Cronky

I say it again. It was 5 hours of football against the best two teams in the country, with an ordinary-looking bunch of defenders. We scored 6 goals and conceded only 1. You ask for a miracle - I give you Mr Edward Howe.

Medical scheduled for tomorrow, apparently. I found his Youtube video very impressive. He looks very agile and confident. Keepers have to boss their defenders about. He'll be young, in a new country and with new team-mates. That'll be challenging, but judging from his video, he's no shrinking violet. He may get some first-team action sooner than one might expect. I do like this signing.

Further to the above post, it looks like Liverpool mishandled Salah's retirement in the same way. When he got dropped, he complained publicly, just like Shearer did. That should have been curtains for both players. Instead, because they were the local heroes, they were treated with kid gloves, to the cost of the team and the club as a whole.

I probably shouldn't have raised the subject of Sir Bob, because analogies are never exact and the debate then often diverts on to the analogy rather than the current issue. I've dug up one of my old posts, when there was a debate about what went wrong at the time. I think the issue of Shearer's retirement was badly bungled. There was a rift between Sir Bob and Shearer and Shepherd backed the wrong horse. Shearer's legs were going and we needed to plan for a successor. I'm optimistic that our current regime are far more professional than Shepherd and will back their man through the tricky period that probably lies ahead. Here's my old post - The problem with Shearer was that he'd made it clear that if he wasn't going to be a first-team regular, he'd rather move on. Sir Bob knew, after the season we finished 3rd, that it was time to blood Shearer's successor. You don't wait until you have a problem - you read the early warning signs and act accordingly. The crucial point came in that meeting between Shepherd and Sir Bob at the start of the season, which is detailed in Sir Bob's autobio. Liverpool had got wind of the rift, and put in a bid for Shearer. Shepherd rejected it, and didn't tell his manager. Sir Bob found out, and met up with Shepherd, saying that if Shearer was sold, he'd be able to buy his replacement - Mpenza was the one he had in mind. Shepherd rejected the idea, because he said the supporters wouldn't stand for losing Shearer, though I suspect as well he was nurturing the dream that Shearer would take over from Sir Bob seamlessly in time. With hindsight, it's doubtful whether Shearer ever seriously had that in mind, though he was clever enough to keep the idea going, and use it to exercise some influence behind the scenes. So we ended up with a captain and main striker in decline, a team in decline, and a manager who'd been undermined. Sir Bob has no support from the Board, his captain and the fans, and pays the price a year later. However, we find it very difficult to recruit a new manager because the candidates see what's happened to Sir Bob, and don't fancy being in the hotseat whilst the Chairman and supporters' blue-eyed boy is hovering in the background. We end up with Souness. That was the big opportunity wasted, because Sir Bob could have handed a great legacy on to his successor.

It would all depend on what players we bring in. I'd just be happy seeing some progress in the course of the season. What we're trying to do is very difficult. Nobody has been able to break into this 'Big Six' elite group. The likes of ourselves and Villa have made the occasional dent in the Champions League places, mainly due to our excellent managers, but firmly establishing ourselves is tough because the Big Six have financial advantages which the regulations help them to sustain. It's likely to take a few successful seasons to achieve. Villa's first team is as good as any on their day, but I'm not sure their squad will be up to the challenge of the tough extra fixtures. We'll see.

This sort of post does worry me. I think the club has got as far as it can with its previous strategy, which left us with a strong first team but not much in reserve. We had our successes but it was difficult to sustain. The constant pressure of two games a week had its toll on the first team, and they were knackered mentally and physically by the final run-in. I think the transfer policy will now be changing under Wilson to take more account of the long-term. There will be more of an emphasis on developing youth, building a squad and a more versatile way of playing. If you're expecting the team to be challenging straight away for the top five, then I think you and many others are going to be disappointed. I can then see Eddie getting the blame and unhelpful pressure being brought to bear. It'll be Sir Bobby over again, with the same long-term result. Eddie has proven himself time and again with two different clubs that he is excellent as both a motivator and a tactician. Stop panicking and give the guy a break.

Yes, very quick and agile for a 6'6" beanpole. I imagine we won't be the only ones interested, but having said that, we would probably be able to give him games very soon if not right away. I like his attitude too.

I think my last post in reply to DC Magpie answers some of that. At the Premier League level, it's difficult to find players that excel at both aspects of the game - athletic and technical. Coaching makes a difference but players still operate within a certain profile. Eddie achieved a lot with players of a more athletic aspect, and there really wasn't much choice considering that he took over a side who were rock bottom. However, there's no reason to think that he doesn't want more technical players eg Isak, Hall.

