I'd hardly call him a joke. Everyone knows Alan Shearer will be the manager within 2 years anyway.

How exactly is Graeme Souness not a joke?

Alan Shearer would be another joke appointment. Just get a good fucking coach and tactician. He doesn't have to be a big name, or a legendary player. He just has to be able to get a team playing properly. They've had Keegan, Dalglish, Gullitt, Robson and now Souness, possibly Shearer next, all on name value. They should sack Souness, and get Paul Le Guen in before some other top side snaps him up.

lol @ you cunts not even caring :lol:

Cmon Wengerland, fire up son, Zagorakis is in Greece's team! :love: :wave: :love: :D

How is he a joke more like?

And apparently, Le Guen is heading to Italy.

He is a joke because he has never won anything of note, apart from one FA Cup, in management outside of Scotland. He took the great Liverpool team which dominated the English game for two decades and led it into a slump from which it still hasn't really recovered with the same disregard for tactics/organisation and largely idiotic transfer decisions he has shown throughout his time as a manager.

He continually has public feuds with talented players, to show what a hard man he is rather than keep things private and sort them out professionally.

Yeah I agree with ECG, Souness is a cunt.

I'll be watching most of it, don't you worry about that mate ;) First live match is Brazil against Greece anyway, which should be awesome :love:

Bit surprised Theo's in the squad actually, Bologna have got a relegation play-off this weekend, so i thought he'd be needed there. I don't know if it was a wind-up, probably was but oh well, but Sky are meant to be doing a '50 Greatest goals vs Man Utd' programme, and Theo's against them seems to be getting the concensus of Leicester fans' votes :heart: Shame it was in a 6-2 defeat :(

We signed him a couple of weeks ago. I am a little concerned we seem to be going over board on midfielders. we have dunn, izzet, nafti, clemence, carter and if we sign bowyer thats six players alone who play in the center of midfield.

I know. Theo is the fucking man, so is King Otto. I was shattered when Greece copped the 0-1 against Ukraine in Athens last week, the lads dominated yet Ukraine got the result. I'd love to see Prince Theo represent Hellas in the World Cup before retiring, what an absolute legend!

And yeah, apparently Bolongna didn't need/want him there for their relegation play-off, looks like the geiser is either on his way out of there or/and has told them to fuck off cos he wants to represent his country first! :love:

Disagree completely with Gullit, I know he was rubbish at Newcastle, but he was superb for us, him being a big name meant players like Zola, Vialli, Di Matteo (not sure actually if he was big) could come, and we won the F.A cup under him and he took us to the semi's of the League Cup and Cup Winners Cup before getting sacked. I think he was fairly well proven when Newcastle got him.

No he wasn't. He was another big name who'd done fuck all as a manager relying on reputation.

No, you are thinking of when Bates hired him for us. Newcastle had no reason not to go for him.

Him having done nothing in managerial terms would be good enough reason. An FA Cup and signing a bunch of overpaid foreigners coming to the end of their careers isn't a good track record. Chelsea were in such terrible fucking shape before Abramovich bailed them out because of a succession of regimes relying on signing highly-paid, formerly world class players who could turn it on now and then but who were never going to win a Premiership.

You argue for the sake of arguing: fact is, Gullitt had done little as a manager and never once showed he was capable of building a side which could perform consistently and sustain a level of performance. Newcastle need a coach who can do that. They haven't had one, even including Kevin Keegan, for as long as I have been watching football.

If you look at the top managers in the Premiership today, they are there because they get the best out of players, even average ones, and they build TEAMS. It's worth a gamble on a lower division or foreign manager who shows an aptitude for team building and tactical knowledge, rather than going for yet another big name living off a very old and tarnished reputation who will demand money and ultimately fail.

They were wrong to even give Bobby Robson so much time and money to play with. His club record wasn't that fantastic since leaving the England job. It's a little-mentioned fact that the PSV fans hated him.

