ethicalstrategy

What needs to happen is simple. The FA need to appoint a manager who has the ability to organise and motivate players, to formulate a basic method of playing and to create a team from a group of talented individuals. Pretty much sums up the job of being a manager really. There are people who can do the job but whether they will want to or not remains to be seen.

Easy tiger. Why can't Shearer have a go? He can't be any worse than what McClaren was, and other top nations have given their top job to untested people, (Germany with Klinsman, Holland with Rijkaard and now van Basten) so why can't we? The players are out there, they just need a leader and a manager they respect who can get them playing together, somebody who knows what it's like to play under the immense and undue pressure we put the England team under. If you can't see that it is folly to appoint a manager who has either a) no track record as a manager or B) a crap track record as a manager then you need to get yourself down to the FA HQ. I understand that they have a number of positions for people with your insight!!! Being a good player doesn't make you anymore likely to be a good manager than a good commentator or after dinner speaker. If Shearer wants to be England manager one day then let him get a job managing a club, build up his experience and allow himself the chance to find out whether he has what it takes to do the basic job before tackling something more tricky.

FFS Don't people ever learn? On what basis should Shearer be the England manager? Has he ever managed any team? Even Grant is more qualified than him

Funny you should say that Liam, I put a tenner on them at 9/1 today... I know you are an eternal optimist but now you are just being silly!

Everyone paid less tax - not just the rich. It's still true today. This government is taxing the hell out of us but they just found some more creative ways of doing it. Take a look at your pension - tax free they say! In the words of Jim Royle: "my arse"!

I really don't understand all this crap about too many foreigners. As you point out, we have a pretty good squad of players who mostly play at the highest level in Europe. Certainly at a higher level than international football. Any good young English talent will make it through. Just look at Rooney, Walcott, Richards to name three. I'd be a lot more concerned about the lack of good English managers to be honest. The current England squad is certainly good enough to compete with the top international sides provided they have a decent coach in charge of the team. Ericsson showed that. To go on and actually win a tournament we would need a coach who has that little bit extra. The bit that makes the difference between winning and losing on penalties in the quarter finals. Coaches like: Fergie Mourinho Capello Lippi Ancelotti Hitzfeld Scolari And, of course, a bit of luck at the right time.

Interesting. Earlier reports were that he had damaged his vertabrae. What's the portuguese for "don't know their ribs from their vertabrae"?

I have to say that this business about not expecting too much from the season and giving the new man time really is starting to irritate me. Grant did not take over a team in crisis. 2 times league winners, once runner's up. Reigning FA Cup and Carling Cup holders. We were 2 points behind the leaders. The crisis was the clash between the manager and the owner. Any decent manager should be expecting to be challenging for all four major trophies with this team. We should have great expectations for the season, not just hoping for a top 4 finish and a run in the cups - we are not Tottenham! As it stands, we are challenging, so I'm not having a go at Grant. I'm just saying that we ought to be expecting a lot more than some people are suggesting. Whether or not we get it is another matter - we will have to wait and see.

Hmm. I think we should wait and see what Chelsea have to say about Carvalho. The Portuguese national team coach won't be deciding how long it will take for him to recover.

I'd like to get past the wwjd (No. what would JOSE do, not Jesus! ) thing too. It really isn't helpful to any conversation. Some of us will always think that Jose was great and that we shouldn't have sacked him. Others will always think he was great but that we should have sacked him. Others will think that he wasn't so great etc etc. Whatever any of us think, he definitely isn't coming back. So I'm all in favour of just talking about the current situation on it's own merits. I had two concerns about saturday's game. 1. Our subs bench seemed imbalanced and didn't give us the option to close the game down if we wanted to or needed to. 2. There was a lot of pfaffing around when Carvalho was injured. I have two main concerns about the team/management of the team. 1. I'm worried that we won't have that extra something that is the difference between winning and falling just a little short 2. I'm worried that we will be tactically out thought/played in the big matches. None of the above has anything directly to do with the previous management.

Do we need to buy? The big problem that I see is that no-one who is any good will come to play for 5 or 6 weeks only to be back on the bench when Drogs, Essien and Mikel return. Can we put out a decent team whilst our African players are away? I think so. -----------------4-3-3--------------------------------------------4-4-2 -----------------Cech----------------------------------------------Cech Ferreira-----Carvalho----JT----Bridge-----------------Ferreira-----Carvalho----JT----Bridge -----------------Maka----------------------------Cole----Ballack---Lampard----Malouda ----Ballack-----------------Lampard--------------------------Sheva----------------------- Cole---------------------------Malouda----------------------------Pizarro-------------- ----------------Sheva--------------- That still leaves us with: Carlo, Belletti, Cole, Alex, TBH, Sidwell, SWP, Sinclair, Pizarro I reckon we ought to be able to make do with that - injuries aside. If we found another striker that we wanted on a long term basis then fine - go ahead and get him.

Those posts have already been written midlandblue, just waiting the first defeat. Always best to brush over legitimate questions with a bit of bluster eh Liam? We saw Carvalho kicking around injured in midfield for a good 5 minutes on sunday. He clearly wanted to come off. Essien covered for him, but the players were sorting it out for themselves on the pitch. An isolated incident? I'm just making too much of it? OK. Let's go back to the Schalke match last week. Cech gets injured. It takes an age for anyone to get there to treat him and then when they do Cech is going ballistic at them as they don't seem able to give him what he wants. Coincidence or lack of organisation and indecision?

