Sounds like we put up a fight but still ended up losing. Mpenza looks easily our best striker again and thankfully we have him signed up for next season. We finished in 14th position but still too close to the bottom three and only four points off from 18th. Its been a season of very few goals scored but very sound defensively. It looks likely to be a busy pre-season, with the takeover and the future of Barton probably going to dominate it and speculayion about whether Pearce will be in a job come the start of next season. Strikers should be the focus of bringing in new players along with a creative midfielder and should we get some decent players then we have a higher chance of achieving something in a season. Failure to score anymore goals and relegation will be a more serious threat. Its going to be an unpredictable few months til next season and really anything could happen. £50m to spend on new players from a takeover? Or will we be scrounging around in the bargain basement? Will we get proven strikers? Will SP be manager? Its been a disappointing season and SP's tactics have been bizarre at times and theres still the fear he will buy the wrong players. Most of the players themselves have been disappointing, in particular the likes of Hamann who came with great expectation and Samaras. Corradi has been the signing that has turned out to be the worst so expect him to go and there should be a good few players who are sold or released. One of the few benefits is youth system, where the likes of Johnson, Ireland and Onouha have claimed first team starts on a regular basis and obviously Richards who made the right-back position his own and his England callup. Time for change for next season.
Just got back from the game and I got to admit, despite loosing I'm proud of the boys. Both the Spurs goals were debatable and second half we played them off the park, making a team who have spent tens of millions of pounds this season look very ordinary. Best thing to come out of the game today - Michael Johnson. He headed really good chance over right after we scored but other than that he was awesome. I know he's set up a couple of goals this season but I didn't realise how good he is. He won more tackles than you'd normally see Barton win, and found a blue shirt with every pass he made. Apart from Mpenza, Beasley was our best goal threat - signing him up for next season is a must. Jordan made a load of mistakes unfortunately and showed why we're letting him go. Dunney was imperious as ever. Some guy said to me that Barton's attack was down to frustration at not getting player of the season; Joey lad - you're nowhere near the consistancy of the Dunney Monster. On the whole a bit of a crap season. If we loose Distin and Barton (which looks likely) then I reckon we'll need a takeover to raise the funds to replace them with similar quality, and then address the problems that we've had this season, ie. scoring goals. If we rely too heavily on Mpenza next season he'll just end up getting marked out of the match every game. We showed today how well we can play without Richards, maybe if the Scum are willing to pay £20m for a right back we should cash in and strengthen our squad all over? Just a thought... There were a load of guys having a sneeky ****** in the away end toilets earlier cos your not supposed to smoke in the ground. Some guy walked passed a guy smoking and said 'you know smoking's bad for you'. The smoking guy replied 'so's supporting City', to which the 1st guy said 'yeah, but you can give up smoking'. Too right.