Fat Sam's talking shite again

part brut ;D

Well whether you're a good signing or a bad signing is up to how you play for the club that signed you, not about your qualities as a football player. Example: If player A plays a few brilliant seasons for club A and gets transferred to club B but is being shit there he's a bad signing for club B (and I'm not talking about unexpected injuries and such). That doesn't mean player A is not a good player but it does mean he was a bad signing. My point was that good managers often know if a player fits in with the team (style of playing etc etc) and not so good managers just buy good players but often without a vision.

I get your point though, these are just details and have little to do what's been discussed. Also this has nothing to do with Allardyce being a good manager or not (I can't judge that, seen not enough matches of the teams he has coached) but was just a general comment

More people support the Chinese national football team than support the Netherlands team (granted a Holland match would attract more fans because it's a smaller country who have money/can get to the games etc) but Netherlands have more expectation than the Chinese because their results have been better. Granted I'm not saying that's the positions our respective clubs occupy but results should play a massive part in expectations, and a realisation that your expectations should be based on what your teams been doing recently, not how many fans turn up. If Slovenia consistently qualified for big tournaments and Russia didn't, after a few of these occurences happening expectations would still be higher for Slovenia, as we're not talking about head-to-head battles like you were in your play off analogy.

Besides, noone talks about how many fans turn up to international games and who's the "bigger" country because it's such a pointless argument as it's so obviously population based, the boundaries are blurred more in club football which is why people (particularly Newcastle fans) have this silly discussion.

The sole reason why I bring up catchment areas etc is when people have a dig at Rovers for having crowds of 25,000 when actually if anything us bringing in 25k is pretty good. It's baffling that our attendances should be used as an insult.

The charge I was defending was that Allardyce spent money on shite at Newcastle when in fact, as I've maintained all along, it was a mixture of very good signings, good signings which didn't work out in practice, and a few bad signings. Like I said, Viduka was hardly a crock before coming to Newcastle when he'd played 80 games the previous two seasons, scored 20 the season before and had usually played 30+ games a season. Sure he was on big wages and was 32, but to sign a 26 year old who'd scored 35 in his last two seasons wouldve cost at least £10 million. Not like Paul Ince signing Robbie Fowler

Even in the last 2-3 months of Sam's reign you were getting a bit over a point a game. Granted, hardly stellar, poor form really but coupled with your start it wouldve meant a safe mid table finish. Hull got 8 points from 18 games in 2009. The only thing you have in common is bet welching prick deciding to support both of you...

I think Newcastle fans never really wanted Sam from the start, he didn't fit into what you'd come to expect from other managers, for better or for worse. There's even a fairly vocal minority of Rovers fans who keep slagging him off at every available opportunity despite the great job he's done for us. But bottom line is that when he was at Newcastle there was a hell of a lot wrong at that club as is evidenced by so many managers not meeting expectations in such a short time frame, and I think many managers would have struggled given the circumstances.

And I know your thing about Allardyce inheriting better players at Newcastle than Ince wasn't a dig - but Ince inherited some quality players. Benni McCarthy, Roque Santa Cruz, Brad Friedel, Chris Samba, David Bentley (still a very talented player IMO who needs to leave Spurs and sort his attitude out), David Dunn, Stephen Warnock..granted not bought for anything like the transfer fees that Newcastle bought theirs for but some excellent players. Our squad now is mostly average as all hell now though since we had a summer budget of £0, and so what Sam has done with us deserves respect, even if it is grudging respect.

There's a whole myriad of factors. Part of the makeup of a very good football player though is one who is adaptable and who can play in different systems and different teams. Even good managers can't predict really how a player will play in their team before they really come, it's more than just the tactics and the formation it's also about the individual player, how adaptable they are and also if theyre coming from abroad how well they adapt to new surroundings. Part of that is on the manager too though.

I agree with you and yes, ofcourse good manager can't predict how each and every signing is going to perform (like you said, there are a lot of factors which contribute to whether a player will be a success or not) but good managers always have less bad signings. Mostly because they have vision, know what kind of player they want and know how to make a player feel 'important'. And ofcourse, sometimes you just need to have a little luck

Look at Real Madrid for the last seasons, all brilliant players but not a team. Some of the signings are very good players but still ridicolous signings. Not that in Madrid's case that's all the coach his mistake (it's mainly the board who decides there) but that was my point.

Anyway, we've drifted away from the topic a bit and I think we kinda agree

fact of the matter is, Blackburn only got a point at Fulham because they cheated, and no Blackburn fan in the country can possibly argue against that.

Allardyce is a horrible little man who talks more shit than any other manager in the game, there's only one manager in the world who thinks more of himself and he's currently manager of Real Madrid. Allardyce thinks he's at that level yet the biggest thing he's ever done was do an adequate job at Newcastle.

All talk of football attendances during football arguments should be banned as it means strictly fuck all in the grand scheme of things. Especially in the Premiership where most of their finance comes from other channels.

But tbf when you talk about the size of clubs - which was brought up and then gone into in great detail for some reason, then it is more or less all about attendance, and nowadays number of fans country- and worldwide. Finance is something different. Sheffield Wednesday for example are a bigger club than Wigan but can't hold a candle to them financially or on football terms and haven't been able to for some time.

More gems from the great man:



Good old Allardyce, king of the windup! I'm sure Benitez is still reeling from the force of Big Sam now he's managing Inter Milan

Oh, fuck off...Schwarzer shouldve been off for a blatant handball outside the box and we also had a very good penalty shout turned down - these things even themselves out. I'm guessing you'll be wanting all those points won from Steven Gerrard's penalty dives wiped out too?

Allardyce does talk a hell of a lot of shit but he's done a great job consistently getting Bolton into the top eight, getting them a whisker of Champions' League qualification and doing well with us with next to nothing to spend. Yes he's not Real Madrid material and I wouldnt like to see him get the England job but he's a good manager.