If I remember rightly Gullit quit the Feyenoord job a couple weeks ago after they finished 3rd (I think it was 3rd anyway) after only being hired start of last season.

McNamara has signed on a free :love:

How is it arguing for the sake of arguing? Up until Jose came I haven't seen us play as good football as under Gullit (note the one 't', not two), you clearly don't remember just how good the actual football played was. And he didn't just get aload of people at the end of their career Vialli was the only player who really did only have a couple of seasons left in him, Di MAtteo retired through injury, Zola (probablY) and Lebouef retired this summer, so they were far fromt he end of their career.

I admit that he hadn't done enough to manage a top team, but he showed that he has what it takes, we finished 6th, won a cup and it could have been three, in the short time he was there, (we were hardly swamped with old people in his side either, I think he'd have been able to build). How the fuck do you think that thats easy. One of my greatest memories of a Chelsea game was when we were 2-0 down to Liverpool at half time, and we ended up winning 4-2, granted Liverpool had Roy Evans in charge that day (I think) but we were playing against a better side then us and still won it.

Also, Vialli had no experience as a manager either, we took a gamble on him, I was never a fan but he did get us third in the league and we did beat Barcelona 3-1 in our own gaff, getting to the Champions League Quarter Final was hardly easy and he won us three real cups.

Look I'm a dumb cunt (compared to you blokes anyway) when it comes to English football but even I have to agree with what ECG says, although admittedly I cannot comment much on the comments he makes about Bobby Robson as ultimately I don't know how PSV fans rated the bloke. :o

Ahahahaha Alladyce might be a fat cunt but the cunt had achieved more than you cunts :rofl:

Ok I admit I'm deliberately supporting managers of successul Greek national team players :o. Out of interest, is Chalkias still at Pompey? I still prefer Nikopolidis but we need replacement cunts and Chalkias isn't too bad :o!

I agree with most of it, just Ruud Gullit was great for us and I won't hear of him bashing him :mad:

I am saying that none of this is a good managerial record. If you look at the top 4 or 5 managers in the Premiership today (Ferguson, Wenger, Mourinho, Moyes Benitez), they are all men who had average or unremarkable careers as players. In the case of Mourinho, almost no career as a player.

They have all come from solid backgrounds as talented coaches or background staff, and people who have achieved impressive results with smaller teams, not on the back of a huge reputation as a star player.

I don't care about the football Chelsea played. They had top players, playing for a team who weren't really going anywhere.

My original point, absolutely lost in the mix, as usual with you, is that Newcastle, and all clubs, should be looking for managers with real credentials and the proven ability to create good teams. Of course, sometimes a big name manager can be good at that off the bat, like Mark Hughes appears to be, but Newcastle have had a succession of managers who've made extremely poor decisions in the transfer market and have not managed to build a consistent, spirited team.

Gullitt was never the man to do that, his time at Chelsea, subsequently at Newcastle, and his current record, all show that.

<font face=verdana size=3 color="#ff6600">yeah he is but he got dropped, he made a couple of mistakes and a lot of people got on his back, he earned the nick name "Chalky the Clown" after about 3 matches. :$ I always loved him though, he seems hilarious. We got rid of Shaka so he is our most experienced keeper now.

-edit-

While we're on the subject of Greeks, I kept meaning to ask you; is Giannis Skopelitis (the other Greek player we signed with Chalky) a Greek international? Media people often refer to him as an international but I didn't see him in the Euro 2004 squad.</font>

I know he stunk up the place on Tyneside, but I can also see why they chose him, he had been quality at us, he looked like he could be great and I think it was worth it.

Also, seeing as how Didier Deschamps got into the Champions League final last season and Frank Rijkaard just won La Liga I think it shows that you just pick on a few managers who are doing good yet didn't have great playing careers. Newcastle had every right to take a chance on Gullit.

