Just read your comments on post 5-0 humiliation and I think your comments were a disgrace!!!. Yes we played fucking bad but we were beaten by arguably the best team in the league and I'm just piggin sick of twats like you mouthing off like that. Don't get me wrong, I was there and we were shite but we did have injuries and we caught arsenal on a very good day. I thought your views on barton, speed, hughes and solano etc were bollocks. yes, they had bad games, but so didnt everyone and how can you slag barton who would absolutely die for this club, and speed " a cart horse"?, u just havent got a clue. "henry had hughes inside out, hughes will never be a top defender"? . Aaron hughes is 21 years old and has been probably our best player this season. Henry does that every week to the most experienced defenders and I knew idiots like u would give the lad stick. Solano is at the moment, the only person capable of creating a goal. I would have him in my team every week. yes, he doesn't get stuck in to challenges, but that is not his job. His job is to ping the crosses in for al and to get 10 goals a season himself and he will do that so I don't know why u think he shouldn't be in the team. Get off their backs and fucking support them!!!.

The truth is Bobby got his tactics totally wrong on saturday. He is putting teams out trying to accomodate the likes of lee, speed, acuna, dyer and solano when all of them just can't play in the same team. With it being Arsenal we should of went there, the same as last year with a sweeper system and played for the draw but with 2 kids up against 2 world class strikers it was never going to work.

Acuna and bassedas are just two more average foreigners who arent any better than we already have. Look how much money we are spending on average foreigners who aren't committed to the club. we need to build our team around the likes of hughes, griffin, barton, speed, shearer who are players who will proudly wear the black and white stripes and add the likes of lee clark, michael Bridges etc. Look at the mackems who have players like gray, makin, craddock, rae etc who aren't the greatest players but they work as a team and not just individuals and work for each other instead of trying to beat five men at a time.

Lets just get rid of the likes of dyer, domi , goma , marcelino who don't care about our club and then we can rebuild and the team can work together as a whole and we can move forward.

GIVEN

BARTON HUGHES CALDWELL GRIFFIN

SOLANO SPEED LEE/ MCCLEN GLASS

SHEARER LUA-LUA

I Would happily see that team play for the rest of the season. At least you know you'll get passion from them. And then once you get rid of the deadwood and get some cash, bobby can make us once again a driving force in the premier league and in europe.

So Andy W, get off their backs and start getting behind the lads!!!.

NUFC - A GEORDIE AND PROUD OF IT!!!

-- Anonymous, December 11, 2000

Answers

TOny - I follow what you are saying, and I admit, commitment is one of the main igredients which is lacking. But ust looking at your team, 9 of the names you had on there were playing on Saturday. And I for one don't think they were committed. We lacked bite in midfield. I don't think the re-introduction of Jamie McClen will make much difference.

Actually, I think Acuna is quite committed to NUFC. Not seen enough of Bassedas to comment. I dunno what's up with Glass. YBR hardly ever picks him, even when he has been fit. Let's face it, we need a strong player in midfield and we haven't got one. You know the sort - Vierra, Keane or Bowyer (just as an example - can;t stand th tw@t).

-- Anonymous, December 11, 2000

Tony, You would happily play the above team for the rest of the season !!!!away with ya, spoutin crap, clearest indicative I can think of is for over 50 years I have despised the Hackems with a vengance, and you better believe it, but see your team, only two of them would stand a chance of breaking into Sunluns team, Given and Hughes,thats how serious things are, cos hey Sunlun are just ordinary.Andy (who I do not know) is entitled to his comments, he will probably be at the Bradford game roaring the lads on, I am a Geordie, I am proud of being a Geordie, but I am disgusted/frustrated by my team who represent US. This is 50 years of disgust, brought to a boil in the last ten years we should and could have been a dominant force in Europe ,never mind the Premier, everything was in place, the club has let us down bonny lad, outsiders smirk at our debt, lack of success , the lack of committment of those wearing a black n white shirt. Jonno remarked on another thread he was part of a team - meaning fans team ,respect him for that, what I cannot stand is the false statements/gestures from the players to the fans, "They are the greatest", We have just been hammered 5-0, c`mon lads lets salute the fans who are still chanting for us, okay hands above the head clap , clap!!!! Were you one of those fans Tony?, bet you were, so what does it prove eh? Wee mention on MOTD, some journo picks it up and praises Toon Army in the Sundays, thats what it boils down to aint it, Your team is much better than ours but we sing to the end, I live eat breathe football want to sing Id join Felling Male Voice Choir and finally that team of stiffs you got above, passion you want, see more in a nativity play

-- Anonymous, December 11, 2000

buff.

spot on as usual. you're a gem. not see my message about the U18s game? what happened?

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2000

Buff,

So, you reckon Tony is "spouting cr@p". Firstly, I'm disappointed at you putting someone down like that - that's not your usual style.

The lad is clearly as frustrated as the rest of us. However, instead of just saying the by now almost ritual "Lee, Speed, Barton, and Shearer are cr@p and should be disposed of", it seems to me he's trying to identify what could be done 'in the real world' to try to improve things in the near term - rather than in the Walter Mitty world that many seem to live in.

He's also suggesting:
* Aaron Hughes should not be pilloried for one sub-standard game * BR's tactics were flawed on Saturday - his opinion. I wasn't there so can't comment, but it wouldn't be the first time this season.
* that increasing the dependance of the squad on cut-priced imports will not lead to a top-class PL team.
* that several players who are not fully committed to the Club should be sold.

Frankly, I can't see a whole lot of cr@p in those statements.

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2000

"but we were beaten by arguably the best team in the league "

Fancy an argument? :-)

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2000

Buff's (and mine cos I'm so in touch with him today) comments come from the team that Tony sees as acceptable to represent us and it's lack of worth (this month) against say that nice Sunderland team. Worse is if we comapre the team with ours of only three years ago.