I think this summer we are going to see a transition to a more versatile kind of game. However, technical players who are near to or at the finished product will tend to end up at the likes of Arsenal or Man City. That's the grim reality that we found last summer when we went for the likes of Joao Pedro and Cunha. We will probably have to focus on the younger, developing part of the market, which will make a top five position more difficult in the short-term. Whether the supporters will be patient and supportive through that is another matter though. Expectations have been raised. Eddie probably isn't out of the woods yet, and will need the backing of the owners. Where we differ is whether the current position is suggestive of incompetence on Eddie's part. I don't think it is at all.

We don't have the players to play a possession-based style. Is it realistic, when we've won our first major trophy for 70 years and we've had two CL campaigns by playing a certain way, to have another group of players at at the ready who can effectively play an alternative style? Get real.

For all your talk about formations and tactics in this and your previous post, you seem to be ignoring the most significant factor in our poor form - namely the relentless fixture demands, and the difficulty of overcoming some much improved Premiership teams after a midweek game. Of the teams playing in Europe, ourselves, Spurs, Palace, Forest, Chelsea and Liverpool clearly underperformed in the league - some badly so. Arsenal and Man City were okay, but their squads consisted of two first teams rather than a first team and a back-up. You may see Villa as the exception, but the Europa League is now a cakewalk for the PL sides. It is more than two years since any English team was knocked out of it by a Continental side. Forest would probably have won it this time round if they hadn't met Villa. The issue of conceding late goals and throwing away leads has been discussed on here. For me, the explanation is simple - the players were knackered.

I don't agree with your analysis, but I've already posted at some length on what I see as the causes of our problems this season, so I won't repeat myself. I have to take issue with you on this idea that our top targets chose to join other clubs because they disliked Eddie's tactics. Cunha, Mbeuno and Sesko went to Man United. Joao Pedro went to Chelsea and Ekitike went to Liverpool. They all went to clubs who would pay higher wages and who had a better overall record of success. Even since the Saudis arrived, we have yet to win a transfer battle with any of the 'big six'. People sometimes cite Bruno, but we put in an offer and Arsenal didn't. Maybe they'd have put in an offer in the summer, maybe not. Whatever, I think your theory is fanciful. I do also wonder about the effect that Gordon has had on morale in these latter stages. It looks like he has already agreed terms with Bayern and we will be stuck with a fait accompli in the same way as Isak. For whatever reason, Eddie has kept him on the bench for several games. Gordon has already decided, it seems quite brazenly, that he can do better than us. That can't have been a help to team morale. And let's not pretend that he's choosing Bayern for anything other than the usual reasons of money and success.

I wish that the NO threads from that era were still available. If so, you would see that the vast majority of members were calling for his sacking. I had got to the position that, although I wanted him to stay, the atmosphere had grown so toxic that his job had become impossible. He was under attack not only from the Geordie supporters, but also the Geordie media, the Geordie Chairman and his Geordie captain. The issue that Freddie Shepherd completely mismanaged was Shearer's future. There was the tentative expectation that Shearer would take over from Sir Bob. As the Geordie hero, the heir apparent and the hope for the future, he was in far too powerful a position for a player. The reality was that his successor on the playing field should have been in place two seasons before his retirement, and there should have been no sense of Sir Bob keeping the managerial seat warm for him. In practice, I think Shearer was always wary of the enormous 24/7 demands and pressure of management, and was only stalling to keep his options open. The relationship between Sir Bob and his captain became very tense, and could not have been helpful for the team. Freddie was a starry-eyed fan and backed the wrong man. It became difficult to recruit a new manager because no-one who wasn't desperate would want to take a post where the previous guy had been sacked after three top-five finishes, and where it looked like they might just be keeping the seat warm for the captain. Shearer the player by that stage had become undroppable. So we ended up with Mr Desperate - something like our 5th choice in the shape of Souness. At the time, I was disgusted at the foolishness that had operated at all levels of the club. I sent Sir Bob a letter of support and received a letter in reply. I hoped never to see something like that again, and as I've said, the thought that it might happen to Eddie - the best manager we've ever had in my 60+ years of being a supporter - just fills me with dread.

I don't know the other contenders, but if you put a bit of context to Osula's goal, then it must be right up there. The team was struggling in the last minute of the 90, to hold on with 10 men against a top side, and then an unfancied rookie intercepts the ball in his own half, charges up field, beats a man and hits an unstoppable shot right in the corner. It was so unexpected, so unreal, that I was laughing in shock.