Brilliant stuff. They are starting to make monkeys out of Leeds. 2-1 at half time with some superb skills on display. Pass and move, attacking in numbers, team work: excellent.

I know folks were joking about poaching their manager as YBR's successor but seriously, go for it. The whole squad must cost less than Rio Ferdinand and they are flat-footing the likes of Kewell. Riveting. Hope they win. One more goal and it's theirs.

-- Anonymous, November 01, 2001

Answers

3-1. Nice to hear the difference is Bowyer, who for some reason, wasn;t able to play tonight ;-)

-- Anonymous, November 01, 2001

Looks like they going through now - having got 2. Typical.

You know I just can't watch, I can't stand O'Leary, I really can't. I especially don't want to see his post match interview. Ugh.

When he was an occasional pundit on TV and even when he was a player, i never gave him a second thought but now he's turned into some obnoxious gob sh*te!

-- Anonymous, November 01, 2001

Sob sob sob. So close. Patrice Loko was presented with an opportunity from Rothen which had taken sublime skills to get there with 3 passes, and he somehow put it over the bar with an open goal.

Lynda, I know exactly what you mean about O'Leery (sic), he encourages his team to fight dirty and can't give a straight answer. Oh, and he's King of the Werepigs.

If we had the Troyes manager though, he's get rid of Shearer and Cort and have Robert, Dyer, Solano and Bellamy all buzzing around up front. Outstanding. Their whole team were comfortable on the ball and there were that many backheels and dummies that it was almost impossible for the linesmen to work out what was going on.

Batty and Wilcox should both have been sent off and Jonathan Pearce should still be forbidden from commentating on football matches until he's had his vocal chords scraped and a copy of the rules read to him.

-- Anonymous, November 01, 2001

Just to endear O'gobsh*te even more, he is expected to strengthen his squad with the addition of,yep! youv'e guessed it Brett Emerton.

-- Anonymous, November 01, 2001

Troyes were a little unlucky tonight. As we found out, they are a very nice, well-organised team - and I certainly wasn't joking when I suggested taking their Manager, Alain Perrain, as our Head Coach and perhaps manager-in-waiting.

I really do think the general standard of coaching in this country is cr@p, and I'd love us to hire soemone like Perrain who would work, work, work with the players and get the very best out of what is at his disposal.

-- Anonymous, November 01, 2001

Then why don't we petition the club?....we can't rely on the fact that they will think of it themselves.

-- Anonymous, November 01, 2001

Howway Syme, can you see fatfred and his mates taking a blind bit of notice of anything we come up with ? They're the guys with the football business brains, we're just here to bankroll them.

Little fans should be seen and not heard.

-- Anonymous, November 01, 2001

The fan in my pc is pretty little but also annoyingly loud.

-- Anonymous, November 01, 2001

I'm sick about Troyes, at the time I thought this is the best team I've seen at SJP for years. All the outcry at the time of us going out was about how sh*te Barton was - and he was mind. But this does not give Troyes the credit they deserved. Solano scored in the first few seconds so the very brainy manager reorganised. For over a hour we were given a football lesson conceding four goals in the process, wonderful football it was.
I’ll always keep an eye out for Alain Perrain, a very talented chap imo.

NUFC’s board doing something as smart opening up a dialogue with Perrain, dream on people.

I fecking can’t stand O’Shitey, and Leeds have humourless, tightfisted fans.

-- Anonymous, November 01, 2001

I'm with you Heeds.....at least Chewsea went out though! :)) they really needed a good european cup run and good league placing this season to help cover their cash outlay.....so far it's not looking good for them and I for one will be over the moon when master bates takes that club to the fucking wall.....

-- Anonymous, November 02, 2001

I had a fiver on Troyes with a LEeds supporting mate of mine who reckoned that Leeds would stuff them. It was worth a fiver to see the look on his face when the third goal went in and when Loko missed that sitter which would have put them 4-1 up.

I thought they were magnificent at SJP and were a tad unlucky last night. Leeds second goal was a mis-kick by Veruca that ends up a perfect cross for Keane to head into an ungaurded net.

I'd take son of Reggie as manager

-- Anonymous, November 02, 2001

I started to think about this again when some french player (Dacourt?) playing in England referred to the manager as very, very clever. We should keep track of this guy, I sure like to have him as our new manager.

-- Anonymous, November 02, 2001

H&H and Bake,
Troyes were actually better at their place than they were at SJP - outstanding. Only their finishing prevented a rout that damp evening.

Out of interest, Kiwi Toon, who lives in Troyes, told me the total annual budget, including wages, for Troyes is ca. £9million - the amount we had just paid for Laurent Robert!

BTW, it looks as though I mis-spelled Alain's surname name last. It appears to be Perrin rather than Perrain - a la Reggie, indeed.

-- Anonymous, November 02, 2001

Bearing in mind that Troyes are sort of mid-table, there is the suggestion that the French Championship is much stronger than you'd imagine. Having said that, our European performances have periodically been better than our domestic form...

-- Anonymous, November 02, 2001

.... having watched Lille on Wednesday and Troyes last night, Dougal, the impression I have is that the French Div.1 is chock full of skilful young players in teams who are technically very good.
However, I also suspect they aren't quite as physically strong as in the PL.
In addition, I'm sure the best goalscorers are quickly lured elsewhere, leaving a relative weakness domestically. Certainly that was Troyes weakness against us down there, and was principally responsible for them going out last night.

Despite our general 'anti-Frog' bias, if I were BR I would be scouring the French top Division for developing talent - Troyes have one or two excellent players, and the lad Bruno Cheyrou of Lille looked an outstanding midfield talent against Manure.

-- Anonymous, November 02, 2001

Ya, Troyes sure need some good strikers. Did you see Lokos miss against Leeds? I cant really understand how he managed to shoot over. Ok if you come running at full speed and the ball goes straight up but he had all the time in the world standing almost at the penalty spot i think.

-- Anonymous, November 02, 2001