Spudulike

Ah well, crap end to an indifferent day. Would be a bit less worried if Pardew hadn't said that he doesn't care if Arsenal beat Newcastle 4-0. Sincere best wishes to Chels tomorrow. Will be good to see an English team winning another European trophy.

Duplicate

He wont want to leave and we wont sell him. Why would he want to leave us?!! (rhetorical question :-) )

Aww, gutted. Seems unfair that a decent side like Wigan are going down at the cost of possibly giving the Gooners another year of CL underachievement.

Bugger. Not just from our point of view. Would be v sad to see Wigan go down.

V good - end-to-end stuff. Too tense from a Spurs view. I'd settle for a draw, now.

C'mon Wigan!!!

Dupli-post

Duplicate post

Duplicate post...

Yep. Fair point also. Again (and, of course, FFP may torpedo this) my point is that the way this (the wider pool of title contenders) happens can seem Cavalier. Behind the scenes, hard-headed business decisions are being made but what we see is, for example, clubs dispensing with the services of a popular manager, or a valued player, because of the financial bottom line. It's fine, business-wise, but where's the sense of doing the right thing AND being ambitious?I'm frustrated with myself as I can't really find the right words to explain what I mean; knackered today...

Tbh, i can do that (black and white). I just don't like the way the game's going...I've over-explained my case, but that's what it amounts to. C'mon Wigan!!! (off topic but it can't do any harm)

(I don't include Chels in this as the team have shown real character in the past years). The are a lot of good arguments made above. I wouldn't disagree with most of what's been said. My sadness is that some rich Sheikh can buy a team, throw shedloads of cash at it, and then have such expectations that they can dismiss a manager (not necessarily Mancini) after a poor year. This is happening and it's that that concerns me rather than Mancini's particular case. For all the money's that spent, it cheapens the 'feel' of the sport. The game, and clubs, seem to be a commodity and the emotion, the desire of fans to do right by a manager or a player, goes by the wayside. Ah, football, isn't it? Jumpers for goalposts, newspaper for shin guards ...

Dismissing managers after only one season of 'failure' (we can't say that Mancini has had more than one consecutive year of 'failure' because of last year's League success) demonstrates that some owners take an overly-simplistic approach to the game. It seems that some owners think: money + a 'name' manager = success. This isn't always going to be the case; you can put money/management and players in place and still fail to perform consistently. (I am being a bit simplistic in making my argument as I have to go back to work...) City's statement said (inter-alia): '...the club has failed to achieve any of its stated targets this year, with the exception of qualification for next season's UEFA Champion's League...' Mancini wins the domestic league in 2011-12 and then has a year where he & City underperform but they do qualify for the CL. Is this going to be a new standard? That if you are in a 'top', foreign-owned club, one season without success becomes a job-ending season for the manager?

I'm concerned about the issue of patience, on the part of owners. SAF's United wasn't built in a day and, unless City's owner's have a patience-based long term plan (that's behind RM's departure) it will appear that wealthy owners want year-on-year sucess without regard to the unpredictability of football. City are second, and way off United's points haul, but so is everyone else and, more pertinently, all of the other 'big' teams. City haven't done as well as expected but does that justify a firing? To put it another way, if JM returns to Chelsea and doesn't win a trophy in the first season (and that's possible) what will RA do? In the context of these comings and goings, United's decision to (on the face of it) invest time in Moyes seems astute. Nowadays, even winning the League doesn't guarantee that you'll be kept on for the whole following year!

Yep, it's likely Newcastle will get beat and Pardew's statement will cloud the judgment about what happened.It's not a Spurs issue as such because it could happen to other teams in future. We could be beaten by Sunderland but, if the Gooners put two or three past Newcastle, there'll always be that doubt about whether they were bothered. Pardew - lack of class and, tbh, lack of serious commitment to Newcastle; what genuine manager would happily see their team beaten? What a vain, smug, up his own arse, tw**. C'mon Wigan!

My concern with Pardew's comments is that, whatever you think of Spurs or Arsenal, it's very wrong to not care about a game that has an impact on others. That said, how on earth will we know the difference between Newcastle not trying and their usual league form?

A good question. There's talk of a returning JM not having complete control over the football side of things at CFC, etc. If he was offered that at City, plus the chance to manage them at a time of uncertainty / change at United (and, as you say, a huge pay deal) he might be tempted. To put it another way, you can guarantee that City will be sounding him out. I hope JM returns to CFC but he defo has other irons in the fire.

In Welsh, dd = a 'th' sound, so the word dda would be prounounced ' tha'. The word nos would sound similar to 'Ross'. Difficult language, if you're English :-)

Don't win anything??!! I can't argue with a lady -it would be very discourteous. However, our time is coming ...... Nos dda (goodnight in Welsh!) p.s. i notice you ducked the question about the awesomeness of our kit...

There's tons of differences between Arse and Spurs. Can't go into all the reasons, for lack of space, but, basically, we're trying to win things and Arsenal are trying to qualify for things - that's the main difference. Also, how cool is our kit, compared to theirs? (know you meant your statement differently but it's difficult to read that 'there's little to choose...' :-)

They said 'he has left the Etihad' but there is no firm statement re. date so you could be right.

Just on Talksport: Mancini has gone from City (i.e. today). I haven't created a new thread as it's unclear at mo.

Yep - hitting form and only one game to go... No complaints tho :-)

Adebayor - two goals in two games??? More of a shock than the (touch wood) result...