Howaythelads

if we are going to spend wads on players i want to see good football. chelsea under jose done it for about 4 month Mate we can play more boring football than we are now and win games under Mourinho! And yes he may hyave spent a wad of cash but lets not forget he did win the league twice as well as the FA and Carling Cups. He is in a different league of management to Allardyce. I know it's all about giving a manager time but if the oppurtunity arises to get Jose and Sam can go to where he wanted to be all along, there would not be a moment's hesitation in my mind! Cant belive people seriusly think Mourinho would come to us, itrs as likely as Kaka/Tevez/Rooney etc wanting to sign for us.. Based on what exactly?

Hope he gets offered the England job and takes it, tbh.

What a senseless bloody argument some are having. Martins and Owen are completely different types of player, having different attributes, both positive and negative.

I have bigger doubts about the ability of FS than I have about Martins, tbh. If it was my money......

Owen is a crock Emre disappears in away matches Martins is a one man band who needs to improve but may not Milner won't ever be better than average I'd be disappointed to see N'Zogiba leave. Agreed. I'd try and keep Martins for another season though. Depends, mate. All we need are replacements who are better and they could go whenever as far as I'm concerned. Fair enough. Just feel with Martins he has some things we can improve and work on. I'd be tempted to give him one more season unless of course a top tier replacement is available and willing. It's an exaggeration but give me a chance to explain.... Martins as a striker is to me like Bramble as a defender. He promises so much. Think about this, Parky. Think about some of the fantastic performances from Bramble, think about the 89 minutes of a solid performance ruined by a single crap decision that cost us a match. Both players have tremendous attributes for their relevant positions but both suffer from poor decision making in my opinion. In the case of Bramble it costs a team goals conceded. In the case of Martins it costs a team chances and goals scored. Ultimately it costs the same thing, football matches. Martins is a one-man band, there's no doubt about it. He lacks awareness of what is going on around him so he makes poor decisions at critical moments. He must improve on this otherwise there will always be that frustration with him as a team player. Individually he needs too many chances to score a goal, something masked by the spectacular. There is bags of potential in Martins but there is also plenty of room for improvement, perhaps he has the right attitude to do it. I hope so.

You still here....

Owen is a crock Emre disappears in away matches Martins is a one man band who needs to improve but may not Milner won't ever be better than average I'd be disappointed to see N'Zogiba leave. Agreed. I'd try and keep Martins for another season though. Depends, mate. All we need are replacements who are better and they could go whenever as far as I'm concerned.

Owen is obviously a much better all-round team player than Martins and is also a more clinical finisher. However, he's also a crock and I'm fed up with it. Ultimately we could do with getting rid of both unless Martins improves. Martins reminds of Varardi by needing about 6 chances to score 1 goal, other than the spectacular stuff. He also reminds me of Macdonald because of the one man band stuff. He needs to get his head up more often and improve his general team play. If he doesn't do these things then I'd shift him as well.

Firstly I acknowledged, in a further post, the point about Newcastle and the Euro ban was missing the point so to speak. Take responsibility? We do to a certain extent, but the assertions we are 100% to blame are pure fantasy. If you think I am not willing to accept a share of the blame I suggest you re read my posts. With regard to responsibility and Hillsborough....You must have missed where I clearly stated there were errors made by the Police. When it comes to Heysel as far as I'm concerned it's 100% down to Liverpool supporters. Despite these events (and others) here you are continuing to go to matches without tickets and believing it's ok to try to "blag your way into the ground." That's a crap attitude mate, and is one that seems common among supporters of Liverpool. It can only lead to future problems. If you don't have a ticket don't go to the match.

the problem is we're not in europe. this means that the calibour of players we can attract will be less, and any very good players we can attract will want much more than they are worth. who is out there who is worth 20million and would play for a midtable club? cant think of anyone, and i really dont want us to just throw our money about at average players like we did last time. everyone complained about the last regime apart from a couple yet here you're saying ashley should de exactly what shepheard did. i'd like us to do what citeh are doing, and signing underated players for not much money and building a team that way that could attract big names. Ashley will have to financially back the manager as well as the previous Board did otherwise we will have no chance. What will matter than is whether the manager is the right man or not. he will but read my above post, i have no problems with us spending 30mill in jan as long as the players we buy are worth 30mill and want to come here to play football. Couldn't agree more.

the problem is we're not in europe. this means that the calibour of players we can attract will be less, and any very good players we can attract will want much more than they are worth. who is out there who is worth 20million and would play for a midtable club? cant think of anyone, and i really dont want us to just throw our money about at average players like we did last time. everyone complained about the last regime apart from a couple yet here you're saying ashley should de exactly what shepheard did. i'd like us to do what citeh are doing, and signing underated players for not much money and building a team that way that could attract big names. Ashley will have to financially back the manager as well as the previous Board did otherwise we will have no chance. What will matter than is whether the manager is the right man or not.

