leeds have to keep hold of snodgrass or we are even more doomed than i thought. crunch game today against birmingham.

Obviously a crunch game for Simon Grayson

Replaced by warnock?

possibly but the manager is not the one i want replacing right now. master bates should get out now.

When you put it like that I cant help but picture him in charge of a ship full of people with double entendres for names. Seaman Staines, Roger the Cabin Boy etc..

Come to think of it he does kinda resemble one captain I can think of

12 points ahead of Arsenal, boy this feels good

Warnock would be a good replacement but I agree, the problem is with master Bates.

Check out this brilliant quote from 'Arry's autobiography from 1998

Carl turned out to be a massive success for us. Opposing defences couldn't handle him. But off the field he didn't have a clue. The first week he got paid he came to my office and accused me of fiddling him.
"You told me I'd be getting £250 a week but I'm only getting £190," he complained.
"That's your tax and stuff," I said.
He looked at me accusingly. "You didn't tell me anything about this."
"That's your income tax," I said, amazed. "Everyone in the country has to pay it. When you went to work before you joined us you must have paid tax, didn't you?"

Page 74 of Harry Redknapp: My Autobiography published in 1998 by CollinsWillow

Apparently the Royal Bank of Scotland football team are playing the Natwest football team this weekend, I might just go along and boo everybody.

I love this court drawing as well, apparently harry redknapp is being represented by Barry Hearn?

There's a whole industry of Arry quotes. Hard to think some of them haven't come back to bite him, especially since the Terry and Suarez thing.

On West Ham striker John Hartson:
"John Hartson's got more previous than Jack the Ripper."

On West Ham's Ivory Coast striker Samassi Abou:
"He don't speak the English too good."

And there's more...
"The lad [Abou] went home to the Ivory Coast and got a bit of food poisoning. He must have eaten a dodgy missionary or something."

On tactics:
"I sorted out the team formation last night lying in bed with the wife. When your husband's as ugly as me, you'd only want to talk football in bed."

On a training ground bust-up between West Ham players Alvin Martin and Matthew Rush:
"I've seen better fights at a wedding."

On West Ham's UEFA Cup chances:
"Where are we in relation to Europe? Not too far from Dover."

On his time as a West Ham winger in the '60s:
"Even when we had Moore, Hurst and Peters, West Ham's average finish was about 17th. Which just shows how crap the other eight of us were."

On signing pretty boy 'Portugeezer' winger Dani:
"My missus fancies him. Even I don't know whether to play him or f**k him."

On under-performing foreign signings:
"With the foreigners it's more difficult. Most of them don't even bother with the golf, they don't want to go racing. They don't even drink."

On the danger of signing players from videos:
"I tape over most of them with Corrie or Neighbours. Most of them are crap. They can f***ing make anyone look good. I signed Marco Boogers off a video. He was a good player but a nutter. They didn't show that on the video."

On missing out on the signing of a global superstar he had on trial at Upton Park:
"Andrei Shevchenko didn't pull up any trees."

On Southampton striker Kenwyne Jones:
“He took a knock on his ankle but we played him some Bob Marley reggae music and he was fine.”

On wayward Tottenham striker Darren Bent:
“You will never get a better chance to win a match than that. My missus could have scored that one.”

On even more wayward Portsmouth striker Benjani:
“After shooting practise yesterday, I had to drive up the M27 and collect four balls.”

On Iain Dowie:
"By the look of him he must have headed a lot of balls"

On referee Steve Tanner (in 2008):
“I never walk in after games and complain about a referee but this guy is scary.”

On Arsenal being reduced to 10 men against Southampton:
“Van Persie obviously thought ‘why take the piss out of poor old Southampton? I’ll get sent off and make a game of it’.”

On England's World Cup 2010 campaign:
“The future for England looks a bit scary to me. No one should kid themselves England are overloaded with fantastic talent coming through. They’re not.”

On wheeler dealing:
“The sad part is that the ones who do well want to go, but you cannot move the ones who are useless.”

well suprised about Capello going!
last thing we need before the euros, and this kind of rules out Redknapp becoming england boss too.
No way spurs will let him go untill the end of the season, and the fa will want a manager in with proper time to prepare.

Maybe Stewart Pearce after all??

Fucking hell, what!?!? Definitely didn't see that coming.

Personally I think Fabio should've been sacked when we were eliminated from the World Cup, but this leaves everything up in the air. Wow!!!! I can see Pearce acting as temporary manager before Redknapp takes over in the summer - assuming he wants it at all, which is a massive assumption. What a swerveball! Switching on Talksport now to enjoy the fallout.

i dont see who else could take it over. would that means he leaves spurs then?

Great news about Capello. It's not as if we had a chance in hell of winning Euro '12 under him, so his going isn't going to make any difference from that point of view. I look forward to seeing someone in charge of the England team who sees football as an art, not a science.

