Chindie

Yes, theres a place for fun big budget blockbusters like the Avengers, just as there are for niche 'worthy' stuff.

A few feet of duct tape around Whelan's gob would do the world a great service. Egotistical prick.

I noted with interest that Ryan on the Bombcast, which has basically tossed this game off almost without question, rapidly appears to be thinking it's not all it's cracked up to be. Last weeks episode had him more or less say he can't be bothered with it. Of course he will, now I've said that, come on tonights edition and say after another week he's in love with it and it's pixels.

Hasn't it been taken as pretty much a given that the away is going to be riff on lime green?

YEah Big Ron said all that on 5Live last night. Pat Murphy just responded with reeling off off how terrible he'd been in cold hard facts.

I've seen a few rumours that he's walked as well.

Martinez is an idealist, and naive. Wouldn't touch him with a bargepole. It's funny his stock rises for keeping lil' ole Wigan in the league, and yet nobody mentions that it's considerably on his head that struggle so much. Wigan are terrible 9 games out of 10.

Took the Lokomotiv Moscow job this afternoon.

What's he saying? Big Ron was making out that McLeish wasn't given a chance and was a good football man who was buggered from the beginning because of the Small Heath thing and because of the team being shit. Pat Murphy basically laid out in no uncertain terms just how unutterably awful his tenure had been and set out his stall as 'The Birmingham thing is a complete red herring'. Then the lot of them laid into Lerner. Interestingly Murphy also basically gave Brendan Rodgers a huge push as who we should be gunning for. He made out Rodgers to be the best thing in football in this country.

Big Ron is talking out of his arse on 5Live with regards McLeish. Pat Murphy is laying the smack down.

Lets just be quietly thankful he's gone.

Like Richard I think the smart move is wait. This is certain a step in the right direction (though you could also argue that it was an obscenely simple decision to make and also arguably shouldn't have been one we needed to make in the first place), but you have to acknowledge that the last... 2 years at least, have just not been good enough. Too many mistakes, too many missteps. The right man, backed smartly this summer... and maybe we can start singing Lerner's praises again. Until then, more to prove.

Yes?

I don't think I said Wigan or Swansea had better squads than us. I think Wigan's squad is largely shit, whilst ours is merely poor, and Swansea have a few decent players but generally you'd figure are a little behind us. Regardless, we need work. McLeish was a hideous poor manager but we also have a poor squad, thin and lacking much in the way of outstanding talent. I also don't think I said either of these teams play like Barca. I didn't actually mention Swansea at all in fact. What I did say was that Martinez insists his teams play 'pretty' football. And suffer for it. I have watched a little of Wigan this season. They were awful. For all that they are a poor side, as is undeniable (and is also undeniable that that is partly down to Martinez's signings... a criticism I did make of the man), they are made worse by the fact he insists on playing this style that rarely works for them. Earlier this season every pundit in the land were saying Wigan were done for, they were woefully bad in defence, couldn't score, and looked hopeless. Martinez had the man who he apparently has a superb relationship with, his boss, just 2 months ago, criticise him publically and quite damningly. Because they were terrible. Thats Martinez's fault. I won't let a miraculous final month of the campaign blind me to the fact his Wigan side are, and have been, under him, usually **** awful. All Martinez has proven is that he can snatch survival from the jaws of relegation at the death a couple of times. Our squad is superior to Wigans... but not by much. And we have to remember that Houllier had a brief fling with tippy tappy football with a far stronger side than we have now, and it didn't work. He achieved more hoofing it and hitting on the break. I also would contest that we have markedly superior finances. Our net spends in recent years have been laughable, money spent came from sales of assets that were never replaced. We seem rather loathe to spend. I contest Martinez would be a failure, an experiment that will doom us. He would arrive and overnight insist we play completely different football, a completely different philosophy that we simply do not have players in experienced in. And he would insist on this above all else. We cannot afford to do that, we must make the most of what we have already and, sadly for some, thats going to be a case of returning to the simple football of countering, getting back to very old school basics. Once we've got that, we can hopefully augment the squad and bring in elements of 'better' football.

Likewise. I can't imagine O'Neill giving the job a glowing reference either. Agreed. I don't think O'Neill would make up Lamberts mind for him (what Faulkner tells him would do that), but I doubt O'Neill would sing Lerners praises.

