ohmelads

How many times has Shepherd contradicted himself though? ("the fans will be pleasantly surprised at what comes from the Woodgate sale" etc). It would be a massive loss of face but this is a man who embarrasses himself almost every time he opens his mouth and will happily lie time and time again in front of the watching media. What worries me is that Shepherd can be suite stubborn, as he was about sacking Souness. He may hang on with Roeder until he has absolutely no choice but to sack him, and we haven't reached that stage yet. He's a few defeats from the sack in the summer and a few wins from earning himself another season as far as I can see. As farcical as it sounds, I think these handful of games will answer the question of whether he'll be here in August. Afterall he was given the job in the first place based on a handful of games. My gut feeling is he will still be here sadly. I'm not sure Newcastle can afford another year of mismanagement. The club survived Souness and now Roeder but how long can we last throwing money and points away before we are staring relegation in the face? If Roeder does leave us in the summer, the only thing I can be thankful for is that he didn't waste too much money, nor did he sell any important players. For me, he's done a bit better than Souness but has ultimately failed to demonstrate that he has what it takes to move this club forwards.

Considering Martins' attributes, he plays a lot deeper than he should. A player with his pace, strength and dribbling abilities should be playing off the shoulder of the last defender while the midfielders slip in through balls or dink cheeky passes over the top, or the wingers get in behind the full back and square it to him. It's true he doesn't get in the box enough and he could work the flanks Henry-style a bit better. But when was the last time you saw our wingers or midfielders playing these sorts of balls? Yesterday we never looked like creating let alone scoring. N'Zogbia and Dyer are the only players who beat the full backs, occasionally Milner too. Yet Zoggy and Milner were on the bench and Dyer was up front. Solano had a great spell around Christmas but he's had a long hard season and clearly needs a rest. Duff is best when running at defenders at pace but I can't remember the last time he did this. Truth is if Martins wants the ball he has to drop deep. You could argue that strikers should be patient and always stay up front but I'm sceptical whether he'd have had a touch of the ball all game if he had. I saw him yesterday try to get up front on a few occasions and beat the offside trap, but someone launched a long ball straight to the centre back while Martins tried desperately to outjump them. This was happening all game. Is it any surprise that the only times he gets the ball to his feet are when he retreats towards the halfway line and makes himself available for the simple pass? I honestly believe Michael Owen wouldn't have made a jot of difference to yesterday's performance or indeed any of our recent few games and for me that's the scariest thing about it. He'd have been running around to totally overcooked passes, challenging for high balls and dropping deep in a desperate attempt to somehow get involved in play. One player isn't going to change things, that's wishful thinking. The timing of this thread is bound to affect the responses. Perhaps I should set up a similar thread after Martins bags a few and Crouch is having a dry spell? It's not a good time to get objective responses from people.

He misses far too many chances to be called an instinctive finisher for me, Parky. Are you on about Martins or Crouch? That comment could be applied to either of them. I think if you put Crouch in the Newcastle side he'd struggle. He's playing for a side sitting third in the Premiership table who dominate most of their games and create plenty of chances for their strikers. They're tactically sound with a top class management set up and they play to their strengths, which means when Crouch is on they play balls that suit him and play around him. Yesterday we didn't play to any strengths because we have an amatuer setup where no tactics can be seen out on the field. Martins and Dyer, perhaps the smallest strike force in the league, were asked to challenge big centre halfs for high balls all day or run around for misplaced passes. Martins has had a huge weight on his shoulders this season. He's effectively had to carry us in the absence of Owen and Ameobi, our only other recognisable strikers (Sibierski and Dyer have never had a strike rate to speak of). Ask Crouch to be the sole man responsible for getting us goals all season and I think you'd be left pretty frustrated. Truth is Martins has more in his locker than Crouch and has a few years on him to boot, but Crouch plays for a much better, much more organised team who play to his strengths and know how to use him. Martins in that sense joined the wrong club. If we don't sort ourselves out he will inevitably move on to a better side and then try comparing him to Peter Crouch.

Graeme Souness: "He's a proper chicken"

Yeah but we weren't playing away from home today. Parker and Butt didn't work, doesn't work and never will work. Emre is our best, arguably our only attacking central midfielder and at home, needing some spark, I was amazed he didn't play at all today. Madness from Roeder.

Spot on. This is the most disillusioned I've felt for a long time. Worse than I felt when Souness was dragging us backwards at an alarming rate. At least under Souness there was the feeling that 'at least one day he'll go and that'll lift everyone' but to see Shepherd give Roeder the job sickened me. This time around there's just no light at the end of the tunnel, the chairman messed it up with Souness, messed it up with Roeder and he'll do it again. While Shepherd's around we will always have a dodgy managerial setup, poor scouting and a cheap defence.

