rodders0223

Anyone but Hutton.

Rose tinted glasses.

He was rubbish, how old is he now, 25/26, he has barely played 50 games.

Will be lucky to carve out a career in league 1 after his contract expires.

No idea, but all I hear from up there is the sound of scratters and scummers. I daren't look behind me out of fear and possible repulsion.

Why do people think he has a workrate?

It is because of his performances at this world cup, because he has sleep walked his way through the SPL the last few years, occasionally putting in a shift away in a CL game. 

It is similar for Bryan Ruiz of Costa Rica, I never saw him once work as hard as he has done in every game this tournament.

Nice to know they can put it in for their country, but not the teams that pay their wages.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Darren Bent could be off. Not sure what to make of it, i kind of liked the idea of him staying with benteke injured and Joe Cole being able to play behind him. Still has some use for us i think.

Can't really blame him for wanting to leave. Not treated the best by lambert. Especially with Benteke injured I thought we would've wanted to have kept a proven premiership goal scorer in the squad

Yeah he treated him really badly when he made him captain.

Fact is Bent didn't perform for two years for us and was on huge money we could ill afford in wages so Lambert shifted him on and he did the square root of naff all at Fulham last season.

Yes he is a proven goal scorer in the PL but he has done very little for 3 years and so there would seem to be very little point paying him huge wages to do the same for another year.

He played no worse than anyone else it's easy to cherry pick from the past to prove an argument but Bent's form never went of the rails completely, it's not as if Weimann has been anymore consistent, there is no excuse ever for losing your place in a squad to jordan Bowery

Cherry pick? What on earth are you on about, the last three seasons is hardly cherry picking.

Bent's form... Take a look at his form last season and try and say it didn't go off completely and find someone to agree with you.

And Weimann isn't on the huge wages Bent is on plus he works for the team. Two big big differences.

And no Bent shouldn't find himself behind Bowery but neither should he find himself behind teenagers making debuts but that's exactly what happened last season.

Weimann works for the team? Which team is that then?

Weimann may not be the most talented player but he puts a shift in every time he plays for us. Never stops running something which cannot be said about Darren Bent.

 

He used to.

Samaras

A guy who was moved out wide as he couldn't score goals even in the SPL, his record for Greece is crap and his record at Man City was crap. In no way does he have any attributes to play wide, he was simply a striker who couldn't score goals.

Heart the size of a pea, control of a rapist, and makes Carew look like a grafter.

"Going into the final year of my deal, shit, better pull my finger out!"

I would settle for letting Bent go on a free providing we don't have to pay up the final year of his deal.

Any fee would be a bonus, but I cannot see any truth in this. I would be very surprised if any club would offer us cash for him after the 3 years he has had.

 

Tim Vickery is an absolutely fantastic pundit who really knows his football and puts the other BBC clowns to shame.

Agreed his is the one article I always look out for as its always an interesting insight into South American football. Luckily he is freelance so you get him on other stations as well

 

He is absolutely top notch, in most situations you could pretty much ask him about any player, be it some Bolivian journeyman or a world class talent and he will reel off his talent and his flaws, his performances in domestic competitions, international competitions, his character traits, even how he played 10 years ago in an under 17 tournament.

You are lucky if any of our domestic, former players and 'experienced; pundits even know, or have ever watched play top talents lighting up the tournament, like James Rodriguez for example, You are lucky if they can even pronounce his name.

 

 

I don't know why people feel sorry for Liverpool here.

 

Yes, they are getting punished for something one of their employees did while not working for them, but they own a player who the know is prone to a brainsnap. They know he's capable of this sort of thing but they keep him because he's such a good player. He's a constant gamble and they've lost this time.

 

I also think it's unfair on Liverpool, bloody hilarious though but unfair. 

 

Liverpool could justifiably say that they knew Suarez was volatile but after his last incident they had tailored his man management to get the best out of him whilst cutting out the controversy. They send him off to play with Uruguay who don't know how to handle him and he snaps again. 

 

If one of our players does something crazy and reckless whilst on international duty we would all be livid on here if the player was banned from Aston Villa matches, it is hypocritical to think it is justified to apply to Liverpool just because we all hate Liverpool.

 

That tribalism is a lazy way of thinking. 

 

 

we did, he was a good player and did a lot less than Suarez, but still Doug Ellis ripped up his contract

 

He had been terrible for us for the best part of two years, we couldn't wait to get rid of him so it kind of worked in our favour.

 We saw an opportunity to get rid of a player who had no intentions of giving 100% for us again for less than the value remaining on his contract.

 

Michu was hardly any cop last season, not surprised.

 

Good half season -> signs big(ger) money contract -> goes very average all of a sudden.

 

...or had a great season, followed it up by moving to a new league, had an even better season. SIgned a new contract, got injured, picked up a lot of niggly injuries and never got a run of games to find any kind of fitness or form.

 

Seems like he's off to Hull for 8 Million pounds that'll be 16 Mill they spent on Snodgrass and Livermore if it goes through. Seems excessive to me.

