wants to change is much better than to try to do it with limited time in the summer.

This post for me sums up why signing KK was a mistake. We dont have aspirations or hope anymore its merely blind faith in a man who once, many years ago took us up there. Nothing based on concrete reasoning just the whole nostalgiatastic scenario of the messiah. Thats not knocking you AP or even KK its merely the worry I had from the start, we will blindly follow the man like lemmings regardless of what he does, refusing to give criticism because hes the messiah. I see your point of view PP, but KK will get criticism sometimes. Yesterday he made a mistake not playing Faye [but I'm sure he's learned now]. The only thing that matters now is staying up, and making the board understand that the way forward in football doesn't come cheap. I really don't think they will spend that much. I'll be happily surprised if we spend more than £30m net. Knowing that your predictions are mostly wide of the mark, we'll probably see a new spending record now.

Keegan out.

I don't think we will either, but with Pompey, both Dippers, Spurs and Liverpool all to come away from home, and the likes of Blackburn, Manchester United and Chelsea to come to SJP, i'm struggling to see many winnable games left. As well as Blackburn are doing, I still think this should be considered a winnable game. Mackems, Fulham and Reading are must win games at home. At least 9 points out of these games are essential with picking up the odd point in the other games as at Birmingham and Pompey.

Did you show her a picture of your cock by any chance?

He's only been back a couple of days and he's out for 3 months He was talking about the players for the future though, that's why he mentioned Fraser and the new Swedish guy.

Doesn't mention Krul as one of the keepers. Unbelievable.

Thanks for the reminder, totally forgot about it.

He is on my "Players I don't want to get not injured" wishlist.

Battenberg is close to where I come from, never knew about the cake stuff. Originally the Battenbergs died out in the 14th century, the name was only reused early in the 19th century. Anyway, I support Poland... ... just in their group game against Austria. Battenburg is a type of cake you get over here. The 'exceedingly good' bit is pinched from a Mr. Kipling advert (cake manufacturer). It's even more hilarious now I've explained it, don't you think? As any German will tell you, a joke can only be funnier once it's been dissected and analysed in order to conclusively establish that "zis is ticking your laughbone, yes?". Vorsprung durch Technik.

Geremi £2m??? Apparently he is doing ok at the ANC Geremi goal v Tunesia Doing really well for Cameroon. His set pieces have been surprisingly good throughout the whole tournament. As for players: For centre half I would like us to go for Mertesacker. Imbo (the b stands for biased before anyone is asking) the probably most underrated centre half in Europe at the moment. Tall, good reading of the game and always tries do build up the game from the back.

Battenberg is close to where I come from, never knew about the cake stuff. Originally the Battenbergs died out in the 14th century, the name was only reused early in the 19th century. Anyway, I support Poland... ... just in their group game against Austria.

I've more hope in Owen finding his form than in Martins finding a brain surgeon, Viduka the way out of the Fatfighter convention and Ameobi his alleged talent. Plus, it won't be that easy to sell Owen anyway. At the moment he is only living from his reputation ... and his huge wages which no buying club will want to match.

Gol is seething.

Herzlichen Glückwunsch.

I want Chayton back.

Yeah, the majority of them. Y'know I'm guessing the majority of them haven't been, hence why there have only been about 5 suggested, unless there hasn't been any more than 9 Italians in the PL. There haven't been that many, no. It's also really ridiculous to say 'this guy's <nationality> ergo he's shit because I can't personally remember very many good players of <nationality> in the Premier League.' Let's forget for a second that you were wrong about the Italian success rate. How many dutchmen have been successful in the Premiership? I'd still have taken Bergkamp in his prime. Portuguese? Few successful ones, but I'd take Ronaldo. Argentines? Often unsuccessful. Tevez, though? Yes please. Etc. It's still difficult to foresee when you get the exception and when the rule... I agree totally that the nationality of a player should never put you off when you think the player is right. But I do also think that the likeliness to adapt to English football is connected to the football culture and way of life where players come from. So yes, I do think that players from southern European leagues or South America find it generally more difficult to be successful in the Premierleague than (less talented) Scandinavians for example. Signing them is a bigger risk than signing others imho.

Whenever the German system is mentioned it gets totally romanticised. The legal structures have changed in the last decade very much and are much more similar to the English system now. Most clubs here are in fact public or private limited companies where "members" have little to say, but decisions are made on by governing bodies. What's the difference between a members club and a private company with fan shareholders? Do the german clubs have specific limitaions against the amassing of share blocks? There are loads of differences, a major one is that in a member club every member has one vote among shareholders his votes reflect the quota of his shares. Most professional clubs in Germany now have the structure that the football department is spun off into a separate private limited company where the member club holds a minimum of 50% of the shares. Members basically don't elect presidents, chairmen etc. as well which is done by supervising boards (who are at best elected by members). In the end the members of the "clubs" have nothing to say. And rightly so. So the member club, made up of one man one vote shareholders, only has a veto power on the management decisions of the commercial shareholders of the football company, and no say in the actual decisions made by the company? Don't they even get to ratify progress plans? Where is the benefit in coughing up to become a member fan? You get free pens at AGMs . ...as well as preferential rights regarding tickets etc., but your power to influence is very limited to non-existent. Tell me they at least get a dividend of some sort? No. A member club is an idealistic not an economical corporation.

Whenever the German system is mentioned it gets totally romanticised. The legal structures have changed in the last decade very much and are much more similar to the English system now. Most clubs here are in fact public or private limited companies where "members" have little to say, but decisions are made on by governing bodies. What's the difference between a members club and a private company with fan shareholders? Do the german clubs have specific limitaions against the amassing of share blocks? There are loads of differences, a major one is that in a member club every member has one vote among shareholders his votes reflect the quota of his shares. Most professional clubs in Germany now have the structure that the football department is spun off into a separate private limited company where the member club holds a minimum of 50% of the shares. Members basically don't elect presidents, chairmen etc. as well which is done by supervising boards (who are at best elected by members). In the end the members of the "clubs" have nothing to say. And rightly so. So the member club, made up of one man one vote shareholders, only has a veto power on the management decisions of the commercial shareholders of the football company, and no say in the actual decisions made by the company? Don't they even get to ratify progress plans? Where is the benefit in coughing up to become a member fan? You get free pens at AGMs . ...as well as preferential rights regarding tickets etc., but your power to influence is very limited to non-existent.

Whenever the German system is mentioned it gets totally romanticised. The legal structures have changed in the last decade very much and are much more similar to the English system now. Most clubs here are in fact public or private limited companies where "members" have little to say, but decisions are made on by governing bodies. What's the difference between a members club and a private company with fan shareholders? Do the german clubs have specific limitaions against the amassing of share blocks? There are loads of differences, a major one is that in a member club every member has one vote among shareholders his votes reflect the quota of his shares. Most professional clubs in Germany now have the structure that the football department is spun off into a separate private limited company where the member club holds a minimum of 50% of the shares. Members basically don't elect presidents, chairmen etc. as well which is done by supervising boards (who are at best elected by members). In the end the members of the "clubs" have nothing to say. And rightly so.