We haven't scored a league goal since February 10th. The performances concern me more than the results at the moment. If we were playing alright but not getting the breaks I could kid myself this team and this manager could take us somewhere some day. But I can't remember the last time we had a performance to be proud of. Today the team lacked balance, guts, passion, organisation, creativity, everything. We couldn't even get the basics right. There were seemingly no tactics in place at all. As the whole stadium chanted "there's only one James Milner", Roeder finally brings him on to a chorus of cheers, only to take off Solano who had been one of our better players and who has shown to work well with Milner. Understandably the fans were furious. Roeder took so long to make any changes when they were urgently needed and when he did made totally the wrong moves. Why wasn't Dyer moved or brought off earlier as he was totally out of the game? Why did Carr stay on the field but Solano didn't? Where was Emre? Roeder has almost a full squad to choose from, he has run out of excuses. I expect him to try and lower fans' expectations now, but the performances don't show anything to get optimistic about. More than the results it's the piss-poor performances week-in week-out that are getting my back up. We look scarily like the Newcastle side in the run up to Souness' sacking, there's just nothing there.

I've heard from a reliable source it's Owen, Martins and Given.

In the Premiership it says he's only won 17 out of 45 games. Statistics can prove anything. What if I said that this season he's lost 30% more games than he's won? It's not worth including all those intertoto games against Latvian teams and what-not.

I think he'll do better when Owen's around as Owen will always be under the most pressure of any player at this club due to his world class reputation, enormous price tag and the length of time he's been out. Owen has coped with that pressure all his career. That'll take a lot of the pressure off Martins, even though Martins has had a great first season for us carrying our attack alone on many occasions. People are concerned the two might not work together. My main worry isn't those two but the service that they get. I can't think many defenders would be happy marking those two for 90 minutes. So much movement, two players who can run at defenders or peel off the shoulder of the last man, one a world class finisher the other with a rocket of a long range shot. Martins has been marked out of many games because people know he's dangerous, but put him alongside Owen and one of them is going to get space. I actually thought Martins would play a lot further up the pitch but it seems he likes to drop deep and get involved in the approach play. I feel he'd be more affective pushing up and playing off the last man, but when Owen is fit it won't necessarily be a bad thing that Martins likes to drop deep while Owen plays the offside trap.

There will always be question marks over players who look alright in a mint team then drop down to an average team. He's looked good whenever I've seen him, but how much of that is down to the fact he's a defender in a team that nearly always dominates its games? Here he'll as often be on the struggling side as the dominating side, more questions will be asked of his defensive abilities here that's for sure.

If we're going to play the statistics game, I'm sure the stats will also show that his win ratio is quickly decreasing and that 7th place finish is looking more and more like the typical honeymoon period which managers experience in their first few weeks/months.

Obviously it was only Andorra, but I didn't see anyone else grab the game with the scruff like Gerrard did. Lampard turns up more often for big games? Utter s*** tbh pal. World Cup, Lampard has most shots in the tournament, no goals. Gerrard scores 2. Champions League final, Gerrard pretty much wins it on his own. Whens Lampard ever done anything like that? Gerrard won the champions league final pretty much on his own? Come on. I'm not going to talk about the two at club level because they're both excellent players, although Lampard's record this season speaks for itself. He's outscoring the vast majority of the league's strikers. In my view neither should be dropped. If we want to win a world cup or a european championships, the answer is not to keep pissing about with team selection in the hope that we stumble across a magic formula. The answer is better management, tactics, coaching. We have the personnel to play good football, players who do it every week at club level. Let's go back to Euro 2004 when Lampard was one of our best players and really made a difference in the big games. His goal against France or his goal against Portugal when we really needed something. Gerrard on the other hand was poor, could you imagine if Lampard made a back pass like the one Gerrard produced to give Henry an easy goal? He'd be crucified in the current climate. Lampard was poor in the world cup, but so was Gerrard, even if you include his goals against Paraguay and Sweden. It's a case of looking at the bigger picture. There are a lot of English fringe players hyped up by the media at one time or another. The Defoes, Wright-Phillips, Lennons, hell even Jenas. Yet the majority of these don't deserve a look in and are as likely to let us down as the stars are. If you look at the sides who win world cups and european championships they nearly always go into the big games with their strongest possible teams. Is this a coincidence? When it comes to England there are far too many knee-jerk reactions. Look at what has happened to Beckham for christ sake, and look what good it has done us.