 

£16m more than we'll spend. Its worrying to see that a club that we'll be battling against in the relegation zone is able to spend £16m (and will probably spend more) and we have to rely on free transfers.

 

We spent £16m on N'Zogbia and Hutton and I am sure other teams said the same at the time.

It is not sustainable for clubs like Hull to be paying out these fees and wages just to sit in midtable, just like it wasn't for ourselves, Sunderland, Middlesbrough and Stoke. We will  be laughing again at potato head  in 3 years when they are slashing their wage bill and signings free transfers themselves.

Swings and roundabouts.

 

 

 

 

As a manager and a leader he has since been worthless. He would definitely create a lot of trouble and alienate players, then bugger off when everything goes tits up.

I suggest you review his Sunderland career again.

 

 

Where he promoted, barely stayed up and then got sacked/resigned before Christmas?

 

Yeah, quite the accomplishment. Reminds me of every other manager that couldn't cut it in the Premier League.

 

 

he promoted a team that was bottom of the table when he took over and had won 1 game the season before and also had worst ever premier league record at the time

 

The calibre of players he was able to bring in that one season in the Championship :

Liam Miller. Free. Manchester United

Dwight Yorke. Free. Sydney FC

Graham Kavanagh. £500,000. Wigan

Stanislav Varga. £550,000. Celtic

David Connolly. £1.4m. Wigan

Ross Wallace. £550,000. Celtic

Lewis Nyatanga. Loan. Derby

Jonny Evans. Loan. Manchester United

Marton Fulop. £500,000. Tottenham

Carlos Edwards. £1.4m. Luton

Anthony Stokes. £2m. Arsenal

Danny Simpson. Loan. Manchester United

Stern John. Undisclosed. Coventry

He rode the crest of a wave, it has been done before and it will be done again by some truly incompetent managers. Paul Jewell and Phil Brown spring to mind.

He then spent £80m to walk away with then looking at relegation.

To say his time at Sunderland was a success would be wrong IMO.

It was a golden oppurtunity missed and they have been paying for it since with endless relegation battles.

I loved Keane as a player but I cannot see him as a successful manager, and really not sure on the training field. Time will tell, but I cannot see this ending well.

Vidal would be a brilliant signing, there is nothing he cannot do, a proper strong character aswell which they are lacking. I would be surprised if he went to a United team still in transition though, he should have his pick of any club.

I watch their Youtube channel quite regularily, it is a good insight into the club.

Some of the things they have built there for the club and the city as a whole is fantastic. The facilities and focus on local youth if magnificent. Sure, they have brought a lot of foreign kids over, but it won't surprise me in the next decade or so to see some real home grown talent come out of Manchester again.

There seems to be a lot of negativity towards Hulls purchasing here, but Long and Jelavic were good buys. Livermore played well last season, for the most part, and Snodgrass is a very good player when fit. I personally think they're good buys. I guess we'll see. £30m isn't actually that expensive for 4 first team choices any more. 

All of them will be on £40k plus too.

They are average players but they are poor buys.

Typical, lazy, unimaginative purchases, they will be lucky if they make their money back on the contracts alone.

Typical Bruce, O'Neill, Fat Sam style management.

Forget giving British managers more chances, they should be banned

Tottenham have signed vertonghen, Lloris, paulinho and Eriksen in the last couple years. Vertonghen signed for them ahead of arsenal. Without champions league. They're all pretty much top class players. (You can argue paulinho, but he starts for Brazil) and they're not near the size of Man U.

Not one of those players is top class, Lloris is good, Eriksen turns it on once a month, Vertonghen is a defender who doesn't like defending and Paulinho is rubbish.

There is a reason top clubs dallied around and they had to settle for Spurs.

Too much footy on tv already. No need for more!

Turn your TV off and get some exercise then!

**** ducks.

 

Get into the office and we have an IT man in, I wore my Villa shirt today (the bright yellow one) as I came in on my bike. 

 

"Oh no, another one" said this IT bloke, "I'm the other team" - instantly I said "as long as you are not the crap down the road from us, I don't mind."

 

Anyway it turns out he IS a Small Heath fan - and he is so so so slow.

 

And he won't talk to me now!!!

May I ask if your office building has showers?

If not, them tops reek.

Yeah but most players dont use them. James Milner is their biggest client.  I could spend a an age talking about the PFA and my experiences of them and what they have done for some of the players I work with and have worked with.

Good things or bad?

I personally think I would go with the PFA, rightly or wrongly out of trust... but I think there is the belief that they wouldn't necessarily get you the best deal?

Is he now just entering into the final year of his contract? If so, and he gets back to full fitness we could get to see the best of N'Zog.

Yeah, knowing our luck, and then see him leave for Liverpool for **** all.

Yeah, don't speak to Stewart Downing.

I was him break dancing and body popping on the beaches of Miami as far back as April.

I am going to boo him like I booed Alpay when he scored against Charlton.

...and if he dares take a touch when he receives the ball, instead of putting his laces through it and whacking it into row Z, then he is definitely going to get it.