Also, if you could ask Jose Mourinho who taught him EVERYTHING he learnt about being a manager, guess who he'd say, Bobby fucking Robson. Mourinho has combined what Robson taught him and his own genius qualities to become a top manager. Therefore, I can see why Newcastle got Sir Bobby too.

Admittedly I haven't watched much of the English Premiership however when I've seen him play he's done quite well for Pompey. :o I believe he used to play for Panathinaikos before he moved to England?

Not to my knowledge. I hate saying this, but you guys cannot understand how limited football coverage is here in Australia. I'd love nothing more than to go and live in either England or Greece and inform those interested lads of the happenings of Greek football but alas I can't, I'm too attracted to Australia even though it has fuck all coverage of the world game. :'( :nono:

However RBF, if I was to take a guess, I'd guess it's a 99% chance King Otto did not include him in the Euro 2004 squad.

Mourinho probably learned equally as much from Louis van Gaal Dazz, he was only a translator for Robson he was assistant for van Gaal.

BTW didn't Benitez play for Real Madrid? Not exactly an average career :wtf:

-edit- My bad, he coached the youth team

And I'd argue Mark Hughes being a good manager ECG. Before he left the Wales job they went about a year without winning, and Blackburn stayed up by kicking the shit out of people and Brad Friedel performing the occasional miracle. I'll reserve judgement on him til the end of this coming season, if he gets rid of players like Emerton (which has been rumoured) Blackburn could really struggle.

Emerton is shit.

Mark Hughes turned Blackburn from a team with a laughable defence to one of the meanest in the Premiership, with basically the same personnel as Souness had. That goes to show that tactics and organisation have a large say aside from the players you put in there. It had a lot more to it than simply Brad Friedal.

He unearthed a couple of gems in Mokoena and Nelsen. Nelsen is a class player. I think Hughes has done as all good managers do first and foremost: made his team hard to beat, stopped them sliding. The problem is the squad Souness left him with is bereft of attacking talent, so he has to remedy that. Look at his options up front, there isn't much there to work with.

I agree that Emerton is shit. He plays right-mid for Australia and whilst the cunt makes good runs forward he can't cross for fucking shit. Look out for Ahmed Elrich, a new signing for Fulham, who from what I've seen (both in the national league in Australia and internationally with the national team) is a great player. Hope I'm not proven wrong!

Jose says that he learnt from Bobby Robson, I might look in his autobiography later and check what he says about Van Gaal, but he gives Robson a shitload of credit.

Also, Freidal wasn't nearly as good as he normally is this season.

You bought his autobiography :|

Whose, Robson's or Freidal's :|

Mourinho I'm guessing.

Fuck I'm a drunk idiot, I didn't look at Dazz's post properly. :o :o

My brother did, I would have otherwise.

Don't look at me like that :mad:

I also have a Ruud Gullit biography and auto biography, a Dennis Wise one, a Zola one, a 96/97 season (Gullit's first year in charge) and a 2003 one.

If I am gunna read any book, it's a Chelsea one.

Ok just thought I'd wade into the Newcastle manager debate.

Firstly Souness: I'm still not a fan at all to be honest. His man management leaves a lot to be desired as does his team selection. His transfer policy in general hasn't been to bad and this season if we do indeed sign Parker then that will be a good coup. Defence is an issue as is another striker so we'll see how we do with that. My main gripe with him is basically what ECG has hinted at. That he can't make Newcastle defend even simple situations. Most of our goals conceded are what pundits would call "silly goals". Easily avoidable and mainly due to either shocking individual errors or just general incompetence (failure to clear a simple ball, terrible offside traps etc). You don't need genius defenders for the majority of defensive work - it helps but simple organisation gets you most of the way eg Greece 2004.

Robson I was a great fan of. His transfer policy was more chequered (Carl Cort anyone?) but generally not too shabby. Bellamy and Jenas in particular were good buys. I would prefer him over Souness any day and feel with him around we would have done better last season no doubt. He was a managerial legend no matter what anyone says and a great man who was well respected. The selling of Solano was his downfall a fantastic player, who loved the club and a fan favourite who was shunned frequently and sold for fuck all.

