ohmelads

It's not so much about giving Luque his chance as it is about having a balanced team without moving your form players all over the place. Emre and Butt have been our form midfielders lately and established a good partnership in Parker's absence. Their reward? Emre is shoved out wide and Butt is shoved in central defence. What's wrong with playing two wingers on the wings, a defensive midfielder and an attacking midfielder, and two pacy forwards. In other words, Luque and Milner on the wings, Butt and Emre in midfield, and Martins and Dyer up front. You have balance, everybody knows their positions, your form players stay in their positions (Emre, Butt, Milner, Dyer, Martins don't need to be moved). Instead, this is what Roeder has done: Emre has been dropped, Dyer has played in three different positions, Edgar has made his debut, Butt has played at centre-back and the whole formation has been changed twice, all to accommodate Parker and avoid playing Luque. Absolute madness. Emre, Butt, Dyer and Martins (our form players) have all had to move position to accommodate this. Roeder must put the team first and if that means dropping Parker and/or playing Luque then so be it.

What are you on about? Duff is injured. Point is he's our last left-sided player. Emre has been dragged out of his position and we are losing games again. Until Duff is back, why not put Emre back with Butt and play Luque left wing. It's only a suggestion. We tried Emre and Milner on the left and we got raped today, so I would think suggestions are welcome at this point.

Why not put Emre back in his rightful position alongside Butt. We were winning games when we did that.

Why are people being told to shut up for suggesting Luque be given a game? We're getting raped down the left, all our left-sided players are injured so somebody suggests we give a £9.5m Spanish international a game there and abuse is hurled at them. Disgraceful. Duff, N'Zogbia and even Babayaro are injured. Emre has struggled there in his last two games, he leaves the left back exposed by drifting inside and never gets up the wing, denying us vital width. With Milner on the right and Dyer up front, Luque is our last left-sided player. Things are so bad that we have to play Huntington, Edgar, Ramage and Pav at the back, and yet people won't even talk about the prospect of playing Luque at left-wing, even though he's our only left winger standing. Get a grip of yourselves.

Roeder is part of the problem, we do better when he hasn't any decisions to make. It's hard to argue with that. He was forced into playing Emre-Butt. He was forced into playing Steven Taylor in central defence. He was forced into playing Solano at right back.

I agree on Solano for captain, said it after the Spurs game. Solano shouldn't just be taking pens, he should be taking the majority of our set-pieces. Bob Moncur on Century has been raging about Emre's deliveries. When they were talking about the prospect of a consolation goal, he said he'd go home happy if we could deliver one set-piece that didn't hit the first man. I don't understand it. Solano has been giving us good set-pieces for years. Suddenly he doesn't take any corners or free-kicks and the inconsistent Emre and Milner are taking them instead.

I agree on Solano for captain, said it after the Spurs game. Solano shouldn't just be taking pens, he should be taking the majority of our set-pieces.

I agree.

Good side tbh. Average side in a poor, wide open league.

Is emre really one of our better players? More gifted yes, but hugely inconsistent. Can you name many better players at Newcastle? Last season he was injured and pretty inconsistent but I'd say he's been one of our most consistent players this season. Bear in mind he's spent two of his last three games on the left wing and the other on the bench. He walks into our first team when fit IMO and we shouldn't be selling players like that unless we're a selling club. We have major problems in defence and a real lack of presence up front. To take out Emre mid-season and gamble on Barton would be a totally unnecessary gamble. Barton looks a good talent and I'd like him on our books but definitely not at the expense of Emre.

We're unlikely to move forward by selling our better first-team players. We're just going round in circles if we do this, selling our top players and hoping someone comes in and does better. Souness did that with Bellamy and it's taken us a lot of time and money to sort it out. We should be building a team around players like Emre, Taylor, Given, Solano, Dyer, Martins. I'd be livid if we sold Emre, it wouldn't show forward thinking at all. If the money is there to go for Barton then fair enough but we shouldn't be selling one of our best players to fund a move for someone who is still a bit of an unknown quantity. We don't need midfielders, we need defenders and strikers. This story has probably emerged because Emre was benched against Bolton and some journalist has put two and two together. As far as I'm aware those Bayern rumours were from ages ago and have no bearing on this.

I think the two could form an excellent partnership if they were given a run together in a 4-4-2 with two lively wingers (say Robben and Joe Cole) on the flanks. This would require two of Makelele/Essien/Lampard/Ballack to be dropped though and that's not gonna happen.

