sadoldgit

He actually looked decent when he came on today. Hopefully he will step it up.

I like Tadic as a player, but what did he do tonight? On a brighter note Pelle looked more focussed when he came on tonight.

Koeman picks the team and tactics randomly with no thought at all.........

Thought you were talking about Mane for a moment.

Derby are involved in an awful lot of derbies! As for the others, derbies or local rivalries?

Thank you! This was exactly the answer I was looking for. When I grew up a derby was, as you say, teams from the same town or city. The boundaries seem to have stretched somewhat over the years!

sperm

kinder

Koeman out!

If not I hear he is warming to the idea

ham

Guys, take it easy. You are in danger of turning into me and Hypo! I am no scientist and it is quite clear that climate has changed throughout the history of the planet. But is also seems entirely reasonable that mankind have contributed to the speeding up of global warming put pumping tons of crap into the atmosphere in the last couple of centuries. Things have changed enormously in my life time to the extent that it seems that we no longer have seasons, we just have weather. I don't know what the rate of change was before but I get the impression that change is happening a lot more quickly now. Trouble is, those who think we have nothing to do with the speed of change aren't going to change their opinions just as those who believe we are to blame for global warming aren't going to either.

I don't dispute that, but if teams scored every time a forward lost possession up the field we'd be looking at basketball scores.

We can talk about elaborate flicks all day long, but if you sit back against a team like Chelsea they will punish you. We didn't lose the match because of Pelle.

babe

Worth watching if only for Nick Holmes brilliant strike that made it 3-2. Wasn't is written by Jackie Collins?

It wasn't the best idea in the world, but blaming someone at the other end of the pitch for a goal conceded is a bit harsh. Counter attacks always happen when possession is lost by the attacking team. The idea is to counter the counter attack.

People often are told not to do something but still do it anyway. I assume they pick him because they feel he is good enough.

How do you know that the coaching staff haven't been working on him? You seem to look to blame the management for everything but once a player crosses that white line it is down to them to put it into practice. If they don't it is down to the player themselves. Pelle was quality last season and he wasn't being slagged off for his flicks and tricks then. I just hope that he can find his form again because the guy has shown that he can play.

I don't know, but would you say that money spent on a nuclear deterrent is money well spent when everyone knows that we will never use it?

Given that we are never going to use nuclear weapons it probably makes sense not to put them in subs. What would they be packing instead? Cruise missiles or the like?

Fancied a draw today. Especially frustrating to lose to a late goal. Oh well, the run was going to end eventually and Chelsea are back on form again.

And McMenemy had Keagan etc. Where do you draw the line? Every manager has to work with what he has and what he is up against. Adkins inherited some quality players when he took over from Pardew. Does that lessen his achievement? You can never measure like for like as everyone managed in different conditions. What you can say though is how many points they achieved. I have already said that the win ratio measurement is not the be all and end all. But it does give you a measure of performance. Teams that win leagues might not be the best, but they have the most points. To gain most points they have to show a measure of ability even if they are not as good as other teams. If you take your argument about the quality of players then perhaps we should slag off McMenemy as being shyte as he failed to win the league when at one point he had 4 ex England players in his team? If we want to talk about really shyte managers, lets talk about Branfoot and Redknapp.

method

I have never said that the win percentages are the be all and end all but they do give an objective way of measuring a performance - as does the football league. Points on the board. You can say scraped in but it is the points total that counts and we finished sixth and qualified for the play offs. If you wanted to be picky you could say that we scraped promotion both times because we came second and not first. I have accepted that I am in a minority about Burley but as you say, it is all a matter of opinion, which we are all allowed to have, and is totally subjective. For the record, although Burley has a better win ratio than McMenemy, McMenemy was clearly a more successful manager. Its a no brainer. Other distinctions are not so clear cut and fall to personal preference. I expect a manager to win matches and to put out teams to play decent football. You say that Burley "higely underachieved." I would say that wasn't the case given that we qualified for the play offs and missed the final on penalties. If you think that is a huge underachievement that is your opinion. I disagree. Can we move on now please?