Gullit was a joke. I can see where Dazz was coming from in that I thought he did ok at Chelsea. The buying of Dyer was an inspired one (though Dyer hasn't lived up to his full potential). Otherwise the team was bereft of invention and very poor.

As for Shearer as next manager well to me that has disaster written all over it. He's a local legend but going in to Newcastle as your first job is going to be terrible. The Geordies will turn on even Shearer if things aren't going well and will expect some sort of fairytale recovery under him. He could throw away his legendary status if it goes wrong and I think it will.

Cort is the man :mad:

Parker to Newcastle for £6.5m, confirmed

West Ham are a banker to go down now.

Greece Brazil tomorrow

I thought the season was over

LOL

The word 'cunt' so many times made me crease up :o

Ferret, the season has finished but now we get the end of season national teams' competitions. The main ones are every 4 years but not many people are bothered about the one starting today as most teams field weakened sides. On paper it should be second to the World Cup, with the champions from each continent, but it's just not really (unless Greece win it).

Australia are giving Germany a run for their money. Tim Cahill looks like a "wog" even though he has an Irish name. Must be a scum bag.

Yeah sure :roll: :p

To be fair he was injury stricken at Newcastle but still was mostly ineffective even when he played.

He scored 16 last season, and he picked up some knocks here and there and didn't have a full pre-season from what I remember. Plus he got god knows how many assists from knock downs, flicks etc.

If he and Miller stay fit all season and the team clicks he'll bag 20 next year, at least.

Quote:

Bowyer doesn't want to join a club where he doesn't feel wanted

Surely this limits the clubs he can go to by a huge amount

Bowyer will be at one of the new teams or in the Championship next year.

Not here, he won't. Tommy Miller looks set to sign for us.

Well at least he aint fucking coming to us anymore thank god.

His wages are far too high for any Championship side. He'll stay in the premiership but i'm not sure who with, he's not a bad player by any means.

Wouldn't be surprised if he went back to West Ham

Brazil- Greece 2-0 :(:(:(:(:(:(

3-0 now. Brazil are ridiculously good.

Fucking Brazilians. Greece better step it up, they needed a good result here to get their confidence back up. It will be an embarassment if they dont make the world cup, from european champs to not making the world up would suck ass. I know the confederations cup isnt that huge of a tourney, but its good for confidence

Its a friendly tournament really. Did Ronaldo play I'd heard they were going to drop him in favour of another midfeidler and have Adriano on his own.

Ronaldo didn't play. They had Kaka, Ronaldinho, Robinho and Adriano playing basically in a genius attacking circle up front. Brilliant movement, bags of skill. They had two full backs bombing on like crazy as well. Robinho is a genius. Real Madrid are signing him.

The goals were brilliant too. Adriano's was basically a cheat goal. He picked it up on the right wing, cut back inside, looking innocuous, like he was going to spread it across to someone, then he just fucking blasts it on his left foot from 30 odd yards into the net. He wasn't even facing the goal, he never even looked at it. He just fucking smacked it. Incredible. It was the sort of goal you'd have disallowed in the playground because of the no "no blasters" rule. Just a great big cheat goal.

Robinho's was pretty much a far post tap in, but he still made it look great.

Third goal was a beautiful free kick from Juninho (the Lyon one). He just took a couple of steps, walked up to the ball and clipped it right into the top corner. Keeper didn't even move. He didn't sprint up and whack it, just give it a clip, but the power and bend was astonishing. Fucking love him.

Gonna take a miracle for them not to win the World Cup. Can't beat an attack like that. Cafu must be nearly fucked by now mind.

Any team can be stopped. In theory a team playing say the Chelsea system, with the right players (and with some luck admittedly) could counterattack the hell out of a team like Brazil.