This is the major issue isn't it. Aston Villa should be a big enough draw for the vast majority of managers in this country and certainly the managers of Norwich, Wigan, Swansea etc. Aston Villa without a pot to piss in though who have been on a rapid descent for two seasons constantly flogging their best players and not supplying the funds to replace them doesn't look too appealing. Paul Lambert strikes me as a very ambitious man. Sadly I think those ambitions and the lack of ambition of Randy Lerner will sadly mean that he won't be joining us. I think he could be a perfect fit for us though with a more ambitious owner. Exactly. He'd walk into a big job, and a hard job, from day one and given previous seasons, would not be given that much cash to do it with (unless Lerner has decided to dump the austerity plan he put in place, which you have to think is unlikely). If I was Lambert I wouldn't touch this job with a bargepole. Times on his side and his star is rising, he can afford to wait for an opportunity better than this. But he'll hear us out just in case there is a chance to put his mark on the club and do something with it, because if that was the case it'd be a fantastic job.

That is one of the problems with the Bible, some of it is, in part or wholly, accurate. It pulls actual events or aspects of them and places them in the context of other happenings, giving the thing a sense of a legitimacy. So when it starts with feeding thousands with 2 loaves and a handful of fish, walking on water, coming back from the dead, sudden appearances of bears to kill troublesome youths... the gullible go 'Hmm... but that bit was right so maybe it all is...'. This is a classic technique in fiction. I'd give an example but the righteous got confused last time.

Julie is your source for all that kind of craziness. I seem to remember reading about the Jehovahs more or less knowing that all the stories are pinched from here and there with the names changed (presumably to protect the identities of those involved or something), but then... ignoring it or something? Now in any other case you'd be able to go 'But that's crazy' and the person would go 'Oh yeah... well, I'm a moron, haha, silly me' but with this kind of crazy they build a load more rubbish around it and ignore the contradiction (or worse acknowledge it but go 'But it doesn't matter cos this bits true'). And dedicate their lives to it. It'd be sad if it wasn't so infuriating.

I would be very surprised if Lambert took the job. I think we'll approach him, and I think he'll be keen to hear what we have to offer him... and then he'll find it not to his liking at all.

Why? Well as Trent noted he'd be an improvement on McLeish, but we could erect a scarecrow in the dugout and see a marked improvement so it's not saying much. The problem with Martinez is he places style over everything. He forces his teams to play in a manner he deems appropriate even when it risks the clubs survival. Lets not forget that, despite their admittedly remarkable resurgence at the end of this season, they were shit for much of it, and they've been shit for much of his reign. And it a lot of comes down to the fact he insists on this style of football that rarely works for them. He's gotten away with it, just about, thus far, but I'm sure Wigan fans would prefer not to snatch survival from the jaws of relegation year on year and I'm convinced they would be more... comfortable if they were managed by someone with a bit of pragmatism. He's also bought a load of rubbish in his time. I don't think we have the players to make the most of his game style, and I think we'd be awful under him as he insisted on a style of football unsuitable for our situation. Given that we're also arguably in a rather fragile position right now (weak squad, lots of work needing doing and, you can assume, not a whole lot to fix it with), I wouldn't want to gamble on him. I think he'd have us lose and lose a lot. No... no thanks to Martinez. I said as much last year, and I think the same now, now amount of miracle turn arounds makes me ignore the fact that his Wigan have been terrible much, much more often than not. And a lot of that is his fault - it's possible to make teams out-perform themselves, O'Neill made his career off it, but it requires simplicity and playing to the strengths you have. Martinez insists his teams play in the manner he wants, not what fits it. Lambert is a better fit for our team imo. We have a team that doesn't suit itself to 'technical' football, a holdover from O'Neill, and Lambert can make use of that and build on it imo.

I'm quite convinced Martinez would be an unholy disaster of an appointment.

I saw that when it was first shown last year, very good watch.

Eh? 27 points is a fair few isn't it? Pah, it's only 9 wins you know... more wins than we got in the entire season mind but still...

It'd need to come with a suicide warning. Or a couple of razor blades and about 6 foot of hemp rope in case the audience feels the need to put themselves out of their misery.

I'm not even sure I get that... curious buzz from the unbrindled er... curiousity... of finding out what the mentalists believe anymore. There is nothing to be learned, theres not even any new astonished glee to be garnered from the incredible outpouring of madness to be had any more. There's been some piqued interest once in a while, the times that the charade falls down and they reveal just what hate filled beliefs they hold and what bigots they are, even the outwardly more respectable ones. But more often than not, it's the same mindless quoting of fictional text, the same chirped arguments that always fail to provide an answer anyone other than the converted would find to be satisfactory, the same wilful obfuscation, the same blindness, the same failings in logic... I don't think there is anything constructive to be earned from entering a dialogue with these people any more. Not even entertainment any longer, you used to be able to laugh at the grown men and women who believe in fairy stories, that jokes worn thin. I think it'd take a proper mental one, a real basket case, to make a debate with someone suffering from religion to be worthwhile. Maybe if one of the non-Abrahamic ones popped up something new might be said, but in my experience of practising Sikhs and Hindus, for example, even if they truly believe and follow the rules and regulations, it has a different flavour to it than the nutter Christians, Muslims and Jews.