Pack your bags Roy

[Glenn Hysen]

I still think konk is an improvement over insua

He really isn't. He is no better defensively and far worse on the ball.

Saying it twice doesn't improve your argument

I will say this again, Insua was terrible last season. He made the whole team shaky defensively. Nobody trusted him to take care of his area. Terrible. Konk's not world class but he's definitely better than Insua the terrible. Ok?

[Taxi]

He really isn't. He is no better defensively and far worse on the ball.

Saying it twice doesn't improve your argument

bloody phone.

I think he's a far better defender than Insua, he was absolutely abysmal last season.

[Arn]

bloody phone.

I think he's a far better defender than Insua, he was absolutely abysmal last season.

You do know that Insua was one of the best fullbacks in the league when it comes down to assists?

[Taxi]

You do know that Insua was one of the best fullbacks in the league when it comes down to assists?

I take all stats with a pinch of salt, if you ever listened to Houlliers stats we were the best team in the world.

Insua was a diabolical defender and thats what his job was.

[Arn]

Insua wasn't that great defensively but he was up there with the very best attacking wise.

Fullbacks like A.Cole, Evra etc...wasn't better than him in the attacking half. The problem was that he had Skrtel/Kyrgiakos, Lucas and Riera/Benayoun helping him out on the left. That meant that he was left all alone many times.

Compare that with our right side. Carra, Masch and Kuyt helping out Johnson defensively.

I think that you will see that our right side was excellent defensively and our left side very unbalanced.

That will make a difference. You can't blame the fullback for everything. It's a team game. If the fullback don't have good enough defensive players to help him out then he will look worse than he really is.

[Arn]

When Agger and Insua played at the same time then our left side wasn't a problem at all. Then we got the right balance.

Agger is a much better central defender that Skrtel and Kyrgiakos. He reads the game much better and will because of that be in much better position to help the left fullback.

[Taxi]

I know he didn't have the support that was maybe needed on the left, but last season he really was awful. Forget the team game side of things, he just made individual error after error and this wasn't down to who was alongside him, these were his errors. He was an accident waiting to happen.

[Craig_H]

I dont think he gave us any indication that he was going to be any sort of sugar daddy in regards to splashing big bucks around. It certainly was not the impression i got anyway.

Who mentioned being a sugar daddy then? Cos i didnt.

But "we're here to win" is a strong message and it will need to be backed up because we're a lot of money away from winning anything.

[Craig_H]

You don't always have to buy over priced bunnies to win. You can look for good value deals. VdV for 8m was a steal. Modric for 16m at that time was a good deal too.

If you look around properly, there are always good players for lesser money than the over rated media fed players for higher sums.

Eden Hazard for 15-20m anyone?

Take a look at the two teams who win the title and tell me if they have 'overpriced' players or not.

The best players are, as a rule, 'overpriced' and it's always been this way.

And as i said, to win titles, you need a mixture of youth and experience. For example, someone like Diego Forlan or Diego Milito, both top class players, but we wouldnt be in for them because of their age. Dismissing players of such quality, purely down to age, is wrong IMO.

[Taxi]

I'm still trying to work out how we came to give Aquilani to Juve for free and paid them £4.5m for Poulsen.

Can you imagine their faces in the board room, "we'd like to let you have our £20m midfielder for nothing, and by the way can we purchase Poulsen off you for £4.5m please".

They were probably spitting coffee out of their mouths at this stage kicking each other under the desk wondering if it was a windup.

[destinydude]

Take a look at the two teams who win the title and tell me if they have 'overpriced' players or not.

The best players are, as a rule, 'overpriced' and it's always been this way.

And as i said, to win titles, you need a mixture of youth and experience. For example, someone like Diego Forlan or Diego Milito, both top class players, but we wouldnt be in for them because of their age. Dismissing players of such quality, purely down to age, is wrong IMO.

How many overpriced players did we have when we came close to winning the league? How many over priced players did Arsenal have when they've been winning League titles?

Chelsea as a rule of thumb have spent over the odds early when Roman took over. In the last 2-3 yrs who from the lot they bought are over priced?

They will buy experienced players but not for stupid money.

The same happened with David Ortiz for Red Sox. He was getting old but wanted a 3 yr contract for $10m a year. They just renewed his contract for $12.5m for a yr cos that's far better than paying him $30m over 3 yrs when he wont be performing at the same level for three yrs.

[destinydude]

Who mentioned being a sugar daddy then? Cos i didnt.

But "we're here to win" is a strong message and it will need to be backed up because we're a lot of money away from winning anything.

You can spend £25m-30m a year NET, for 3 yrs and you can put up a League challenging team combined with bringing in some good youngsters from the ressies.

And £75m-£90m is a lot of money when it is net spend.

[Lecter]

See I don't think tomorrows result is especially important. Chelsea are a better team than us - no doubt about it. We're not going to be competing for the title this year. There will be no shame in losing to a Chelsea team who look a head and shoulders above everybody else right now.

The real test is can we consistently beat the teams we *should* be beating? The jury is still out on that one. Whatever happens, Roy isn't the man for the job long term, but hopefully he can keep us on a fairly even keel for the rest of the season and we can avoid the prospect of chopping and changing managers potentially 3 times in one year (Hodgson, caretaker, first choice replacement in the summer).

If we get beaten tomorrow it probably wont make much difference

If we get soundly beaten / hammered (like we did against City & Everton) it might

[Mattshark]

I know he didn't have the support that was maybe needed on the left, but last season he really was awful. Forget the team game side of things, he just made individual error after error and this wasn't down to who was alongside him, these were his errors. He was an accident waiting to happen.

So is Konchesky, who has been woeful at the back. The thing is, we paid £5m for him and he isn't an improvement.

[Lecter]

I will say this again, Insua was terrible last season. He made the whole team shaky defensively. Nobody trusted him to take care of his area. Terrible. Konk's not world class but he's definitely better than Insua the terrible. Ok?

No its not ok

Both of them are abysmal defenders absolutely no difference

Insua was bad because he stood off players and then got punished

Same with Konchesky (look at Evertons first goal) and the numerous times hes stood off players allowing them to cross it

The only thing you might say is that Ibsua was young and might have been able to improve no chance of that from Konchesky