Thats what England needs, a fackin wheelerdeeler

i've asked my spurs colleague if he would rather spurs keep harry, get 3rd and champions league football, or redknapp goes to england and we win the euro12
he hasn't answered me yet

i work in local government and it is common practise to suspend someone on full pay if they are subject to an investigation, especially around racially abusing someone. So Terry being stripped of the captaincy while the investigation is ongoing isn't really that unusual or wrong.
It would be wrong if he were found to be innocent and was not reinstated

Also, the FA are saying they wont rule out a foreign national for the england manager's job, however "an Englishman or British person would have a good start"
Is that legal? to base an employment decision on someones nationality?

The legality of biasing one nationality over another is something I wonder about, too. But then if a player can be excluded on the same grounds then, from a purely legal perspective, I suppose it's the same for managers. It does seem out of step with general work practices, though.

do you mean redknapps dog?

I'm just glad, if he does take the job, that he'll not be dealing in the transfer market. England would be in administration within a year.

I just want someone to calculate how many immigrants we could have paid benefits to and housed using his total salary, and I bet theyd all make more of an effort with the language than he did.

Turns out England caretaker manager Stuart Pearce racially abused Paul Ince. We may as well just give up and hand the job to Paolo Di Cania.



























































... or Holly Willoughby

How long can Abramovich persist with AVB? I'm not one for knee jerk responses when it comes to managers but the guy does seem totally out of his depth. I'm sure he'll improve in a few years but right now he seems like a liability.

Holly Willoughby should/would definitely get it

I cant see how he can sack AVB. I agree he is looking pretty dodgy but how could he attract anyone else to the role if he goes after 1/2 a season? Abbramovic's track record with managers is pretty poor. rather than keep sacking them he should show a bit of faith and keep someone for a few seasons to build a team

I agree that Abramovich is sort of lumbered with him now but if Chelsea fail to make the Champions League I think he'll be sacked. But obviously the real problem there is with the generation of players who've past their prime and yet still have massive influence. Until Terry goes, especially, I can't see a way forward for any manager - unless they make Terry himself manager.

Its hard to see what Chelsea will do, Abramovich staked so much on employing AVB that to sack him would be a colossal admission of culpabilty on his part.
I wonder if all these training ground appearences were actually an attempt by Abramovich to get the players on AVB's side to try and save the season? I guess we'l find out if they get knocked out by Napoli.

Even if they lose, I don't see the point in sacking him three months before the end of the season, but I think they'll have to win the Champions League outright for him to still be in place next season.

For references to the commitment of football clubs to secure business, please see this exchange of letters

So, The Special One's been seen wandering around London looking to buy a family home but rules out any return to Chelsea. Looks like it might be Spurs after all.

How about Millwall? Charlton Athletic? QPR? Wimbledon FC?

News just in, Villas Boas sacked from Chelsea. To be replaced by Di Matteo till the end of the season.

As big a cunt as Suarez clearly is, I can't help loving him. His expression when he tries to pull his sock down is amazing.

i cant decide who is the bigger bellend, el hadji diouf or suarez.

No comparison for me. From what I've read, Suarez is only a cunt on the pitch whereas Diouf is meant to be a nasty piece of work in general. And Suarez is far and away the better player.

Its half time at Arsenal, and theyre 3-0 up. Got to admit, im quite enjoying it. I imagine the Milan fans are getting Istanbul 2005 flashbacks.

It was a fantastic game. I really thought Arsenal would pull it off but they just seemed to run out of steam towards the end - although Van Persie nearly nicked it at the end.

Anyone watch the QPR documentrary on the BBC over the weekend? Genuinely depressing account of how money, and the people who chase it, are ruining English football. If you can, catch it on the iPlayer; easily the best documentary about the current game that I've seen.

And who will replace AVB in the summer? Supposedly there's a shortlist drawn up of the main candidates.

Jose Mourinho - Favourite with the bookies but the rumour is that he's burnt too many bridges there to ever go back.

Pep Guadiola - Can't see it. He'll stay at Barcelona for at least another season

Rafa Benitez - The most likely although I don't think the Chelsea fans want him.

Fabio Capello - A better choice than his England experience suggests. Brilliant club manager but would he put up with Abramovich's meddling?

David Moyes - He'd be a great move but again, would he put up with Abramovich and would the Chelsea board and the fans see him as too unambitious an apointment.

Gus Hiddink - Abramovich wants him but he's making too much money already in Russia.

Personally I think it'll be Benitez

More important to me is which players will get cleared out. First and foremost, and I honestly can't believe I'm saying this, we need to get shot of JT, his ego is seriously damaging to the club and he's going to be an obstacle to the success of any manager who comes in unless they're prepared to suck his dick each day before training. *

(Used the word and three times in one sentence, haven't done that since the age of 8, I'm sure)

And Lampard has been past his best for some years now - if someone is willing to pay megabucks for him, it's time to take the money and run.

I'm sure there are loads of others who I scratched my head when they were signed and they've not done anything to exceed my expectations, but Stamford Bridge is more soap opera than football club these days, and I've partly lost track of who a lot of the incidental characters are.




* I just read the previous page of the thread and saw that I'm basically repeating what Demonrail's already said. I can't beleive I'm agreeing with a West Ham fan on football matters!