[Merged] The Football Thread 2005/2006 Season

[BBKing]

who ordered the half-hour programme to be scrapped.

Possibly it'll have to go out post-watershed, knowing Keane's usual manner of speech. According to the grauniad, he wasn't impressed with:

Originally Posted by graun

Rio Ferdinand, Darren Fletcher, Alan Smith, John O'Shea and Kieran Richardson...Liam Miller

. So only half the United team are rubbish according to the captain, then. That's positive news.

http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_...605711,00.html

[sherer]

i read that he said the following players weren't good enough for the club in general not sure their performances in that match

According to The Sun, Keane is believed to have torn into Darren Fletcher, John O'Shea, Kieran Richardson, Alan Smith and Liam Miller, saying they're not good enough for the Old Trafford club.

Rio hasn't performed all season and doesn't deserve to get paid this week.. neither does Van Der Sar

O'Shea had a great first season at the club.. anyone one remember all those nutmegs when he made runs from left back ? He's never reached that level again..

never rated Richardson..

Smith has so much passion and effort it puts the rest of the squad to shame.. he's still learning to be a midfielder though.. couldn't maintain his levels on Sat though... unlike alot of the team if he loses the ball he'll work to get it back

Miller has never really been given a chance to show what he can do

add in Scholes and Giggs being past it and not able to reach the hieghts they could.. both have done nothing in the past 2 years.. a season lasts for 38 games and being good in one or two isn't enough at this level.. and you can see why we are in trouble.. still never replaced Beckham either and our play is now so narrow and slow it's too easy for other teams to break up

[BBKing]

Miller didn't play at Boro, though, so it seems a bit unfair to slag him off, if that's what happened. His last contribution in a United shirt was scoring against Barnet, surely? Perhaps it's attitude in training or not calling Keane 'sir' often enough, or failing to serve his tea at the right temperature. I guess we'll Never Know (until some public spirited MUTV employee puts it on the net).

Bet you still beat us though!

[sherer]

you can see what Keane is talking about by looking at Jermaine Pennant.. a man who has already been to prison for drink driving.. after Birmingham lost on Sat the team were called in on Sunday for extra training..

what did he do on sat night then.. did he think about his performance.. no.. he just went out and got drunk.. so drunk that he couldn't even train on Sunday.. none of these players care at all.. apart from Keane, Lampard and Gerrard there are very few players who actually about about whether they play well or not

the same thing is happening at United and the team is in decline.. Scholes, Keane, Giggs and Beckham need to be replaced and i don't think we have the money to do it.. plus who would want to to United looking at how we play and perform at the moment

[nffc]

TBH, I think the same thing is common at most clubs, look at Forest's players making the nationals with their drinking extravaganza last season, and if rumours are to be believed, the same thing exists this season too.

[gazzae]

Keane used to be a prominent member of the Old Trafford drinking troupe.

Sharpey's book has a few tales about him and Keane on the booze.

Don't think Keane drinks that much these days though.

[BBKing]

by looking at Jermaine Pennant

And did Arsenal get any credit for giving him a second chance, which he blew, before shipping him out? Nope, the little sod went running to the tabloids and we got the 'Englishmen are frozen out at Arsenal' bollox, as usual. And the 'Arsene doesn't want a drink with me' bleating too from Ferguson (well, no one in their right mind would, plus alcohol is banned in the Highbury player's bar so it would be rather hypocritical for the manager to go tanking up after the game).

Alcohol problems are way better than they were in football - the game now is such that drunkards don't often get to the top and if they want to stay there they have to come off the booze before it affects their game. Money problems, however, are a different matter. Wage cap now, please, before it eats football.

[Russ]

Originally Posted by BBKing

Wage cap now, please, before it eats football.

It would have to be worldwide or the UK game will end up like a local sunday league.

[sherer]

having read some of the stories about Pennant i think he is lucky he didn't get kicked out of arsenal sooner.. trouble is he's still got a club and any problems there and his agent will get him into another top club

a wage cap would be a great idea but where would the surplus of money go ? plus i can't see real madrid and barca sticking to it.. the money would end up being paid in bonuses and stuff

at United it used to be we paid less because you had to want to play for us

[gazzae]

There is a good article in the latest FourFourTwo - 7 Steps to save Football.

[punky]

Originally Posted by BBKing

we got the 'Englishmen are frozen out at Arsenal' bollox,

If that's not true, Wenger has a funny way of showing it. Spurs have 7 english players, in their regular first team, 5 of whom are England first teamers. The other two are looking good for the future. One of the whopping two English regular first teamers you do have, one is from Spurs, through their youth team

Wage cap now, please, before it eats football.

Won't make a difference. They'll just find another way of putting it through the books. Instead of £99k/week, they'll just put it through as 3 different jobs at £33k/week or something. Or do what Beckham wants - get royalties of shirt sales, etc.

[gazzae]

Originally Posted by punky

Won't make a difference. They'll just find another way of putting it through the books. Instead of £99k/week, they'll just put it through as 3 different jobs at £33k/week or something. Or do what Beckham wants - get royalties of shirt sales, etc.

When people talk about wage bills i don't think they mean cap what an individual player earns but cap the total wage bill - e.g no more than 60% of a clubs turnover can be wages.

[Russ]

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0...201126,00.html

Handbags at dawn......

[punky]

Originally Posted by gazzae

When people talk about wage bills i don't think they mean cap what an individual player earns but cap the total wage bill - e.g no more than 60% of a clubs turnover can be wages.

Ahh, I see...

[BBKing]

Handbags at dawn......

No he hasn't threatened legal action. Don't read Sky's report, read or listen to the original, which is on the radio now in fact. He called Mourinho disrespectful, which is perfectly fair comment, so why Sky want to invent a different quote I don't know. Tabloid journalists, eh?

If that's not true, Wenger has a funny way of showing it.

The point isn't how many Englishmen are in the starting line up (because the name of the game is winning, and having a line up based on nationality rather than skill isn't guaranteed to work, quite the opposite in recent years), it's whether an Englishman coming through the ranks at Arsenal will be more likely to succeed than at a lesser club like Spurs. He's got competition from the entire world, and only the best will make it, so it's not a total surprise most of them go on somewhere else. It's often a measure of whether letting them go was a bad idea to see how they're getting on.

As for Pennant, getting done for drink driving twice isn't going to help get you in anyone's first team, let alone one of the Europe's top clubs, so he really should shut up. OK, it seems to help you get into Birmingham's team, but since they now have three Englishmen who didn't make it at Arsenal and are currently second-bottom in the league, that rather supports Wenger's decision to show them the door. The most successful ex-Arsenal youth is probably Andy Cole, and that was a while back when most Arsenal players were British.

In modern football, a club's home-grown players are just as likely to come from Sweden as Stockport. Doesn't mean they are any less worthy of the shirt, as long as the put the performances in. I can point to a few first-teamers who grew up through the youths at certain clubs who don't pull their weight. Evidently, so can Roy Keane (a foreign player bought in ready made, of course).

one is from Spurs, through their youth team

Glad you're proud of Big Sol. We'll have Ledley King when he grows up and fancies winning some trophies for a change.