Maverick

Surely the media can come up with something better. Did they forget that we just spent 50 million on a striker?

It would be THE greatest comback but I don't expect the media to give us any credit since it would be us. We were fifth a month or so ago and against United at home we were trailing them by 13 points during HT. Now that is a comeback of some magnitude.

Good call and I had raised an alarm in one of the earlier thread, this should hopefully reduce random threads about players/ managers that are "supposedly" associated to us.

He looked pretty lost at his time here when he was played out wide (on the right) and wasn't as effective as we see him at Bolton. He seems to relish the freedom of movement and not being stuck out on the wings and thats the reason you see him getting goals in and around the box.

The media is going to run these stories from now till the day Carlo eventually gets the sack (whenever that is though I hope its not in the near future). A manager that can make European champions (Inter) look like an ordinary side must be bloody good at screwing up things and the state that we find ourselves in he may just ensure we're fighting for survival. An absolute joke from the media which I am sure has no truth to it. Move on !!

The relief and celebrations say it all. Now lets hope he goes on to add at least a couple more to his tally.

Having seen him play for us for a while now I believe its more to do with his attitude of bullying the forwards. Regarding the red card well he will see a couple of them but thats not the end of world for him, likes of Vidic and Carragher still manage to get them though they are senior pros. Luiz is surely not the finished product yet but with the experience of JT around I would like to believe that he would be a lot more cautious in and around the box.

As someone has pointed out earlier they both have their respective strengths and its great to have them at the same time. But if you were to put your money on one of them being an able deputy to Ashley it would be Ryan given he has over 250 games under his belt and thats some experience for a 21 year old. I guess its the end of the road for someone like Zhirkov unless he proves his worth as a midfielder.

I liked what I saw of him last night and the cross to Malouda which resulted in a goal is something we have missed for a while now. So can we say Bye bye Zhirkov?

Keane's hattrick makes it 4-0 for the night and 6-3 on aggregate for United. Gutted since we missed a few good opportunities before they took the lead.

Benitez? Seriously? Which part of Liverpool do you wanna relive? And who is Mark O'Neill? Unless Martin's changed his name for some luck !!

Yes we've got Kalou who should execute it to perfection !!

Do any of them sell even half the number of either God of War or Uncharted? I have my doubts and to be honest Xbox can have its average exclusive titles like PGR because no one is going to buy an Xbox to play it.

We were lucky to get Cech at a very young age and at the price that we did. But not signing a promising player based on the premise that there is an existing seasoned campaigner is foolishness. There are many factors in a players career that determine the amount of time he is going to stay at his peak, with Cech its been pretty good till now but injury and form are a couple of issues that can always come up. Besides if Delac is indeed better than Cech we may have to do what happened at Ath Madrid where a promising De Gea was chosen ahead of Asenjo.

Probably the bigger question is if we do sack Carlo and the new manager is unable to achieve a double in his first season, would we sack him too? I personally would like Carlo to get an extended backing in the transer window and see how we play in the coming season. Mind you if not for the injuries in Novermber/ December we could have still been in the title race and not many would be talking about a managerial change. Though my concern with Carlo is more about his inability to change things when his gameplan does not workout. He doesn't make many changes tactically or through substitutions that one would expect from a top manager while chasing a game.

If City were to make it to the CL I expect another round of mass exodus with players like Bellamy, Jo, Petrov, Given, Santa Cruz and Adebayor being put up for sale. If they don't make it to CL I expect Mancini to get the sack and the new manager may have a new approach. If they do make it to the CL they would now have the money and the ambition of CL to attract players that could be our prime targets. So its a double edged sword for us whether City make it or Spurs.

Errr ...... Isn't that what Robben does with Bayern and Netherlands with great effect?

Not sure whether you followed him during his time at Ajax but he was there for just one season and left the club in a trophyless season. Clearly he wilted under the pressure of managing a club like Ajax, not sure how'd he go about handling the pressure of managing us after the likes of Jose and Carlo who bought immediate success.

How about giving some thought as to what he meant when he spoke about not playing the youngsters? We've sent all our promising ones (Sturridge, Borini, Kakuta, Van Aanholt, Cork and Bruma) on loan and the only options we have from our youth that are close to first team is Josh and Bertrand. Ryan is fighting his way back from an injury and is fighting for a place against Ashley and Yuri. On the other hand Josh is leading the youth side in the defence of the FA youth cup and has a difficult away leg coming up. So what does that leave us with?

I have my doubt about the figure quoted by you in any case a player that wants to leave is likely to cost lesser and thats the reason I was hinting at a possible move by assuring him a starting place. As far as Neymar and Pastore are concerned I dont think they are in the same mould as Johnson since none of them play as a traditional winger.

How about trying Adam Johnson from City? Not a regular starter and surely consider himself to be too good on the bench. I dare say he would be fancying a regular place in the England setup too if he started playinng regular football. If we were to get him we could let go off Malouda/ Zhirkov.

No. It would be a short sighted approach with immediate success in mind and failure to do so would be Jose being sacked "again" and a hell lot of money would be down the drain. Add to it Jose's reluctance to give youth a chance would mean a lot of efforts baring no fruit which would mean the academy barely means anything which I hope is not the case. Hiddink as the sporting director and a better assistant (Maybe Paulo/ Zola) would be the ideal way ahead for the club.

Hiddink was clear since day one that he had taken the job on a temporary basis only because of his friendship with Roman. He was very clear that he would return to Russia one the season was done and I respect him for what he did rather than blaming Roman for not pulling all the stops. You cant keep a gun on the mans forehead afterall. FYI that was the first double in the history of our club, if that's not a big enough achievement let me know what is. How about you considering the likes of Carvalho, Ballack and Deco departing and the injuries that we've faced this season. I agree he dint come across as the most tactically astute manager last night but its clear from yesterday that a bunch of french/ African players need to be shown the exit this summer. Should Carlo pay for the laid back attitude for some of these players? I dont think that would be fair.

36 million in the span of 3 transfer window is nothing to boast about Barak, he managed it very well and the funds were only made available when it was visible that the squad was bare thin. You could even add Benayoun to that and it would add upto 40 million. To your point on comparing the two its pretty much identical in terms of trophies but Valencia were never a continental force as compared to AC Milan in the period 2000 to 2006. Does that count for nothing ? Finally to your point on not being involved in buying players, if thats indeed true I'd be all the more excited to keep Carlo given the manner in which our owner and board seems to work.

Strange that we even have this topic in the rumours section. He is apparently heading to Blackburn and we aren't even linked, some thought before posting a topic will only be in the best interest of this forum.