Owen is a crock Emre disappears in away matches Martins is a one man band who needs to improve but may not Milner won't ever be better than average I'd be disappointed to see N'Zogiba leave.

wot he said....

Christ this bloke is still banging on and on, writing the longest whinges since HTT's epics. By the way, your point about the Euro ban having no impact on Newcastle is frankly a very stupid one and is a quite feeble attempt to sidestep the point. Everybody realises though that you do this quite naturally because as is typical of your kind you continue to fail to take responsibility for your actions.

Was not the only time it happened I am sorry to say. People tried similar at Eindhoven in the quarter final. Only 1600 tickets and the tickets were identical to when we played them in the group stage which didn't help. One had 12-09-2006 the other had 03-04-2007, both tiny in the bottom corner. Apart from that they were carbon copies! Club screwed the independent travellers over (myself included) an gave all the tickets to official tours. So loads were trying (myself included) to get in on the group stage ticket. When I got fucked off, as everyone else did trying the same, I went to the bar. A group just tried to push the crowd forward but the away metal compound you go into at Eindhoven is as 'bunk proof' as you get. A couple of people at the front were lucky to not get seriously injured. It pisses most of our fans off that these pricks wear the justice stickers etc then do this. Don't mind anyone trying to blag in but trying to force your way in is just stupid, not to mention potentially dangerous. Same in Athens. One of our lads got in on a ripped up pepsi cup! But if he was stopped he would not have forced in. Just the same bunch of pricks who always do the forcing, knocking over women stewards and robbing tickets off their own fans, the 18-25 'fuck you I will do what I want' brigade. When people see this it is understandable that they think we are hypocrites. But it is these 18-25 gobshites who fuck things up. Our support has gone downhill since Istanbul, particularly the 'big' euro aways such as Barca etc where every twat comes out the woodwork and behaves like a tool! Also this aggression amongst scouse lads to non local supporters who have 'robbed their ticket'. So yes these knobheads don't exactly help. However while I don't condone what these people did in Athens, a proper stadium that actually had turnstiles and proper ticket checks would have sorted it out. We have acknowledged our part of the blame. Just a shame UEFA don't fuckin acknowledge theirs. a, by choosing a stadium with unfit security procedures b, holding it in a tin pot country again just like they are this season and c, the corporate hijack of tickets which created that situation. Does not excuse the behaviour of these knobheads. But if the tickets were given to the two teams involved in the match, then that would not have happened. And to think it was nearly Man U v Liverpool final! Would have been ten times as bad! It's always someone else's fault with you twats. You lot simply refuse to take responsibility for your actions. The bit in bold sums up the Liverpool support very well and is why you cause incidents almost everywhere you go. If you don't have a ticket, don't bloody well go. Getting the whole country banned from European football and setting us back years hasn't made any impression on you lot, has it. You still cause trouble all over the show.

Wouldn't want Crouch but I would sell Owen.

Tbh I don't have the foggiest idea if the bit in bold is true or not. I've never had any interest in how much an Italian or Spanish club pays to sign up young players nor would I know where to look for that kind of information. Even if I did, I wouldn't bother looking. It is true though that our own young players are over-hyped and do move on for daft fees, so I agree with that bit.

Don't agree mate. If you look at previous decades at short periods when the England team has been decent there has been a spine of genuine class players. We don't have that right now. If I can be bothered I may look up some team selections during periods when we weren't bad, but just looking at '66 through to '70 I'm talking players of the calibre of Banks, Moore, Charlton etc. We just don't have that level of comparative quality these days. Even going back to 1990, the team then had players like Beardsley, Waddle, Lineker, Pearce, Shilton, Gazza, Walker, Platt.....all of which would be in the England team now, yes I'd put Beardsley and Lineker before Rooney and Owen. [although I wouldn't dispute that Rooney is worthy to step into Beardo's shoes, I'm talking more of a partnership). Only Gary Neville and John Terry of the current team would get into that England team IMO. It's an absolute and total myth that foreign players have improved English players. The top class ones have given glamour to and enhanced the premiership ie Zola, Henry etc, but overall they have stunted their growth. Topical - watching the under 21's now, and Theo Walcott looks every inch the player Keyring Dire dreamed of being, but never will be in a million years. He's finished. His crap attitude has cost him his career, he's wasted it. James Milner has just scored a penalty after Walcott was brought down. It's well recognised that Banks, Charlton and Moore were Englands top 3, true World Class players. I would add Ray Wilson to that list too. Where England really scored was that the players all played to their best, in their most comfortable positions, and the overall balance and shape of the team suited everybody. Some people also say we won because we were at home. This was a big factor, but I think England could have won that cup anywhere in Europe. We were certainly the 2nd best team in the world 4 years later, by which time the Brazilians had found themselves again and had the best international team that has ever won that competition in my lifetime anyway. I think the biggest football travesty of all time is that the Dutch team from 1973 to 1978 won nowt, they were the best team for that period and how they didn't win the World Cup in '74 and again in '78 tells the story that the best team doesn't always win. That Dutch team against the Brazil team of 1970 would have been a spectacle to behold and England would have been in the mix at that time. In 1970 England weren't far behind Brazil both individually and collectively, it would have been a very competitive final in 1970 had it been England versus Brazil and we may have won, the teams were that close. Overall, for a number of years we were a benchmark for the rest even though we only won it in 1966. While I'm comparing players of today against players of the past I'm doing it in the context of comparing the current players against those of other nations right now and it's clear that we just don't get close individually. We could always fluke something, of course. Like Greece. Not an expert on the 1966 world cup squad and football at the time, but there's no way I could see an England manager being strong enough to leave out an individual like Greaves (for example Rooney in the present team) for the benefit of the team. Recent managers just seem to be too blinded by individuals and not thinking about the pattern of the team. That's 'cos of the media hype of the PL I'm on about.

