wacko

He can pass. At least well enough to give the ball to a more attacking player, as all good defensive midfielders do. What doesn't make sense is that he hasn't played in midfield for, what, 8 years. Play a midfielder, Sven. It really pisses me off that Sven starts by picking his best 11 players regardless of whether they're suited to the position he has them playing in or not.

That's why I have faith in this whole thing going horribly wrong for Chelsea in the not so distant future, I can't even see how they're going to pay back Abramovich, let alone maintain the wages if/when he pulls out. No-one within that setup gives a flying fuck about Chelsea in the long term as far as I can tell. At least Freddie cares about the club, which is why, I guess, we've been the fifth best club in the UK over the last decade. 142173[/snapback] They won't pay back Abramovich. At the moment, he's just swallowing the losses. What they have been doing behind the scenes is building up a large network of feeder clubs and positioning themselves to snap up the most promising youngsters. At the moment, it's all about building up a profile, but they're planning to replenish the squad from youths they're trying to secure now. Arnesen found some of the greatest players of the last 20 years in Europe (Romario and Ronaldo for starters) and they'll hope that from the 10 great prospects he can sign for the price of Essien, 2 or 3 will come really good and they can recoup most of their outlay by selling the others. They'll still have to cut their wage bill, but the money is being spent on building turnover and a support structure to maintain it. When the free money dries up, they won't be able to dominate like they have the past couple of years, but they will likely become a permanent fixture in the top 4.

Rumours due to Roman's connections with Corinthians he'll help Meelan get Tevez and Mascherano to soften the blow 141847[/snapback] Wonder why he doesn't get Tevez and Mascherano for Chelsea then. I'd rather have Tevez than Shevchenko, given their ages.

I could quite believe that. There is no denying he's a good player, but for me he's another example of how Spanish players don't excell in the Premiership, the only examples of good Spanish players in the premiership being the likes of Xabi Alonso and Luis Garcia, clearly having a Spaniard as a manager has helped them. 141232[/snapback] Fabregas looks good enough to me, Reyes ain't bad either. 141479[/snapback] What they have in their favour is that they are still quite young so won't have had much chance to get used to the slower pace of La Liga, wheras Morientes spent virtually all of his fairly long (he's 30 I think) career there. You can't teach an old dog new tricks tbh. 141491[/snapback] I don't think it's necessarily age. Some players can adapt, some can't.

I feel just like Shabaz. It's never as bad as Fifi Trixabelle, Moon Unit or Lunatic Fringe. 140854[/snapback] True, but it's still a proper shite name. It's bad enough for the lass having that ginger publicity whore for a mother without having to bear the marks of said media-whoring for the rest of her life.

Hope not, but I think you might be right Morientes is an top-class player, but he never got used to the speed of the English game. I hope he has more luck at Valencia, and I hope we finally sign a decent striker.

Can't see him doing so well at Chelsea. Mourinho seems to much prefer to play experienced players than take a chance on youth, and without games your kids will never fulfil their potential. He'll probably stagnate in the squad like SWP.

Not really the basis on which to decide whether or not to sign a defender 140885[/snapback] Course it is. By the way, European Cup-winning defender Djimi Traore might be available at the right price

Don't rate Huth, myself. Very slow, turns like a drunken whale, often caught out of position. Better than Bumpong, though.

I'd rather have Kuijt, to be honest. You'll probably outbid us again 139878[/snapback] I think this time you would win, since you wouldn't be having to pay more for a player than you sold him for not long ago as was the case with Owen. So hopefully you won't be bidding!!! 139882[/snapback] We couldn't have offered anywhere near 17m, anyway. 7m loss on Diouf and we still haven't managed to offload Diao

Imagine how we'd have done with some proper ones, though

I'd rather have Kuijt, to be honest. You'll probably outbid us again

I wonder if RVN and Owen could play effectively together?? From what I've seen of him (RVN), he seems far too selfish - in a good striker's way - to be a compliment to Owen. Maybe those who have seen him more could give a better opinion, but I just have this doubt. Anyway, the nuber 9 shirt for Ameobi ?? No way. What an insult to the shirt. Yes, I've seen some donkeys over the years wear it, but those were the days when the rest of the team weren't much better; these days we have a team full of pretty decent players (not all, but a few). The number 9 shirt should go to a quality striker who will play most games, scoring often and hopefully we will get one this close season. 139165[/snapback] Kuijt and Gudjonhsen would probably be a better foil for Owen, but RVN would work with a creative midfielder pushed up behind them.

