VillaChris

Sunderland winning.

Freeman was brilliant in league one, not sure how well he's stepped up. Lee Tomlin would be one to look at as he's on loan at Bristol City. Was very good at Boro but couldn't quite step up at Bournemouth.

4 years. Disappointed in this. To me with his injuries he needs to play a full season at whatever level, if he moves to this champions league club he won't be playing week in week out.

Loads v Norwich.

Thought he meant as manager. Funnily enough Ruud Gullit was awful as manager at LA Galaxy although more motivation with him ever since he left Chelsea I think as he did well there. Owen Coyle isn't going to get a decent job back here anytime soon for anything he does at Houston Dyanmo. That said it's quite an easy job for any out of work British manager to take e.g can live in a great country, where most players speak English so you don't have to learn another language and you can also work with some great players you wouldn't in the U.K e.g. Adrian Heath working with Kaka at Orlando. As for Sherwood, same as with Lambert. A club in the bottom half of the championship.

I would guess that's when Spurs mugged us off by getting us to pay a full season's worth of wages to Jenas even though he played 2 games for us. I agree though with MM Daniel Levy himself gets stick but he's forgotten more about how to run a football club than Lerner has ever learnt.

Fair enough but maybe not everyone wants to keep continually saying how s*** everything is at the club in every single thread on here. The defence and midfield are playing well now and we're picking up points on a regular basis. Do I think we'll stay up? No. But to be relegated by end of March when they'll still be 7 games left to play would mean there having to be a 21 point gap between us and 17th.

It's interesting reading that. One thing that struck me was it's claimed their first encounter was on Saturday January 17th 2015. Johnson played that day at Spurs so Sunderland can't have got back to the North east until after 11. How did the girl manage to convince her parents she was going to stay out that late, did she say she was going to a sleepover or something? Edit; Think this report has messed up his dates as he then says they meet again....on December 30th.

Not at premier league level though....Lee Hughes was actually a premier league player when WBA sacked him in August 2004 as they'd just come up again but he had to drop down two divisions to start again at Oldham.

Has the award only been going two months or something?

Guidolin did a brilliant job at Udinese and also Vicenza but that was a long while ago now. Must admit I'd completely forgot about him and thought he'd retired as regarding a candidate when we were without a manager.

No premier league club will be signing Adam Johnson.

I actually look at Swansea as ones to catch but we obviously need to go there and win otherwise that is futile. I say that as if say we can while the points gap to them down to 2-3 going into the last 4 games their last 4 are Leicester (a), Liverpool (h), West Ham (a) and Man. City at home. Indeed their next three are Southampton tomorrow which looks a draw and then back to back aways at Arsenal and Spurs. So really we need to be eating into that 11 point gap from this weekend.

There's only so much you can do with squads though. Remi has only done what Big Sam or Pulis would've e.g. tightened up our defence considerably so we can starting getting points and the odd win on the board. Sunderland aren't scoring many more goals than we are are they, they've had plenty of 1-0 defeats since Big Sam came in and the nuff said about West Brom and their goalscoring. We have little upfront so it's an uphill struggle to win games.

Just looking at their squad now people like O'Shea and Wes Brown will retire I imagine. Someone in the prem will want Defoe but he'll be 34 next season so no one's paying decent money for him. Their most saleable assests look like people like Younes Kaboul, M'Vila and Jermaine Lens. Borini also cost what 10m and he's hardly played for them. They'll do well to get even 10m for those four. Must say the thing I was most amazed about looking at their squad list is Cattermole is only 27!

They've very much like Newcastle last season. I think around this time Newcastle had about 30 points and they won 1 more game to just about scrape over the line so think West Brom will do the same looking at their home fixtures...Palace, Watford, West Ham, Norwich, Man. United and Liverpool on the final day. They'll need 6-7 points from that imo so that will probably be enough on its own to stay up especially if one of the wins is v Norwich.

*Searches for a GIF of that M'Villa free kick v us.* Thinking about it, Sunderland really need to come down with us. Who on earth can they sell for decent money to rebuild in the championship? Have many players over 30 aswell looking at their squad who I doubt will fancy a 46 game season.

Did you get a half season ticket for West Brom at xmas?

We scored two at Anfield. And two v them in the cup semi (yeah the personnel was different). Any team should be disappointed not to score v Mingolet is the opposition keeper. And especially if they're going to be playing Lucas at the back.

I hope he's involved as he always seems to cause Liverpool damage, away game at Anfield was probably the only game he looked a premier league quality forward with his two goals and he also caused them problems last season in the cup. 3 weeks for a pulled hamstring is probably a bit optimistic though, more likely to see him at Stoke.

Since his form at Swansea he's become a multi-millionaire from his three years at City (and I doubt we're paying him below 40K) got together with Helen Flanagan and had a kid....what more does he need to do with his career. He could easily retire tomorrow, might aswell as no one would miss him. That's the thing, when he was at Swansea he had it all to prove, Chelsea were loaning him out a million times and I doubt the wages he was getting then were enough for a major lifestyle so he had it all to prove. Get rid of him in the summer, no chance of coming straight back up if he's going to be one of our key players down there which I very much doubt.

Sunderland Liverpool Norwich Nice little treble there for this weekend.

This could get quite interesting for International football I reckon. Last Brazil squad had a couple of players already with Chinese clubs and I'm sure more will follow in the next year or two, not elite ones like Neymar but more of the second tier players. Problem is of course Chinese league is nowhere near the standard of what's on offer in europe so the players intensity levels will drop from the poorer quality even if the bank balance goes up a fair bit so that will impact on a few national teams I reckon.

I've always said 9 wins would keep us up. It will be tight but 6 wins and 2 draws gets us another 20 points and onto 36 points which we could squeak home by. Important we avoid our annual thrashings in Manchester aswell this season, even one nil defeats would be o.k as long as we get points in other games as the GD is very close between the bottom 4 now.

Cleverley would've done little here if we'd signed him permanently imo. D*lph made that midfield tick, when he played well as he did from March onwards Westwood and Cleverley did aswell. Without him we've seen how poor Westwood has been as that experienced premier league midfield player in our midfield this season and I really don't think Cleverley would've been much better. He might have scored a goal or two though.