Also let's not forget they lost 3-1 to Argentina not all that long ago.

lol Brazil absolutely ran riot in that game...they are too good. In fairness though we had pretty much all of our Euro 2004 defence (our best defence obviously) out of this game except for Nikopolidis in goals and I believe that would have definately prevented their second goal. Having said that Brazil weren't 100% either which is fucking scary. Those other 2 goals were just class...although technically speaking as a keeper Nikopolidis should always never be beaten at his near post, like he was against Adriano for the 1-0. Having said that, tell me many keepers in the world would have stopped that shot. :o

Australia did well against Germany, coming from behind twice but losing 4-3. We have a good team but our defence is just fucking shit. Same with Germany's. They were actually all quite stunned with Australia's performance, in fact not wrapping the game up til the last 10 minutes. Even then John Aloisi pulled a goal back (his second for the game) in the 92nd minute and with an extra few minutes could have pulled an equaliser...I rate him, he's never been given a chance to shine in Australia's forward line but he finally was against Germany and proved himself with 2 goals.

That's because it IS George Clooney. ;)

He's done reasonably well in the Qualifers but struggled a bit against Brazil. Then again everyone did. :|

Germany had two 19 year olds playing in their central defence, so I wouldn't read too much into them conceding 3 goals. They had a fairly young side out overall.

Well Greece were pretty much battered there, bit disappointing really but Brazil were awesome. Super Stevie Claridge knew the score though, they're not unbeatable. If you get a bit physical against them, not over the top mind, it knocks them out of their stride. Then again there were a few times last night when Greece players closed them down and were made to look like fools through pieces of skill or whatever.

They've also not won a World Cup staged in Europe since 1958 i think it was, the one which Sweden hosted and got to the final in anyway.

Juninho is ace though, that free-kick was beautiful, right in the corner. Can't be doing badly if he can't get in the first team.

I'm not. Sad thing is Australia's defence was almost full strength. :nono:

However on a positive, Australia's attack was well under full-strength and they managed 3 goals.

I'm not. Sad thing is Australia's defence was almost full strength. :nono:

However on a positive, Australia's attack was well under full-strength and they managed 3 goals.

Just noticed this a few pages back:

LOL @ Cahill last week defending Kewell in the press, saying something like "The kid is great, he's a top bloke" or something like that. "The kid is great"? The cunt is older than Cahill :lol:

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=629 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD colSpan=3>http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/foot...ls/4092042.stm


</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=416><!-- S BO --><!-- S IIMA --><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=203 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/image...idukaoz203.jpg Mark Viduka's chances of playing in the World Cup have improved

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!-- E IIMA -->Australia's 2010 World Cup hopes have received a lift after Fifa said they could enter the Asian qualifying round.

They currently compete in the Oceania group, with no automatic qualifying place, and have to play off against a South America team to reach the finals.

"So long as the Oceania and Asia associations are happy, there are no laws to prevent such a solution," said Fifa president Sepp Blatter.

Australia have only once reached the World Cup finals - in 1974. If they want to qualify for the 2006 finals in Germany, Australia have to beat the Solomon Islands home and away and then win a play-off against the fifth-placed South American team, which is currently undecided.
By joining the Asian qualifying group for 2010, Australia will be competing with 44 other countries for a maximum of five spots at the tournament in South Africa.

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------


Any bets Blatter will change his mind again though.

I want a Premiership team to sign Peguy Luyindula, so I can start this song.

http://oohoooohohohluyindula.ytmnd.com/

Was Huth not at Centre Back?

So erm, since when was Huth not 20, 21 in 2 months time?

The commentators said two 19 year olds. I don't really care. You obviously do, probably because you want to get married to him.

http://www.tonykempster.btinternet.co.uk/nwc2.htm

:'(

Once again, we are in the papers linked with Michael Owen. As much as I'd like to have him, we need midfielders (a spare right winger and a strong defensive midfielder) and a defender before we sign strikers. I'd rather have Forlan back ahead of any striker.

