The 2011/12 Gary Speed Memorial Thread

[MDK]

He'll be gone soon, what does it matter? Also, I didn't realise just how much money he's spent on players, that is quite a lot for precisely fuck all won.

[Jimmy]

In fairness, from what I heard De Bruyne wasn't his signing and other than Cahill, Mata and Meireless all those signings are basically investments. I'd say he's done pretty well signings wise when you consider he got Cahill very cheap and Mata has been fantastic. And if/when Lukaku comes good, he's got a good 10-15 years in him, the guy's only 19 after all.

[MDK]

I do hope Chelsea stick with him, if only because its nice to watch them struggle at the moment.

[IAceI]

I liked him before Chelsea, I like him even more now because Talksport absolutely despise him - and I'm predisposed to disagree with everything they say on an account of them always being wrong. He must have turned them down for an interview or something because they want his blood something rotten on every show I hear.

I think every manager would struggle to balance and work out how they are going to juggle Drogba and Torres given their situations. Not to mention the obvious and now almsot clichéd job of clearing out some of the older players ("old guard", trademarked whoever) that he's doing. But it's easier for the presenters to shout about lack of results, question the temerity of wanting to replace Lionheart John Terry and say they would solve Torres' goal drought with an arm around the shoulder/meaty slap to the chops and then proclaim that's what AVB should do and everything would be better.

Quite frankly I'm bored of it and I assume AVB just wants Abramovich to say "Look, he's the manager. He's got time and I know what he wants to achieve." And then AVB can turn around, put his tongue out and say 'nergh nergh' and give all journalists/presenters/wheoever the middle finger.

[Lineker]

I ws listening to talkSport last night. They had concocted the ridiculous notion that Chelsea fans wanted Napoli to beat them tonight so that AVB could be dismissed and the new man would have a chance of turning ir around in the second leg!

[Colly]

Wasn't it randomly reported in a few places that Blackburn fans wanted them to lose so Kean would go? Sometime around the Yakubu 4 goaler?

As I've said many times, football fans as a collective are stupid, simply because sadly the stupidest are often the loudest. I've had running battles on forums trying to explain that hoping Obertan will be shit so that Ben Arfa can play is a tad stupid when hoping Ben Arfa actually plays better would make more sense. Don't get me started on 'I want Shola to fail', or better 'if we sell Tiote we should buy someone worse than Guthrie so he can play'...

Edited February 21, 2012 by Colly

[Lineker]

Reading manager Brian McDermott has emerged as the leading contender to succeed Mick McCarthy as Wolves manager, BBC Sport understands.

BBC Radio Berkshire reports McDermott was in Wolverhampton on Monday to discuss the Molineux post.

Steve Bruce remains in the frame, although Wolves have dismissed reports linking Brighton manager Gus Poyet to the job.

Wolves chief executive Jez Moxey said: "All our options remain open."

Wolves chief executive Jez Moxey said: "All our options remain open."

McDermott, 50, has been in charge of Reading since December 2009 when he succeeded Brendan Rodgers.

The former Arsenal player has steered the Royals to ninth and fifth-placed finishes while they are currently challenging for promotion after winning their last four games without conceding.

McDermott has not managed in the Premier League before, but Reading striker Noel Hunt said he "would not be surprised" if he left.

"They are in the Premier League and every club wants to be there. That is the same for players and managers," Hunt told BBC Radio Berkshire.

"Managers want to test themselves at the highest level against the best teams and if you don't have drive then you won't be very successful.

"We don't want him to go and I'm sure the fans don't want him to go. Everyone loves him, he is loved around the club and he is a very good man."

Wolves owner Steve Morgan had hoped to name a successor to McCarthy, who was sacked on 13 February, before the game away to Newcastle on 25 February.

But Moxey declined to say if they would have a new man in place for the weekend.

"We have been talking to people in and out of current positions all the time," Moxey added. "All our options, including both short-term and long-range possibilities, remain open."

Meanwhile, Wolves caretaker manager Terry Connor is demanding a positive response from the team when they return to action for the first time since McCarthy was sacked.

He said: "We're asking the players to respond positively, like they always have done at bad times, and come back ready for another fight."

Alan Curbishley was interviewed for the Wolves job but the former Charlton and West Ham boss is believed to have dropped out because he and Morgan did not share the same vision for the club.

Neil Warnock was also interviewed but has since taken over at Leeds.

Personally I think that he'd be a fine appointment, if not unproven at this level.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Reading fans will be gutted. He's doing a great job there. I'd love to see them back in the Prem.

[Lineker]

Will end up being him or Bruce. I do feel that he's gone as far as he can with Reading though.

Gazz has a new pariah to hate!

[stokeriño]

It's not as though AVB was "calling Roman out" or anything. He basically acknowledged that the reporters aren't going to believe him when he says it, as evidenced by them repeatedly asking him about it for weeks now. "Stop asking me questions if you won't accept my answers" was he real message.

He goes into more detail further on in his press conference:

'I am really confident for next year but that doesn't take away responsibility for this year. We have started a three-year project to change not only the team but the culture and the structure of the club and there is a lot that we try to do. We are confident for the future but nevertheless we built a team to win trophies from the start and we are still confident we can do well in the Champions League and the FA Cup.

'From the messages from the board and the club recently there is no indication that there is a change in the way we approach the project in the future. There is great belief in what we are going to do next year. Bearing in mind the results that we have been having, speculation is normal based on the cultural past of this football club, but sometimes there is a different perspective and that time is now. With full confidence from the owner I will continue to do my job this year and next year.'

[9 to 5]

I heard Wolves are also looking at Poyet.

[Lineker]

Ryan Giggs has consented to being named as the footballer behind a legal order preventing the publication of details of an alleged extra-marital affair.