Read again Loz. I didn't say that we were playing the same. I said that it was exactly the sort of match that we have been used to. i.e. away team gets 10 men behind the ball and shows no ambition. We try to break them down. On a good day we run out easy winners on a bad day we have to struggle to score. On a very bad day we end up not scoring or giving a late goal away. It is the pattern that's familiar. I entirely accept that we are trying to play in a more attacking fashion, although I can think of quite a few home games where we needed to score and Jose taking off a defender to put another striker on and really go for it. Of course if we scored then he would make another sub and put a defender back on. Which leads us back to the question of why we had 3 strikers on the bench and no midfielders? On the pattern of that game it would have been very helpful to be able to take off Joey and bring on Maka for the last 10 mins. It's not a sign of weakness to recognise that 1-0 is a good result. We tried to blow them away with attacking play earlier and it didn't work. I really, really don't want to become a team that can only play one way win or lose.

Definitely Mikel for me. Honourable mentions for Lampard and Alex.

What we saw on saturday is exactly the sort of match that we have got used to watching over the last two to or three years. A resolute and well organised team looking to make life difficult and with absolutely no ambition beyond getting a draw. If they had been thinking any different then a quick review of our last match against Man City would have reminded them that it would not be a good idea to try and play expansive football against us. You can shout for attacking football all you like, but when a decent team is intent on stopping you playing then it isn't going to happen. On the whole it would be hard to be too critical of the team. We played pretty well and created plenty of chances. A combination of poor finishing, bad luck and some excellent goalkeeping meant that we only managed the one goal. That should have still been enough but in the end it wasn't. If I was going to be critical it wouldn't be the defence that I targeted. After Carvalho went off we had all five of our backline as 2nd choice (sorry Wayne!) Belletti did still look shaken after his Schalke experience but Alex was good and TBH managed not to do anything too silly. The goal was disappointing particularly for Bridge who overall had a good game but missed a crucial challenge that let Everton cross the ball. Midfield we looked in control. Frank was good - unlucky not to score at least one goal, his chip which Howard just managed to claw away would have been a real goal of the month contender. Mikel was exceptional. He tackled, controlled the ball and passed beautifully all game. His only weakness seems to be a lack of confidence when the opportunity to shoot presents itself. Essien had a poor first half but he did improve as he seemed to move out to the right a little more in the second half. Still well below his best though. So that just leaves the front three. Drogba scored a terrific goal. A really powerful and difficult header. But truthfully, he was pants for most of the game. Lescott had him in his pocket. Worse though was the fact that he just kept on trying to do too much with the ball. So many times he controlled the ball and then tried to turn through three players and ended up losing the ball or just tried to flick the ball off with the same result. I think he must be taking the "entertaining football" mantra a little to seriously. SWP had a mare. He looked like the player he was 2 years ago. Whenever he got in a good position he just blasted a hopeless cross past the far post. Although, to give him some credit, he did play a good ball for Drogba which should have been a goal. Joe, too was very ineffective. His big problem when playing against a packed defence is that he has no real pace. He worked hard and tried hard but he just never really looked like scoring which we need him to do. Kalou came on and played pretty well. We certainly looked more dangerous with him out there - although he won't really solve our goal scoring problem. So what about Grant? Well he ought to have replaced SWP sooner, but he made the right change in the end. He made an error though in having 3 strikers and no midfielder on the bench. He was never going to use all three of Sheva, Pizzaro and Kalou and so Maka or Sidwell should have been an option. If they had then he could have taken Joe off for the last 10 mins and helped to shut up shop. Sometimes you have to understand when 1-0 is a good result. On its own this was a not such a terrible result but we just can't afford to draw too many home games if we want to think about winning the league. I just hope that we haven't regressed back to the pre Jose days where we play well but don't have that winning mentality that makes the difference between success and glorious failure!

I'm pleased to say that you were watching exactly the same match as me. An excellent blow by blow account of what happened.

Why oh why couldn't Jose have been like Ferguson. You never see him complain about the ref or moan about abusive crowds. He really knows the true spirit of football and takes all results in the same calm and balanced manner, never afraid to give credit to his opponents where it's due!

What I thought was particularly telling was the little clip they showed on football first where Ten Cate was sat there animatedly talking about something to Clarke and Clarke just stared straight ahead without even seeming to acknowledge that Ten Cate was speaking. Gant was sat between them and was ignoring both. It looked very much to me as though Clarke really just wanted Ten Cate to shut up!

Looks like you're wrong then

Aaww come on. Give us a break. We're missing Jose. Let us have a little cry! We'll get back to worshipping at the feet of the almighty Avram as soon as we've finished!

or should that be "the press stir up trouble"? Fragile peace is under threat from Henk Ten Cate?s ?bad cop? routine I particularly enjoyed this: "Several players have complained privately about his perceived arrogance and brashness, while others have criticised an alleged desire for total control" Remind you of anyone else? Slightly more concerned to read about Clarke being marginalised and interested to see that Grant is having his strings pulled by Clarke and Ten Cate

Tomorrows match is being billed as a match between the two best sides in the country. I don't remember us being considered anything other than the best team when Jose was here. Clearly the press/media don't take Grant or his team seriously.

I didn't. But I've been to virtually all the home games over the last 5 years and I never see any bother. That's why I was so surprised on wednesday. Why should a CC match against Leicester turn out to be like that?

Anyone have any info on the trouble that went off on the North End Road before the game on wednesday? The place was absolutely crawling with riot police. We were walking down around 7ish and there were a lot more people than normal. Then a few bottle were thrown from a pub - don't know which one - and it all erupted. I am presuming that the police knew something was going on as I've not seen so many of them around even when the scousers are in town. The rest of the walk to the ground was through little pockets of Leicester fans being pinned up against shop fronts. I was pretty surprised as I've not seen anything like that near the ground for years.

It's all so dull, dull, dull now (apart from the actual football, of course )