ohmelads

Edgar likes scoring against Man Utd doesn't he.

No. What's your point? That we can't blame the club for failing to find defenders, that we had no choice but to start the season with the most unbalanced squad in the Premier League? I see other clubs improving their weakest areas every summer without too much fuss, it's standard practice really. Those clubs live in the real world.

Are you suggesting that Roeder had extra money available for defenders but instead decided to start a Premiership season with what had to be the smallest pool of defenders ever? If that's what happened then Roeder and Shepherd come off looking even worse. Six defenders, three of which are crocks and another of which is Ramage is not going to get you through a season whatever way you look at it. What on earth were they thinking?! Do you really believe Sibierski, Rossi and Bernard arrived as the result of a carefully planned transfer window or as the result of a last-minute panic? They all arrived in the final few hours, close to midnight August 31st. I remember the chronicle article at the time (the one I assume you're quoting regarding Zat Knight) and it painted a sorry picture. Milner in Birmingham ready to sign for Aston Villa and pulled back at the last minute, it was all a mess. How people can defend that transfer window I do not know, we are still reaping the mistakes today.

OK now that we've established - twice - that this is the real world, I still haven't heard a valid argument against spending that £5m on defence instead of Duff. I didn't say spend all of that money on a left back, I don't know where that has come from. Onyewu was way too little way too late and I see his signing as an acknowledgement from the club that they had made a mistake in August. Indeed attack and defence were both urgent priorities back then, £10m was spent on Martins, Sibierski and Rossi were also brought in. In defence - nothing. We began the season with the most unbalanced squad in the league. Strikers tend to be more expensive and that's why I agreed with the signing of Martins. After the Owen injury we were always going to have to spend big up front. But we simply had to put something into defence and that has been proven over the season as we've had something like 7 different right backs and 7 different left backs over the season, that's got to be a record. We were the only club to start the season with such a threadbare defence and when you consider three of our six senior defenders (Carr, Baba and Moore) have major fitness problems, it was never going to be enough to see us through. I'm not talking with the benefit of hindsight as I said all this at the time.

47% !! That would mean half of the stadium are feeling unsafe during a game A lot of people are taking the p*ss surely.

Games are bossed in midfield, but they are won and lost in the final third of the field. We can go on all day with these soundbites, it doesn't mean anything.

Considering Rossi and Sibierski didn't cost us anything, it wouldn't have made any difference. We'd have had them anyway. Are you seriously suggesting that spending £5m on defence would have stopped us pulling off these two brilliant signings?

Something tells me they'll only make the bench at best for the Chelsea game. Here's hoping they're available to start a couple of games before the season is out.

It is a bit far fetched like. You can highlight inaccuracies but you can't just give the points to a team and change the table like that. What if someone deserved a penalty 5 minutes into a 0-0 draw? Do you give them 3 points, even though they'd have 85 minutes to defend that lead? Way too many factors to consider.

There is a big difference between overrated and sh*t. Some fans seem to just lump the two together. Dyer may not be the player he or some in the media think, but he's still a decent Premiership player, dangerous on his day. Why people feel the need to compete him to Scholes or Gerrard all the time I don't know. He may be on big wages but there's nothing we can do about that now. Selling him leaves us with another gap to fill in the squad, we've got enough problems as it is filling gaps in the summer. Talking about his injury problems is a bit desperate considering he's hardly missed a game through injury since he came back. How much do people seriously expect us to get for him anyway?

Surprise surprise, Spurs in the bottom half. It is of course still subjective because there are some decisions which even with the benefit of a replay, are not-clear cut. I wonder if this site gave us 3 points against Arsenal because of the Onyewu penalty claim? You've still got to score the penalty as well. Also fails to take into account the fact that at 1-0 down a penalty might not just earn you a point, but could change the nature of the game completely and an entirely different game could be played out.

I'd like to as well but this Liverpool team is stronger than 2 years ago while the Milan team is weaker than 2 years ago.

Glad you agree it was a total f*ck up then, for a minute I thought you were defending the purchase of Duff over buying available defenders. I agree we needed another striker on top of Martins, it was the highest priority after getting a defender, which without any doubt was the urgent priority by that time. Even after Martins, Rossi and Sibierski were brought in out of desperation but still nobody for the defence. I don't think that £5m would have got us much in the way of strikers. As you point out defenders are cheaper and we could have made greater improvements to our squad there.

No because our current position belies the resources we have at our disposal. Whatever anyone says, it's not normal for one of the richest clubs in the world with the 2nd biggest (now 3rd) attendance in the land to wallow in mid-table season after season. Look at the foreign leagues, it doesn't happen often and it's a surprise when it does. Newcastle is not achieving its potential, so another few seasons of mid-table mediocrity simply isn't acceptable. There are no excuses given our resources and Shepherd and the people he has appointed must take responsibility for that. I don't accept this "face it we're mid-table mediocrity now, 8th would be a good finish next season" crap. I don't see any other clubs with the resources we have underachieving so spectacularly and so consistently. Not here, not anywhere. It's time to stop feeling sorry for ourselves when clubs like Everton and Bolton are challenging Arsenal for 4th. We should be up there and there's no reason why we can't be with the right management set up, Bobby Robson showed us that just a few years ago.