Shevchenko will come good IMO. I remember last season and the one before, when everyone said that Drogba was shite and a waste of money, that Chelsea needed a top class striker to replace him. He put in some dodgy performances in big games (like the CL semi-final against Liverpool) and suddenly it was all Drogba's fault and he was a heap of shit. They're probably the same people who now say he's the best in the world. Shevchenko is an amazing striker but for whatever reason it's just not happening for him at the moment. I think he'll finish the season strongly though and perhaps next season he will show his true colours. He's probably already seen his best days but he can still be a top class player.

Yet if he retired two years earlier his goals to games ratio would probably be one in two.

Well, a striker who takes penalties stands a higher chance of scoring than one who doesn't. I'd be pretty impressed if a striker matched his record without taking penalties, wouldn't you? Let's face it, penalties are not hard to score. If you put me in front of Given there's a good chance I'd hit the back of the net. So if you're measuring the greatness of a player, there's a good argument for removing his penalties. Perhaps a fairer way would be to measure the pens which he won for himself, but it'd be very hard to find this out. Nevertheless, Shearer played on until he was well past his best, making his goals-to-games record look poorer. If you measure his best years he was very prolific, but if you include the last couple of seasons when he faded badly it lowers his average. At his best he was one of the most prolific in the game. To win the league and score 30-odd league goals for Blackburn, with only Ripley and Wilcox his suppliers, is bloody impressive.

Even during this mini purple patch that Ramage has had I have still felt extremely nervous whenever the ball has come anywhere near him. The lad deserves credit for his recent performances but I think we can all see he struggles at this level. I think he'd make a good championship defender but his future here will always be backup, preferably emergency backup if we get some decent defenders in once and for all. He doesn't have a lot going for him as a footballer. He gives 110% and his tackling is canny and sometimes that will be enough to cover for his inadequacies but more often than not it won't. I feel his reading of the game has improved a little since he had a run at centre-back, but he has incredibly poor technique for a Premiership player, even allowing for the fact he's a centre half. Added to that he's very slow, hits the panic button whenever he's closed down by strikers and hoofs the ball into row Z (or straight to the opposition) ... I could go on but it would be unfair on the lad. As long as he's in the team I'll support him but at the back of my mind I'm just waiting for the time when we get the defence sorted and players like him are emergency cover. The fact he's a permanent fixture in our squad is an achievement considering we were on the brink of letting him go to Hibernian from our reserve team a couple of season back. But sadly I feel the reason he's in our team says more about the management of this club than it does about Peter Ramage.

Not at all. I said in our current injury situation (ie with Solano unavailable) I would try Parker at right back and leave Butt-Emre in central midfield. I think we can all agree that, when fit, Solano is a must at right back because he has been in fantastic form lately. But the situation being as it is, putting Parker there seems more sensible than Edgar IMO. I think Parker actually has all the qualities to do a good job at right back, certainly a much better job than an inexperienced academy centre-back.

It wouldn't surprise me if we paid double figures for Crouch then realised we didn't have enough for any defenders. After what happened in August nothing would surprise me. If we pay £12m for Crouch we are throwing away our money and will slide further as a result. There's a reason why we spend more money than clubs like Arsenal yet can't get close to them.

Crouch has been scoring regularly for England in crappy friendlies where we batter some out of sorts team. In the World Cup he was rubbish. He's done better at Liverpool than I thought he would, but I still don't think he's that good. For Crouch to score takes quite a lot of work from the rest of the side IMO, you sacrifice a lot as you have to play a different kind of game. He'd improve us simply because he's better than Sibierski and Ameobi. But there are plenty other tall fuckers out there who can hold the ball up and score the odd goal, Sibierski is proof of that. For £7m - £10m I think we could do much better.

In the big games Lehmann was excellent last year. But consistently Given was better and I'm sure he had a lot more to deal with as Newcastle 'keeper than Lehmann did. My mate's a gooner and he's been wanting them to sign Given for years. Not surprising given the blinders he's played against them, this season being yet another example. I wouldn't swap Given for any goalkeeper, simply because I believe he's world class and is well established here.

Parker is a better footballer than Butt. However, Butt and Emre have been getting us results, and that's the most important thing. With our current injuries I would consider Parker in one of the full back positions as he has the engine and tackling to cope defensively and would give much more offensively than someone like Edgar. Against Bolton would it not have been more sensible to pair Emre and Butt and play Parker at right back instead of Edgar?