Mr Giggs was granted the injunction in April 2011 after a 14 April article in the Sun on an unnamed player's alleged affair with model Imogen Thomas.

Despite the order, Mr Giggs was widely identified. The High Court heard that he had now consented to being named.

It is considering whether he can sue the Sun for alleged breach of privacy.

Mr Giggs had been granted an injunction on the basis that TV presenter Ms Thomas appeared to have been trying to blackmail him.

However, the 2003 Miss Wales and former Big Brother contestant took legal action against him and, in December 2011, Mr Giggs accepted that she had not been blackmailing him.

In court on Tuesday, Mr Giggs's lawyer - Hugh Tomlinson QC - said the injunction that had been supposed to stop his client being identified as the subject of the Sun's story had been breached by thousands of people on the internet.

Mr Giggs, a former Welsh international who has played for Manchester United for 20 years, was widely identified on social networking sites and in a Scottish newspaper.

In May, Lib Dem MP John Hemming also named Mr Giggs during an urgent Commons question on privacy orders.

Using parliamentary privilege to break the court order, he said it would not be practical to imprison the 75,000 Twitter users who had named the player.

Mr Tomlinson said his client was claiming damages from the Sun for the subsequent re-publication of information in other newspapers and on the internet.

"He has suffered damage and distress by the chain of events that has been set off by the publication of the article in the Sun," he said.

"We say the printing of information on the front page of a national newspaper can give rise to an action for misuse of private information."

Mr Tomlinson said the Sun article had "generated a large media storm" and that the damages claim was about "providing effective protection" for Mr Giggs's right to privacy under the European Convention on Human Rights.

For News Group Newspapers - which publishes the Sun - Richard Spearman QC said the newspaper had behaved "entirely properly".

"We didn't identify him. We didn't intend to identify him," he said. "On the damages for publication, it is dead in the water, this case."

Mr Spearman said the Sun had informed Mr Giggs about the article before it was published, giving him an opportunity to seek an injunction.

He said legal action had been "spun along for a long, long time", but Mr Tomlinson said that allegation was "wholly without foundation".

After hearing legal arguments at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, Mr Justice Tugendhat reserved his decision on whether the case should go to trial.

omg!!!!!!!!! Giggsy!!!!

David Weir has returned to Everton as a coach five years after leaving the club for Rangers.

Weir, who made 269 appearances during eight years at Goodison Park, will work with the youth and reserve teams.

The defender, who turns 42 in May, will also be eligible to play for Everton's reserve side.

"He'll help out Alan Stubbs with the reserves and will play in the occasional reserve game," said manager David Moyes.

Weir's return follows that of fellow Scot Duncan Ferguson , who came back to Goodison Park in a coaching capacity in October.

"David did great for us when he was a player here and we are looking forward to being able to work with him again as he starts out in his coaching career," Moyes told the club website .

"It will be good to have him around the place. He is a great professional and someone all the players at the club can look up to."

Weir said it had not been a difficult decision to leave Rangers.

"I'm not sad about it, I'm happy that I got the opportunity to play for such a great club," he said.

"I have so many memories to look back on and I am very proud of that. I wouldn't change it for the world.

"But it's not been a difficult decision - if anything I probably prolonged it."

Sunderland footballer Nicklas Bendtner has been banned from driving for 56 days and fined £660 after he was caught speeding in his Porsche.

The 23-year-old striker was clocked at 103mph on the Woolsington bypass, near Newcastle Airport, in December.

Newcastle magistrates were told he was on his way to the airport and was late for a flight.

The player, who is on loan from Arsenal, was not in court. He had earlier admitted speeding.

The Danish international striker was recorded doing 103.6mph for a distance of 0.137 miles by a police Vascar system installed in a patrol car.

Stupid bellend.

[IAceI]

Just got home in time to hear TalkSport discussing my new favourite subject: Villas-Boas! One of them (can't even be arsed to working out which) still thinks he should be sacked because he talks in riddles, John Terry is injured, and Frank Lampard has lost his form. And it's all because of Villas-Boas.

AVB OUT!

[stokeriño]

I love the idea that being incomprehensible when speaking to journalists is somehow a bad thing. I'd give him a medal just for that.

All AVB needs to do is respond to a journo transfer question with "I suppose you would like me to say he is a 'triffic' player" and I would love him forever.

[Dingle]

To be fair, I do struggle to tell what AVB (and Mourinho too) is on about in post-match interviews.

LEARN THE LANGUAGE OR GET OUT [/englishfa].

[stokeriño]

He speaks English fine. He just mumbles and/or rambles off a bit.

[Dingle]

He speaks English fine. He just mumbles and/or rambles off a bit.

I was just grabbing an opportunity to insult the FA. But I'll take your word for it, he could be speaking jibberish for all I can tell.

[britneyspearsisgod]

He's Portugese. It's not his first language. I dare say he speaks better English than half of the Premier League anyway.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Well I'm PRETTY certain Adrian Durham (the Talksport guy slagging him off) must just start these arguments to play devil's advocate to get people to call in - standard tabloid approach in print, radio or TV. However he's had enough stupid reasoning in his time to make it possible that he's just a moron.

It's worrying when former cricketer Darren Gough seems to be speaking more sense about the AVB situation. Durham was saying "under Mourinho Terry would have played even at 50% but AVB just leaves him out at any sniff of injury" so I had to chuckle when the news announced that Terry is out to have an operation and spend the next six weeks unavailable.

[Matt]

Adrian Durham is a WUM, doesn't make him any less detestable but he is just on a wind-up most of the time. It always amazes me how many Leeds fans bite. Darren Gough actually talks quite a bit of sense or maybe that's just compared to Durham.