We've made several offers, and though the player was keen, we couldn't agree a price with the club. I hope we get him this summer. We need strikers more badly than you do 139030[/snapback] Are you sure about that? 139033[/snapback] Have you seen Cisse? We paid 14m for that 139047[/snapback] More goals than Crouch and Morientes, hasn't he?. Yet he gets ALL the abuse. Why? His introduction also won you that Super Cup, so he's won you more trophies than your other strikers have, to be fair. 139049[/snapback] Considering that he hasn't played that much and mostly out of position on the wing when he has, he's scored a shitload (19 in all competitions). The thing is, he's crap at football. He can run really fast, cross okay and has a belter of a shot, but he has a rotten attitude, rarely makes the right decision and couldn't trap a bag of cement. He'd probably do well in another side (Houllier's for example) that doesn't push up as much, but there's rarely enough space behind the strikers for him to run into, and with his touch and intelligence he's pretty much useless then. As such, he's only really used on the wing to pin back the full-back (like against you) or as a sub when we need to counter or really change the game. He'll be off in the summer if we can get a decent offer and bring in someone who can play football. Morientes does get a load of stick for being generally not very good (he's probably off in the summer, too), but Crouch gets away with it because he brings so much to the side. We desperately need someone who can score goals, unless Fowler has the mother of all Indian summers.

We've made several offers, and though the player was keen, we couldn't agree a price with the club. I hope we get him this summer. We need strikers more badly than you do 139030[/snapback] Are you sure about that? 139033[/snapback] Have you seen Cisse? We paid 14m for that

No, it isn't. It's about helping the team win games. Who cares if Drogba only scored 12 last season (he had 11 assists, too--the highest of any striker), when Chelsea out-score every other club, including Arsenal and the Glams with their BiG nAmE strikers? Shrek and Horseface scored 37 of the Glam's 72 goals. Henry scored 27 of Arsenal's 68. If 30-45% of your goals are coming from one player, then your season practically depends on that player's fitness and each game depends a lot on one player's form. Much better to play a system that spreads the chances around. It's much easier to replace a striker that can jump well and pass a bit than it is to replace one who can score 20+ goals a season. Same goes for any player. The system is king.

We've made several offers, and though the player was keen, we couldn't agree a price with the club. I hope we get him this summer. We need strikers more badly than you do

Owen's primary interest has always been England.

Sorry. I naturally don't know anywhere near as much about the Robson business as you NUFC fans do.

Of course thats a fair point, as a lot of people do confuse "big" with "successful". Liverpool however, were not bigger than us before Shankly went to Liverpool. They hadn't even won the FA Cup until 1965. We also would have outstripped their crowds if we had had the stadium we have now during the Keegan era. Unfortunately, Shankly went to Liverpool and not Newcastle. With a Keegan type era again, half the city would want to watch Newcastle, just like last time. We would easily outstrip almost everybody in the support stakes if we had genuine success, we wouldn't need half of North Wales to fill the stadium. 136015[/snapback] Hi people. First post to an interesting discussion. Regarding "big" vs "successful", I think most people regard them as synonymous when talking about football clubs. Perhaps "rich" is a better word than "big" in terms of this discussion. NUFC is certainly a rich club, as rich as LFC, but it's not as big nor as famous, certainly not outside England. Liverpool is practically a legendary club, and that has allowed us to attract people like Benitez. Benitez, in turn, can attract players like Alonso--who was wanted by Madrid--and together they can bring success to the club. I don't like the term "sleeping giant", either, but NUFC has enormous potential. The problem, as I see it, is your board. They can't seem to tell a decent manager from a bad one, and when they found a good one in Uncle Bobby, he was hamstrung by the fact that the board felt Shearer to be more important than him. Compare Fergie jettisonning Keane, Beckham and now RVN. Or Houllier selling Fowler. Not a peep out of the boards. But at NUFC, leaving Shearer on the bench was enough to spell the end for a manager. If you hired a promising manager like Jewell or Pardew and the board gave him proper support and let him get on with his job, you'd definitely see some trophies. I'd agree that LFC have a more winning mentality than NUFC, but I don't think it comes so much from the history of the club, but more from the management. I don't have the exact stats to hand, but by the time Houllier left, it had been something like 2 years since we had come from behind to win a game. Benitez has made us famous for it, because he has instilled that belief in the players that wasn't there before. Success starts with the board. We have been successful because our board has always tried to hire top managers and has given them time (often too much) and supported them well. Even Abramovich's money doesn't guarantee success--what has brought that is that he was smart enough to hire the very best people he could (Kenyon, Mourinho, Arnesen) and let them get on with the job. Until you get someone decent in at board level, I can't see things improving much for Newcastle.