It was Andorra for christ sake, and we played poorly. So I fail to understand why so many people say this shows why we should drop Lampard or why Gerrard is suddenly the great saviour. Get a grip of yourselves. Surely if you're playing poorly against Andorra it is a sign that you have not found any sort of successful formula. We were playing against a bunch of part-time footballers today. Andorra man! How anyone can draw conclusions about tactics and team selections from a performance like this I don't know. Let's judge the likes of Lampard and Gerrard in the big games where we will really need them. For me both of them have been a disappointment for a long time but I feel Lampard turns up more often for the big games against big opposition. Gerrard is perhaps the big game player at club level but on the international stage, if we were up against Brazil, France or Italy, I'd have more confidence in Lampard to pull the strings in midfield because of his sheer consistency. But no, Gerrard scores twice against Andorra so that's it settled, he must play and Lampard must sit on the bench from now on.

We shouldn't buy him just because he's available. There are plenty of defenders available for around £2m. Some will go on to be very good, some will go on to be very bad and there will be many in between. We landed Gooch as a desperate panic buy after our failure to make any signings in January. We needed someone, anyone, and Gooch was available on loan. His signing did not come as a result of months of scouting and checks, someone hit the panic button and some unknown from the Belgian league came in to help us out during our injury crisis. If he turns out to be good then it's a total fluke.

Why is Luque consistently absent from both the first team and the reserves? Is this down to him or you?

I would select something like this: ---------------------Given--------------- Solano----Onyewu--Taylor------Duff Milner------Butt-----N'Zogbia---Luque --------------Martins--Dyer------------- Not that Luque will ever play nor Parker be dropped. Duff doesn't really deserve a place on current form but we need a left back and you could argue he does need the games to find form at this club, as many have argued for Luque. The two have been a real disappointment. Emre and maybe youngsters coming off the bench depending on how things go.

Not good enough. I'd rather give a youngster like Carroll a chance in our remaining games.

This lad may come good, but the manner of his transfer should raise alarm bells. I'm surprised people haven't factored this in and said 'hang on a minute'. Here we have a cheap last-minute loan signing brought in during the middle of an injury crisis. Does this strike you as a player thoroughly researched by the club or a panic signing because we simply had to get someone? And really what are the chances that we have flukily found the man we need. It's desperate transfer business. As I say, he might come good but it would be a bit of a fluke if you ask me. I'm not convinced the club know what they are doing.

Why must we always sign (apparent) quality in midfield and attack yet never in defence? When we sign midfielders or strikers as half-measures people are furious. Players like Amdy Faye or Sibierski. Yet when it comes to defenders people make cases for bringing them in. The defence must be measured just as strictly as other areas of the team. Would you have it if we brought in players like this in midfield or up front? I recognise the club's lack of a major transfer budget and the probably departure of Bramble and/or Moore. However we all know rightly the club will once again spend most of the budget in midfield or attack, don't we? I'm sure we have enough money to put a decent defence together. I'm equally sure it won't happen.

Even if he plays poorly the regular games may raise his value a bit. Who knows, he may even come good with his first ever run of league games at this club. Duff needs to learn to fight for his place, something he has never had to do at Newcastle. N'Zogbia can be tried in the centre, see if he really is up to playing in that position. Let's face it we no longer have anything to play for. I'm all for giving a few of the hungry kids a chance, they'll give 100% and will gain valuable experience. A few of the first-teamers need a reality check and I'd definitely drop some of the bigger names. It's as good a time as any to finally give Luque a run of league games.

To be fair they've been pretty fortunate with injuries this season. In central defence two or three serious injuries could totally cripple them as they only have Carragher, Agger and Hyppia. No doubt they've improved as a squad though.

Barcelona were very lucky to come away with a draw against a weakened Real team. I'm never a fan of a three man defence and it was totally exposed there. Van Nistelrooy's running gave them all sorts of problems. I had a feeling Real would get something even though they've been hammered by the press. Barcelona have been average for quite a while and all too reliant on ridiculous refeering decisions to help them out.

Parker's been OK. No better or worse than the majority of the squad. The media hyped him up ridiculously and when he didn't meet those standards many fans were let down and labelled him s****. Similar to Jenas really. As a result of his captaincy and his manager's faith in him he's sometimes been played when he should have been rested or when others were in better form (eg the Butt-Emre partnership that sent us on a decent run). If you look at it objectively he's done alright for us but we know he can do a lot better.

Emre looks like he's on his way as a result of the racism allegations, and Bayern have shown interest in him before (apparently). We would need to replace him, and Hargreaves would like to play in the Premiership. So someone has put two and two together and decided to create another bollocks football rumour.