Really? Most clubs in the league have a few decent players on their books. Looking at Fulham's squad at the start of this season I think it was pretty inevitable they would struggle. I remember a lot of people tipping them for relegation at the start of the season.

Come on we all know there were defenders available because we saw them signing for the likes of Portsmouth, Middlesbrough and other clubs. Some have gone on to be good, some haven't, but we all know that Roeder had £5m in his pocket and we know that he spent it on a left winger and left his defence threadbare. The argument you're using could be used to justify any signing in history. As for 'goals win games', goals also lose games and they've lost us a lot of games this season through crap defending. In Europe we scored 4 times and still went out.

Wouldn't be so sure about that with all these foreign investors coming in.

well let's all pack up and go home then. Honestly, what's the f****** point, instead of waiting for the matches to be played, just wait till the end of the financial year and allocate league places accordingly. there's already some c***s treating the financial league table as the league table utter s**** it's sport, not business, FFS Did you read any of my post? It's a question of expectations being related to the size and financial clout of a club. Bigger clubs have bigger expectations, it comes with the territory. What are you going on about league places for? It's difficult to debate with you when it's not clear what we're actually talking about. I think you're just spoiling for an argument so I'll not bother with this one anymore.

Question of semantics. A club which spends more has every right to expect more quality from those spending the money. If we get a player in for 500K, you would probably have low expectations of that player and with good reason because most players transferred for that kind of money are not very good. If we spend £15M, then you have every right to expect some quality to arrive. A club which spends the money Newcastle do should be expected to finish higher and perform better than they are. It's not just Geordies who are saying that, it's everybody - fans of other clubs, managers of other clubs all say we are underperforming. Fact is Coleman did a pretty good job on a shoestring budget and the last thing a club should do to recognise his input is to sack him. They have been ungrateful to their manager because he exceeded expectations. Just as we were ungrateful to Bobby Robson. Coleman made the most of a poor squad and a very limited transfer budget, Saha, Boa Morte and Malbranque were the only classy players he had and all were sold. Fulham were bound to struggle this season.

I think the earlier he's playing competitively the better. There's nothing can prepare you for the real thing. His confidence may get knocked but I'd rather he learns to deal with that now. Given will probably be our keeper for the next 5, 6 or even 7 years. By that time, hopefully, Krul will be a fairly experienced keeper who we can bring straight into the first team.

Depends. In general the player should be held responsible for his own performance. The manager is responsible for how the team is drilled and plays together as a unit, for his tactics and substitutions, and for buying and/or picking that player in the first place. If the player is totally out of position and tries his best to no avail, then normally you would look at the manager and point the finger at him. Sometimes players just have an off day, some will say the manager should motivate them but sometimes these things just happen, they're not machines that can be programmed. Ultimately if a manager is going to be labelled a genius when his team plays well or when an individual saves his arse in the final minute, he must be prepared to take the flak when an individual f*cks up and costs his team a game.

Don't rate him as a manager particularly but losing their best two players (Boa Morte and Malbranque) was always going to affect them, he hasn't had it easy. Bit surprised at this, I wouldn't have thought Fulham could attract a better manager but they obviously feel they can.

It's common sense that you work on your weakest areas of the team/squad if you're looking to improve. Looking at our squad last season I don't know how anybody could say that the left wing position was in greater need of repair than central defence. If you said that at the time people would have thought you were mad or just didn't know much at all about the situation. The fact we had Huntington and Edgar in central defence against West Ham is testament to how much Roeder and Shepherd got it wrong. How many points have we lost this season because of dodgy goals conceded by defenders who were either totally inexperienced or never good enough to play at this level anyway? The panic loan-signing of Gooch is evidence that the club knew they had made a mistake in the transfer market. There are of course other factors to consider. There's an argument that if a bargain comes along, you snap it up and ask questions later, and that's certainly what Newcastle did with Duff. But you do this within reason. If you're skint and desperate for defenders, and signing that player means you'll need to get through a season and 4 competitions with only 6 senior defenders, then you can't make a case for signing him. The opportunity cost is too high, he becomes a luxury signing that you can't afford. Duff became available, we spotted a bargain, bought him and asked questions later. Getting through a season with 6 senior defenders was always going to be a tall order. I bet the likes of Huntington and Edgar knew they had a strong chance of playing this season when the transfer window shut and they saw the squad we were left with.

I almost always support against the English clubs, though there are some Spanish and Italian clubs that I just have no time for, usually because of the antics of their players and/or fans and in those cases I'll support the English side.

Hugo Viana on the bench for Valencia.