Official Premiership 2008/09 thread

[AJ]

Sunderland fans will be fuming. With the takeover happening it paves the way for a big-name (or at least decent) manager to come in. Plus Quinn said he'd make sure the club took it's time over choosing a new manager and days later they're in talks? With a geordie no less.

[METALMAN]

Coyle's a fan of the soapdodgers though so it's fairly understandable that he might go to selleck. But yeah, he shouldn't. It's a coward's way out.

[Matt]

lol, the mirror.

I'm looking through the BBC's gossip column and here are some of the stories reported by the mirror:

Villa have enquired about David Bentley

Middlesbrough have put Stewart Downing up for sale but only to a top 4 club

Alan Shearer wants £15-20m to spend next season.

[stokeriño]

But David Bentley = English! And Villa = Villa!

The correlation is clear.

Besides, maybe Bentley would like a change of scene. Instead of sitting on the bench watching Aaron Lennon play every week, he could sit on the bench watching James Milner play every week.

[cmb211087]

and obviously Villa would now turn into his boyhood club just like Spurs did. not that I am bitter or anything.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Just cos Blackburn are NO-ONE'S boyhood club you cantankerous old man.

[9 to 5]

Just cos Blackburn are NO-ONE'S boyhood club you cantankerous old man.

Two of our first team players supported Rovers as kids, so .

[therockbox]

So where's Michael Owen going then? Is there really a manager out there mad enough to sign him?

[stokeriño]

QPR?

[Matt]

He needs to go somewhere with a good medical team, I can't see the top 4 or Villa wanting him, Everton are up there with Newcastle and West Ham in terms of injury problems, Spurs don't need him, so Fulham, Bolton, Blackburn, Portsmouth, etc: look the best bets. Who'd have thought we'd be saying this 10 years ago?

[Bigal]

Portsmouth's takeover means they could throw money at him if that's what it takes, so my guess is there.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Spurs have NEVER had a good medical team so Owen going there would be awful for both parties.

[METALMAN]

Darren Anderton heartily disagrees with that.

[9 to 5]

I don't think Big Sam and Owen are BFF so he won't be coming here.

[IAceI]

I don't think Sunderland have even said they're talking with Bruce. As said, they want to take their time. Wigan have said they want £5m for him, that he's in talks and not long after Sunderland turned round and said "..no, that's not true." So whatevers being written in the Sun that people are reading into is probably 500% more overblown than that.

We'll take a bit more time, Bruce would no doubt find us some decent gems and really turn us around. And he's not really going any further with Wigan, it's take a very big effort from them to get a European place, the scope with Sunderland will be much bigger as it stands - but I don't particularly want him, but he'd be better than Strachan. It's quite funny, my friend seems to think Strachan and Bruce would amazing managers for me and I always reply with "don't want 'em," because I don't. Aim higher for God's sake, it's a very delicate situation a manager replacement to turn round and just go "he's doing okay, we'll have him." is just suicidal and stupid.

Apparently we've ruled out Strachan as well. Which is good, his CV primarily based on success in a 2 team league, in which this year they finished 2nd in, hardly fills me with confidence.

I can't see us appointing Bruce any time soon if we do go with him, it'll be a little while yet. Really can't see it being in the next couple of days, people seem to have assumed Bruce is currently signing our new players or something becuase it's what a newspaper need to print with a few extra inches to fill. I'm not saying we won't go for Bruce.. but there's quite a way to go yet.

Also as a side note, with Newcastle dropping down does that mean Sunderland now have the 3rd largest stadium in the Premiership? Old Trafford, Emirates, Stadium of Light? If only we had the sort of team that deserved to play at such a beautiful structure.

[stokeriño]

Also as a side note, with Newcastle dropping down does that mean Sunderland now have the 3rd largest stadium in the Premiership? Old Trafford, Emirates, Stadium of Light? If only we had the sort of team that deserved to play at such a beautiful structure.

According to wiki, yes. And apparently they're going to enlarge it?

Fuckers. Some of us have teams in the middle of the city with no space to expand. :@

[IAceI]

There's like 4.5k empty seats on average as it is. We could just about fit a Carlisle home support into that if they're playing Hereford or something. Pointless to expand it, if we had less than k empty then fine, but it'll just look empty if they went any bigger.

49k as it stands is fine, 43.5k average or so is very respectable for the season we've just had. Passionate fans, but any bigger is getting silly - for now.

[9 to 5]

Apparently we've ruled out Strachan as well. Which is good, his CV primarily based on success in a 2 team league, in which this year they finished 2nd in, hardly fills me with confidence.

Strachan won 3 titles in 4 years with Celtic. O'Neill won 3 in 5. And Strachan had far more CL success than O'Neill, who did to be fair lead them to an UEFA cup final. All in all, not much differance between them both up there and I bet you would take O'Neill in a heartbeat.

[stokeriño]

Wiki claims it has plans to 'eventually' (...key word) go up to 69.5k.

That's nine thousand more than the Emirates.

All I can say is...lol.

[Hobo]

So where's Michael Owen going then? Is there really a manager out there mad enough to sign him?

Perhaps the MLS?