Bombadil

I absolutely detest Björk.

Other way to look at it is that he's trying to make him hungry for the Southampton game (although I think Dyer will start that, so not sure if Luque will play) 92612[/snapback] Good point, hopefully you're right.

England 'set for British manager' I hope they're right about O'Neill and England. I have to say I don't know too much about him and although I accept he's probably a very good manager and possibly the best British manager available at the moment, I'd be a lot happier with one of the European coaches we're being linked to. I don't quite understand the fascination with O'Neill. The way I see it, his reputation is largely down to the fact that he's been linked with the ManU (and Liverpool) jobs and now the England post for ages. As I said, I don't know too much about him, but what is it that makes people think he's so good? His track record is decent, but no more than that. Playing devil's advocate, you could say that it's comparable to Souness'. I'm not a regular viewer of Scottish football, but apparently the way Celtic played under him consisted of long balls forward, or is that just a misconception? What are his main strengths? Can anyone enlighten me?

It says in the Chronicle today that Luque won't even be on the bench tomorrow and Roeder has said that he will name the same XI and substitutes. What the hell is that all about? You could say he doesn't exactly deserve to be in the starting line-up after his performances for us, but to have a subs bench of Elliott, Clark, Bowyer and Dyer is just pointless. Why isn't he on the bench instead of Clark or Bowyer? It doesn't make sense not to have a striker on the bench. You could say that Dyer can come in and play up front, which is fair enough, but Clark and Bowyer are quite similar in what they offer/don't offer. How is he supposed to find his form and make an impact if he doesn't even get a place on the bench? Roeder is also blatantly pissing him off by doing it, I'm not sure that will help his morale.

Cristiano Ronaldo Gus Poyet Wayne Rooney

91276[/snapback] You don't say....

1. Alan Shearer 2. Roberto Baggio 3. Marco Van Basten Gascoigne and Baresi deserve a mention as well.

Fair play to them, if it makes the Fat Man and the biased media realise that people want Hitzfeld, I'm all for it.

That's exactly what I'm talking about - it's not like I was his biggest fan at the time, I wanted him out and replaced in the summer and it was obvious that his time was up, sad though it was. But there can be no denying the fact that even though we didn't win anything while he was in charge, he brought back the good times and he did a fantastic job - and it's not like he was simply a good manager, his love and passion for the club was great to see as well. The way NUFC.com constantly try to get in a few digs at him is utterly pathetic.

Just think of the crap that leech Douggie Hall came out with - "he would have relegated us!". Robson will always be entitled to voice his opinion on the club IMO, in fact he's probably more entitled to it than most of our former players/managers who comment on us in the media.

Agree, you've only got yourself to blame for the Chelsea fan jokes with comments like these.

I see NUFC.com got in a few more digs at Robson - there's a surprise. So what they're implying is that the Caldwells would have improved us (yeah, right) and that selling Woodgate had anything to do with Robson? What a load of shit. And as has been pointed out before in this thread, Bobby has every right to comment on the shambles Souness has left when you compare it to what Bobby did here. Their constant digs at Robson are pathetic and absolutely uncalled for.

He should be, even if it's unlikely to happen. Hitzfeld said only recently that he would only start considering offers in April. He doesn't want to take on any managerial job until after the the World Cup either.

He can always ask Shearergol for advice.

You're right about every manager having his favourites. Robson's insistence on playing Jenas used to annoy the hell out of me. You'd think, though, that it would be easier for national team managers to be relatively objective about their team selection, whereas club manages are under pressure to play the expensive signings they've made. Judging from the newspapers, Eriksson is someone Fat Fred is looking at and he's certainly a massive step up from the candidates last time around.

I doubt even most Swiss Germans will think of their dialects as an own language! Hitzfeld is so good, he's invented a whole new language and masters it perfectly tbh.

...which is one of the reasons why I'm not convinced about Eriksson as manager. I know you can't directly compare national teams and club football, but judging from his England tenure, he really has his favourites and he sticks with certain players for too long no matter what (Heskey?). Shola would probably get the number 9 shirt...

Looking at how well bloody Tottenham are doing, it pains me to think where we would be now if the Fat Man had replaced Robson with a decent manager and given him £50m to spend. I just hope Arsenal will get 4th spot and not Spurs. As for next season, a Top 6 finish has to be the aim regardless of who we get in as manager.

Because Souness, in his various attempts at blaming everyone and everything but himself for his total incompetence, had a dig at Robson on more than one occasion. Bobby is spot on.

I agree with that. From all accounts, Roeder is an excellent youth team coach, so I'd leave him there and, if possible, bring in someone more proven and high-profile. I think Gemmill is right when he says that Roeder doesn't want the job on a permanent basis anyway, I think he's made that pretty clear and so has Fat Fred. Good luck to Roeder though, he's an improvement on Souness already and he comes across well.

Fair play to the Fat Man, at least it looks like he's realised his mistake. I'm actually a lot more optimistic about us getting a good manager now.

I'd say that neither Ginola nor Robert were failures - Robert especially was (together with Bellamy) instrumental in getting us into the Champions League, whatever you may think of his last 18 months here. That's not the point though. Do you seriously think we're doing enough to make sure players from abroad settle here? Do you seriously think that if we had bought Pires and Henry, they would have been as successful as they've been at Arsenal? With us, it's a case of getting lucky - some players will adapt (like Solano) and most of them won't. And it's precisely because of the wages we pay out and the money we spend on foreign players that we should do more to make sure they adapt and settle, instead of leaving it all to them and getting on their backs if they don't perform from day one. SHEARER!!!

Yes, good stuff. I had forgotten what the meaning of excitement was!

Yeah, it's all our fault. Poor Luque has desperately wanted to take on his full-back, but the cruel coaching staff at NUFC have put lead weights in his shinpads. It was also our fault that Robert couldn't get a game for Portsmouth and eventually spat his dummy out. 89076[/snapback] I didn't say Luque wasn't to blame, it goes without saying that he's been poor. What I'm saying is that while it's true that many (expensive) foreign players that come to this club turn out to be failures, it's not always down to the players. See this thread.