If he does sign, he's two-footed so maybe can play rw with weightwatchers pedro down the left and no emerton!

That refereeing performance, strewth! Presumably there'd be the same level of slagging if Stead's shot had gone in and the penalty for Soton hadn't been given? But yes, we are awful in defence.

I'm losing interest in football, at least at international level. Footballers in general seem to care about nothing but themselves, picking up their large pay packets and cavorting with tarts. They care nothing about the clubs they play for or the fans. Now we have an England manager who sets their example for them! Openly chatting to other potential employers (an Englishman wouldn't do it), sha88ing around the office, and openly defending his outrageously bloated salary, and all the time sat on the bench like he's watching park football. He's laughing at us. Richly rewarded for not doing his job properly, making a lughing stock of his employers whilst getting his rocks off with any willing tart. Football Will Eat Itself.

You've been spending too much time at the port cabinet again, haven't you?! No doubt you've also been taking pot shots at peasants, missing wilding and blasting a ruddy great hole in some precious Inigo Jones greenhouse. You'll end up with gout!

I think the problem is not Souness so much as a lack of money. He's only spent 150K so far, is that all he's been given? I wonder whether he started noises about Finnan signing for 2 mill with agents just to get back at the board, otherwise, where has the story come from? Also we've bid well under the 500K required to prise El Hamsandwich away, whereas 2 years ago we bout Grabbi for 7 million. This is frugality of the highest order, is it because the board no longer trust Souness, or is it a genuine attempt to get value-for-money? If it's the latter then it's a dodgy game to play as everyone has now been alerted to our interest in him, and can now move in for a slightly higher bid. The only real cock-up Souness has made is Grabbi. Every time you go into the market you take a chance, so it's understandable. However, the new cold wind of financial reality seems to be blowing ultra-strong around Ewood, no doubt linked to poor season-ticket sales. We seem to be sailing very close to the wind though. Attack - lot resting on Stead's shoulders, with some support from Dickov and Yorke. Midfield - jury's out on the captain at the minute, uncertain who should partner him; on teh flanks we have someone apparently terminally short of confidence and in the other side one of teh telly-tubbies, hopefully in a month or two thsi will improve with Thommo back on de Pedalo off the pies. Defence - hmm, Gray is the pick, but the switch to 3 at the back shows a lack of faith from the manager. GK - carrying an injury. Personally, I don't think the squad is strong enough. If we start picking up injuries we will be in serious bother, but at least we ain't Everton!

In short, it is too early to say. However, I have this horrible hunch that Mr Revidge is right, we needed to get an experienced goalscorer in (if it were possible). Losing Cole was no bad thing in my opinion, but I think we needed someone who's got a bit of experience and know-how when it comes to sticking the ball in the net (we could've picked oen of the top-class-experienced goalscorer tree!) Yorke is not going to score many stuck where he is, Stead is too inexperienced, ditto Gallagher and Jansen is not the man he was. I don't think Dickov was a bad signing, but I think we need more. Once again our goal yesterday came from someone other than the strikers. Something that happened a helluva lot last season when Cole was here.

Hmmm ... on balance having read these reports, and not having been at the game ... I get the feeling we have a season of struggle ahead of us. And maybe it doesn't matter who we have in charge because we're so small we shouldn't be in the top flight. But ... early days!

not a picture of the squad ... click on "squad" then click on Flo-Jo-No-Hands-Sons name, that picture.

Not sure about soiling his pants ... more like stuffing his face. Have you seen his squad picture on teh official site?!

Cheers.

Hmmm ... don't know who I'm looking at in Glenn's photos, they have no titles! And Jordan's ones seem to be missing although the thumbnails are there ...

I agree most with Capt (but would have Man Yoo above Liverpool) and Bobadopolis F (but with Arse above Chels).

Honestly, the harrystockracy these days. They irritate proles for their sport, is there no end to their depravity?

You're not feeling hormonal as well, Chesh? Blimey, it's contagious!

Er ... I was referring to the people on here whose opinions you despise so much. You seem to think that spending more money than anyone else entitles you to be as condescending as humanly possible. More than anything this site is for people who don't have mega-money to travel everywhere indulging themselves in their little hobby, it's for everyone, but especially people who don't get to see them so often and want to keep in touch. Everyone's entitled to their point of view but it's the manner in which you express your views which gets people's backs up. So please don't take what I say literally, it doesn't help.

Who cares how much money you've spent you daft cow? Bl00dy hell, insulting, snooty and misguided. What a set of attributes.

Why do you do it, Jan? Do you think that you have a genuinely informative view to share with us all? Or do you set out to be as irritating/ insulting as possible because hardly anyone shares your "Souness must leave, all the players are awful, the forces of darkness are taking over the planet." fantasy? Because it very much looks like the latter. Bookies set the spread to maximise income, I'd have thought they'd do it from a market-led perspective (ie the relative frequencies of people thinking we'd finish on less/ more than x amount of points) rather than a fixed-odds perspective (ie what are the relative probabilities of us finishing on less/ more than x number of points). With doom-sayers like you about I guess it's not surprising they set our spread low. PS: Well done, you have got my back up, doesn't happen too often on here these days.

Cannot agree at all there. Who's to blame when things go wrong then, the coach? Of course not, the manager picks the squad, whittles it down and picks the team. Then he has friendlies to play, fringe players to select, a team to blend from that so that fringe players get a decent chance whilst being bedded in a familiar team, tactics to pick (does Tord choose 4-4-2 then according to you?), rest days and training sessions to arrange. Yes, he has people to help him, but he takes their advice and makes his own decisions. The team does not pick itself. The goalkeeping position is not simple, Neville G at RB and Cole at LB are the only automatic picks in defence, there is the question of who to play down the left in midfield (should there be a slot there, or should we pick a different formation?) whether to drop the erratic Scholes, and even Beckham, whether Gerrard's super-Scouse tendencies should be tempered in a more effective way, and then there's the forward line. Who partners Rooney, should he play every game? What about Smith, Vassell, Owen, Heskey etc etc. Considering variations in opposition players and tactics, when to rest players in a tournament etc makes it all the more difficult. Sven does not turn up, say: "Who wants to play?" and tehn let them get on with it. If it really was a simple job we would not be paying a turnip of a Swede 4 million bucks a year to shag it up, along with every bird going.

I think Sven is a con merchant, his reputation seems to far exceed his achievements/ calibre of previous clubs. I don't care who he shags, for 4 mill we should win a trophy. And as for teh stupid beggars who play for him, if they threaten to strike because Sven gets pushed, they should get sacked as well. You don't hold a gun to your country's head. They put playing for their country below playing for Sven - terrible. It's that gobshit Gabriella Neville again.

Surely you mean "jamais" instead? I can't believe that Bolton are signing that Hieirro bloke from a side in QATAR! Flipping Nora!

-Atkins -Speedie -Moran

Revidge, gotta say I agree completely there, we're much better off without Babbel. Such a shame as in glimpses he revealed himself to be a top-class defender, but his heart wasn't in it ...

And what about the tactical change he made to the way we played last season, the new way in which he deployed Douglas and Flitcroft, that was a major part in us winning 4 games on the trot and securing our Premiership status for another year? Selective memory? Of course he's a tactician. Going over the top and trying to break Yorke's leg = Good tactic Sticking his knee up at Spurs to indicate some naughty on-field goings-on = Good tactic Seriously, this team has in the past proved that it can play attractive football at pace on the break, would it be able to do that if Souness were tactically naive?

No! Let's face it he'd be to overlapping fullback play what George Best is to temperance and healthy complexions.

According to our Graeme in the LET, DT will be pushed into a more central position thsi season ...