The problem with Parker is that his manager can't seem to make his mind up what to do with him. I supported picking Parker as captain but with hindsight it has been a mistake. It hasn't brought the best out of him, on the contrary. He's been running around like a headless chicken at times, the all-action hero trying to cover every blade of grass. This has left gaps in our midfield. Creatively Emre is the better player but when they play together Emre is sitting deeper trying to play a disciplined game while Parker gets forward and tries to create. It's ridiculous. I remember Roeder saying something a while back about Parker getting forward with Emre sitting back and I couldn't believe it. It's a total misuse of both players' skills and they both look worse for it. Butt has come in and Emre has been playing a lot better. This isn't because Butt is good or because Parker is poor, it's simply that Emre has been given the creative freedom he should always have had, while Butt has enjoyed playing his own defensive game. Butt as we all know is a DM and this has forced Roeder to play Emre a bit further upfield. Someone mentioned in another thread that Roeder has been successful when decisions have been forced on him and this is another example of that. Emre shouldn't be anchoring the midfield while Parker goes wandering - that's mad. As soon as Butt came in we had a DM doing the defensive work and an AM doing the attacking work, and guess what - we look much more balanced.

Emre and Dyer (when he plays there) are our only midfielders willing to pick the ball up in crowded positions, run at defenders and make things happen. Without either player in midfield I sometimes feel that we build up our attacks way too slowly, we fail to create any kind of confusion in the opposition defence. Sure he loses the ball sometimes, but the value of players like this can't be underestimated. Gerrard (I'm not saying Emre is as good as Gerrard) sometimes loses the ball at Liverpool but his ability to burst forward from midfield creates confusion in defence, central defenders have to deal with him which creates space for the strikers. You have a 3 on 2 situation sometimes where the midfielder breaks free to support his strikers and the two central defenders are frantically trying to close the gaps. The last midfielder we had who did this was Bowyer - just a shame he had so many other flaws in his game. This season I get the impression Emre is improving with every game. He had a tough time on the left wing but then that clearly isn't his position. We always knew he was an attacking midfielder, what Roeder was trying to do with him defending and Parker attacking, I don't know. Since he's played alongside Butt he has been much a much better player because he's been allowed to do what he does best, which is to take the ball forwards and to take the game to the opposition. For me, when fit, he has to start. He could do with chipping in with more goals and assists but, like Dyer, I believe his contribution to the team goes beyond stats such as goals and assists. As a team we are much more dangerous when those two play. People used to criticise Dyer heavily for his lack of goals yet ignored the fact we were winning games with him and struggling without him. Surely that is the most important stat of all.

We need two strikers but I reckon we'll only get one. We'll probably get a left back and maybe a central defender. I can see Roeder going for "Prem-experienced players with a point to prove" as he trotted out last time. Someone like Wes Brown would strike me as the sort of player we would target.

Roeder has done a good (not great) job with the squad at his disposal, but I can't agree that that's all I ask of him. It is absolutely vital in today's football that the transfer window is handled well and to begin the season without enough playing staff is just embarrassing for a club of our size. At the time of signing Duff I thought we had a bargain, and I still think he'll come good for us this season and justify his fee. But knowing now that we only had £15m to spend he must be seen as a trophy signing and a bit of an impulse buy. All fur coat and no knickers. We had N'Zogbia, Milner and dare I say it, Luque to fill in for that position anyway, yet we were crying out for defenders. Roeder sells our most valuable defender and doesn't bring in anyone. Totally disgraceful. You talk about learning lessons but he only had to look back to when Woodgate was sold and not replaced, and the club had to bring in Ronny Johnsen as emergency cover. The writing was on the wall. I agree it is all about expectations. Bobby built them right up and Souness smashed them. As a club I get the feeling that we are collectively feeling sorry for ourselves. Last season Spurs were denied a place in the top 4 on the last day of the season. The year before Everton, who had just survived relegation, finished 4th. Now Portsmouth and Bolton are rubbing shoulders with Liverpool and Arsenal. Fair play to them (even though I hate Bolton), they have a positive attitude and deserve it. This league is wide open and we have some top quality players on our books. Outside the top four we shouldn't expect to beat everyone but we have every right to feel disappointed when we don't because, whatever anyone says, none are significantly better than us.