Blackpool - that's where William Regal is from.

www.fbtz.com :cool:

Is this Park chink any good?

From what I've seen of him, he's a good player, has a lot of flair and can go past people, but doesn't pass very much

Greece 0-1 Japan. Admittedly we had a weakened team but got done convincingly

Also yesterday Australia lost to Argentina 4-2. Not a bad result, John Aloisi another 2 goals for Australia. :love:

Bet you are regretting saying that now eh :p

Great result for Mexico.

Hat trick as well by a Birmingham reject.

I love hype http://tpww.net/forums/images/smilies/cool.gif

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2...80219,,00.html

<font face=verdana size=3 color="#ff6600">ahaha</font>

Get to bed Owen, past your bedtime.

That is hilarious, I wonder where it was in Brum.

Let's just clear this up. Souness is an idiot.

He took over from Dauglish's Liverpool side which was winning cups left, right and centre and decided to sign bit-part players from other clubs who were more than happy to off-load them. Micheal Thomas! Michael F'N Thomas! GO HOME SOUNESS, YOU'VE FAILED IN EVERY POSSIBLE MANAGERIAL JOB YOU'VE HAD IN ENGLAND. :mad: :mad: :mad:

If it wasn't for his success in the inferior leagues of Turkey and Scotland then this troutface fuck would be on the dole quicker than Thomas Brolin.

And this is when I'm being nice about him... (he was a pretty awesome player back in his youth)

On the subject of the Toon Army. What's all this about Figo?

What really frustrates me about Newcastle is that they think they are a bigger club than they actually are. The club finished in the bottom half of last year's table and hasn't won a dam thing for a number of years.

Now, if NUFC were realistic enough to realise they have serious problems and they are underachieving and signing hard working individuals who are committed and will fight to help the club climb up the table (the likes of Robbie Savage or Hamann perhaps) instead of reaching for the stars such as Figo and Owen then they would be doing themselves a favour.

Signing these superstars isn't going to help them. It's going to swallow up a massive amount of their wage budget and almost inevitably, the player isn't going to perform as well as many fans (who hail a new saviour) believe.

Look at Kluivert from last season. Fans believed he was going to turn the club around, but hhe guy scored only six goals all year and was paid about £60,000 a week to do so.

Signing Scott Parker is a start, and it makes a change from Mr Shepard chasing after yet ANOTHER striker when their big problems are at the back and in central midfield. Unless their recruitment style changes soon, it's looking like another desperate season for the Geordies.

.

Signing Robbie Savage would make me angrier than us signing Figo. It would make me retch and want to punch him in the face even more than I already do.

You can't deny he's the kind of player that all teams need though. Liverpool have got Gerrard, MUFC have got Keane, Chelsea have got Maklele and Arsenal have got Viera.

Every team needs a rough midfield who collects and retrieves the ball for the rest of the midfield to play with. It'd just unfortunate the only midfielder who isn't connected to a top club at the moment who can do this is Mr Cunt... I mean Savage. Fair play, the man's a tool. We all hate him and we all laughed when that ref hit him in the face and he went down like a pile of shite...

HOWEVER he's the type of player Newcastle need, or maybe even Graveson from Real Madrid, if you can convince him to leave Madrid for the Quayside.

Savage ain't half as good as Graveson.

We already have enough whiney shitty "rough" players - see Bowyer and Butt.

If he is a professional boxer, he won't be for much longer.

The difference being that Savage and Graveson are consistently good players while Butt and Bowyer are not. Butt hasn't seemed to play at all well since the 2002 World Cup and Bowyer is about as committed and loyal to the club as Dyer and Bellamy.

Sav :'(

Fixtures released on Thursday :love:

Big games this season for Liverpool -

Man Utd (home)
Man Utd (away)

The rest is just for killing time in-between.

6 easy points :D

Shame we're the shits against the crappy teams though