I don't want to do a player by player demolition, as we all have individual feelings on individual players. BUT to me that IS the point exactly. Three 9four ?) years ago there were only a couple of players/positions we couldn't agree on. At centre half there was much discussion as to the best pair out of Albert, Peacock and Howey. It was obvious to me which were the best pair but if it was open to debate then they weren't outstanding enough players, as others couldn't alos see so. There was no debate around the worth of Venison, Beresford (maybe Robbie ??), Batty, Lee, Ginola, Beardsley, Ferdinand, Shearer, Tino.

The team Tony has put up could be argued about in every position, although I'd guess 90%+ of us would have Given and Hughes, the rest would be open to debate. Therefore they aren't good enough.

My feelings on players being committed to the cause have been made before, but I'll do it again. Committment just has to be there. You have to give all or the opposition may want it more. In Europe in the early 1990s Rangers did really well down to their complete commitment. Once teams realised this they began to raise their level of commitment. Once that was evened out Rangers got stuffed as they were playing at such a lower level of skill. If eleven of us on this bbs were picked we'd give 100% commitment, applaud the fans but get stuffed. This is no different from the team that played on Saturday. What we need is our commitment and their skill levels.

We either have to raise the commitment levels of our skillful players or raise the skill levels of our committed players. I just don't believe it is possible to raise the skill levels of Barton, Lee, Speed at their ages, so we have to raise the commitment of the skillful players. That's my bit over and done, it's now down to Bobby to make it happen.

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2000

Macbeth,

I can't disagree philosophically with anything you say - it's all very sound. However, forget the past, forget Kevin Keegan, forget Tino, Pedro and Phillipe. Those days have gone man!

Are we going to become a truly competitive force in the PL again while Lee, Speed, Barton and Shearer remain as the core of the team? Very probably not. But, so what? What people like me and Tony are principally concerned about is TODAY! Why is that difficult to understand? Simply chucking out these senior players NOW would only make things worse, today.
To effectively replace those four guys with 25 yr-old versions would probably cost £30-40 million at a time when we can't scrape £5 million together!

We have to get back to rebuilding the squad carefully, judiciously, bringing in some home-grown talent and some developing young talent from the Nationwide, plus one or two (only) purchased top stars. This will take time - in the meantime we have what we have, and to get from A to B we have to put out a team that will keep us in the PL. That is what I believe Tony was making suggestions about, NOT proposing a team he felt would win the PL.

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2000

We can argue till we're blue in the face on the merits or otherwise of the current playing staff, but we can't ignore the fact that we're losing more games we should have won than is good for us.

If you believe the players make their own luck, then do we have a set of 'lucky ' players at SJP at the moment ? Doesn't look like it to me. The luck I'm on about doesn't depend on how skillful a player is. Look no further than the hakkems.

If luck is just blind chance, so to speak, then the sooner the current run changes in our favour the better.

Or maybe luck is just a load of superstitious nonsense and our current squad are the weakest link, goodbye.

That's the rational part of my point here. This is what I really think.

I see absolutely nothing wrong with having a rant on here, just as a sort of defense mechanism. In my case, a lot of the time I'm just venting the 40 odd years of frustration at being world champion underachievers. That's cos I'm among my own. At the same time, though, under most circumstances I won't have a wrong word said against the mags. Outsiders won't get the lickings of a dog. Especially the hakkems.

I reckon I've earned the right to slag them off if I think they're taking the pssi, and at the moment that's how it looks to me, but it most definitely doesn't mean I won't be at SJP for the next game or ever again until things pick up.

I refuse to bury my head in the sand about where we are, but that doesn't mean I don't think the world of them. I expect a bliddy sight better from them and it frustrates me no end when they don't deliver.

How much longer are the likes of me and Buff going to have to wait ? Will we even bliddy well live long enough ? That's probably the brunt of what colours my point of view. The batsards have kept us waiting far, far too long.

So don't give me all this shti about 'sing your heart out for the lads'. I'll sing mine out when there's something to sing about.

When they start to look as though they have the same committment as we do, then the tone of my postings might lighten up a bit.

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2000

italics off.

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2000

Clarky
My hero.

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2000

Bliddy typical.
There's me spillin me guts, and all anybody'll notice is I cocked up switching off the italics. Effin HTML.

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2000

Now did I criticise you, or take the wee-wee? No I didn't - I was maintaining a dignified silence, and respecting your right to make the kind of non-critical error anyone us might make at any time of the day, or night - dickhead!.

;-{))

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2000

Don't you call me dickhead, dickhead. :-)))))))))))))))

Isn't it luuuuuuvly when everybody's in a good mood ?

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2000

Surprised that everyone is looking for a fight on here, not the usual banter at all, we are all very frustrated by our team letting us down once again. I may not be able to go to the games, as most of you do so my level of frustration may not be as pronounced. However when I checked the score on saturday my immediate response was "typical just bloody typical" I knew we would get stuffed, very depressing I know but going to highbury when we are playing shite I was under no illusions. Lets face it, there are times when we are going to get stuffed, just like there are times when we win without deserving too. We need to accept it for what it was, a bad but not totally unexpected defeat. The thing is how do we turn it around? Each has a right to their own opinions and views each should be expressed without the fear of getting lambasted on here. We all love toon and we have a right to get frustrated when we see people not pulling their weight. Does shearer do it every single week?

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2000

min, sorry pitch waterlogged, game off, next to River Deveron

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2000

Dr Bill, as well as the Idiot's Guide to HTML that you're angling for, why don't you ask for a spill chocker? Your language is appealing.

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2000