Don't agree mate. If you look at previous decades at short periods when the England team has been decent there has been a spine of genuine class players. We don't have that right now. If I can be bothered I may look up some team selections during periods when we weren't bad, but just looking at '66 through to '70 I'm talking players of the calibre of Banks, Moore, Charlton etc. We just don't have that level of comparative quality these days. Even going back to 1990, the team then had players like Beardsley, Waddle, Lineker, Pearce, Shilton, Gazza, Walker, Platt.....all of which would be in the England team now, yes I'd put Beardsley and Lineker before Rooney and Owen. [although I wouldn't dispute that Rooney is worthy to step into Beardo's shoes, I'm talking more of a partnership). Only Gary Neville and John Terry of the current team would get into that England team IMO. It's an absolute and total myth that foreign players have improved English players. The top class ones have given glamour to and enhanced the premiership ie Zola, Henry etc, but overall they have stunted their growth. Topical - watching the under 21's now, and Theo Walcott looks every inch the player Keyring Dire dreamed of being, but never will be in a million years. He's finished. His crap attitude has cost him his career, he's wasted it. James Milner has just scored a penalty after Walcott was brought down. It's well recognised that Banks, Charlton and Moore were Englands top 3, true World Class players. I would add Ray Wilson to that list too. Where England really scored was that the players all played to their best, in their most comfortable positions, and the overall balance and shape of the team suited everybody. Some people also say we won because we were at home. This was a big factor, but I think England could have won that cup anywhere in Europe. We were certainly the 2nd best team in the world 4 years later, by which time the Brazilians had found themselves again and had the best international team that has ever won that competition in my lifetime anyway. I think the biggest football travesty of all time is that the Dutch team from 1973 to 1978 won nowt, they were the best team for that period and how they didn't win the World Cup in '74 and again in '78 tells the story that the best team doesn't always win. That Dutch team against the Brazil team of 1970 would have been a spectacle to behold and England would have been in the mix at that time. In 1970 England weren't far behind Brazil both individually and collectively, it would have been a very competitive final in 1970 had it been England versus Brazil and we may have won, the teams were that close. Overall, for a number of years we were a benchmark for the rest even though we only won it in 1966. While I'm comparing players of today against players of the past I'm doing it in the context of comparing the current players against those of other nations right now and it's clear that we just don't get close individually. We could always fluke something, of course. Like Greece.

Don't agree mate. If you look at previous decades at short periods when the England team has been decent there has been a spine of genuine class players. We don't have that right now. If I can be bothered I may look up some team selections during periods when we weren't bad, but just looking at '66 through to '70 I'm talking players of the calibre of Banks, Moore, Charlton etc. We just don't have that level of comparative quality these days.

The players are over-rated due to the hype of the Premier League. In my opinion.

It seems some will clutch at any straw...

if he has to play square pegs in round holes - for now with the players he has - then playing zoggy wide right and Martins wide left is by far a better option than playing Milner, IMO, until we buy a player to replace Solano. I'm not sure NE5 - I like milner. I just think the quality of football is so poor that his choice of wingers is almost immaterial. We never play them into the game, we hardly ever have the full backs overlapping and we always seem to get the ball to the half way line and then punt it up top - almost always from Rozy or a full back. The two first choice wingers at the minute (Jimmy and Zog) have very different qualities and the Zog has it in him to beat a man and whip in a cracking cross, whereas Milner's a bit more of a battler who can cut it but neither of them will make any impact until we get the ball to their feet and have some movement around them. It's all a bit static at the minute which makes his decision to drop Beye/Enrique even more baffling to me. At least they seem able to overlap and get back into position when needed. Can't see anything in Milner, tbh. He won't turn out good enough for what we want. I'm hoping Duff returns and rediscovers some form. In that case, I'd go with Duff on the right and Zog on the left.

Still photo's make this look worse than it actually was.